Oliver is showing off his two stitches. Yesterday he fell going up the steps in school. When I got over to the Lower School, he was on the bus with a crying mother, the school nurse, and our head of security. We headed down to Bel Medic. Oliver has a half circle shaped deep gash on the bridge of his nose.
At the clinic, the doctor sewed up the cut without local anesthetic. I thought the doctor was going to do it, but he just started stitching. Oliver was a tough little guy. They have a tendency in former communist Serbia not to use anesthetic. It hurt both Nadia and I to watch him go through that. He was wailing, but he stayed still. He went home after, took a nap, and then later that night was up again and playing soccer in the yard.
He was doing fine today and went to school. I guess Oliver learned from his Uncle Andy
It was an absolutely glorious day today! A bright sun had temperatures up in the high 70’s. Nadia and I took advantage of this and the fact we had the nanny with the kids and went for a run. Nadia is shown above running up Košutnjak Hill. It is a big wooded area behind our suburb of Senjak. She made it up to the top. We ran all the way through and back to town along the railway. It is one of my favorite runs I have in Belgrade.
In the afternoon I took my bike down to the shop to get a new tire and took the boys out for a long ride at Ada Ciganlija. Owen and Ollie both are tough little guys and rode for a long time today. All in all, a glorious day. I always say that any day I spend more time outdoors than indoors is a good day. The boys went straight to be tonight as they were good and tired.
We had a nice fall break that came at the perfect time. We just finished the first quarter and we needed the downtime to refresh ourselves. We didn’t leave Belgrade, but slept in, played a lot with the kids, and took care of some things around the house. We got Nadia’s treadmill set up and also made an offer on a car. More details on that coming up next week.
Well, it is back to school tomorrow. I am looking forward to taking the girls’ soccer team to Bulgaria this weekend.
It was another great family weekend for us. We continue to enjoy the 5-day fall break from school. We are staying in Belgrade and not traveling anywhere. Without a car yet, it is tough to travel with young children.
The video above was filmed on the Vase Pelagica, a street near our house. There is an apartment building with a small ledge the is irresistible for the boys. We often walk by there on the way to the taxi stand.
Yesterday I went for a long run with Ocean to the Kalemegdan fort. In the afternoon, we went to the Dacho Restaurant for a great traditional Serbian meal. I also cut the grass in the late afternoon and we put the kids to bed.
Yesterday was the first day of holiday and what a glorious day it was. The photo above was from Tuesday when we had dinner in our back yard. If you can believe it, I did not take a single photo yesterday!
It was nice because our nanny came. The weather was cool and gray. Nadia and I went for a run together in the morning while Vera stayed with the kids. We then went to Home Center to buy some household things like a sandwich maker and coffee machine. Later I actually took a nap!!! and then we hung out with the children. Nadia made a delicious pumpkin soup. After putting the kids to sleep, we watched a The Dark Knight, the latest batman film. I must be getting old because I really don’t enjoy watching movies anymore. There are very few movies that I think are worth my time to watch. Most of what produced is silly and a waste of time. It was a pirated version and the movie was a bit interesting to see one of Heath Ledger’s final performances.
Our children are so precious and cute! Tucking them into bed is such a privilege. Author Milan Kundera once wrote about people re-living their experiences an infinite number of times. I will probably wish I could go back to these times when the kids are grown. It is so funny to see their blond heads running around the house. Ocean is very demanding and on the verge of walking. She lets us know exactly what she wants loud and clear!
We continue to have 4 more days of holiday. It is great to refresh the soul and reconnect with each other and our children.
I have not been able to post lately, just too busy with everything. Above is a photo of Ocean and I last Friday night. We went downtown with the family and really had a nice time, walking around the old city and all the shops and restaurants.
The weather the past two weeks has been beautiful. We’ve been enjoying being outside as much as possible. Will blog more as we have a holiday coming up for fall break.
I have been uploading plenty of photos, so check them out on my flickr.com site.
Sunday Oliver and I attended the “Eternal Derby” in Belgrade. The derby is the game between the two biggest teams in the Serbian Professional Soccer League, Red Star and Partizan. The game was held in the Red Star Stadium (Crvena zveda in Serbian) in front of over 20,000 spectators.
Both teams are known for their fanatical hooligans, and I was a bit tentative from attending the game. But the father of one of my students kindly purchased tickets in the VIP section of the stadium for us which was safe. The father happened to be former NBA basketball star Vlade Divac. He hand delivered them to me on the morning of the game. You can see him behind Oliver’s head in the background of the photo above. He is known for his kindness and humanitarian service and it is true. It was a very nice gesture and I want to give him a huge thank you! Please donate to Humanitarian Organization Divac. Vlade is a big star still here in Serbia. I guess the equivalent of this in the US would be Magic Johnson giving us tickets for a Laker-Celtic game. Very cool!
The stadium had an amazing atmosphere! The fans of Partizan especially sang, had banners, fireworks, etc and were on their feet the entire game. We went to the game with my colleague, Luiz, a science teacher in the secondary school. He is from Brazil and used to this kind of rabid fans, but even he was impressed.
The Partizan Fans Celebrate A Goal
Partizan won this 134th edition of the derby, 2-0. There were many goal opportunities for both teams and the action was non-stop. This is Partizan’s sixth straight win in six rounds of the league and they are in first place. Red Star is in eigth place out of twelve teams, with 2 wins, 2 ties, and 3 losses.
Red Star is the biggest and most popular team in Serbia. They were formed in 1945 shortly after Tito took over, hence the communist red star symbol. They won the forerunner of the European Champions League in 1991, the only former Yugoslavian team to do so. Since the breakup of Yugoslavia, they have fallen on hard times, as most of the top Serbian players go for the higher salaries of other European leagues. Oliver is a big fan of Red Star and so am I.
Partizan is more of a working class team and the second most popular team in Serbia. They were also … (time to go to school, I’ll finish this post later.)
The video above is kind of a follow up to the previous “destructo” post. Ocean is shown eating at the kids’ table as she no longer enjoys sitting in her chair. Of course, we just purchased a new one. She is also heard saying her name, which is new.
Ocean is in the full-on “destructo” mode. Her favorite hobby is to take dirty diapers and papers from the garbage can and put into the toilet. She also enjoys playing with the toilet water, opening up any drawer and spreading its contents on the floor and throughout the house, and eating table scraps from the floor. I also caught her one time sucking on a earthworm in the yard.
Tuesday Nadia and I arranged for the kindergarten students to visit the high school. They are studying “Community” and they wanted to see the older students and teachers. It was a great little tour as they got to listen to the choir sing, “California Dreamin'” and the kinder sang Nadia’s “We Go to ISB” song. We then arranged for the students to read with the HS students. Shown above is Owen reading his book to Marko, a grade 9 student. Owen said he only needed help on a few of the big words.
It was a great morning and I hope to do more of this at ISB.
There is just something about empty cardboard boxes that kids can’t resist. Awhile back Oliver and Owen were playing in the living room and I captured it on video. Needless to say, the boys have quite a bit of energy.
Another cloudy and cool day today – Sunday. We spent most of the day in Zemun and it was really nice! Zemun used to be a separate city across the Danube River from Belgrade, but it is now a suburb. We took a taxi over and the kids played in the park near the river. There were trampolines, bumper cars, etc. We then went for a nice lunch at the Bello Napoli Restaurant near the river. Zemun is much different than most of Belgrade because it was never destroyed by bombing so it has the classic architecture of Europe with cobblestone streets, old buildings, etc. It is a very nice atmosphere especially along the Danube and the sun even came out in the afternoon while we were walking.
In the evening I cut the lawn and we put the kids to bed.
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