Bill's Blog

Ale, Diego, Nadia, Bill, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

I have not been posting much over the holidays. I am spending lots of time with the kids and enjoying the unseasonably warm and sunny temperatures in Belgrade. We have extended holidays in Serbia because the Serbian Orthodox Church is one of the several orthodox churches that recognizes the older Gregorian calendar. Hence, their Christmas is January 7th and new year is January 13th.

Above, Nadia and I are pictured with Alejandra and Diego on New Year’s Eve. Diego left yesterday and Ale will be staying for another few days. It is great to see them and my nephew Sebey. Below is a sample of some of the things we have been up to this week.

The girls get some sun while biking and skateboarding with the kids.

The boys last night made their own fire in the backyard.

I would like to wish all of my readers a Merry Christmas. With four children in the house, we had a great time making the holiday memorable for them The kids were up early on Christmas morning to open their gifts. We also played a football game in the afternoon with the boys. Nadia and Ale enjoyed a bit of art before preparing a delicious traditional turkey with all of the fixings. We finished up the day by having a dance contest and watching the Christmas classic, Love Actually. Overall, a wonderful day.

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve! It was relatively warm and sunny day and we took advantage of the unseasonably like conditions. The video above is of the boys and Uncle Diego playing football in our backyard. Owen is totally into football and is constantly carrying around a football and he is following the NFL and college bowl games. Oliver is a tough little guy and Sebey showed some athleticism. You can watch some other highlights on the Flick page.

We also went for a long bike ride at my favorite place in Belgrade. There were not many people there and we enjoyed showing Diego the beauty of Ada Ciganlija. We stopped for a hot chocolate before watching the NFL games for the evening. We had a Skype call with my Dad and brothers and their families.

All in all, it was a fantastic day.

The Kralovec Family did the Central European Tour on the way home from Vienna. We stopped in Bratislava and Budapest for more Christmas shopping. When we leave Europe, we will miss the different languages and currencies within a few hour’s drive.

The kids are shown above in the Ikea parking lot in Bratislava. There was snow on the ground and we took time out to have a mini-snowball fight. Bratislava, Slovakia looked and felt much like Belgrade. It is only about an hour from Vienna. It also marked a new country for all of us. I am up to 45 countries as a lifetime total. We then spent the night in Budapest, Hungary. Of course we had to visit another Christmas market! We all found it better than the markets in Vienna. I did notice the global economic crisis in Budapest however, as there were lots of buildings for rent and I see they are raising their sales tax to a whopping 27% to generate more revenue for the government.

We made it home safe and sound and are looking forward to re-joining the Wells/Chavez family for Christmas and New Years Celebrations. We put up more lights around the house last night and bought a turkey for our Christmas Eve dinner.

We visited the Mumok, the basalt-rock building behind Nadia and Ale. Note that Ale is my sister-in-law and she maintains an amazing art blog for kids. The tagline for the site is “Inspiration for Parents, Teachers, and Anyone Who Loves Teaching Art.” The museum is part of the Museums Quartier, district rich in museums and cafes. We dropped the kids off at the Zoom Children’s Museum while we visited the Modern Art Museum.

Although I found the art pieces interesting, I don’t agree that these works should be valued and thought about by our society. For example, there were canvases with just a single color or geometric figures that anyone can do. I understand there may be a story behind them, but they should not be considered art. I thought it was a waste of such a great space. There were classes there however and as i wrote, I did try to attach meaning to the works and it did make me think a bit about what is aesthetically pleasing in my life. I liked the intellectual part of each work, the history behind the piece and what the artist was trying to say.

The highlights for me were a painting by Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol. This is the first time I saw actual live works by those two icons. The piece below by Warhol, is a print screen of a car accident.The repeating of the image is supposed to make it less tragic and more mundane, simulating the effect of modern media. It also has the deeper meaning of a luxury item for someone, (it is a convertible) instead of bringing them pleasure, brought them death.

Today is our final day in Vienna. It was good to see family and the sights of Vienna. I understand a bit better the Hapsburg Empire and Austrian culture. The city is much larger than Belgrade and the Austrians much colder and almost bitter when compared to the warness of the Serbs and the Balkans. Every empire brings its culture to the forefront and exposed to the world, and the Austrians gave an order and attention to detail to the their sphere of influence.

Today is also the shortest day of the year. It gets dark around 4:00 PM and doesn’t get light until after 7:00 AM. We are driving back to Belgrade and will meet up again with our family. They are staying with friends for an extra night in Vienna.

Nadia found the Christmas Nutcracker she was looking for as we visited even more of Vienna’s famous Christmas Markets yesterday. In her opinion, the best market was found in front of the “Rathouse” or Town Hall. It had the biggest variety of products. I still can’t get over how much the Viennese love Christmas. They have decorations everywhere, including hanging Santa Claus lights in the many trees around the city, Christmas songs playing on the radio, markets all over the city. I thought Americans went overboard Christmas!

I was impressed with the opulence of the Hapsburg dynasty. The number of huge palaces around the city is amazing. Both Budapest and Vienna have some great architecture.

Today is our last full day in the city. We hope to visit a couple of the museums today to wrap up our visit.

We are spending a few days in Vienna this week. Last night we ended up at the Schonbrunn Palace and one of the famous Chirstmas Markets. The place was packed with holiday shoppers, but we were disappointed with the quality of items for sale. The mulled wine did not taste good and the kids were cold and bored. Overall, not a good experience and overrated.

Earlier in the day in contrast, the Vienna Zoo was great. They do a good job of educating about the natural history of the animals and there was a wide variety of species. I feel zoos are “animal prisons” but in thinking of habitat loss and humankind’s negative impact on most species, at least they are safe inside a cold, central European city.

The kids enjoyed the adventure of using the city’s train system. We moved around the city yesterday quite well with maps in hand. It has been a while that we used public transport, and ethically, I am for it. Practically however, with kids, it is a bit of a hassle. We were in fear of losing one of the four kids in getting on and off busy trains. After four mulled wines though, the fear left us and we all enjoyed the day together.

Ale, Sebey, and Diego are visiting us over the holidays and it was super to see them again. They are faced with climatic challenges, going from tropical heat to temperatures around O C.

This week we attended school Christmas shows which are an annual part of the holidays. Owen and Oliver performed in the new gymnasium of their school.Oliver is pictured below performing a Serbian Folkloric dance that was part of the Kinder and Grade 1 Performance.

Both boys even had a singing part! They nailed their lines, especially Oliver “arrrrbol de Navidad” line. Owen’s dance routine was a take on ballet and Devon and he pretended to be gymnastic performers and the chorus were the judges holding up cards with 9.2, etc.Owen is shown below with his friend Lelani, singing a duet.

Ocean had her school performance debut with a stunning array of Christmas songs, including a Spanish number. She is shown below putting her heart and soul into her singing.

I know they are my children and I may be biased, but they do have talent!!