Sunday we celebrated my daughter Ocean’s third birthday party. We invited Claudiu and Vesna over with Mark and Tudor to share in the celebration. Nadia made a delicious chocolate cake, and appropriately, being in Serbia, she cooked pork. An absolutely spectacular meal and a great day. Ocean wanted a scooter, and we also got her some play dough toys. Her nanny Ivana, bought her a Barbie make up kit.
Above is the video. Congratulations Ocean, my Angel Princess!!! Below, I think Ollie is a bit jealous with all of the attention Ocean is getting.
Yesterday was the opening outdoor practice for the Atacante Soccer Klub. Owen and Oliver are both members of the team. The team practices twice a week in the ISB Bubble Gymnasium, and on weekends at various places around the city, mostly at the FK Bulbulderac Field above. This year Owen will be playing in a “real” league for players born in 2002. They will have special uniforms and play weekly starting next week. I am a bit concerned that Owen will be one of the youngest players, as he was born in December of 2002. After reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers”, studies show that older players do much better and develop leadership habits on the field when they are older than most of their peers. I’ll see how it goes and how much playing time he gets.
Oliver is enjoying the club also, but he is not quite ready to fully concentrate on the game. He spends a lot of time playing power rangers or looking for bugs instead of soccer during the practices. Oliver is a strong and tough athlete and will be an excellent soccer player.
Yesterday I went to the Davis Cup Tennis Semifinal Matches between Serbia and the Czech Republic. It was a capacity crowd in the Belgrade Arena for the two reverse singles matches. In the first game, world #2 Novak Djokovic looked impressive in a 4-set victory of world #7 Tomas Berdych. That set the stage for the final fifth match between world #37 Janko Tipsarevic and world #35, Radek Stepanek. Janko came through for the home crowd with a straight sets victory! He not only one yesterday, but beat Berdych on Friday in an upset. His two wins, combined with Djokovic’s win, propelled Serbia to their first Davis Cup final. In early December, they host France, who defeated Argentina in the other semifinal.
Novak's Perfect Form and Concentration
I got free tickets from a friend, (thanks Victor and Sandra) and so I invited my friend Claudiu and his father-in-law. We enjoyed the 6 hours of tennis. The weather was cool and rainy outside, but it was a great atmosphere inside the arena. The crowd was into the match and we saw some excellent tennis. It amazed me at how difficult it is to win a point in professional tennis. The shot needs to be perfect, otherwise the opponent will return it.
Serbia should be the favorite being the host and have the highest ranked player. Serbia has never won a Davis Cup, only 12 nations have in the history of the tourney.
I am almost finished reading this entertaining book. The sub-title is “An (Unlikely) Theory of Globalization” and Foer looks at the two competing forces of globalization and tribalism. I am very interested in the tribalism aspect of soccer, especially when he begins the book here in Belgrade and looks at Red Star, my favorite team in the Serbian professional league.
Red Star Fans in the Background of last year's "Eternal Derby" Game
In every country I lived, I always pick a soccer team to support. In Colombia, it was Junior of Barranquilla, in Bolivia is is Oriente Petrolero of Santa Cruz, in Australia it was the now defunct Perth Glory, and in my last post in Venezuela, baseball took the role of soccer and I supported Caribes de Oriente. So it was natural for me to select a team upon arrival in Belgrade. I am not sure what determines the team, as I usually have a choice. Part of it is the tradition and history of the club, another are the uniforms, atmosphere at the stadium, etc.Many Serbs question why I would support Red Star when they are financially unstable and in recent years, have not been very successful. I guess it is that I live in the part of Senjak neighborhood that is rabidly devoted to Red Star and the team was formed by Serbs who were against facism shortly after WWII. The club is associated more with the police and the Serbian Chetniks, than the Communist era of Tito. They are the most popular club in Belgrade, with approximately 1/2 of all Serbs supporting them. I also like the red and white color scheme over the black and white of Partizan, the rival club and the second most popular team in Belgrade.
The book is a bit dated being published is 2004, and I would like the New York Times writer Frank Foer to update each chapter. The most poignant idea Foer presents in the book is the human need to associate with a group or tribe. Humans he states, have a natural urge to associate themselves with a group, and in today’s society, the family or tribe is not relevant. Soccer clubs in many instances, fill that role and it explains the rabid enthusiasm of fans at times, even when they are not really big soccer players and do not show this allegiance in other parts of their lives. I see the appeal of this and it might be the reason I always support a local club when posted overseas. It is something that is definitely missing for most Americans. My family is spread out over the world, the USA is very large and diverse and although it somewhat gives me an affiliation, a “tribe” based on the constitution and the ideal of the freedom of the individual, it doesn’t make me feel part of an intimate group.
Ultra Boys Graffiti In our Neighborhood of Senjak
Serbians, being part of a small ethnic group, naturally have that feeling. And with Red Star and other clubs, they also feel the comfort of the “tribe.” Foer goes into the uglier side of tribalism in the Red Star chapter. The Red Star fans are called Delije, which is a moniker given to them by the infamous Serbian soldier, Zeljko Raznatovic, “Arkan.” Historically, they called themselves Gypsies. The book details some of the fan clubs within the Delije, which can be translated as “heroes” or “warriors.” Above is a photo of one of the many fan club murals popular here in Senjak, the Ultra Boys. Around Red Star Stadium there are some interesting murals which I should do a blog post about someday. Anyway, the Red Star fans played a big part in the wars against Croatia and eventually the revolution against Milosevic, according to this book.
The book has chapters on Celtic-Ranger, Barcelona-Real Madrid, Brazilian professional soccer, etc. and they read as separate essays. I would recommend the book to any soccer fan and people interested in history and politics. On a separate note, nice to see Red Star on top of the table in the Serbian Professional League after five rounds. They defeated Javor yesterday, 1-0.
Last Sunday we went for lunch at the Devetka Restaurant located in the Kosutnjak Park. It was a beautiful day in a nice setting, although the food wasn’t the best and I wouldn’t recommend it to friends, it was a nice meal in that we had a relaxing time together. I snapped a few photos and liked this one the best.
Cold weather this weekend and it feels like autumn and winter are on their way.
Eleven years ago in Coral Gables, Florida, Nadia and I were married. On September 17, 1999, we exchanged vows and became legally married at the Coral Gables District Court, one of the several Miami-Dade County locations to obtain a marriage license. It was a short ceremony attended only by Nadia’s aunt Silvia and her cousin Arturo.
We didn’t intend to get married in Florida. We both left the Santa Cruz Cooperative School in Bolivia in June of 1999. We planned to get married in Michigan. Nadia’s father was still living in Spain at the time, and so we thought it would be best to do it in Michigan with my parents. It didn’t work out for us there
For the sake of posterity and honesty, I feel after thinking about this blog post, to discuss a bit on why it didn’t work out for us in Michigan with the wedding. I found it strange my mother’s reaction to the idea of us getting married in Michigan. I thought that her oldest son getting married would be a joyous occasion, but she didn’t see it that way. I think it may have been that Nadia was so different from what she was used to. She was not from the upper midwest, or even from the US for that matter. It may have also been that I had been gone from home for 9 years. I’m not sure why she didn’t embrace the idea. She even told me that she wish we had gotten married in Bolivia. Nadia quite rightly was furious. I on the other hand didn’t have a reaction either way. I never spoke with her about it, but I did have some resentment over this. Well, that is all “water under the bridge” now and as I look back, the important thing is that our marriage is a solid one and so far, we are doing well and are happy.
, so we then considered going to Las Vegas. When Aunt Silvia found out about this, she insisted we do it in Miami. She was staying with her son at the time, so we went down to Miami in September. We were waiting for my visa for Australia to come through as well as Nadia’s acceptance to an Australian university, so we had a semester off. Aunt Silvia made a nice dress for Nadia and her cousin Arturo and his girlfriend at the time, Suallapa, were gracious hosts and we had a nice dinner with them after the ceremony.
We then went to Colombia for our honeymoon. We stayed at one of my favorite places in the world, the National Park Tayrona, a idyllic tropical beach and forest on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. Eventually we made it back to Michigan and finally arrived in Perth, Australia in February of 2000.
Through our eleven years of marriage, we have lived in 4 different countries and have been blessed with 3 beautiful children. If I had to do it all over, I would marry her again. We are having a wonderful life together. Happy Anniversary Nadia – I love you!
I really enjoyed following the recent World Basketball Championships in Turkey. Serbia and the USA both did extremely well and played an exciting brand of basketball. Serbia made it to the semifinals with a thrilling win over Spain and then they lost by one point to the host Turkey. The crowds and players were into it – highly entertaining viewing. It was great that Owen also got into the games. He watched the entire fourth quarter of Turkey – Serbia with me. We played a lot of hoops this month with Oliver and Ocean also trying too.
My favorite player for Serbia in the tourney was Duško Savanović. He is a 6-7 forward who plays for Valencia in the Euroleague. Savanovic hit some big shots and was a real team player. I also admired coach Dušan Ivković for getting his team to play hard every game. Serbia had a great tourney despite the heartbreaking loss to the hosts. If Miloš Teodosić could ever play some defense, they might have won that game. I think the US would have been too much for them in the finals, but they deserved to be there.
Last night we went to the first concert of the Belgrade Philharmonic season. We bought a ticket package themed “New Year Celebrations” and the first in the series celebrated the Jewish New Year, which was this week. The evening program featured Jewish composers.
In the second half of the concert, the Budapest Klezmer Band from Hungary. Klezmer is a traditional music form of the Eastern European Jews. Klezmer is quite lively, featuring the accordion, clarinet, violin, trombone, bass, and drums. Think of the dance tunes of Fiddler on the Roof. I really enjoyed the music and it was a welcome change from the seriousness of symphonic music. Many of the audience were still the normal somber, hushing tones of a classical music patron, but the musicians were asking for people to clap, and by the end, the infectious music had everyone in a good mood.
Sadly, not much is known about the original klezmer music due to the genocide of European Jews last century. It was brought back by the Yiddish immigrants to America and it survives today. It would be great to have a live band at a wedding or party. Give a listen to the short clip above. Having so many cultural opportunities is one of the nice things of being posted in Europe.
Nadia and I both finished Sunday’s Budapest Half Marathon (21 kilometers – 13 miles) under our goal of 2 hours. It was a beautiful late summer day in the historic city of Budapest, Hungary. It was our first truly big race with over 6,000 runners starting the half marathon. It took us 4 and 1/2 minutes to reach the starting line! We ran together and around the 17 kilometer mark, we spotted the red pacing balloon of 2 hours just ahead of us. We passed her quickly and held on the rest of the way. We sprinted to the finish and Nadia finished with a time of 1:58:07 and she finished #470 overall for the women. We had a 10 km split of 57:37. I had a time of 1:57:56, good for a #2631 finish for the men.
The buildings and sites were amazing, although there were too many people running the race and we felt crowded. Very different from our runs this summer in the sparsely populated Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
We are in Budapest, Hungary this weekend to run in Sunday’s Half Marathon. We will be running through the UNESCO World Heritage city and are looking forward to the beautiful sites and flat course. More on the race tomorrow. We drove up on Friday evening after school and the trip took us around 4 hours. We have diplomatic lisence plates on Eidelweiss which greatly reduced the time stopped at the border. It is always strange for Americans to drive to another country.
We are renting a nice apartment called 7Seasons, I highly recommend it as it is a good price, centrally located, and very comfortable. We can cook meals in the apartment which is great for the kids. We spent most of Saturday shopping as this is “Nadia’s weekend.” The highlight was Ikea, the Swedish superstore. It was not too painful, only $332 worth of housewares. We make an annual trip here to help out our apartment in Belgrade.
We are both very excited for today’s run. The weather will be sunny and in the 70’s, perfect running weather. Last night it was cold and raining, so we are happy for the blue skies this morning.
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