Today I went apartment hunting. I ended up looking at 6 different places. 3 were in New Belgrade. New Belgrade is on the west side of the Sava river and it is on a flat plain. It was built in the 1940's-current and contains mostly communist style buildings. Belgrade Arena, 2 shopping malls, supermarket, and my office are in New Belgrade. The apartments were really nice, but...

Here are some pictures of New Belgrade so you can understand how incredibly ugly it is.

The first is the view of New Belgrade looking west from Kalemegdan (the fort). The second is just taken from the street. See all of the ugly buildings?

Here are some photos of the apartment in New Belgrade. The bathrooms (yes there were 2 bathrooms!) and kitchen were really nice.

But I decided that I want to live in the old city, even though the New Belgrade apts were sweet. I am torn between two areas - Vracar (vracheck) or Dorcol (dorchal). I found a great apartment in Vracar that was brand new and has a great view of St. Sava Temple from the office/spare room.

The place was really nice! Vracar is a near to the main highway, but traffic might be bad. It is also within walking distance of the biggest green market in Belgrade. It is like a farmer's market filled with organic fruit, veggies, and meats.

I didn't see any great apartments in Dorcol. I will be going back to look again on Monday afternoon. Hopefully I will make a decision and be able to move out of the hotel by next week. Dorcol is closer to Kalemegan and the Pedestrian Zone. Apparently a lot of young, singles live in that area. There were a lot of bars, restaurants, and cafes.

This weekend I'm going to do some reconnaissance to check out these areas to see which one I might like better. It feels good to be setting down roots, even if I'm only here for 6-12 months.

Safely home - in Belgrade

Except for the nervous feeling in my stomach, the trip was uneventful. I flew on Lufthansa in business class, which was pretty sweet. It was very similar to my experience on American Airlines in business class when I went to Turkey in September. Not a bad way to travel.

I took off from DFW at 5:30pm on Wednesday and landed in Frankfurt, Germany at 9:30am Thursday. I managed to get a couple hours of sleep. In business class, the seats go almost flat, so you can sleep somewhat comfortably. There was fog in Germany, so my flight was delayed a little, but I made it to Belgrade by 2:30pm. My new manager and his wife met me at the airport. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed, so it was good to see familiar faces. I had met them both last month and currently are the only people I know in Belgrade.

They took me to their house for coffee and then we went out for a late lunch/early dinner. They have already changed time here (BOO - I missed the extra hour this year - it disappeared in the air) and the sun went down around 4:30pm. That is going to take some time to get used to because the sun in Dallas around 6:45pm right now.

I'm in my "Junior Suite" at the In-Hotel in New Belgrade. I stayed here when I was in town last month and it is a very modern hotel. In fact, it was the first new hotel built in Belgrade in 17 years when it opened 3 years ago! In Dallas and Plano, I think a new hotel opens every month.

Tomorrow I'm going to look for apartments and then have a meeting with my manager to discuss priorities and I can get started on work. My manager also invited me to the Halloween party at his daughter's school. Apparently a lot of the teachers are American, so he thought it might be a good idea for me to meet them. I agree!

I know it is early, but I might try to get some sleep. Talk to you all later!

Take-off Day

I'm sitting in my house waiting for the movers to show up to pack up a few of my things. All told, I probably will have less than 10 boxes of clothes, books, sheets, and towels.

This is the last time I will be in my house, as we are selling it while I'm out of the country. I'm a little sad about this, but it feels good to be moving on with my life.

I can't believe that I'm leaving today. It has been almost 6 months since I was told that I was officially approved to go to Serbia from my leadership. I just want to be there so I can stop worrying about everything.

Today, the relocation company sent me some pictures and info on apartments in Belgrade. Some of them look cool. Hopefully I can go out on Friday and pick one out and move quickly. I will post pictures soon.

All for now - I will see you in Belgrade!