Just working

Just wanted to post a quick update.  I feel like a lot of things are happening, but unfortunately for you, they aren't all that interesting!  I have been working a lot.  As I wrote, I was in Istanbul last week.  We have a new R&D associate that started a few weeks ago, so I'm helping with her on-boarding.  And I am continuing my Serbian lessons.  I really like it so far, but it is hard.  I still can't hear (let alone correctly pronouce) the difference between ć č.  The teacher even said "can you hear me?"  Obviously not!

I also officially joined a gym.  It is great!  I feel normal (as normal as I get) now that I have a regular schedule and workout place.  The gym isn't fancy, in fact, you have to bring your own towels.  But I'm glad it isn't a fancy place because I hate when women put on makeup and do their hair prior to their "workout", and the price was reasonable.

My book club meets for the first time this week; I'm excited to meet a whole group of women here and to start some connections/friendships.  Plus, the book was really good.  I stayed up until 2am one day last week finishing it.

Finally, here is a picture of me with a project that I worked on before I left:

I'm managing to stay warm and busy, so don't worry mom and dad!  Oh and ESPN America showed the Colts game live yesterday so I stayed up late to watch it. GO COLTS!  (and Drew Brees! BOILER UP!) 

As the day begins to lengthen, the cold begins to stregthen...

It has been a cold week.  I was sick all of last weekend, but of course, was feeling great (well, good-ish) on Monday morning.  I had to head to the factory for a test and left at 6:30am.  About halfway there, it started snowing.  The roads were ok, but a bit slick.  I saw several accidents, and was about 45 min late to work.  The snow had melted by the time I left.

On Tuesday, I flew to Istanbul.  The Internet weather said that the temperature was supposed to be 50.  However, after circling for 45 minutes, we broke through the clouds and it was snowing!  And there was about an inch on the ground.  This was very incongruent with my thoughts of sunny and warm Istanbul.  It has been cold all week, and the weather in Belgrade this weekend isn't supposed to get above freezing.  I know it's January, but it is over 70F in Dallas!  My timing is poor.  I should have been here in summer and Dallas in winter.

I found a gym (finally!), but haven't been able to go yet since I've been travelling.  I have a half-formed plan to think about running the Belgrade half-marathon in April.  We will see how training in the cold and dark goes!

I also started Serbian lessons.  The proununciation is quite difficult, but I'm going to try.  That is my new motto "I will try".  But don't worry, I haven't abondoned my old motto "Don't be a jerk"!

Also, I have to give credit to the quote that is the title of this post to Laura Ingalls.  I forget which book it was in, but I always think of it in late Janaury. We are gaining about 2 minutes of day light every day in Belgrade and civil twilight now lasts until 5pm! 

Here is a sunset view from my apartment:

It looks like the sky is ripping.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Weekend West Balkan Trip

Hello Everyone in Blog land!  I hope that you have been keeping warm.  Things here have been quite busy.  Last weekend, a friend came into town and we planned a spontaneous road trip.  We had been thinking of going to Transylvania, but realized that the "good" parts (according to Lonely Planet) were an 8-10 hour drive.  So we decided to go to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. 

Generally, when you hear Croatia, you think about the stunning beaches.  I definitely want to go there too, but since it is January, we decided to stick closer to home.  It was a 3 1/2 hour drive from Belgrade to Zagreb.  We got there late on Friday.  We decided to walk a bit to see the city and have a drink.  We found this hole-in-the wall place that was extraordinarily smoky, but had good beer and music.  The funniest part of the evening was when "Born in the USA" came on, and everyone started dancing.  I would bet money that I was the only person in the place that was actually born in the USA!

On Saturday, we walked around Zagreb.  Unfortunately, it was raining really hard, so I didn't get a lot of photos.

This was a city park in Zagreb.  It was raining and about 34F.  Miserable weather, and the exact opposite of my previous Saturday in Bangkok!

This was a street market

La La La

I'm glad I don't have to carry my groceries this way!

Zagreb was a really nice city, but we were cold and ready to explore more, so we decided to drive to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.  It was only about 60 miles away.  Unfortunately, there was a very long line at the border, and we had to wait for 1 hour.  Slovenia is in the EU, so potentially they were being more strict with border control (though they were not strict when we crossed).

Aside from the difficult pronounciation, Ljubljana was great!  It feels very much like a small city, not like the capital city.  There was a lot of snow, and we enjoyed walking around in the evening.  The snow made everything quite interesting.

A canal

We took a funicular up to the castle.  You can see the snow and the fog.  The temperature was hovering around freezing.

Ljubljana from the castle

Christmas light display with a science theme.  There was the galaxy (top left), XY chromosome (not shown), and you can guess what this is a picture of!

After a quiet night in Ljubljana, we decided that we wanted to get back to nature by going up to Bled.  This is in Slovenia, almost to the Austrian border.  It is in the beginning of the Alps and is about 60km from Ljubljuana.  We arrived around 9:30am, and it was very foggy.  There is a lake that we wanted to hike around that is 6km (3.7 miles).  And Bled Castle (Bledgrad) is at the top of a big hill.  We started by hiking around the lake.  There was about a foot of snow.

Bled Cathedral on an island.  In the summer you can canoe to it and tour/hike around.

Another angle

Is this a post card?  No it's just Bled castle.  We decided to climb to the top.  I was a little nervous, but after last weeks climb in Thailand, I was up for it.

Here was the rock face as we approached the top

Here are the Alps and Bled lake from the top

The views here were amazing, and it is so cool to think that we hadn't even heard of this place 24 before coming, but it ended up being the highlight of the trip.  I'm really enjoying the smallness of Europe.  Bled was a 5 hour drive from Belgrade, which would get you almost to Fredricksburg in Texas, to Tulsa, to New Orleans if leaving from Dallas.  But we crossed into 3 countries, saw three capital cities, and the Alps.  It was a great road trip.

We finished the weekend by walking around Belgrade, so we could officially say we saw 3 capital cities over the weekend.  It was a lot of fun and a great way to see many different places.  If any of you have suggestions for sightseeing in the Balkans, please let me know.

Enjoying life right now and Happy Serbian (Orthodox) New Year!

Merry Orthodox Christmas!

Yesterday was Orthodox Christmas. I really like having Christmas the first week of January. It makes coming back to work better because you get some extra time off! I actually worked from home, since I already took Christmas and the office was closed. But still, it was nice.


I wanted to update everyone on my progress on moving to Serbia. "But Mary", you might be thinking, "you moved to Serbia 2 months ago. What are you talking about?" Well, I finally got my work permit on Tuesday, so I can legally work here and GET PAID!!

I got paid for the first time on Monday. It was great. The first thing I did was go to the bank and pay all of my overdue bills. So now I feel like a real resident since I have paid the electric bill!

The other great thing that happened was that I got my shipment. It was packed up at my old house on 28 Oct, the day that I left the US. And I received it in Belgrade on 6 Jan. They told me it would take 3 weeks, and it took about 10 weeks. The holdup was my work permit. But now I have my books, my clothes, some extra sheets and towels, and my gloves, hat, and scarf. Yeah!

So it was like Christmas for me, even though I was just getting things that were already mine. But maybe that was for the best since I didn’t have to spend any money to get a whole bunch of “new” things.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Happy New Year!

Hey Everyone,

I'm back from a great trip to Thailand.  Actually I was on a very long road trip starting with 4 days in England, 8 days in Istanbul, and 8 days in Thailand.  The first two trips were for work, though, as you saw, I did get some sightseening done over the weekend in Istanbul (see earlier posts).   But now I'm back in snowy Belgrade.  I can't say that I'm glad to be back.  I had an absolutely amazing time in Thailand.  It was exactly what I needed to refresh, recharge, and to get my confidence back after a stressful period at work.

I landed in Bangkok on Christmas Day in the early evening.  Here are the remnants of my Christmas dinner.  It was some kind of clam curry.  Delicious!  I ate many wonderful Thai foods, and next time I go to Thailand, I hope to have time for a cooking class.

I spent most of the week in Koh Samui, which is an island in the Gulf of Thailand.  It was a little like MTV Spring Break, a little like zen paradise, and 100% amazing.  I stayed in North Chaweng Beach, so I was not directly in the craziness of Chaweng, but could still walk into town if I wanted a night out.

Here is the hotel pool.  I spent most of my time in the Gulf, but it was nice to have the pool, especially for the families that were staying with small children.

Here are the views from "my beach".

On Monday, I took a day-long tour that went out to Angthong Marine Park.  This park has 42 different islands that are all protected by the Thai government.  The tour took us out to a few of the islands and we passed through many more.  The group picked me up at my hotel in the early morning and drove out to Nathon Pier.  We loaded up the boat, and there were about 40 of us.  It was great, because I got to meet people from everywhere, including Brazil, Sweden, Australia, and Thailand.  It took about 40 min to get out to the first stop, and the scenery was amazing.

I made friends with a girl from Bangkok. She was there alone too, and we decided to be kayak partners. A guy from Austrailia also joined us. Because there were so many people that were going kayaking, our group went on a small hike to see this blue lagoon first.

This is a sea urchin that is in the lagoon.  The lagoon is protected and it is where fish from the Gulf of Thailand go to reproduce.  We also saw two fish that were snuggling, but I couldn't get a picture.  It was very cute.

After the lagoon, we went kayaking.  We got to explore a sea cave.  Since the tide was up, there was only about 1 meter from the sea to the top of the cave and we had to duck low in the kayak to make it under the cave top.  I didn't get any pics because I didn't want to get my camera wet, but it was very cool.  We then kayaked underneath some large rocks on small islands.  We went back to the boat for a delicious Thai lunch.

After lunch, we had free time for 2 hours.  My new friends and I decided to hike up a small mountain.  It was a very strenuous climb.  Here we are at 100m.

100 meters

250 meters - half way up!

And finally, from the top with my new friends!

It was a great day!  We even got to see a monkey.

The other fun thing was New Year's Eve.  The hotel had a Gala dinner that all guests were invited and I went.  The food was ok, but the entertainment was really interesting.  First, there was a really terrible band singing along with someone's iTune list.  Then it got really good.  Thai Caberet, complete with Thai Lady Boys.  I didn't have my camera at first, so I had to run up to the room to get it.  Here are some Thai dancers.  I don't think these were Lady Boys though.

At midnight, everyone along the beach started shooting off fireworks.  It was very cool to see them all around the bay.

To add to the excitement, there was a small tree fire when some people set off a lantern and it went into the tree.  Luckily, everything was ok.

It was even a full moon.  There are big Full Moon Parties, but I decided to be more low-key and stay at the hotel.

And then I had One Night in Bangkok before coming back to Serbia.  By this point in the trip, I was pretty tired and hot, but did manage to walk around some before I had to head to the airport.

This was in front of the National Museum.

A cock in Bangkok.  Not sure what this park was, but there were lots of similar statues.  Because it was so hot in Bangkok, I did a lot of walking followed by a lot of sitting.  After sweltering in the 90+ heat with 85+ humidity, I boarded a plane at 23:45 and flew for 12 hours back to freezing cold Europe.

Here is what greeted me in Belgrade:

So it is back to work, back to winter.  Happy New Year everyone!