In Flux

Hey Blog readers!  Sorry I've been a little absent as of late.  I have to say that I haven't really been doing much, and even though I know some of you would say that not having something interesting or intelligent to say hasn't stopped me before, I just haven't had anything good to blog about lately.

As you know, I was supposed to be in England last week for work. I was really looking forward to the trip because 

1) I would get to see some work friends

2) I would be in an English-speaking place

3) I was going to pick up some spices at the supermarket that I can't find here in Serbia

4) There was a lot of work stuff that was going to get accomplished and I like accomplishment!

However, due to the volcanic ash, I couldn't travel.  So I stayed in Belgrade all week and to be honest, I can't really tell you what I did.  I didn't go out in the evenings and I didn't go to the factory.  I made a chicken and stuffing and kajmak mashed potatoes and ate well.  The weather was nice and I just chilled and enjoyed myself a little.

But enough is enough!  I'm tired chilling, so I was glad that this week is a bit more exciting.  I was in the factory yesterday.  I think I've mentioned the scenery before, but it really looks a lot like NE Indiana.  This time of year, the crops are going into the fields, and I passed no fewer than 20 tractors on the way home.  Unlike Indiana, there are these amazing yellow flowers.  I don't know what they are, so if you know, please share!  I have never seen such a natural vivid color.  I took these shots from the highway, so they aren't the best.  I haven't retouched the color at all.  Seeing these against the cloudy sky, all I could do was smile.

The final "news story" is about my Jesus beetle.  Bugs aren't my favorite things in the world, but I'm really only afraid of cockroaches and wasps/hornets.  On Friday night, I saw a dead beetle on the windowsill in my living room.  It was kind of gross, but I wasn't too freaked.  I thought it had a certain beauty to it.

(I told you my life was dull - I'm now showing pictures of dead bugs!)

Anyway, I left for a while and came back several hours later, and the bug was still dead, but it had moved.  I thought that was odd, but figured that air currents had moved him.

On Saturday, I decided to clean my apartment and Mr. Beetle went into the trash.  I took the full trash bag out of the can, but I didn't take it outside.  I was sitting on the couch reading, and I kept hearing some strange sound, like the bag was moving.  I picked it up, looked in the bottom, couldn't see what was going on.  Then I SAW.  The beetle was alive!  It was a beetle miracle!  Now before people get angry at my sacrilegious comparison of a beetle with Jesus, I'm sure that the beetle was just really, really, tired before and wasn't really dead.  Or maybe there was another live beetle in the trash.  Or maybe the awesomeness of my trash has miraculous powers?  I'll let you make your own conclusions.

Anyway, that's my life these days.  I am going on a trip soon, so I will have more cool blog posts. But for now, you get flowers and bugs.  Enjoy. 

Volcanically Induced Madness?

With all of the technology in the world, we still have no way to counteract Mother Nature.  Hurricanes, Earthquakes, and now, of all things, a Volcano.

Now if you live on some Pacific Rim island, I understand that volcanoes may be a threat to your land and your way of life.  But if you are a Food Scientist living in Belgrade, you just never think that a volcano will impact your everyday life!  I was supposed to go to the UK this week for work.  I have some US colleagues that have been on an extended international business trip and were supposed to go home on Saturday.  They still don't have definitive flight plans, and will likely be here until at least tomorrow (Tuesday).  And one of my friends here is in Australia visiting her sister.  She was supposed to fly out Sunday, and is now delayed for 11 days.  Yes, 11 days!

Of course, for me, it isn't such a big deal for now.  I was looking forward to the UK trip, but I have a lot of work that I need to take care of here in BG too.  However, I think it is truly amazing to see the economic impact and personal impact that something like this can have.  There have been no flights over northern Europe for 4 days.  The airport is open in Belgrade, but since most flights connect to the hubs in northern Europe, most flights are cancelled.  They say the airlines are losing $200M/day.  And the volcano may be erupting for up to a year.  This natural incident may have long term impact on our way of life.  Crazy!

Luckily, I'm only "stranded" at home.  The weather here in Belgrade was beautiful over the weekend.  I went out with friends on Friday and Saturday nights.  Sunday was the Belgrade Marathon and I did the 5k with some of the Hashers.  It was great!  We ended (like always) with the circle.  However, this circle was on one of the main streets that was closed to traffic because of the marathon.  There is nothing like singing dirty songs and drinking beer out of plastic cups in the middle of a crowd at 11am!  People were just staring at us; it was very funny!  Two of the Hashers did the 1/2 marathon, so we cheered them on in the end.  We then had drinks at Knez Mihaila, which is the pedestrian street in City Center.  After relaxing in the sun, we went to one of the Hasher's sailing club on Sava River.  It was very basic, as they are just re-building their club house.  But they had picnic tables set up and were grilling out.  They invited us to lunch, and we ate Serbian sausage, steak, and chicken.  I'm constantly amazed at the generosity of the Serbs.   One of our new friends invited us to his boat.  We just sat out for a while relaxing on the river.  I got to meet some cool new people, and spend time outside in the beautiful weather.  All in all, it was one of the best days I have had in Belgrade.

Now it's Monday morning, raining, and the traffic was quite bad.  But since I had such a great weekend, I'm feelin' fine (volcano or not).

Brave, Naive, or Just Plain Dumb

I have been thinking about this opportunity and why more people don't do international travel/living.  And, based on feedback from many of you, I have narrowed it down to three possible reasons as to why someone might undertake an adventure like moving to Serbia.

Brave. Over the course of this adventure, different people have commented to me that I must be brave to undertake such an adventure by myself. At times, I have felt kind of proud for surviving here (like when nearly getting arrested, or figuring out how to get fuel when I didn't have any money), but I haven't really felt especially brave. In fact, I still maintain that the bravest thing I have done was going to a party in which I knew no one. But the cool part about being brave, or as I like to think of it -- taking a risk, is that it almost always pays off. Even while crashing and burning, I’m glad I took a risk.


Naive. A few people have made comments alluding to the fact that I am naive to come to a country that I knew next-to-nothing about, in which I don't speak or read the language, and where I don't know anyone. The fact that everyone within PepsiCo apparently knew that my manager was leaving before I even left the US (while I did not) just confirms that I am, in fact, naive. But I have always kind of prided myself on being naive. I have said this 100x since I have arrived (mostly with regards to work), but if I knew what was going to happen, then I wouldn't need to try anything new. How depressing would that be?! I could go around acting cynical and superior. It is a popular way for those of us with too much education and too little sense to behave. But I don't want to fall into that trap because I think that life is more fun when you go about it with a wide-eyed sense of discovery. That is what I bring to my job and that is what I try to bring to life. Was it naive to come to Serbia, knowing no one and not even realizing that my manager was leaving 6 weeks after I arrive? Yes. But, I have been thinking a lot about patterns lately, and this situation reminds me of something that happened 10 years ago.

A small town girl graduates from Purdue and gets an assistantship at the (prestigious) Department of Food Science at North Carolina State University with an established professor to study something she knows nothing about (whey flavor?  Like Little Miss Muffett's curds and whey?). She will be leaving the Boiler State for the first time, which is exciting and scary. But even more important, it means that she can go to grad school for free and that THEY WILL PAY HER and she get's to LEAVE INDIANA! Who even knew this opportunity existed? So this foolish 22 year old girl moves across the country and away from home for the first time, embracing this opportunity. And 6 weeks later, her advisor leaves! Now what is she supposed to do? She didn't even really know what was going on and now she has to function without a leader? But, as you know, it all worked out. So being naive (and slightly unlucky) is a pattern, and it has led me where I am now.


Just Plain Dumb. I love this expression. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with the woodle-triangle-puzzle-thing that they have on the tables at Cracker Barrels in which you have 10 holes and 9 golf tees and you have to jump tees to get down to one. On it were folksy descriptions of your intelligence level based on how many tees you left. I don't remember any of them except that if you left four or more you were "just plain dumb". I love it! Now, my grandma showed me how to win, so I wasn't "just plain dumb" according to the wooden triangle (and I challenge anyone to this game). But I think that moving here is kind of dumb. Most of you reading this are Americans. How do you feel when you go to the bank or to Wal-Mart, and someone doesn't speak English? Often this seems to be a young mother with several kids running around (at 10pm in Wal-Mart), and she really can't understand how much something costs or how to get medicine from the pharmacy. And we get annoyed. How dare you come into my country (albeit often illegally), and NOT SPEAK ENGLISH?!

But guess what readers? Here I am, a highly education "just plain dumb" person who stumbles around the bank, the grocery store, and the gas station. And some people here look at me like I'm scum. How dare I come into their country (legally) and NOT SPEAK SERBIAN?! Yes, I have become that person. And I was really self-conscious about this at first. But lately, I just don't care. I don't have the energy to care about what people that I will never see again care about me (mostly). Luckily, most people are amazingly friendly and helpful.  I'm trying to learn Serbian, but I don't understand much. And when I first got here, I didn't know how to buy fuel, pay my bills, or find the grocery stores. I had no network, so I just fumbled about, generally making a fool of myself. That is the cool thing about travelling. You just have to figure stuff out by making mistakes and asking for help and when you do succeed, you have a huge sense of pride for something that you wouldn't have thought twice about accomplishing at home.

So how do I feel about myself? I guess I'm a little brave, fairly naive, and but mostly Just Plain Dumb.

Spring Time = Good Times

I thought that I would post some random-type pictures of things that I've been doing here.  After being here for 5 months, I'm finally starting to have some good friends (though a good friend recently left -boo!).  Such is the life of expats.  People are always coming and going.

I may have mentioned that I went out for St. Paddy's day with the Hashers to an Irish Pub called 3 Carrots.  They had live music, which was a Serbian band playing Irish music.  They were actually really good.  The place was packed and it was a great time.  The hashers are so much fun!

Guinness - New in Belgrade (not sure how old this sign is!)

Some of the Hashers

The late night group

The following weekend, some of the Hashers took me out for my birthday.  We went out to a traditional Serbian restaurant (Moj Šešir - my hat), and had the traditional meal of meat, meat, and meat. 

This is for 5 people.  And we had already had appetizers (with meat), soup (with meat), and salad (no meat!).  I know that people don't eat like this every day, but I still can't understand how the Serbs are so thin!

On my actual birthday, my coworkers got me some beautiful flowers and sang to me in Serbian.  It was so sweet and unexpected!

And then the next night, some of us hosted a Baby Shower for a Hasher couple.  She is American and he is Ukrainian and they are due in mid-April.  Because it was kind of last minute, some of my friends bought and prepped the food, and then brought it to my place for plating.  So my job was to clean and clean up and to help them get stuff set up.  It was really nice and fun.  I don't have any pics of the actual celebration, but here is the spread that we prepared in record time (thanks B and S!).

Spring is here, and though I do miss the tremendous Texas(sized) thunderstorms, we did have a few storms here. 

The trees in the foreground have leaves, though the trees in the background don't yet.  But Spring is HERE!

For those of you that worry that I'm here all alone and lonely, don't! I'm having a good time and meeting lots of cool people and experiencing so many new things. I miss you all, but I’m in no hurry to get back to Texas. I have learned many things about myself in the last year, and I my only regret is that this experience has to end soon. This is the first time in my life that I have ever really been alone, and it is has been rewarding. Self discovery is interesting and can be painful, but it is good to keep growing. And in this incredibly ego-centered world, I have an outlet to share myself, which is therapeutic. So thanks for reading! And get outside and enjoy this weather! Happy Spring (again!).

It's all Greek to me or How to Eat your Bodyweight in Lamb in only 24 hours

Hristos Vaskarse!  Cristos Anesti!  Happy Easter!

Orthodox Easter is the biggest holiday of the year here.  We got both Good Friday and Easter Monday off of work.  I was invited by one of my friends (D) to celebrate Easter at his house in Greece.  So I headed to Greece on Friday morning.  After a short flight, D and his mom picked me up from the Athens airport and we headed to Nafplio, where their family home is located.  Nafplio was the first capital of "new" Greece and is about 2 hours southwest of Athens on the sea.

As soon as we got to the house, we picked our own oranges off the tree.  D's mom got the ladder and we just climbed up and got some.  Yet another "we are not in Kansas Indiana anymore" moment.  About my 100th of the last 6 months.

View from 2nd floor of house.  The trees are all oranges trees.

We headed into town.  It was amazing.  Have I mentioned that I love the Sea?

View of Town and the Harbor

Sunset over the Mediterranean - yes this is really my life!

After walking around town, I had my first meal in Greece, souvlaki. It was pork kebab meat that was cut off the wheel and then quickly fried, wrapped in a pita with tzatziki and French fries. It was delicious. D's mom and cousins then met us in Nafplio because it was time to see Jesus. The entire town came out and 4 different churches have processions. Everyone was holding a candle and singing hymns as they walked the winding streets of town

.

This was pretty crazy.  The entire town was there, as you can see in the above photo.  It was similar to what I saw in Sevilla, only bigger. 

After we saw Jesus, we went and had a dinner with more meat and tzatziki. This is not traditional, because we should have been fasting and not eating meat.  Have I mentioned that the food is incredible?   

The next day was bright and sunny.  In fact, I ended up sunburned!  Finally, I'm living up to my red-neck heritage.  We went to Mycenae to see some ruins.  I mean, you can't go to Greece without seeing ruins, right?  This is one of the places that Homer wrote about.  Apparently, it isn't all fiction and myths here.

Looking up from the floor of a collapsed tomb.  I think it was Clytemnestra's.

Ruins and you can see the sea off in the distance.

We couldn't have had better weather

This is the bottom of a cave.  I used my flash, but it was so dark that I literally couldn't see my hand when it was 1" in from of my face.

Saturday evening more family came into town, and the lamb arrived.  My friend's mom prepared the 12kg lamb by stuffing it with garlic and cheese.  I have to admit it was a little unnerving to see the whole animal (head included), but I was so excited to actually roast a lamb on a spit the next day.

 

Saturday night was the big event - Resurrection Night.  This was crazy and a little bizarre to me.  We went into town around 10:30pm.  We had some special candles to celebrate, and they bring in the light from Jerusalem.  At midnight, the priest came out into the main square and said a prayer.  And then Jesus was risen.  Everyone lit their candles with the light from Jerusalem and then started throwing firecrackers.  The noise was immense, but apparently it has been worse in previous years.  I was a little nervous about getting hit with a firecracker.  But I guess that Jesus was watching over me or something because I was ok.

Here are our fancy candles. 

Not the best picture, but you can see all of the smoke and firecrackers in this square.

We then headed back to the house.  D's mom had prepared a traditional meal that is eaten after midnight to break the fast.  It had potatoes, greens, and goat.  We also ate salad and bread.  Umm...have I mentioned the food?

The table setting for Resurrection Night Dinner

The next morning, I asked to be woken early up so I could see the lamb going on the spit.  They put it on around 8:45am so that it would be ready for lunch.  Vegetarians may want to skip this part.

Raw Lamb

Mnmm..smells good!

Is it done yet?

It's done!

The other big thing is the kokeretsi.  This is organ meat wrapped in cleaned intestines.  I had had this at a restaurant in Istanbul this summer, but it was interesting to see it being prepared.

Wrapping the organs in cleaned intestines

Finishing off the kokeretsi to make sure it's well done.

  

And then we waited.  The lamb roasted for about 5 hours.  It began to smell terrific around 11am, and I kept snacking on bread and cookies.  More and more relatives kept showing up, and finally, we took off the lamb and kokeretsi.  It was so tender that the lamb broke in half.

 

Here is the Easter dinner table along with some friends and relatives

We ate and it was great.  In addition to the meat, we had salad, breads, tzatziki, mint dip, cheese pie, and leftovers from the Resurrection Night dinner.  There were sweets and breads and meats. 

 

Sweets topped with syrup.  Auggg...(imagine Homer Simpson-like drooling)

I ate more than I have ever eaten.  The weather outside was so beautiful, that we just sat outside and talked and ate.  And ate.  They have this tradition with red eggs in which you "fight" with people to see who will break the egg.  You hit the other person's egg on the nose end and then the butt end.  I ended up winning because my egg couldn't break.  It was fun!

After lunch, my friend, his brother, cousin, and I went into Nafplio to try to walk off the meal.  We walked along the shore/cliffs.  It was so pleasant. 

Nafplio Castle

I can feel my Mediterranean roots singing with joy!

We had a frappe (about the 10th one of the weekend) and watched the beautiful people. 

After heading back home, it was nap time.  I was still feeling uncomfortably full, but when I woke up it was time for more eating.  I think I ate more for dinner than I did during lunch!

The next morning, my friend and I headed to Athens.  We toured around seeing the Acropolis and city center (along with eating cheese pie, frappes, and more souvlaki).  The Acropolis was packed, but the rest of the city was empty.  It was nice.

 

We then headed to another friend's house for his birthday party.  They had more great food - lambchops, chicken wings, cheese pie, salad, pork, bread and some delicious syrupy cake.  He was turning 30 and it was great to see him and be able to wish G a Happy Birthday!

Birthday table for G

In the evening, we strolled around Athens.  It was no longer deserted as people were heading back into town after the holiday.   We ended up having a hot spiced (mulled) rakija, which was much better than the regular rakija that I've had here in Serbia.  Maybe I can introduce it to Serbia!

Acropolis at dusk

Yes, I'm in Greece.

 On a roof-top cafe after eating a terrible cheese pie

It was a great weekend full of new experiences and traditions.  I don't think I have ever eaten so much at one time.  One of the cousins said that I must be Greek because I ate so much lamb.  "Mary had a little lamb".  Actually, Mary had a lot of lamb.

Happy Easter Everyone!