The countdown is on

We've been busy over the last few weeks completing projects and attending conferences, many of which have long been symbols of the end of our stay in Serbia. The only big thing we have left is our tango vacation.

I don't want anyone to think that I'm impatiently counting down the days until we leave Serbia (because I'm not), but the fact is that today is May 21 and our return tickets to Boston are for June 21. So one more month of fun and games in the Balkans.

Last weekend Dan had the ELTA conference in Belgrade; since hotel accommodations were included in his travel grant I tagged along and had a few days to enjoy our capital. Previous excursions to Belgrade have all be one day trips, and it's hard to really enjoy the city when you have to pay attention to catching the return bus and you have nowhere to leave your stuff or take a siesta.

So while poor Dan was stuck in conferences, I hit the town. The weather was lovely, so I spent an afternoon at the Belgrade zoo, which had a surprising variety of animals, although I have never before seen dogs displayed in a zoo. Some of the living conditions were sad (especially for the bears, I thought), but it is quite an old zoo. A lot of cages and concrete cells. Some rich investor should get involved so they can renovate.

I saw some other historical sites (I didn't make it to the Tesla museum, though. They have really bad hours.) but mostly spent my time exploring on foot. As much as I've enjoyed my year in Kragujevac, I'm sad that we weren't stationed in Belgrade. It is an amazing city, with so much to do and explore. There's also a real vibrancy there. It seems there's always some random event popping up somewhere around the city, whether it's street performers or a dance competition or a rally to get people hyped up about the World Cup. Also, I saw these guys crowding the front of the Hotel Moskva, and at the time I had no idea what was going on.

On Friday night we went to the Indian restaurant, and both surprisingly (because we didn't know they would be there) and not surprisingly (because it's exactly the kind of place you'd expect to find them), we ran into a bunch of embassy staffers. They invited us to join them, and we had a great time kicking around our theories on Serbia and the US, and also eating a lot of great food and drinking quite a bit of wine.

The only down side to the weekend was that I sat in gum. Gross.