First impressions of Serbia

Tomorrow I have been here for a week. So how much can one actually understand during one week? During the first day I figured out that traffic in Belgrade is a little bit different from traffic in Norway. Cars are almost constantly driving 20 km/h above the speed limit, the horn is used pretty frequently and all the drivers I've been riding with has spent half the time talking on the phone (and just in case you wonder: no hands free here...). And since this is not enough people are usually driving, seemingly unaware of how the signs, lines and rules tell you to drive. In other words: Traffic is crazy.

But traffic is still only traffic. The real question is still; What are the Serbian people like? Let me start with a little example. My second day in Serbia Danijel was showing me around in Belgrade. We were sitting having lunch on one of the walls of Kalemegdan (the fortress of Belgrade) when Danijel received a phone call from a friend. It was a guy he had met in a concert who wanted to hang out, and as the social guy I am I agreed immediately. After waiting some longer than planned the guy showed up and we drove down to Dunav (Donau). The guy pulled out a guitar from his car, we found a bench along the river and he started to play. As it turnes out this guy was a real blues freak or genius (a question of definition). I don't think I ever have seen anybody play like this. I'm not a big blues fan but this was just really cool. It went on with playing blues and talking about blues. After maybe 15 minutes a random old man passing by on a bicycle stopped and started listening and joined in on the conversation. He stayed for approximately one hour. The conversation was all in Serbian, and as you can guess I was mostly a passive part of this gathering, but never the less I was there and it was a nice experience.

There are multiple elements which I want to discuss in this story. For a start its the way things started, there was no planning. It was all just an almost impulsive act which developed as it passed. The next point is the fact that he arrived later than planned, there was a delay. And than the old man, they had never seen each other before but ended up talking together for an hour. They say that all you need to start a conversation here is for the eyes to meet. And the last point, they were talking Serbian. Unless they are talking to you Serbians will speak in Serbian.
The National Parlament of Serbia. A lot of very important history has happened here.

I live in the building to the left on the 2th floor. The window on the upper left of the picture is mine. That's where I'm sitting and writing this now. The wicked car in front is my friend Bilijana's. She's in the drivers seat.

Some of you have seen this guy before. He is considered highly dangerous and is probably armed with one or more weapons. If you happen to see a mountain of bottles or a pig head be alert and proceed with caution!