Meeting people

I've been meeting with a lot of different people lately. Last week Samuil introduced me to the Serbian minister of Sports and youth. I was quite surprised when she started speaking fluent Norwegian. It turned out she used to work for the Serbian Embassy in Oslo for 4 years. I also met the leader of a pretty big Serbian political party.


Friday we had a meeting with Telenor Serbia. We met with a Norwegian employee and discussed their experiences working in Serbian culture. It was very interesting and I have decided to write my first paper about leadership and organization in Serbian culture.

Me and Stine went to Novi Sad (A big city 80 km north of Belgrade) Tuesday to Wednesday. On the way there I stopped in the village Nova Pazova. A medium sized village.




Yesterday we met a guy playing handball in first league in Serbia, he was 2m and 4cm tall! He was hoping to make some contract with a Norwegian club one day.

The guy in the blue shirt is the guy we met.

This meeting took place in Novi Sad, so I got to spend one night at my friend Željko's place. It was a big house and they actually had a church inside their house! As a matter of fact I slept on a couch in the back of the church! In the morning Željko (whom attended Hald two years ago) had to get to work so I got to eat breakfast with his father. He didn't now any other language but Serbian so I got some useful practice.

During the time in Novi Sad I also got to spend some time with some students. One of them was Johanna who lives in EUSs flat in Novi Sad.

Elin, a norwegian women lives together with Johanna in EUSs flat. She showed us around in the center a little bit. And then we went for some food at Foody Fast Food restaurant. Stine on left and Elin sitting on the right.

Me at Foody. I ate a Sandwich.

I've been pretty busy lately and I think it will stay that way for a while. I have to write my paper before 13.December, and then we will go for a little journey around the Balkans (Monte Negro, Croatia, Bosnia and maybe Kosovo). We have to get abroad before three months has passed, because of visa. We will probably get back to Belgrade 24. December for the Norwegian evening in EUS. We are serving "gløgg" and doing some Norwegian traditions.

Apart from this I've using some resources to plan my big birthday party, which I will write more about after the party.

A Great Day

This day has been a good day. I took the 11 o'clock train to Belgrade, which was only about 20 minutes late. I usually try to read at least one chapter from the Bible everytime I take the train, at least when I travel alone. Today I think I red about 7 chapters from Genesis. All of the story about Josef and more.

Thursday is kindergarten day, and I usually spend about 4-5 hours in Noahs Ark kindergarten. A christian kindergarten owned by a baptist church in Belgrade. Anyway, I went to the kindergarten, this is my third or fourth time there. I'm not quite sure... The past times I have found it kind of hard to really interact with the children, especially since my Serbian skills is not to good yet. But today was better, my Serbian is getting better, and I'm starting to understand the kids. Also I think we are getting to know each other better. I was playing with them a lot and they also got to practise their climbing skills on me.

After about five fun hours in the Noahs Ark I travelled to New Belgrade, were I met my friend Milan at a café. He went to Hald two years ago. We talked for about 3 and a half hour, about politics, mutual experiences in meeting each others culturs, finance, situation in the world, situation in Serbia and it goes on. I had a great time and learned a lot!

On the train back I managed to finish both the book of Genesis and Coureageus Leadership by Bill Hybels. When I came back to my apartment I started planning my 25-years birthday party, which looks like it's going to be the biggest, and most wicked birthday party I have ever celebrated. And you are all invited (as long as you are not some crazy stranger I never even heard of, who just wants free food. Then you should send me and e-mail and ask politely if you can join in), but it would be nice with a hint if you're comming, just to be able to calculate food and drinks.

Sorry about the fact that I dont have any pictures to show from my day. But to make it up I will show some pictures from other days.

Me and Danijel were having some fun in front of the gigantic church of St.Sava. Danijel is a great jumperTake notice of his mp3-player

In the beginning of this week I spent two days in the beautiful
city of Novi Sad [I like the people there Samuil]. In the picture you can see (from the left) Bojan, Tihomir (director of the ROM - Renewing our minds - program) and Samuil general secretary of EUS.
A cat enjoying the view of Novi Sad (at least before I disturbed it)Novi Sad skyline
Me in front of a big catholic church A guy painting the church high above the ground. No security net here (For Norwegians: Hva med HMS).

Bojan is enjoying a Index sandwich. A traditional Novi Sad meal. The name has it origin from the fact that students with the so called Student Index Card would get a discount. But now it's just a fancy sandwich.

Snow, mountains and student conference

This weekend we went on a student conference with EUS. I was helping out some with computers and stuff, and I helped making posters, nametags, etc. We went to a place called Zlatibor, which is located far west in Serbia in a area with a lot of mountains.

The camp were great, and I met a lot of nice people. Suddenly I have people I can visit in all kinds places in Serbia, Monte Negro (Crna Gora) and I have even gotten to know a great guy from Czech Republic.

We were catching the bus in Novi Beograd.

The bus ride took about four hours, but we kept on having pauses pretty often so it took some longer. But the pauses were welcome anyway.
Zlatibor is a pretty nice place and it reminds a little bit about Norway.

I'm carrying Danijel over a big puddle. As you might have red I got some nice shoes at the Chinese marked. My new jacket is also bought there.

Late Friday evening it started snowing and Saturday morning an amazing sight were waiting.The town, Zlatibor has a pretty charming town center.
The water were freezing during the night, but started melting during the day.Boiled wine (kuvano vino) is very popular here when it's cold. It reminds a little of Gløgg, they take wine and boil it with some spices. It's tasty!In Norway there usually is no berries left on the trees when the snow is starting to fall.
Not so many leaves either.A Turdus Merula (Blackbird) was enjoying a cold bath.
Another bird, which we have reason to believe is a female western Bluebird, was enjoying some time singing in a tree. (Thanks to Ørjan for helping to identify the birds, I would enjoy confirmation of the identity of this two birds. If some bird expert could give me that, please write a comment).There where a little charming lake with a path around it.The students were having a great time.
A lot of people where gathered, not all were believers.Worship was also an important part of the gathering.
Mike Gaffney, a pastor from Seattle was preaching. It was great to finally listening to a speech directly and not true translators
There was a nice cafe downtown with wireless internet. It became pretty popular.

Visitting a farm in Sefkerin

This week I've had a visitor from Norway. Per brought along brunost, dark bread, chocolate and other things we Norwegians appreciate. Per went to Hald last year (traveled to Uganda), and he came to Serbia to visit his friends Andja and Danijel. My (and Bojan's) place is pretty space so he was staying at our place during his one week visit. (There is cheap Norwegian flights every Saturday, hint hint). I ended up guiding him around a lot, which was pretty fun! Always nice to talk some more Norwegian and share ones experiences.

Per wanted to see a Serbian village, so one day Danijel took us to Sefkerin. Sefkerin is a small village north of Belgrade where Danijel's cousin has a farm. It was very interesting for me as well, since I haven't seen much of Serbian villages either. In the province of Vojvodina (north Serbia), where I live, it's pretty flat and the soil is supposed to be very good. So there is a lot of agriculture here. One of the main things is corn and pigs (I've been invited to join in on slaughtering a pig in December, I look very much forward to that!) Farming is a little bit different here than it's in Norway!

This pig was really huge!It'salmost impossible to visit someone in Serbia, without being served food and snacks. There is really a lot of corn in these places.The farmer is showing a tiny bit of his crop.

Per was visiting from Norway, and I think he enjoyed his visit.One of the local kids had some fantastic shoes.