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What we are up against
I was working on some homework today when I came across a new case that I needed to add to my quick reference sheet. I made the changes and I needed a break so I decided to blog about it.
Serbian uses cases to indicate different things like where you are, where you are going, with what, who you are talking to, etc…. In some ways this is cool (instead of having to add new words, you can simply “tweak” an existing word) but very hard (it is totally not like English). Here are a few example:
cheese is сир.
pizza with cheese is пица са сиром.
Cacak is the name of a town.
To say in Cacak (if you are describing where you are ) у Чачаку
To say in Cacak (if you are describing where something is) you use у Чачака
Names of people even change too (unless your name is too foreign then it doesn’t. How do you know if your name is too foreign? Well, if you add the ending, it just doesn’t sound right. Big help when you are learning the language).
Click here if you want to take a look at my quick reference card in a pdf format (This one is missing the vocative case),
[Update 07-22-2008 07:06:08] See this post for more information (and an updated chart)
More on Mygallons
This is an update to this post and this other post about my gallons.
Gaming
We had some friends over to our place last night for dinner (yep…I made kabsa…and they LOVED it). After dinner, we played some games and had a good time. We had a good opportunity to get to know these people better…we are thankful for the time.
We played:
2 rounds of kill dr. lucky (the same guy won both times). We played once on the original board and once on the unnamed mystery house expansion
1 round of Igor. I won this at the last minute (3 others were getting ready to get 10 points and win)
Oh, there were some American friends…but, we are going to start inviting Serbs to play (we just got a place we could play)
June 2008…Wow
Well, I don’t even know where to begin, so I’ll start off by saying that you can take a look at all of the pictures we took last month in a calendar form (like to the right) by going to our Flickr Archive page.
I’m reading through the Bible right now. My original plan was to do it every 90 days; however, I have revised that a little. I think it will be more like twice per year (about 180 days). To track my progress, I started off simply using paper and guessing what to read (well, along with some math involved). However, I finally got my copy of Logos installed and licensed (thank you George for this gift at the West Virginia Evangelism Celebration) and saw it included a bible reading plan. I’m doing that right now, however, the next time, I would like to have it work chronologically. Does anyone know how to set Logos up to do a chronological reading plan.
In my readings, I came across Ps 61 where I read about David. In reading the passage, I had the impression he was feeling discouraged. While I wasn’t feeling particluarly discouraged then (and really not now either), the feeling comes and goes. At the time, I blogged this just in case anyone else out there was felling discouraged. But, in looking over the past month’s bloggs, I came across it and was again encouraged.
I know everyone likes humourous stories from people overseas so here is mine for this month. One thing I really liked in the US was a moca extra hot. Yes, I know…I don’t like paying $4 for a cup of coffee either, but I enjoyed my moca (or mocha?) once or twice a month. I hadn’t had one in a while (and the only place I have seen it on a menu is a coffee shop in Belgrade. BTW, I had one and it was good!). But, back to the story…I hadn’t had one in a while so I decided to make my own serb coffee moca. Let’s just say that I need to filter the coffee before I try it again.
We traveled to Greece to meet with other Americans working in our part of the world. This was a good time to get to meet others, see how God is working in their countries, and be encouraged by new friends from the US. Here is a picture out the back of the main building we were meeting in:
I know that most of you have never seen Cacak (Чачак) and don’t have any idea what it looks like. I took some pictures one day and did a short post of my trip to the English Club. It is a good representation of a resedential area in town. Cacak is also a city of great contrasts. Rich and poor. Rural and city. Modern and past.
Here are some links I didn’t know how to really write about:
Lydia is getting so big
I have learned things about living in Serbia I wish I had known before now.
We found a Gloria Jean’s Coffee in the Athen’s Airport (I was sick and wanted sprite to settle my stomach so I paid 2 Euro 90 for one. If I had been feeling better, I would have gotten a moca)
A friend gave us a gift subscription to Answers Magazine and we got our first issue
We got our first package from the US
My passport got washed and we took a trip to the US (actually the US Embassy in Belgrade)
We had a great time while we were there meeting friends and their friends. We also were able to worship with them. I cannot explain how good God is: the sermon he gave the pastor spoke to my heart (well, I guess it was really the passage because I didn’t understand much of the sermon).
Want a tux bathmat
We signed up for bookmooch to try and get some more english books.
Tux in Cacak
I saw this Tux bath mat the other day while I was walking around town.
My Damaged Passport
Here are a few pictures of my damaged passport:
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Cacak is a city of great contrasts
I went for a walk last week and took a panorama showing some of the contrasts in the city. Here you see a very very nice house next to an older simpler house.
You also see tractors and gravleyesque things among the cars and SUVs in town.
Trip to the US
In this post, I mentioned that we were going to the US (actually, the US Embassy in Belgrade) because my passport had been washed. We decided to try and take the train to Belgrade. (In Serbian, it would be something like Путовали смо до Београда воѕом). That probably isn’t right, but it is close.
We hopped the local train here in Чачак and traveled to Пожега (about 45 min or so). We weren’t real sure where we would get off, but we knew we had to change trains. We asked the conductor (well, we tried). He got the idea and told us. When we got off, I saw him looking at the schedule and he told us a time. We didn’t really understand but didn’t know how to get a better answer. We decided we would wait and see what happened.
Well, a train came along and Београд was announced so we got on and sat down. The conductor came along and looked at our tickets. He told us we needed to pay more (I understood that) but made like I didn’t understand. I thought he just wanted to get more money from us. Eventually, he found someone who spoke english that confirmed what I thought he was saying so we paid him more динари (dinars).
The guy we met turned out to be from Italy. He, his brother, and I talked most of the way to Београд. Every little bit, the train would stop and let another train pass. We had to stop and wait at a few stations. Overall, the trip was much nicer than the bus because we could get up and walk around…however, it took about twice as long. Here is a picture we took while the train was stopped waiting:
We went to Belgrade early to see some friends. They introduced us to some of their friends, and we had a wonderful time.
While we were there, we had a chance to meet some Brothers and Sisters and worship with them. It was so amazing. We heard a sermon on Matthew 6:25-34. I found that message passage convicting to me (I say passage because I didn’t understand much of the sermon). Later that day, a few people got together for prayer. There, we heard Isaiah 61 read. That was purely God because I had read that same passage that morning and was convicted by it. God is awesome!
Monday (понедељак I think I spelled it right) we went to the Embassy. There was a line; however, we walked up to the door, showed the guy our US passports, explained what we needed, and went right in. They showed us where to go, we told a lady what we needed, and she said sit and wait. We waited < 10 minutes and were called up to a window. We told the lady what we needed, she took our money, and said they would call us in 10 days (or sooner if it was done). In the end, the whole thing took < 30 min. We didn’t get to do much while we were there. The embassy looked nothing like I thought it would inside (probably post 9/11 security measures changed everything).
For more pictures, you can look in our flickr photostream or the set with pictures of this trip to Belgrade.
Looking through stats….
When I saw some people had came across some of the pictures of Lydia when she had chicken pox. That got me looking though the pictures. I just saw two that I thought I would post here….it is hard to believe that Lydia had the chicken pox 9 months or so ago when she was < 1 year old.
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