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Posts about our trip to Serbia in September 2006.
I found this picture while looking on flickr today. It is either of or from a mountain near our city (here is a picture of the mountain I took from our apartment ). I like the snow. We can only hope for several meters of the white stuff come winter!
Volio bih mngo pada sneg!!!!!
picture from tequieroserbia .
I went for a walk a few days ago. I walked over the dam and up a footpath towards Ovcar and Kablar (Овчар или Овћар…незнам шта је тачно…и Каблар). I walked a little ways and found this other footpath that veered off to the left towards the river. I walked out it and kept walking…that is where I came across this table someone had made. Here are two pictures. First the table and second a panorama:
These cars are all over the place here. They are 4 wheel drive (at least they have a sticker on the car that says so). They look like they could climb a tree just sitting there. I’d like one. They have about 1.5-2 feet of ground clearance too!
[Update 09-20-2008 08:19:28] These cars are brand name LADA and come from the former Soviet Union/Russia. Here is the wikipedia article. Here is a link to a lada club in Serbia.
[Update 09-20-2008 08:37:20] Here is a new article about Ladas with some neat videos in it.
I haven’t written too awfuly (how do you spell that….awful + ly…awfuly…who knows. If you know, leave me a comment) much about life overseas recently, so I decided today that I would write about something that is very prevalent…at least here in Serbia. That is the dress (or lack there of).
I don’t really know how to explain this to people in the states. People here wear clothes (no, we aren’t in the bush in Africa). They wear clothes very similar to what people wear in the US. It’s just different. I can’t explain it. Here are a few examples:
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If you want some more examples, you can go here. No, it isn’t like everyone runs around in their clubbin’ clothes all the time. And it isn’t that they don’t wear clothes. They are just…well…different (for some more on that, check out this article on close but not exactly). No, I can’t really explain it. Just know that it is different. By the way, the girl on the bottom is wearing traditional Serbian Dress. I haven’t seen anyone walking around in that. I’d say it is kinda like German Leaderhosen.
Also porn is readily available. Either in the many shops (that are on every street corner) has it just laid out with the other “normal” magazines, or the video store has it, or it is even on the TV after midnight. It is simply amazing. Not to mention the internet (which as we all know is a huge problem anywhere you are).
So, if you are living overseas (or thinking about it) something you may want to think about is how will you react when different things are presented. How will you react? As a Christian, how will you set yourself apart?
As someone living in the US, how can you support those living overseas? How can you pray for them?
Oh, one of the easy steps you can take on your computer is to sign up for OpenDNS. it is very easy to use and rather fool-proof. it also works with multiple computers. And it is free. If you want some more information, drop me a line and I’ll let you know what I know.
I thought I would write this post to be of help to others who are thinking of moving overseas or who have moved overseas. Managing money is very different over here.
First off, you need to figure out how can spend money. I don’t know about you, but in the US, we used our credit card for everything. Go to the store, pay with plastic. Go get gas, pay with plastic. Go get McDonald’s, pay with plastic. Get a pop from the pop machine, bum a buck from a coworker because you don’t have cash. Here, we can’t use plastic as readily as we could in the US. At some of the larger stores, we can (and do), but most of the time we cannot. This means we need a way to get money.
Our company pays us into a US bank account. When we use our plastic to pay for things, it comes right out of the account (it is actually a debit card). But, how can we get cash? Well, ATMs are all over the place here. We can use our card just as an ATM to get cash. Our bank absorbs the first 10 ATM charges (after that, we have to pay); however, we still have to pay Visa’s 1% exchange fee.
That’s something else to look for. If you decide to go this route, where will you get the best exchange rate? For us, it doesn’t matter alot for the amounts of money we are talking about. If I were to get out 2 or 3 thousand dollars, I’d make sure to look. But, I won’t be doing that so it doesn’t really matter.
But then, once you have your cash, how are you going to spend it? How are you going to do your budget? You do budget right? If not, go make one of those up. Here are some basic amounts from our budget:
Utilities: $200/month (electric, water, mobile, phone, etc….)
Internet: $30/month
Food: $400/month (includes eating out)
Supplies: $100 (diapers, wipes, cleaning supplies, etc….)
As always, YMMV (your mileage may vary). You’ll have to work out some amounts for yourself. But, once you have it, how do you track it? That question plagued us for about 2-3 months. We think we have a handle on it and that is the main point of this post.
We use MS Money (I know, I could–and should–use the free GNU Cash, but Cyndi is doing the computer side of this and is happy with money). In the US, we just entered transactions as they happened, split them, and categorized them. But here, we have 1 withdrawl every week or so…then we spend that cash.
Well, I set up a cash account in money. When we get paid, the paycheck goes into the right account categorized like it needs to be. When we withdraw money, we take it out of a generic Cash category. We deposit the amount of the transaction into the cash account. As we spend cash, we write that in a notebook we carry with us. Every day, we write down what we spent. Every week, we enter the amounts into the cash account in money. We categorize them there. We can then run the budget reports for several account (our checking, saving, and cash account) and see where we are across accounts (we transfer our extra utility money to savings every month to have for the winter). That will let us see how we are doing.
Everyone in the US grew up doing a few things:
Everyone knows these things. They are normal. They make sense. These units of measure are called Imperial Measurements. Just in case you don’t know, the rest of the world uses the metric system. Actually, according to Wikipedia, there are only 3 countries that do not use the metric system.
I don’t like the metric system. Not just because it is different….but because it is less precice. Here is just one example. Here is a whole article on wikipedia about it.
So, what do I do? Well, because everyone here uses it, I’m trying to use it too. I’m trying to figure out what a kilogram weighs when I hold it in my hand. I’m trying to guess if it is 25 or 30 outside. I’m trying to guess distances in kilometers. We haven’t bought a set of metric measuring cups and spoons yet, so when we cook we still have to make changes. I use google quite a bit to make changes between types of measurements.
Ever heard of Griz? Sure…doesn’t everyone remember the quote from Jerimiah Johnson:
Old Mountain Man: “Can you skin griz?”
Jerimiah Johnson: “I can skin most anything”
<walk towards cabin>
OMM: “Now boy, are you sure you can skin griz”
JJ: “Just about as fast as you can find them”
OMM: Laughs head off
(Don’t get the reference? Check out this post for some clips from the movie I found on you tube.)
No, not that kind of griz….griz like in the picture below (click in to read more)
One of the blogs I have started reading is called a Yankee in Belgrade. Today they had this picture of this Serbian Tree House. I thought it was interesting and wanted to share it with everyone.
Image from Yankee in Belgrade via their blog.
[Update 12-02-2010 16:18:22] Updated to credit the photographer
Here in Serbia, when you are in a cafe, you can say у кафичу (u kafiču if you don’t like cyrillic). In the cafe esentially. In the kafe, a popular drink is Turkish Serb Coffee and кисла вода (mineral water…with gas…fizzy water…whatever you want to call it). Anyway, it is fairly popular and I like it. But, what is more interesting is that people here actually have time to sit and chat over a cup of coffee until it gets cold. Folks, that would never happen in the US.
The next time you grab your cup-o-joe in the morning, this of the Serbs. Pray that they would have an opportinity to hear the Gospel and believe.
