Wow…the past month has been simply amazing. We were able to travel to Belgrade to see some old friends and meet some new ones. Cyndi and I had met a lady, her husband (њен мзж), and their daughter (ваш кћерка) in Richmond. Her and her daughter are in Serbia for the summer and invited us to Belgrade to visit. While there, we met her parents, her brother, and his girlfriend. On the bus ride back, we met a guy from a town near here whose mom teaches english. We are going to try to call her and arrange a visit sometime this month.
In addition, we have spent the last month in language training. Wow…that is way way harder than I ever thought it would be. But there are some cool things about the language as well. Instead of saying “I am drinking water” you can just conguate the verb drink (пити) to mean I am drink (пијем) and add the noun for water. So you can simply say пијем вода. Pretty cool. But then you have several cases to deal with: Lokative (used when you want to tell someone where you are) and others with other uses. Keep up on our blog because I plan a series of posts about that very thing. The easiset way to do that is to subscribe to our rss feed using your favorite reader.
Before we left the states, we had some friends give us some money and I told them I would buy a bike with it. Well, I did and was very excited; however, late last week, some low-life stole my bike seat Arg. I just went to the bike store today to try to get a new one. I tried to tell the guy that I wanted the same seat that was on it (it was comfortable). He took my number and his boss is going to call either this afternoon (постле подне) or tomorrow (сутра). We’ll see what happens.
One humourous story….On our way home from language class on Friday, we got caught in the rain Read more about it in this post. We thought about calling a cab, but decided not to. By the time we changed our minds, we were within 2 blocks of home. Speaking of rain, it has rained quite a bit here. This post has a video of a frog-choker of a rain storm.
We got gutsy and took out our bike trailer a few weeks ago for the first time. I’m sure we were the talk of the town, but it made for a good way to get Lydia around. It also makes going to the store way eaiser (and we don’t have to borrow a car). We can just put everything in the trailer and go. In the next month, I’ll probably try to take Lydia on a longer ride with me to let her see the countryside….we’ll see how that works.
We have noticed several differences between the US and Serbia. One is all four wheels on the buggies at the store swivel. The second is in how we buy milk. The third (and biggest so far) is the use of “Serb Screens.”
The Serbs have their own version of coffee. They don’t drink drip coffee of espresso (not normally). They drink Turkish Serb coffee. Want to learn how to make it yourself? Go read this post. Want a pot? Let me know and I will send you one and some coffee. I like it! A lot!
Before we left the US, I thought I had a handle on the best ways we could communicate with people back in the states. Now that we are here and I have read a bit more, I wish I had made different choice. Why? Well, I like companies that use standards and aren’t closed and proprietary. Why? Well, if everyone uses the standards, then things just work together. If you want some more details, go read this post and the update. I talk about different things I tried before leaving the US. In the end, I wish I had chosen Truphone over Vonage and Gizmo over Skype. Why? Standards and the options that using open standards brings. Options in equipment. Options in choices friends can use to communicate with you. You can choose what you want to use and aren’t tied to some piece of hardware or software that some company tells you you must use. If
While you are thinking about us, remember to pray that we would continue to meet people. We are looking for ways to be involved in people’s lives. We have met several people and are working on several other things that may pan out. I already have a friendship with 2 people in town. Keep those friends in your prayers. Also pray for our families back home. My parents are getting ready to move overseas and Cyndi’s parents are in Proctorville. Our vonage phone was down for about one week so that made it hard to keep up with everyone. Also pray for Serbia. There are some protests scheduled in Belgrade next week.
