Friends over

Jan. 11th 2008

As soon as I woke up - hehe, around 11 o`clock, shame on me - I ran to confirm with Miloš the reservation I did for Valerie and her friend, who were coming back home (Belgium and France, respectively) from Guča and spending a day here in Belgrade before doing so.

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For those who are misinformed, Valerie is a friend of mine from Liege, Belgium, that I had the chance to meet for the first time when I was in Cologne with Nara, december last year. We`re both crazy about balkan and gypsy music, and we also share this obssession about Serbia - some of the many reasons that made us become friends right away when we met. Having this said and explained, it`s not needed to mention how much we waited for this moment , this meeting in Belgrade.

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After a very light lunch - I can`t seem to eat a propper meal when the weather is this warm - I had a quick meeting with Toma, on a warm-like-hell early afternoon around here. We met on Terazije and, poor him, he was carrying this heavy computer to a friend`s place, to see if it was possible to fix it.

As soon as Toma and I splitted ways, I ran back to my place to see if Valerie was already there. Some half an hour after I arrived, the bell rang - and it was finally her!!!

After she and Julien (her french friend) took a shower and were ready again, we went out for a walk around town. It feels so good to know a bit more of the center of Belgrade like I know it now, and guide people around... Even in Rio, I was always ending up like some sort of tourist guide to friends from abroad. Now I even remember once my cousin from Brasilia said I should work tourism, haha.

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Oh, come to that, I must comment on the book that Toma gave me on my birthday. It`s kind of a guide of important historical 'buildings' around Serbia and Montenegro, from pre-history to the 20th century, telling the history of each one of them. The introduction is so cool, an overview on the region`s history and it`s art and architeture. Love it!It makes me miss my history books that were left in Brazil...

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Ok, back to Valerie and Julien, of course our walk had to end up where the centre of the city ends up - in Kalemegdan. We just sat there on the grass under a tree for several minutes, watching the rivers and updating each other with news from the past 9 months since our first and last meeting.

Watching the Danube :)

After that we sat on a cafe still inside the fortress, in front of the Cvijeta, for a Cola and a lemonade. More walks around, and Valerie asked me to suggest a place where we could have a some typical serbian food. Srpska Kafana (just around the corner of my street!) was my choice. Last time I`ve been there was with Milan, in january, and I remember getting back home completely drunk, feeling like floating on a sea of red wine with spices, hahaha. Nice memory.

Šopska salata with bread, some ajvar (hmmmm!), gulaš for Valerie, ćevapi for me, and something I can`t remember for Julien - I do remember that there were some potatoes and it smelled great.

Back home to change our outfits for more "going out" ones, Valerie and I headed to Skadarlija

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Skadarlija (Serbian Cyrillic: Скадарлија) is a vintage street, an urban neighborhood and former municipality of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in the Belgrade municipality of Stari Grad (Old town) and generally considered the main bohemian quarter of Belgrade, styled as the Belgrade Montmartre. (Wikipedia)

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I've been there last december, on the first night of Fecula and Rodrigo in Belgrade, with Nara, Toma and Ivan - so great!

This time, it was only me and Valerie. As soon as we chose where to seat and have a drink, our attention was completely taken by one loud table where the place`s musicians were playing songs that, of course, me and Valerie knew. We stared at them for several minutes, with big smiles on, when some of them noticed and invited us to come closer and enjoy the music together. Of course, there we were. After some of our favourite tunes, such as Evo banke cigane moj, the loud dancing and singing group of people started heading back to their tables, when one of them passed by me and asked me something in serbian, that I couldn`t get.

- Sorry, I don`t speak serbian - I said

When the guy replyed

- Aww, why not? (haha yes, in english)

-Because I`m from Brazil - I replyed.

When I said that, the guy opened his eyes widely like in shock, haha, and he grabbed his friend`s arm, saying "hey, she`s brazilian!".

After that, the entire place knew I was from Brazil, and I became some sort of attraction, haha. We were invited to join them on their table, where I felt like a guest on some crazy talk show, hahaha. They wanted to know how was life in Brazil, how was Rio like, about music, the language and this and that and, of course, how a blonde someone like me could be brazilian, haha.

In the middle of the whole thing, Val realised it was 5 past midnight - and being so, it was already my birthday! Everybody started screaming and wishing me happy birthday, singing and hugging me, and one of them even passed to me her mobile phone, where a friend of her - who was having her birthday on the same day - was on, hahaha. Crazy, crazy...

So, after almost 3 hours sitting there, singing along and listening to them singing every serbian and balkan song we could name, it was time to go back home, for most of them had to work early on that morning. We exchanged mobile numbers with them and went back to our place, both of us as happy as we could be :)

Val had to go back to Liege around noon the next day. But she`ll be back in october, for some more Belgrade ;)

Porque Belgrado?!

Sabem, é engraçado isso. Sempre que me perguntam "Mas porque Belgrado???", eu fico sem saber dizer o porque. Eu penso em um milhão de bons motivos, mas são motivos que eu não tenho como explicar falando, ou com imagens e fotos bonitas e tal. E tentando explicar com palavras, esses motivos soam como os mais bestas do mundo. E não são.

Meu tio, por exemplo, esteve recentemente viajando pela França e Itália, e se encantou com tudo o que viu. Uma das coisas que ele me disse assim que voltou, meio que brincando, foi "Você que diz que gosta de Belgrado, diz isso porque ainda não esteve em Paris, ou em Roma. É primeiro mundo lá".
Realmente, Belgrado não tem milhares de lugares lindos pra ver como tem Paris, ou Roma, ou mesmo Berlim e Londres. E certamente também não é primeiro mundo. Existem milhares de problemas aqui, e tudo o mais. E talvez por isso eu me sinta tão bem aqui. De alguma forma, Belgrado "sente" familiar pra mim. Meio como se eu tivesse no Rio.
Não estou dizendo que o Rio não tem milhares de coisas lindas pra ver - tem sim. Mas tirando o "circuito turístico", a parte "cidade do dia-a-dia" que nós cariocas conhecemos não é exatamente a mais visualmente atrativa. E são justamente essas coisas que eu curto no Rio. A parte 'cidade' meeesmo, cinza, barulhenta, gente pra todo lado no centro da cidade, carros enlouquecidos e etc. E acho que seja talvez esse "feeling" uma das coisas que me conecta aqui com Belgrado.

Desde que consigo me lembrar, nunca senti no Rio o meu 'lar'. Sempre achei que aquilo lá não era pra mim, não era o meu lugar. E de repente, me sinto em casa em uma cidade lá no finzinho da Europa, com outra língua totalmente diferente, outros costumes, outra história. E com esses que citei acima e mais milhares de outros pontos comuns com o Rio - e me sinto em casa :)

Walks - Caminhadas

Today was one of these days to walk, walk and walk some more... It's the kind of thing that I never get tired of doing here, be it when it's -10 or +35 degrees, like it was today.

As it couldn't be different, the spotlight for me was Kalemegdan, where I've been twice today: um by the end of the morning, and another one to watch the sunset. B-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l.

Hoje foi desses dias de andar, andar e andar mais um pouco... É o tipo de coisa que não me cansa aqui, seja no frio de -10 ou no calor de 35 graus, como fez hoje.

Como não podia ser diferente, o ponto alto pra mim foi Kalemegdan, aonde estive hoje duas vezes: uma ao final da manhã e outra pra assistir ao por do sol. L-i-n-d-o.

My first (decent) update :)

After experiencing winter here in Belgrade several months ago, I thought I wouldn`t like it here so much in during the summer. Of course I was wrong.

I mean, winter is still my favourite season of the year - maybe because it`s still something new for someone like me, coming from a tropical country. But still, there`s just something magical about snow and cold weather, specially here in Belgrade. It`s even in the city`s name (Belgrade meaning ~white city~), so I guess I'm not the only one to think so. But still, even during summer, this place have something I can`t quite put my fingers on, but it`s catchy!

After a 14 hours flight from Rio to Paris and then to Belgrade, arriving at Nikola Tesla airport was a familiar feeling, although this time I was not completely absent as I was on my first arrival here. After meeting with Toma at the gate we just headed downtown, to get to my place, have a glass of water (from the sink! I don think I mentioned this before, but here we can actually drink from the sink!) and then we went out for a fast lunch, a walk till Kalemegdan and quite some ice cream on the way. Come to ice cream, I must say Belgrade is a summer paradise to me: there`s ice cream everywhere, on every single corner, with lots to choose from. On Knez Mihailova there was even a round display for the ice creams, that goes round and round, rather hypnotising for an ice cream maniac like me, haha.

Kalemegdan was just beautiful. B e a u t i f u l. Seeing my favourite place on earth again, this time not covered in snow, made me feel like I`m really here again. It`s a magical place (Pedro will agree with me on this, I guess).

After all that, I came back to my place and slept like a stone till 2 am, when I woke up and came online to check my emails and for the quick update you can see below. And then back to quite some more sleep.

As soon as I woke up today - early in the afternoon, shame on me! - I called Sanja, to plan when and where to meet up. Of course, the choice had to be at the horse.

I can`t remember if I ever wrote here about the horse and the Republic Square (Trg Republike). Well, the horse is a famous monument at the Republic Square, right before the National Museum and the National Theater, and it`s the most famous meeting point here in Belgrade. There`s always tones of people waiting around the horse, with their mobile on their hands, waiting for someone. Now, during the summer, differently from winter time, all the cafes surrounding the square had outside tables, all of them packed with people. The water fountains were all working and the fans - just like those water fans we have on some concert venues in Rio - were working full throttle.

It was great to meet up with Sanja after 7 months! She took me to one of her favourite cafes in the city, where we had some coffees and sodas, and a looong talk. She taught me some serbian stuff, while I tried to teach her some portuguese as well. Then some more walk, and lots of talking, a bus from here to there and then back here, it was dark. I even managed to take a photo of the Metro before the officer come and say it wasn't allowed, hehehe.

reminds me of the huuuge stairs in some London tube station
After all that we bought big bottles of Coke and Ice Tea, sat on the bench of the street just around Palmotićeva, and talked some more, while watching young boys playing hide and seek on the street.

It's a weird thing to me to see so many people on the streets at night, going out, walking or even playing on the street like those boys. It's something completely unthinkable for me, from Rio, to see kids out at 11 pm, or people walking their dogs out, with no fear at all, just enjoying a warm summer night. Wish Rio was more like this...

Here I am now, falling asleep, and quickly finishing this post to get myself in bed as soon as possible. And I promise some more pictures for tomorrow!

In Belgrade! - Em Belgrado!

Already with my feet in serbian soil again!
Tomorrow I'll post photos, details, and everything :)

Já com meus pés em solo sérvio, denovo!
Amanhã posto fotos, detalhes, e outros vários etcs :)

Poll / Enquete

Dear readers,
Queridos leitores,

While I wait for the time I'm back with my feet in serbian soil, I invite you all to take the poll "Which do you think is the coolest country in Southeastern Europe?" - the poll can be found here, on the right menu, below the "about this blog" section.
Enquanto eu espero pela hora em que estarei com meus pés de volta em solo sérvio, convido vocês pra responderem a enquete "Qual país você acha que é o mais legal do sudeste europeu?" - a enquete pode ser encontrada aqui, no menu à direita, abaixo da sessão "about this blog".


More 7 days and I'll be updating the blog with new pics, videos, stories and all :)
Mais 7 dias e eu vou estar atualizando o blog com novas fotos, videos, estórias e etc :)

Till soon!
Do skoro!

- Maria

!!!

The cool news?


Within 15 days I'm back to Beograd!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Soon there's gonna be lots more to tell here (and to think I'm not even close to finish writting everything about my first visit to Serbia and the Balkans...)


:)))))))))))))))))))

Collage 2008

I have this sort of "tradition": when a year starts, I always make a collage for the cover of my schedual book. Not an ordinary collage, but a special one, with things that somehow means something to me, and things I wish for myself and my dear ones during the year that had just started.

Due to everything that has happened to me in the past few months, since the year started (not worthy mentioning here, now), I ended up not having the time and the "mind" to make my cover collage. Only yesterday I finally took a couple of hours to do it - it's june, for heaven's sake! But it's never too late to finish something as important as this is for me: so there you go :)

I like it :)))))))))

Hey Folks!


I've been away for some time, due to my work with balkan and gypsy parties and events and all. Now that everything has passed, I'm finally back to my 'normal' (or almost normal) life, so I promise to be updating here real soon ;)

"Balkan dinner", at Nara's

Sunday, 11/05/2008

Good food and drink: gibanica, ćevapi, šopska salata, ljutenica, wine, rakija, vodka and some bizarre home-made drinks...

Plus fantastic people: Nara, Lucio, Rodrigo, Solica, Bruno, Marina, Chica and Emilia...

Plus irresistable tunes.

It's priceless to have great people around :)))))

Happy belated birthday to my dear Solica and Kostovinski :)