Stories from the city

Being different, going back from today to the days before ;-b.

No Change
If you ever get to Belgrade and you bring Dinar from Germany. Try to get the lowest notes possible (200, 100, 50, 20, 10). People here just don't want to give change. The consequence in restaurants ist, that you can never pay separate and in a big group you try to manage that everybody only pays, what he or she is supposed to pay.
Today I was really angry. I went to the Lilly ( a serbian drogery store) and wanted to buy some facial cream. At the cash register I couldn't pay and left without any things. The reason was simply that I had only 1000 dinar notes and she didn't have change. 1000 dinar is like 10€, so not lots of money and not having change in the store and thereby not serving cutomers is something I don't understand. Especially since there are felt a thousand banks across the street where you as a store manager or employee would be able to get change.

The couple
Another intern arrived in Serbia, who will be working on my project: Daniel from Brasil. And he brought his girlfriend, which is doing an internship at another LC here. They are always together and holding hands - so we usually refer to them as "the couple" ;-b. There are also insider stories about beds, rooms, ... :-D.



The tower
Linda has a friend from Serbia and he took us to a tower on a hill at the edge of the city, where you can see kind of the whole city.
So we went there by bus and it took us about 45 min. The city is really really big, though the further you get outside it looks rather like small villages then part of Belgrade. Also there are the new build houses.
So we went out at the busstation and walked up the path through the forest. Or I should say, we always took the shortcuts. At the top there was the tower: it looks like a rocket.
It has a great view yeah, but only through windows :-(. A balcony would have been way nicer. In summertime they also have a restaurant up there. At the other side of the hill, there ist the tomb of the unknown soldier (the for sure have something like this in every country). This one looks really impressive with all the black marble and sitting on the "stairs" the view was great!


Beggars
Linda (another intern from Germany) is leaving tomorrow. So I was walking around the city with her, so she could get some gifts. And we were also looking at St. Marco Cathedral since she didn't see that one till then. In front of the churches there are usually (at least all the times I have been sigthseeing in the churches) beggars. So she felt bad a gave when we went back out a small boy some money. He then called his sister, which was sitting in the parc next to it and she tried to get something from us. As that didn't work he followed us along the street we walked to get more.

Earlier that day we were sitting in the parc next to our hostel, enoying the sun, writing postcards, eating some frutis, chatting ... Then a beggar girl came up to us and showed us a sign. We couldn't read it as it was in Serbian. But we then gave her a banana and a pear and she went away.

The other day: getting lost in another part of the city
Tuesday we went by bus to a part of the city across the river where you have kind of like a hill with a church and a great view over Belgrade. But we couldn't find the way.
First we walked along the river since supposedly it should be close to the river, then we went back and asked somebody who told us to go in the opposite direction ;-b. We didnd't find it and we went back to another street to walk again in the wrong direction. I was already before saying that it has to be in the other direction, but well ...
Then we finally went in the other direction, almost the same way we went before and just some meters further to find the place (in the direction I thought it would be).
But the view was really nice and the sun was at that point better for pictures. So it kind of worked out.

Kalmegdan at night
Later on Tuesday we then were sitting around Kalmegdan at night and took pictures. But we also had bear, wine, chips, "Pistazien", nuts, ... with us. It was a really nice evening.

Supermarket
As you might expect that this is a supermarket. Well you are wrong. It is an kind of interior design and clothes stores with a restaurant. Just one of the most creative places I have seen in a while. And the food was also really great. Check out the pictures!
This was Monday evening and afterwards we drank coctails for about 2,50€ in a pub :-D!