April 13, 2024

It’s (when, if ever, is it right to use “its”? As a proud and passionate lover of contractions and abrveeves (and a literate English-speaker) I feel like I should know. Alas. (New record for quickest parentheses into a blog post?)(It’s getting egregious, I know.)) been about a week since I arrived in Belgrade. Now, Friday night marks the first adventure of mine out of the White Fenix (what Google says is one of BGD’s nicknames). About 20 minutes ago I crossed the border(?) into Kosovo, without much fanfare, despite all the hubbub. As per usual, I’m getting ahead of myself, and I’ll rewind to where I last dropped off. 

I arrived in Belgrade on Wednesday night and took a price-gouged taxi to my apartment, where I met my landlady, Svetlana. She’s beyond kind and very welcoming. My room is really great, a queen bed with amazing views of the old city and the picturesque old fortress on a hill. The windows face west, and every day I am treated to the evening’s buffet of red-gold hues as the sun retires. The building is a pretty typical Yugoslav block. My favorite part of the whole place is the elevator. There’s just one unlabled small protruding button on each floor, which you press to summon the lift. The outside metal door has a key you turn and then pull, and then you can enter. The compartment floor never quite lines up with the outside floor, so you always step up or drop down an inch or two, and the lift always lurches down an extra inch or so upon entry. Inside is a set of two wooden doors with glass panels, through which you can see the stories passing by as you slowly ascend or descend. I didn’t do it justice, but the whole thing smacks of old communist infrastructure and I get a real (perverse and privileged) kick out of that experience being a part of my daily routine. 

I’ve pretty much got my daily commute down at this point, a tram to a bus in the morning, and a bus back in the afternoon (I always skip the tram to walk home). The office is on pretty far outskirts of the city, I shan’t say where, but the commute is about 45 minutes. Other Belgradian haunts I’ve really been enjoying are the promenade along the Danube and Sava, the ultra-local grill spot about 45 seconds walk from my front door, and Club Champions, a pool lounge with decent hourly table rates (watch out world, I’m approaching flaming mediocrity). 

Work has been really nice. She just left this morning actually, but I got to overlap with my co-co-op, Haylie, for about a week, and she was able to show me the ropes and some really good spots around the city. She’s been living here alone for three (mostly winter!) months, which is honestly super impressive and must have taken some real guts. I don’t know if I would have made it, especially as well and healthily as she seems to have. Kudos Haylie! A big reason I don’t have it nearly so bad is that there’s another intern, Zoe, who just got to Belgrade and is going to be here for pretty much the exact same time frame as me, so I’ve got a buddy in all the work. She’s sitting in front of me on the bus, in fact! She’s a really nice kind of sassy woman from Berlin doing a few internships before starting her masters next fall. 

Being here, even for just a couple of days so far, has been really healing. I’m not saying at all that I didn’t enjoy the nomadic time, but it was definitely draining and tiring. It feels in some ways like washing ashore onto a desert paradise after floating at sea for some time. My semi-permanent congestion has massively abated and I’ve been able to settle into some good habits of exercise, cooking, sleep, and relaxation. Originally I was scheduled to spend three months in Belgrade, but I’ve downsized to about two, mostly so that I can have more time to travel on my way to Japan, making a few stops along the way… (no spoilers!). Speaking of future (current) adventures, the bus is about to arrive in the Pristina Bus Terminal. The border road was surprisingly bumpy and unkempt, but the border crossing itself was perfectly pedestrian, no hint of the conflict at all. Okay we’re arriving soon  gtg byeee ttyl lolz xoxo