Current mood:

tired

My European vacation!
I haven't used livejournal in a while, but this seems like the proper thing to use livejournal for. I guess I should promote my career here too, but fuck it, or as the Serbs would say, jebenja.

First off, I met a nice girl in London, on my last night there. Her name was Mary, and she was a Brit from Dublin. She's the brunette. Her two friends spoke the worst English I've ever heard. Couldn't understand a word out of their mouths.



We certainly had a nice time together.



However, magically, we had the same type of disposable cameras that night... and I ended up with hers, and she with mine, and so I haven't any of pics of London, not of the touristy things I did, or of my hosts Jas and Christian, or of the friends I made.

But jebenja, dusa! I was off to Serbia the next day, which was one of the best experiences of my life. It would be too much of a pain in the ass to post ALL the pictures here, so I'll just do highlights, but they're all up here. Check 'em out, or odiejba, duso (probably mispelled).

First off, here's the Season Quartet. My favorite girls. They're performing at Zrenanin here... this is getting ahead of myself, because Zrenanin was the last concert for me in Serbia, and not part of the workshop formally. I had an extra day in Serbia so I just followed the quartet around where ever they went.



I also stayed with Ljuba, a friend of mine from the program, and his wife Nada, child Andrej, and flatmate Danijela, all of whom were incredibly gracious. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of Nada or Danijela, even though Nada escorted me at length around Novi Sad and explained the sights to me there - more below.

I noticed she used the term "too much" instead of "so much" or "so many" a lot... "too much good times, too much nice people," etc. Anyways...

CAFE DE SOL! Fucking amazing place. 5 minutes outside of town, past some pig farm, it was built alongside a canal which is a tributary of the Danube. The water is perfectly clear, and hence, the patrons of the cafe have themselves a swim before and after their beers (Lav or Tuborg are the local specialities) or their Rakkia, a type of peach brandy. There was another Jaegermeister-like drink there that I was even more fond of.

We were there every night after rehearsals, which happened in the afternoon, 'til midnight or later. It was mostly outdoors in lawnchairs. Fucking beautiful... I saw three shooting stars the second night I was there. Unfortunately, I didn't take any shots of the canal!



Here's Anna, the violist. What a smart ass. She was 2 months pregnant and always complaining about how she couldn't smoke or drink. Also, how she always had a headache. She told things like they were and didn't cut any corners. Very appropriate to her instrument, I would think. She got busted speeding coming out of Novi Sad on the way to Zrenanin on the final night I was there.



Here's Milan, the Serbian Matt Harrison. For those of you who don't know who Matt Harrison is, he's a gifted songwriter, a bit of a freak, who looks like a big nerd, and is, but can party with the best of 'em. The same is true of Milan - a really nice guy, a brilliant performer, and was out every night, drinking rakkia or going dancing. The only thing I didn't like about Milan was his thong that he wore at the canal. Yeesh, Europeans, put some clothes on!



Here's Alexandra Vrebalov, my matron saint. She's a bit of a local celebrity out there - done well for herself, and her grandmother was a war hero - a physicist who fought with Tito's partisans! There's a bust of her in the park outside the City Hall where the student performance Sunday night was.



Assorted Serbs - friends of some of the Serbs in the program - came up from Belgrade for a few days and sat in on classes. ALL were highly trained musicians from academy. One of them was quite pushy in his musical opinion, actually. All very bright, perhaps a bit distant at first, but good conversationalists none the less.



Ok. Here's Misha, who was a nice gal, but not my closest friend on the trip... still... has a more stunning looking girl ever graced the Earth? I'm not sure... Hitler definitely had it wrong with his master race crap. These Serbs are far closer to a "genetic ideal". I took way too many pictures of Misha; you can see 'em at the photobucket site. I joked with her a lot that we were going to ship her to America, make her a big star, and I'd be her abusive producer, and she'd end her days in despair at some cabaret joint in Vegas. It could happen, folks!

In the foreground of the beautiful girl are the beautiful beers - Tuborg, I think. Lav is also excellent, and a large bottle is the equivalent of $1 USD. Fucking beautiful.



Check out this amazing graffiti, from Sombor. I couldn't make this up:



And here's Mina. Oh, Mina Slina! Dzidzi midgi! (that's Serbian for "cute" or "adorable", sort of) As you might except of a 1st violinst, Mina was the star of the show, very flirtatious, outgoing, a bit of a dilletante, but highly skilled, absolutely gorgeous, charming, and highly solicitous of me, which made me feel good. She was at the Cafe de Sol every night as well - actually, the whole quartet was.



And what, you might ask, was this? That was my question, too. It was plastered to a door in the old City Hall, where we had rehearsals in an incredibly stuffy, hot, room with a chandelier and baby grand piano. Mina explained that it's anti-rightist propaganda. Right down the hallway was pro-rightist propaganda... a "Whither Vojvodina?" poster. For those who don't know, Vojvodina is sort of the "sudatenland" of Serbia, a Serba enclave in northern Kosovo. Most Serbs, even leftists, don't want Kosovo to go...



Whereever I go, I have to pick up the prettiest girl and carry her around. This was at an amazing fish stew + all you can drink wine dinner we were treated to by the Sombor Cultural Center. I made a bit of an ass out of myself with this move, but you only live once.



Mina was not amused.

Oh, Angelina (hard "g" sound). Mina may be the star, but Angelina would be the one I'd marry and take home to mom. Or take myself home to her mom, perhaps. As 2nd violinist, she was also cute, outgoing, but considerably more reserved, more deferential, and had more interest in traveling the world, playing Irish jigs, etc. Also very dzidzi midgi and solicitous of me. I almost put the moves on her, but it just wouldn't have been right. She's too nice a girl. I am going to write a piece for her and Mina though, at their request. I hope she's able to make it out of Serbia and see the world... it's incredibly hard to get a visa out of the country...



And this kind of sums the two of them up, for me. At the Cafe de Sol one night:



Sombor is full of weird sights. They sell shoes and jewelry out of display cases in the middle of the street - much weirder than it sounds. And here's a woman in a box.



Not a real woman.

Here's the coffee spot right below our school where we went before class and during every break. Class was more or less just in the morning; after lunch at the dorm (where there were no shower curtains or laundry) we went to individual lessons. Milan had the stroke of genius of driving the instructors to the Cafe de Sol, which was indeed a great decision - combine learning with beer and swimming.



The folks in this picture are Stasha, Misha, Tea, and Ljuba. I don't know if Ljuba is as handsome as the girls are hot, but the whole country was just completely ridiculous in that regard. Also notice the cool statue of the woman with the coffee cup on her head. We got tons of espresso smleko here...

I ran out of disposable cameras at one point, so sadly, missed the photos of the student concert in Sombor, in front of this HUGE painting of Austro-Hungarians just slaughtering Turks in the new City Hall. Too bad. It was quite a concert... afterwards we had one final jaunt to Cafe de Sol, where we had the run of the place and played a good deal of foozball, and did some dancing. Turns out Prof. Vrebalov is a great dancer as well as a composer... who would've thunk it?

Anyways, the next day I went to stay with Ljuba, at his invitation, in Novi Sad. As I mentioned I haven't pictures of Nada or Danijela. Too bad! Novi Sad is amazingly beautiful. It looks like a total planned-economy dump from the outside, but the downtown is just amazing as hell. They had those painted, ceramic cows that we had all over NYC a few years back. As in Sombor, lots of people drinking espresso or beer or wine outdoors in the middle of the day... cafes up the wazoo...

Ljuba and Nada plied me with food while I was there... Serbian burek, which is cheese-based, and moussaka, which was cheese and potatos more or less. Homemade, and really fucking delicious. Plus more Turkish coffee than I could possibly digest.

Their kid Andrej engaged me energetically in Serbian. I taught him how to high-5 (batsi pet!) and played cars with him. The poor young parents are living in an incredibly cramped 2 bedroom 5 minutes from downtown, but they seemed happy... Danijela wasn't around much because she worked at a casino (as a bartender? hostess? wasn't sure) while she went to med school during the day.

Nada took me to the Danube and the citadel across it... really, totally beautiful. There are many pictures at the photobucket site. I encourage you to check 'em out, because the Danube really is beautiful, and the Citadel, built by knights templar way back in the day, has been converted to an artists' residence now, but there's still leftover artillery from WWI on a hill up there...



I spent the day in Novi Sad and then met up with the quartet, and we drove to Zrenanin. I don't have a very good picture of the cellist Kata. She was a bit dowdy, very shy, and very nice. Anna got busted for speeding out of Novi Sad, but we made the concert. I was just tagging along at this point - the official student concert was done, and most of the students had gone home, either to America or Belgrade. But I had a spare day to kill so I thought I'd check out the South Oxford Six's concert in Zrenanin (the SO6 were the teachers of the workshop, including Alexandra V., and my old friend Mike Rose, who also knows DJ Pu Yi, and who really loosened up on the trip, especially once the rakkia was flowing... just look at that shirt!)



Anyways, Zrenanin was beautiful on the inside, just like Novi Sad. The quartet and composers were stressed out before the concert, because time was short, and they had to cut some pieces. They told me they couldn't do my piece, but Mike went and talked to the quartet, who were having a breakdown - Mina especially - and they insisted on doing my piece! So I got a whole second performance, and it was great. Twice as good as the official student concert. Mina was in tears over accidents that no one could notice at the end of the concert, but even Dan Sonenberg's piece, which got quite bollixed due to some dropped and misordered sheet music, sounded great.

It was hot in there, though! Actually, the whole country was hot! I guess London was pretty damn hot, too.



After the show, we all went (except Alexandra) to this amazing fish restaurant out of town about 20 minutes. I saw more portents in the sky - this time a huge dry thunderstorm. We got to the restaurant, with a windmill outside of it, and rushed it just as it began to pour. There were animal trophies like crazy all over the walls, and unfortunately, I don't have any good pictures of them. We ate plate after plate of fish, and bottle after bottle of wine. A local band consisting of accordion, upright bass, and guitar, came and serenaded us. They played Serbian and a few American tunes. The thunderstorm knocked the electricity out, and for awhile we ate by candlelight.

After the dinner, I drove back with the quartet to Ljuba's place, where I said goodbye to all of them. Maybe I should have proposed marriage to Angelina right there, I'm not sure. In any event, I really hope I see them again. They were just like a little rock band. I woke poor Ljuba up at 1 am, which I feel pretty lousy about. Oddly enough, he was sleeping on the fold-out couch with me instead of with his wife and child in the bedroom...? But I just assumed that maybe this was some Serbian cultural thing I didn't understand. Anyways, it wasn't "like that," you know.

The next day Nada took me to the bus station, and I said goodbye to her and Andrej and took the bus to Belgrade. I must admit I cried like a little girl to leave Serbia. Too much nice people, too much cheap beer, too much high standard of living.

Then I did some totally hardcore commuting - I took the bus to Belgrade - no English, mind you - took a cab from the bus station to the airport - took a flight to Heathrow (15 mins delayed) - took the Heathrow Express to Paddington (not the Underground, a different rail system) - walked to the Underground, took the Bakerloo line to Waterloo train station, and then took a Eurostar to Paris, where I was met by my erstwhile hosts Marie et Neil.



I stayed with them in the dix-huit arrondisment (18th neighborhood, more or less) in their flat. Marie had a surprise for me: she was 6 months pregnant! But she still went out and cruised around with us. The first night there we went to a music venue called La Fleche d'Or, which seems like a good place for the Missing Teens. I met a nice girl there by the name of "Moon" (actually Lune). She asked me where the after-party was, but I still didn't have the address where I was staying or my hosts' phone number, so I was a bit fucked in that regard. Still, I met up with Moon a few days later, after seeing le Musee D'Orsay with my old friend Arian Saleh, and we had coffee together. Here she is, folks!



There are many beautiful pictures of my Parisian visit on the photobucket site, so check them out. Paris really is an impressive city; even more so than London, there's famous shit EVERYWHERE. And it's cheaper and easier to get around. Still not as cheap as New York, though. Never thought I'd say THAT.

The most beautiful thing I saw in Paris was Sacre Coeur. One of the only buildings I've ever seen that literally made me say, "Wow, that is beautiful" out loud over and over again. I took at least 3 pictures of it, and went in and observed prayer - but check it out: God deleted my photos! ALL my other photos of Paris came through, but there are none of Sacre Coeur! He must have known I felt bad about being an atheist during prayer...

But I've got news, God - I can just get a picture off of the internet! So fuck you! That's on the photobucket site, too.

Here's one touristy thing... me outside L'Arc de Triomphe, which is HUGE, and awesome.



I was only in Paris for 2 days, sadly, and it was raining the whole time. In the middle of the week, too. At least I had one good weekend in London, but I really need to go back to both towns and give them a fair shake. Being back here, I haven't really adjusted, perhaps because my home life is odd with my cat and my new roommate situation, etc., etc., but I've been having these naps where I wake up and think, "Uh, am I in Jas' spare bedroom in London? On Ljuba's couch in Novi Sad? Oh wait, I'm in Astoria."

There's so much more I want to say, but I've said most of it to y'all already, and I need to hit the sack. One last closing thought: Serbia looks just like Pennsylvania - rolling valleys, corn everywhere, occasionally a beautiful little forest with twisty roads, and classic American hits of the 80s playing on the radio all the time - Bananarama, post-Beatles George Harrison, etc.

Serbia I will miss the most.