This picture was taken on my phone of character class at the studio. The lady all in black is the teacher (with her hair down). Eleanor is the one looking backward in the blue leotard.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Somehow I sent yesterday's update from Will's email which is still loading on my Blackberry from a family trip last month. If that was confusing or you didn't get it as a result, let me know and I can resend.
I slept extremely well last night in my new room with my clean pajamas and the slight breeze. The only drawback to these rooms (other than the no A/C thing of course) is that they are renovating the building next door and they start pretty early. Since we have to get up ourselves though, it is a minor thing to me. I would love to see what the finished product looks like. Apparently the building is used as an arts academy.
Breakfast is at 8AM regardless of when I think I want to get up. :-) Today was omelettes cooked as we arrived to get them and very good.
I'm trying to plan my day. There are a couple of small art and history museums in Novi Sad and I might go armed with my map and try to find them this morning while it is cooler. I think I will adopt the custom of siesta this afternoon.
I'll try the museums tomorrow morning before it gets too hot....I was also considering the movies this afternoon as an escape from the heat but the first showing isn't until this evening. Maybe I'll try to sneak in and watch Eleanor dance a little today
....Brenda and I found the little mall we were looking for yesterday. There isn't much in there, but it is cooler than being outside--not US mall cool, but European cool. :-) We sat down at a little drink bar next to a kid's fun zone with inflatables and the waiter spoke enough English for Brenda to explain how to make a latte which she has been in search of. I think it's too hot for that personally, but then I'm not a coffee drinker either. They have a pretty neat system at the fun zone. For 200 dinars ($3.50) parents can drop off their kids and go shop while the staff watches their kids. I couldn't read the directions to know how the rate is charged (i.e. hourly or open ended) but it still struck me as a pretty cool system. There would probably be too much legal liability in the litigious society of the US for that to work well in an affordable way here.
I watched Eleanor's character class this afternoon (folk dancing). She doesn't have any experience with that really--I thought she did well. She is enjoying the classes. The Serbian teachers are excellent. Stevan seems to only be directing their rehearsals for the performance that they will have at the end.
Dinner was good, if unrecognizable. I think we had a meat and vegetable casserole of some kind--perhaps it was eggplant or squash. We communicated some more with the ladies in the kitchen. They appear to not want to accept payment for our laundry...I need to find out what would be appropriate and pay them anyway. We found out that Spasenka drives 2 hours each way to work...how awful...at least that is what we thought was communicated to us!
The door to the breezeway wasn't open this evening and it was quite oppressive and so I determined to figure out how to prop it open. Clutzy me broke it. I thought the hinge was similar to our spring-loaded mechanisms on the doors at school that you push just a little and it locks into place (open). Apparently not! With the help of a phrase book I managed to convey that to the caretaker and he is fixing it as I write this and Eleanor is watching the door for some of the girls who went to get a pastry. I'm not sure that I successfully conveyed the fact that I would be happy to pay for the repairs. I'm such a clutz! By the way, Eleanor is watching the door because they lock us in/out as a security precaution and he has to unlock the door for the girls to get in. There aren't any "fire doors" with automatic exit ability here like in the US either. Apparently that isn't required here.
The air is very still tonight. Stevan's nephew was going to get us a fan today but his father-in-law got sick and he couldn't go. If I knew where he was going to go, I would go myself. I think we are miserable right now because of the humidity. According to weather.com, it is 84 with over 50% humidity. That's at 10PM.
Back to the postcard fan for me (i.e., a postcard that I am using as a hand fan with my energy)!
Other random thoughts on Europe. Men wear capri length pants and carry shoulder totes across their chests here. We would think that was really odd at home but they think nothing of it here.
Crickets sound the same no matter where you are...there are lots of crickets here. There is something relaxing about them.
There are lots of churches here and all have a bell tower to strike the hour. That is also peaceful and picturesque to me. I hope I get to visit the inside of some of them.
It's after 10 here so I'm going to try and sleep through the stickiness...Ciao!
K and E
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