Empty Nest

Wow - Kai and Ames have only been gone a day and I already miss them beyond belief! Can't say I'm complaining about the first 8 hour block of sleep I've had in 10 months though :) The cats are also looking around saying "hey, where's that little thing that runs after us screaming at the top of his lungs?". I suspect they probably need the break and the extra attention as evidenced by the fact that they've plastered themselves on me ever since he left...

Now I guess I'm left to contemplate our life here in Belgrade for a while, and will actually get to see some of the cultural events I've been funding for the last year. We give a lot of money to support local artists, galleries and musicians but the serb nightlife (dinner, concerts, parties) starts at 9 pm and really doesn't get rolling until midnight or so - WAYYYY past my bedtime with the little man is home. I think many people would be amazed at how rich the scene is here - lots of cutting edge visual artists, music, and dance that no one hears about because of the self-imposed isolation of the country - if they would just get Mladic in jail the world would be a lot more willing to create permanent connections. We'll see what this year brings - maybe after the Kosovo issue is resolved things will improve.

Funny thing in the papers today - I think this is pretty common in all former communist countries. One of the first big changes that the Soviets imposed was the renaming of all the streets to reflect the heroes of communism both within the actual country and also Lenin, Stalin, yada yada. The joke in Latvia is that they kept all the old signs in a warehouse and are ready to trot them out again when the great Bear rolls back into town. In Serbia, however, they've left many of the old signs up from Tito's rule (people are much more nostalgic about socialism here than in other countries) and just added a new sign with the pre-1940s name under it. Also, in some of the near suburbs apparently people have taken to naming their own streets and are using exactly the same names as some of the downtown signs. So now when I take a cab to a meeting or a contacts house I say the street "Karadjordjevic" for example, and then have to explain which of the 5 "Karadjordjevics" I mean. Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of having signs in the first place? Once you get used to living here it is really quite fun, but getting to that comfort zone can be frustrating for some....