The New and the Old

We went to Nis, Serbia last weekend and had a great time. We walked around downtown, went for coffee and drinks with friends and attended a flea market that is across the Nisava River from the hotel we always stay in while there. Great flea market and I scored a 1949 Russian-Serbian dictionary....in Cyrillic!

In addition to piles of household implements, food, junk, and used cars you always get to see sights like this. It is absolutely not uncommon to still see horsedrawn carts but I never get tired of seeing them and photographing them when I can.

That's our hotel in the background. And the lady in the second photo was at another market down the river a little ways at the more permanent market. She clearly wasn't happy about me taking her picture, but I did thank her.

Cherry Picking Time

These cherries were growing in the yard of our friends' house in Gracanica last week. They were a sour cherry and I was really thinking about asking for some to try to make a cherry pie. Then I remembered how difficult it is to buy lard here....never mind shortening. American pie does not exist here and there doesn't seem to be a big demand for shortening so making pie crust is out. And it goes without saying that Betty Crocker pie crust mix will probably never show up on the grocery shelves here.

But I thought these cherries were beautiful so I'm sharing them with you here. I wish everyone could see the fruits and vegetables that grow here. Janet, a friend of ours from Colorado, said one time that she thinks you could just plant a wooden stick in the ground here and it would grow. I don't think she's entirely wrong about that. The climate is really good here and you should see the topsoil. We drove by a construction site the other day that had a place dug out and you could see the dark topsoil and it was about three feet deep. I would kill to have soil like that in my garden at home.

Working on the Railroad

I really don't know for sure what this little building is that is located right by the railroad tracks near downtown Pristina. Right behind it is the Serbian and Catholic cemetery. It's not the old train depot, I'm sure, because as you can see it is way too small.

But I love this poor little dilapidated building. You can see where the name Pristina was painted on in Cyrillic letters and the old Communist red star has been either pried off or in some other way obliterated. I have tried to find an old picture of it on the Internet to see what it used to look like but so far no luck.

Just thought I would share a little piece of the past here.

My Future's So Bright I've Gotta Wear Shades....

....or not.

I am the first to admit that for some reason I'm attracted to obituaries and their accompanying photos, cemeteries and gravemarkers. I find it all fascinating. So naturally, one day last week when Tom and I were driving up in the mountains in the Novo Brdo area, I couldn't help but notice this gravemarker as we drove by. Even Tom admitted this was "picture worthy"and he backed up a terrible rutted road to get back to it. No, I didn't have to go tromping through the cemetery to get to it. It was right by the road on the other side of a barbed wire fence.

I suppose it's possible the photo that was used to etch this stone may have been the only one family members had. Who knows? Or maybe he was just a hep cat. That's what I like to think.