novikent's Xanga

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Tue, 27 May 2008 08:48:25 GMT

It's my last day in Novi Sad!! Ahhhh!!! My goodbye schedule is pretty ridiculous, but I found myself with an extra minute, so I thought I'd blog while I have the chance. This could very well be the last time I manage to update though (obviously I won't be continuing this in America). In a little while I have my last trip to the dentist, an excursion to Fruska Gora with my professors, and then a night with the best friends (including the last Dane haircut), and tomorrow I'll be packing like crazy and then leaving for Belgrade (hopefully in the morning) to stay with Ljilja and Desko for my last night in Serbia before flying back early Thursday morning (damn early). So, between all that, I somehow doubt I'll make it back to xanga... it's been real though.

The last couple days have been intense, but mostly fun. Sunday I said goodbye to the new friends, which actually turned out to be kind of anti-climactic, but whatever. Honestly, I'm kind of glad I'm leaving, because our times together were just getting too complicated. We spent our last day together at Strand, which is the fake beach on the (nasty) Danube here in Novi Sad. They love it there, but I guess it's just hard for me to appreciate when I'm used to the Outer Banks. I guess the main reason they like going is to see all the guys in speedos, of which there are plenty, so maybe I shouldn't be so critical. Either way, bye new friends!

On my way home from hanging out with them, I got a call from the party friends seeing if I wanted to go out - perfect. They couldn't come to my farewell party because of a wedding, which is a perfectly good excuse, so we made up for it with a night at Giardino. It was a good time, as always, which ended with crepes, so really you can't go wrong there. I gave them my e-mail address and everything but didn't get theirs, so hopefully they'll write. Zoran says he wants to move to America too (and seems actually serious about it), so who knows. Until then, bye party friends!

After the night out with them, I woke up at the ungodly hour of 6 am to go with Igor to Subotica so I could see it in the daytime. It was a tiring day, but I still had fun. Subotica really is a world away from the rest of Serbia as far as infrastructure/modernity, so I'm glad I got to see that. Plus, I got to meet Igor's parents, who are hilarious (and very reminiscent of Balkan stereotypes). I kind of feel bad for him, because they brought up his ex-wife non-stop... awkward times (they don't know about his live-in boyfriend of 3 years). After running around Subotica we barely made it to the train on time, and then sufferred in one of my worst Balkan travel experiences ever. Full train + 90 degrees + random stops in the middle of fields = no fun. There was one spectacular moment though when Igor woke up from a short nap, looked around, and said, "Where are we now?", to which the woman next to him replied "In Serbia. Still." Good times. Once we got back in town, we met up with Dane and went over to their straight friends' place (Sale & Lidija) for a goodbye dinner. The food was great, the company was great, and there was one particularly great moment when my friend Jelena turned to Igor out of the blue and said "How big is yours?" She meant flash drive... or did she? Overall, it was a fun night (even though I really crashed towards the end). Bye straight friends!

This morning I went to Azbukum to have a farewell coffee with Natasa (my school's director), which was nice. I wish I had gotten to know her better, but she was always super busy, and I usually didn't have an excuse to bother her (not that she would've minded at all if I had just wanted to hang out randomly, but still). If any of you are ever considering studying Serbian, come to Azbukum!! It was great. Bye Abukum!

Afterwards I finally managed to meet up with my landlord, and fortunately he was prepared with the 360 euro he owed me without any prompting. Now I'm rich! And by rich, I mean I can pay my credit card bill. Maybe. It's enough to make me wish I was a Serbian lawyer who seems to own half the apartments in Novi Sad. Bye landlord!

So, as previously, mentioned, I've got some more people to say goodbye to... and sometime I have to clean this apartment and pack and everything. Hmm. Not sure when that's going to happen. Eh, I'll sleep when I'm dead. See you soon!!!

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Sun, 25 May 2008 09:41:31 GMT

Well "goodbye" season is in full swing here in Novi Sad, resulting in a relatively full schedule and no time to blog. Thursday I made what will probably be my last trip out to Novo Naselje to hang out with the new friends (I still have plans to see them, but not at Rade's place). For whatever reason, of all my frequent hangouts in Serbia I'm probably going to miss that place the least, although it has much more to do with the bus ride and feeling that I don't get out enough than with the new friends as people. Obviously I'm still glad I met them and everything. Plus we had a particularly nice time together, and it's always good to end on a high.

Since I had been feeling incredibly guilty about cancelling on the high schoolers after my surgery, I rescheduled to meet with the second group on Friday morning. It turned out that it happened to be the last day of school (ever) for the seniors, so there were some attention-span issues, but I'm still happy I went. It would've been really not cool of me to leave without saying goodbye. In the end I'm not sure they really learned anything from me (or cared about anything I ever said to them), but at the very least I got a firsthand look at the Serbian education system and got to meet some cool teachers (especially Jovana and Nebojsa). And this time nobody told me that America has a corrupt moral system, so that was nice. I gave out my e-mail address to all the kids, but then later realized that I never learned ANY of their names, so it might be awkward if they actually write me. Eh, I guess I feel pretty much the same towards all of them, so maybe it doesn't matter too much.

After school I hung out with Igor downtown (as usual), and hinted strongly that I wanted to go out, but apparently he and Dane had other (sketchy, internet-related) plans. But, just as I was about to give up, I got a text message from my friend Jelena saying she heard I was looking to go out (apparently Igor called her), so even though it felt a little like a pity-hang out I still appreciated it. I hadn't spent much time with Jelena one-on-one before, but we actually had a blast. We started out in her apartment finishing off her rakija stash, and then wandered along Laze Teleckog (which was FULL of people) before settling on a second-floor bar on Zmaj Jovina. The whole experience reminded me how few times I've managed to go out this year, but maybe in the end that's ok given budget restraints (and it's not like I sat around at home, I was just always at someone's apartment). So yeah, good times.

Last night I had a big going-away party planned, but it ended up being mostly a failure. It turned out the majority of the usual party-at-my-place crew was either out of town or just didn't show (thanks, Lazar), so it was only the six of us who went to Lake Palic together (minus Jekic). I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty disappointed (especially considering the amount of alcohol I bought with the money I don't have), but the best friends helped make up for it by giving me a really nice going away present. Oh well, soon I'll be starting a fabulous life in Massachusetts (after my DC detour) and none of this will matter. The day was still pretty depressing in general though, because I had plans to go up to the fortress to check out the art galleries for potential souvenirs, but not only did I have no one to go with but it ended up raining all afternoon. Hopefully I'll find time Tuesday morning to make it up there.

In other news, I simply can't pass over the fact that the Eurovision Song Contest finals were held in Belgrade last night. As all reports on Eurovision must point out, even though it's generally mocked/ignored in western Europe, east of the former Iron Curtain it is still a big deal and a huge source of national pride. At my (lame) party last night we tried to watch part of it online, but my internet's not good enough it would seem. Now, overall I feel Eurovision songs are the epitome of campiness and kitch, but after watching some of the entries I think I could've voted for France and kept my self-respect (although after hearing the actual song I can't understand all that controversy about it being in English, considering I can't really understand a single word he's saying). Also, I guess the (admittedly strange) Bosnian song didn't make me want to die (unlike the god-awful Serbian entry). And I have to say, it was pretty hilarious when Jelena told us (to no one's surprise) that she voted for Bulgaria. But in the end, in case anyone cares, it all went to Russia's Dima Bilan, who was apparently produced by Timbaland. Yawn.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Wed, 21 May 2008 09:47:29 GMT

Yay! I can eat real food again!!! I just got back from my last trip to the dentist (well, actually I'm going back in a week just to make sure everything's healing ok), and in a few minutes I'm headed to a nice cafe/restaurant on the Danube with Igor. It's not as romantic as it sounds, but the food is really the key here. Mmm sopska salata... ok I'll stop.

In other news, I'm officially in my last week here in Novi Sad. As I've probably mentioned before, my flight leaves from Belgrade next Thursday, but since I'll have to wake up before the sun rises to get to the airport on time I'll be heading down a day early and staying with Ljilja and Desko. It still hasn't really sunk in that I'll be leaving Serbia so soon. What will I do when I can't walk over to the best friends' whenever I feel like, or pretend like I didn't understand something, or ride public transport without paying? I guess in the end it's worth the trade-off of not making a fool of myself at the Mercatur cheese counter every week.

Despite my oral impairments, I've been doing a decent job of getting out and being social for my last week. On Monday I hung out with the party friends, one of whom just got back from Prague. I have to say, I really regret not meeting them earlier, because they're damn cool. Plus, Zoran has a particularly amusing habit of talking to me half in English/half in Serbian (even worse than a former Hungarian friend who shall remain unnamed), resulting in lots of puzzled stares on the street. Good times. I also regret that I'd never been to the cafe where we ended up hanging out before, because it was super nice and super cheap! Always a good combination. Maybe I can convince the best friends to go with me one more time before I leave... maybe. If I'm paying.

Speaking of me paying, my stack of Serbian cash has officially dwindled down to nothing, and my $80 bank account isn't going to help out much. Theoretically I should be ok, because my landlord owes me 360 euro, but he keeps not scheduling a time to meet up, despite numerous text messages on my part (which was a big step). On the plus side though, the future tenant came by to check out the place, and he said he wants internet!!!!! Why is this such great news, you're wondering? Well, my internet contract lasts for a year, even though I only wanted it for 7 months, and my landlord said if the next tenant didn't want internet I'd have to pay for the rest of the year (which I was willing to do). But now, I won't have to! This saves me at least $100. Much appreciated.

So, since my financial situation is boring and I can't wait any longer to get real food, you'll have to wait until next time for any more updates. Hope it's not too inconvenient.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Mon, 19 May 2008 12:31:20 GMT

So I know I just posted 2 seconds ago, but I have to take this opportunity to complain once more about the Serbian language. As you are probably aware, I recently had surgery on my gums. As it turns out, the Serbian word for "gums" (desni) happens to be the same word as "right" (as in "on the right," not like "you have the right to remain silent"). This has led to irritatingly frequent use of bad puns: Kako su desni? A levi? (How are your gums? And to the left?). Yeah, not funny after the first time. I'm officially putting this one up there with weather-related last name jokes or references to certain superheroes.

Ok, I'm done complaining now.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Mon, 19 May 2008 12:14:04 GMT

It's day six of my involuntary hunger strike, and it's starting to be a downer. This weekend it was a particular downer when I was at Igor's family's country home on Lake Palic with all the usual suspects. Of course, I'm still glad I went and I had a great time, it was just rough to watch them grill for hours and then to eat yogurt. Again. Oh well. Like I said though, the weekend was still a success. I rode up with Igor and some of our straight friends in a car (I know! A real car!) on Saturday morning, and then the rest of the group (Dane, et al) came up by train later. There was cutting grass with scythes, there was riblja corba, there was badminton (I still say it's for grandmothers). There was even a boating excursion or two, which ended tragically for our friend Jekic (who fell completely in the water - which is supposedly where the entire sewer system of Subotica empties out. Gross). It was definitely nice to be out of Novi Sad for a while, and to see something new in Serbia, which doesn't happen nearly as often as it should. I was hoping to get to spend some time in downtown Subotica, since I'd never been before, but I ended up just walking around after dark for an hour with Jekic while we waited for our train back to Novi Sad (everyone else went back by car). I'm debating whether or not to take a day and go back, because it was definitely really pretty and unique, but it also reminded me a lot of Szeged, which was the most boring place I've ever been to in my life (including Williamsburg, and that's saying a lot). We'll see. We did manage to make a day trip to the Palic Zoo though, which was mildly depressing but not half as bad as the Belgrade Zoo. I felt particularly bad for the alligator, leopard, and grizzly bear. The elephant didn't look too happy either. It was enough to make me rethink my plans to frequent the National Zoo this summer.

Speaking of this summer, it starts in less than 10 days!!! I still have to plan move-out with my landlord (which, if you remember my feelings towards him, will be an ordeal), a probable final party this weekend, and a last visit with Ljilja and Desko. I have the feeling there are going to be some awkward times ahead, especially involving the last night dilemma of hanging out with the best friends or the new friends. Oh well, I'm sure things will work out.

Mexican food, here I come.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Thu, 15 May 2008 15:44:33 GMT

Well the surgery recovery is actually going better than I had expected, which is nice. I mean, I still haven't figured out a reasonable liquid diet, but I'm sure I'll come up with something. Today I went over to the best friends' to borrow their blender, so hopefully that will increase my options. But, since this is gross, let's not talk about it anymore!

Since I'm back to sitting around getting better, I've had lots of time to read all the latest on the aftermath of the elections last Sunday. As I mentioned previously, western media outlets proclaimed this to be a major victory for the pro-EU, democratic parties here in Serbia. However, upon further consideration, I have to say that that interpretation is misleading at best. First of all, if you add up and compare the various pro-EU parties (DS, LDP) versus the nationalist ones (SRS, DSS-NS, SPS), then they kind of came out even, with a slight advantage to the nationalists. The only reason this is seen as a victory for DS is because of their increased share of the vote over the last elections (and the Radicals corresponding decrease). Honestly, I think in the end these are the worst possible results for Serbia, because no one party/obvious coalition got any kind of stable majority, meaning whatever government comes out of this will once again be weak and unable to do anything worthwhile for the country. Worse still, no matter what coalition ends up ruling, all parties will be able to blame others for whatever failures may occur, and no one will claim responsibility for anything. I almost think it would have been better for the Radicals to pull a decisive win, just so someone would rule this country for once. We'll see I guess.

The latest news is that it looks increasingly likely that DS will form a coalition with SPS, aka the party of Slobodan Milosevic. In any other year, this would have been unthinkable. Local media is full of DS leaders explaining how their platform is close to SPS's if you really think about it (with twisted logic), and how the parties could have a great future together. I suppose it's true that SPS has changed a lot in the past few years, and in fact some of their leaders have come out and said they think it's important for Serbia to be a part of Europe and everything, but it just seems like such a turnaround that it's all kind of hard to swallow. I guess they're still in talks though, so we'll see if this coalition ever comes true. At least it seems pretty clear that Kostunica is out of the picture (finally).

So, I know this is probably tedious, but bear with me for one more interesting tidbit! My favorite part of this whole DS-SPS thing is that it all seems to depend on one particularly fascinating Serbian politician - Dragan "Palma" Markovic. Palma is perhaps best known for his relatively recent television interview in which he claimed to have listened to Beethoven and Chopin live in concert as a child and later stated that there are no homosexuals in his local town of Jagodina (gayromeo.com says otherwise). It is this fine example of tolerance and intellectual fortitude who has been the strongest advocate for SPS (his United Serbia party was on the election list with them) to work with DS in parliament, with membership in the European Union as their primary goal. Unbelievable. Turnaround isn't even the word for that. I guess this once again proves that there is never a dull moment in Serbian politics (although after reading this, I'm thinking you might just disagree).

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Wed, 14 May 2008 14:39:36 GMT

We interrupt this (ir)regularly scheduled election coverage to bring you the story of that time I got surgery in Serbia. No worries, it's not as scary as it sounds.

So, although I was supposed to get this operation last night, I ended up going this morning after someone came in with an emergency problem yesterday and they had to reschedule me. No big deal. Last night I used the opportunity of my pre-surgeryness to actually go out to dinner for once, and with the new friends! We went to BaBaReBa, which is really not their style at all, but they were nice and put up with it just for me. In the end I have to admit they do have a point about the hordes of sponzoruse who started arriving as we were finishing up. Oh Serbia.

But anyway, back to this surgery. The procedure (which dealt with restoring my lower gums in case you're interested) was supposed to take about 15 minutes, but ended up being close to an hour and a half. With that in mind, I would like to bring you a list of things you never want to hear during surgery:

Oops... oh it's no big deal.
Oh no! Oh my god, if I had dropped that I would have killed myself.
I wish I were as good a surgeon as Dr. So-and-so.
Are you sure this doesn't hurt?
Man, I have never seen someone bleed this much in my whole life.
Let's just wait for 10 minutes and see if it stops bleeding.
Where is all the blood coming from?

It was enough to make me wish I didn't speak Serbian. So, in case you haven't figured it out, the surgery took so long because apparently I bleed too much. My bad. Despite appearances (and the very occasional yet conspicuous lack of gloves), the doctors were very professional and I'm overall satisfied with how they treated me. Unfortunately though, I found out at the end that I am not allowed to chew or use my teeth in any way for SEVEN DAYS. As in, an ENTIRE WEEK. Do I have a blender? Nope. Do I have any idea how I'm going to survive for the next 7 days? Not really. Am I still going to Subotica this weekend, where everyone else will be eating delicious rostilj while I cry into my cream soup? Hell yes. I've cancelled class for tomorrow and my teaching at the high school on Friday (which I feel EXTREMELY guilty about since it was going to be my last day), but I refuse to be kept in the apartment for 7 of my last 15 days in this country. I might not be able to talk, but hopefully starting tomorrow I will at least be able to walk around and enjoy the spectacular weather.

That's pretty much that. What else is going on, you're wondering? Well, I did have one noteworthy encounter this week with a friend of Natasa's (the director of my school). It seems she's a lung doctor headed to a conference in Slovenia in a few weeks where she'll have to present in English, so she wanted me to give her intensive classes for my last few days. I said no (for once), but since I'm still a pushover at heart I told her I could meet her for coffee a few times and have informal conversations if she thought that would be helpful. She did, so we met at Teatar for an interesting afternoon of grammar mistakes and awkward questions about whether I think Serbian girls are the most attractive in the world. Overall she was actually relatively fun to talk to, just because of her "I used to be a punk you know" personality, but she was continually trying to impress me with how rich she was, which got old fast (like when she ordered an obscene amount of ice cream for us even after I told her I had just eaten). All in all I'd meet her again if she called me, although I still refuse to plan grammar lessons for her. This is of course assuming I will be able to talk at all before I leave. Ahhh two weeks!

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Sun, 11 May 2008 23:41:19 GMT

And the results are in! (Drumroll please...) It turns out the Democratic Party pulled a surprise victory out of nowhere, making it unlikely that the Radicals (aka nationalists) can form a government!!! This is big news for Serbia. Personally, I was totally shocked at the results. First of all, I expected more for the Radicals, and second of all, I expected more for LDP (the most liberal party). Either way, it seems pretty clear that a (slim) majority of voters have expressed their desire for Serbia to join the EU. Hopefully that'll actually happen one of these days. The best friends were so excited to hear the results, they said they might not even have to move to Canada afterall. I kind of still hope they do, but only because that means our chances of hanging out would increase by a lot.

So, since everyone was happy with how the elections turned out and wanted to celebrate, we all went to that party at the fortress. It turns out I had no problems getting in despite not having the "I voted" finger-stamp, since my friend Nadja explained my situation in her sexy smoker's voice. I had a good time and everything, but I have to say this was pretty much a caricature of eurotrash parties if you ask me. The DJ (probably called DJ Marko or something) even played one song whose lyrics went like this:

I just want to move my hips
And to kiss and smell your lips
While I keep riding on your dick
I know my thoughts are very sick

Over and over for half an hour. I continually try to explain to my Serbian friends that part of the reason techno music isn't as popular in the States is that the lyrics are generally so awful and ridiculous that we could never take it seriously. This would be the perfect example of that particular phenomenon. Kiss and smell your lips? I mean really. I have to say, even though I'm glad we went out and everything, tonight made me that much happier that soon I'll be back in America, where we don't stand for such nonsense. Our popular songs make much more sense. Or something. Maybe one of these days I'll actually go out somewhere that has music I would actually enjoy dancing to. Maybe.

UPDATE: I found out over the weekend that the DJ at the fortress actually was called DJ Marko!! I pretty much died laughing when I heard, but the best friends didn't get it. Oh Serbia.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Sun, 11 May 2008 17:11:08 GMT

Election day has arrived!!! Yes, it's the moment we've all been waiting for, and it's finally here! Of course, since polling stations are still open there are no results yet, but in approximately two hours we should know who has made it into Serbia's parliament. As the BBC article points out (although I'm still shocked they misspelled Zemun), these elections are particularly important as Serbia decides what to do about Kosovo and how much to cooperate with the European Union. Then again, every election in Serbia is hailed as "the most important since blah de blah," so I'm sure this won't be the final word. In fact, my prediction is that this election will be so close between the various democratic and various nationalistic parties that no one will be able to form a decisive coalition and whatever government ends up existing will be fatally weak and unable to do anything. Why would I think that? Because that's what's happened in every other Serbian election since the assassination of Djindjic. Maybe I'm wrong though. We'll see soon enough.

So what am I doing for election night? I'm heading over to the best friends in a few minutes to watch the results, and then rumor has it that there's a party at the fortress we might hit up. The only problem is that in Serbia (like a lot of countries) they stamp your finger with something once you've voted (so you don't vote twice), and in order to get in this party you have to show your "I voted" finger. Obviously, I didn't vote. We're hoping the bouncers will be sympathetic to my citizenship status and let me in anyway, but you never know. Then again, knowing Igor and Dane they'll probably get distracted by other amusements and won't want to go out anyway. We'll see.

This weekend I ended up staying in Belgrade with Ljilja and Desko almost the whole time. I planned just to go on Saturday with Igor to give him moral support during his English test (which he says went well), but in the end it was nice weather and Desko has all the latest info on the elections, so I decided to stick around until this morning. It was mostly a typical visit, with one unusual trip to a cosmetics fair to visit Desko's sister-in-law (whose looks continue to amuse me). I also got to spend the day on Knez Mihajlova with Igor, which was particularly interesting because of elections-shenanigans (which had to be clever since technically parties aren't supposed to demonstrate/have commercials 48-hours before polling begins). There was also some big environmentalist demonstration, but no one was paying attention because, well, it's Serbia.

In other news, I had one of my last days in Karlovci on Friday (my actual last day is this week, but this was my last time with that group of classes). I'm definitely ready for that to be over. I thought for my last class I'd have the kids debate whether America has its own unique culture or if it just takes culture from other places (the former obviously being true and the latter being the generally held view of Europeans). Of course, they all took the typical European stance, but whatever. Then, in some of my classes when I had time left at the end I asked them about the problems between Serbia and the US, and how they could be fixed, and I was shocked at some of their answers. One girl told me that Serbia and America could never understand each other because they have different moral systems, and when I asked her to explain she said that Americans believe it's ok to bomb other countries while Serbs find that unacceptable. Can you imagine?? Serbia has had 5 wars in the past 20 years!!! This girl has clearly never been to Sarajevo. Or Dubrovnik. Or any one of a number of places within 200 kilometers of the city where she's spent her entire life. Unbelievable. I kind of wish I had said something, but my number one Balkans survival rule is never argue with closed-minded nationalists, so I let it slide. I mean, I'm not defending anything America's been up to recently, but still, if there's one country in the world we can favorably compare ourselves to it's Serbia.

On that note, it's time to go see if Tomislav Nikolic is the new prime minster. Let's hope not!

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Thu, 08 May 2008 20:21:07 GMT

In exactly three weeks from this moment, I will be in a car driving down I-95 from Dulles to Kitty Hawk. Inconceivable.

In the meantime, life goes on here in Serbia. I've been hanging out with Igor a lot, frequently in English for aforementioned language test reasons, but the best part is we've started a new trend of going out for coffee in cafes downtown instead of hanging out at his or my apartment. Makes for a nice change. Plus we get to people watch and comment on them in English as if they don't understand (which, unfortunately, they all do). Last night I also had a reunion with best friend #2 (Dane), who I hadn't seen in forever. He seems pretty much the same though. It's weird to think that me not seeing him in "forever" means a week and a half, but pretty soon it'll be months and months before we get to hang out again. What will I do without the best friends??? Ok, I'm done being sentimental.

The exciting news of the day is that I made an impromptu trip to the dentist with Rade this afternoon. I'd been planning to go for a while, since it's so much cheaper here and everything, but just hadn't gotten a good recommendation yet on where exactly to go. So today after class I called Rade since I had the whole day free, and his answer was "Well, my friend just went to this one place and said it was good... want to go right now?" So we did. It turns out I actually have to have some sort of operation, which was fully explained to me but I'll pretend like it wasn't in the interest of not grossing you out. It's nothing serious, but apparently they recommend I not eat spicy food for about 2-3 weeks afterwards. Considering I live in Serbia, I don't think that'll be a problem. I'll be damned if I'm not having Mexican within 24 hours of arrival in the States though, surgery or no surgery. I have to say though, those dentist-chair conversations are even more awkward when (a) it's in a foreign language and (b) they find you particularly interesting and want to ask all sorts of questions about why you're studying Serbian and where your parents are from and everything. Yeah, I'm really ready for that to stop.

In other news, there was more talk today in gay blogdom about the Eurovision contest here in Serbia and whether it'll be safe or not. It seems the UK government is pretty convinced it won't be, which I might have to agree with. Some fascist groups have apparently said they plan on targeting people they think are gay Eurovision fans, which sounds pretty ridiculous (especially since the gay fans are likely to outnumber Serbian fascists by a large margin), but also makes you wonder. I have absolutely zero confidence in the Serbian police, more because of the recent embassy attacks than the often-cited 2001 gay pride bashings. I mean, I like to think of Belgrade as cosmopolitan and everything, but nasty things seem to happen there repeatedly, so you really just never know. In the end I'll probably be staying in Novi Sad (mostly because I couldn't care less about Eurovision).

What about those elections, you're wondering? Well, there's not much new to report other than a predicable last-minute scramble for parties to get their message out. My favorite campaign moves here in Novi Sad have been SPS's message wall at Trg Slobode (which is mostly filled with anti-SPS messages), and the Vojvodina Party's giant balloon with their best-ever campaign slogan ("Tacku na pljacku" - something like "put a period on the robbery"). I still call a win for the Radicals though. Sorry, Serbia... maybe next time?