Fame, Body fluids, Bathtubs, and Bumper Stickers

My life has been a mixture of interesting observations and experiences recently. Here are just a few of my tales...

1. Last week I went out to a cafe with some of my classmates for a drink. As I was drinking hot chocolate, M---, my classmate from Cyprus, whispered, "Look! That is an actor. He is on TV. I can't remember what TV show he is on, but he is Serbian actor." Once M--- pointed him out, I did realize he looked familiar. However, I do not watch much Serbian television. I'm not sure whether I recognized him from my brief glimpses of random Serbian televisions shows, or if he is one of the actors whose appears in the Kosovo is Serbia ads that I see at least once a week in one of the buses. We joked about taking our napkins or menus and asking him to sign them, but we decided it was a bad idea since we didn't know his name, his television show, or his language. So instead, we just relished in the fact that were sipping our hot chocolate in the same cafe as a Serbian actor.

2. Not quite as lovely, was one of my bus rides home last week. After standing for the first, twenty minutes of the ride, I snagged a seat. I was just sitting there congratulating myself on my ingenious timing in picking a bus that eventually had open seats when I heard a retching noise. I looked down on the ground to see that there was a trail of liquid running back and forth along the aisle. I then realized that I had chosen to sit behind a girl who had spent the last ten minutes of the bus ride vomiting. After suppressing my own urge to vomit, I looked down to make sure there wasn't any chance of the vomit running backwards towards my feet. I was in luck since the floor between our seats was divided by some sort of metal partition. The girl continued to vomit until she got off the bus two stops later. Of course, when I got off at my bus stop I made sure to go to the opposite door to avoid the river of vomit. It was a bit further, but well worth the few extra steps.

3. Now for something a little cleaner: Last week I resorted to doing some emergency laundry in my bathtub. Actually, I started out doing it in my sink and then switched to doing it in the bathtub, but that is a completely different story. I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed and scrubbed my clothes. The end results: an aching back, some sore knees, a lot of wet clothes that resembled cleanliness, a long search for places to hang the wet clothes, and new sense of respect for women around the world without washers.

4. All throughout Europe cars have bumper stickers that proclaim their national identity (The most common is an oval bumper sticker with the country's recognized abbreviation). Serbia is no different. Since my arrival, I have seen them everywhere. Not every car has one, but my guess is that 3 out of 5 cars have one. One interesting thing I have noticed is that there is two different abbreviations for Serbia: SRB and SCG. The SRB is the new abbreviation for Serbia, whereas the SCG refers to the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro (which was dissolved in 2006). Some people (and their cars) have not gotten the memo that the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro no longer exists (rendering SCG an invalid country code), or they just haven't bothered to update their bumper stickers to reflect the new country code/abbreviation (SRB). Perhaps even more interesting than this dilemma is the fact that within the last two weeks I have noticed several SRB bumper stickers that are accompanied by the McDonald's golden arches and logo "I'm lovin' it". I'm sure the bumper stickers were something given out by the McDonald's in as a value meal prize or special advertisement of some sort, but it strikes me as odd that I have noticed several of these stickers within the last two weeks seeing as how 2 of the 3 McDonald's in Belgrade have not yet reopened since they were vandalized (in the wake of Kosovo's declaration of independence). I'm not sure how long the McDonald's bumper stickers have been out there. My observational powers aren't always the sharpest -- the bumper stickers might have been distributed years ago (Obviously, only sometime since the abbreviation change that occurred in 2006).

In other news, I continue to have daily sightings of the dog in the window that I referred to in an earlier post. Although, last week I saw him standing up in the display window and barking for the first time.