Goodbye Belgrade, Hello Derry

I arrived in Northern Ireland a little over two weeks ago.  It was a journey and a half.  It started with my departure from my apartment in Belgrade via bus at 2 am.  I arrived in Derry/Londonderry around 9 pm.  I safely made it through UK immigration after presenting my prepared folder of documents explaining my presence.  My immigration experience did involve a short, friendly informal interview and a brief waiting period in which everyone else freely entered the country while the immigration officials checked the validity of my story, but I found a friendly smile made the process much smoother.  Or maybe it was the numerous documents proving I was a legitimate, financially supported volunteer?     

Even though my border crossing still involved a few minutes of nail biting, it has started to sink in that I am no longer in Serbia.  Things have certainly changed.  I have gone from the culture of coffee to the land of tea.  I no longer here the standard, "Do you want coffee?"  Instead, it is, "Do you want a cup of tea?" I now live with C. and C. instead of J. and J.  C. and C. are both law students.  

One of the first differences I noticed was the food.  The lack of ethnic food in the Balkans was always a sore point among us Balkan BVSers.  A good example of this is the weekend I met Tory and Katie (the BVSers in Sarajevo and Mostar) in Novi Sad.  One of the highlights of our weekend was the Chinese restaurant.  If you could have seen the excitement on our faces and heard the awe in our voices, you would understand the treasure we had found in the restaurant. Since my arrival, I have not faced the same dilemma.  In the London airport alone I was overwhelmed with the choices -- hummus, Thai dishes, Chinese food, Indonesian, Japanese, Ben & Jerry's (Okay, I admit it is not ethnic food but it is a delicacy).  The overwhelming food choices have continued in the supermarkets in Derry/Londonderry.  In the last two weeks, there have been several times I have stopped for a basic staple (milk, bread, etc.), but spent an hour just walking through the store looking at all the variety.  It is a fun way to pass my free evenings.  I'm sure to most of you this is odd since you probably don't spend your free evenings wondering through supermarkets, but I guess a year in Serbia has made me Hopefully this is a short term effect.  I did notice one difference between the supermarkets here and in the U.S. (or at least as I remember the supermarkets in the U.S. -- specifically small town Indiana and slightly larger Las Cruces)  -- there is a much larger market here for organic and free trade products.  Almost all products offer an organic version and many offer a free trade version.  

However, there are some similarities to my time in Belgrade.  For instance, I still have trouble understanding what people are saying.  I thought I would be fine on this front since English is the primary language.  I was wrong.  English might be the primary language, but I am still getting used to the accents and the "English" vocabulary rather "U.S." vocabulary.  There are still moments when I have no clue what someone has just said because of the accent or the 'English' words.  

I had several points I wanted to write at this point (about other similarities and differences) and I will add them on Monday.  However, I was just given the opportunity to head home for the weekend and this is an opportunity not to be missed.  It is 12:30 pm on a Friday.  I will work on writing up the rest of my thoughts on this matter to be posted on Monday.  Check back then for further information on this topic and my period of transition from being Balkanized to becoming Derry-ized.  I will also add one brief paragraph for your weekend enjoyment that I have already written up expanding on some of the adventures this week has brought:

This morning I woke up to find we had no electricity.  This was actually the second morning in a row this had happened.  We (like many houses here) have pre-pay electric.  You put a certain amount on your meter and when it gets low it starts beeping.  This lets you know you need to put more money on.  The first time I heard it I thought we had an unknown (to me) alarm system and I had set it off.   This system is a good way to monitor how much electric you are using; there are no surprisingly large bills at the end of the month.  This system is also a good way to make certain you will at least once (or twice and counting if you live where I do) wake up without warm water, lights, or heat.  Thankfully, my alarm clock is not dependent on the electricity.  I should mention that I have never been a morning person and it is extremely challenging for us morning-challenged individuals to be motivated to leave your warm, cozy bed if there are not any consolation prizes awaiting.