We spent one night on arrival with Blazo's sister, Vjera, and her son, Djidja. We walked far enough to see the new American consulate in Podgorica, all new and freshly painted.
Thanks to Blazo's nephew, Djidja, we have a working PC. It will either stay in Petrovac year round or Djidja will use it during the winter --- I hope he has enthusiasm to use it, but it is a nuisance transporting back and forth. I still have to see if I have all the software that I am used to.
August 4-5, 2003: shopping trip to Podgorica. Djidja did yeoman's service, taking us around to many, many stores. We succeeded in finding a small table for the blue bedroom, more books in English, coffee service for 12, and a wall clock. We settled for an indifferent vacuum cleaner, only marginally better than the old one, but not as good as what we have in the USA. And we were totally unable to find any hard-to-get items such as a bulb for a flashlight and a reducer-adapter for a faucet (we are unable to attach a normal hose to it).
We took the bus to Podgorica via Budva and Cetinje --- lots of nice scenery. Of course, after miles of mountains and rocks, you wonder why anybody ever wanted to occupy Montenegro. We stayed over night with Vjera and Djidja, who came back with us by taxi and a trunk load of merchandise. Summers in Podgorica are ferociously hot --- we got there on a day that reached 39 C (101 F, I think).
Next challenge is how to share the kitchen with Vjera. For lunch we had the goulash that Blazo and I cooked the day before we left. I have the feeling that that will be the motivation for Vjera to do most of the cooking. The rest of us will help with shopping, and I will retain my title as Master of the Automatic Dishwasher.
The other interesting event --- RTCG (Radio Television Crna Gora, i.e., Radio Television Montenegro) sent a film crew a week or two ago to do a 1/2 hour program about Blazo as former chess champion. It aired last night --- the title (perhaps it is one of a series) was Veteran Sportsman. Yet another subtle difference in culture --- chess in the SF Chronicle is on the same page as the comics and the puzzles, not on the sports page.
Blazo called his cabinet maker to let him know that he could see his bookshelves on Montenegrin TV. What gave me a chuckle was that the two books that you could ALMOST make out in the bookshelves were (1) Learning Serbo-Croation and (2) Glastonbury Romance ---both are my selections.
Finally, back to our home away from home. No major catastrophes while we were gone. Such a pleasure not to live out of a suitcase. Washer and dryer are working. The PC is cabled together and working.
Remember those English novels from the 19th century where the upstairs folks send the servants (the downstairs folks) ahead when they open their house at the beginning of the summer. Well, we are missing the servants. We need someone to dust the house, stock the larder, and begin cooking. Also in this day and age, repair the plumbing. And in this climate, water and trim the shrubs.
So after four days, we are about half way through all those chores.
We took the bus to Budva to replace Blazo's cell phone. They have replaced many of the road signs. Tourist points of interest are now in brown, with pictures to identify each place (presumably coded to match local tourist maps --- that is the way they were in all the places we stopped at on the way). And the signs for beaches have a picture of someone swimming.
Mornings can be spent on the balcony. By 10 or so, the sun is too strong and we move to the terrace on the ground floor, which is shaded by the balcony. By 2 p.m., the sun starts to move in on the terrace and it is time for either a nap or a walk back to the beach and a dip in the Adriatic.
Blazo is spending the day (July 12) in Cetinje (he got up at 5:30 a.m. to catch the bus) for some ceremony beatifying some Montenegrin (Ivan Crnojevic if I heard him correctly, see http://www.montenegro.org/crnojev.html) --- why these warring people should become saints later on mystifies me.
I am reading Ivo Andric's Bosnian Chronicle --- Blazo found it in English in Podgorica --- it is also available on Amazon. Wonderful book if you want to get a feeling for the hopelessness of any meeting of the minds between Muslims and the rest of the world. But I am only half way through; maybe it comes out well. It has a lot of humor; otherwise it would be insupportable.
On Monday, July 21, we went to Cetinje together (8:30 bus not 6:30, thank you, Blazo). First task was to present the Montenegrin Orthodox Church with a donation (from Montenegrin Orthodox Church, Diocese of North America). Sorry, no pictures.
Second task was to present the outstanding high school student
in Cetinje with an award (Montenegrin Association of America).
The presentation was held in the main library. The picture includes
Blazo, the director of the high school, and the student, Goran.
Final item on our agenda was to visit with Blazo's friend and architect, Arso,
who is building a summer home in the mountains above Cetinje. His wife
Ljiljana (Lillian-a to my ear) gave us a fantastic lunch. The first picture
only shows the remains of desert. The last picture is where Arso was born.
We are getting the hang of cooking for ourselves. Blazo does the little shopping (a few items in the morning while buying his paper) and we go together for big shopping (Sunday is market day; and there is a SuperMarket, although it is not as big as Safeway or even Draeger's). We have been cooking together. I clean up afterward. I warm up the next day. Successes so far for lunch or dinner:
There was still lettuce in the markets in July, but as the weather gets hotter, it will disappear.
Arso has a car and brought us a huge supply of Vranac wine, prosciutto (ham), and cheese. Somehow we have a huge supply of rakija (brandy) from Blazo's friend Sreten.
On Blazo's last trip to the city of Bar (across the Adriatic from the Italian city of Bari) to buy a water heater, he came back with a lot of white cheese (slightly different from the Bulgarian feta that we eat in Menlo Park). Also two watermelons. So we are not starving.
However, for fish, nothing beats Danica's Castio restaurant in Petrovac. And when we had guests for lunch, we ordered various forms of rostilj (barbecued meats) plus French fries from the Pod Lozom restaurant up the street.
From the top of the monument at the harbor, you can get a
360 degree
view of Petrovac.
Blazo has been itching for a picture of the house here. There is a condo
going up about a block away, and we got a few pictures from the top (4th
floor).
Blazo was interviewed for an article in a local newsletter, Publika.
The newsman took some nice pictures as well and was kind enough to
send us a copy. They show off the front of the house nicely.
| Allende, Isabel --- Daughter of Fortune | Thoroughly enjoyable, although I doubt whether I will ever read it again. Walking a fine line between fantasy and persuasiveness. |
| Andric, Ivo --- Bosnian Chronicle | In Podgorica, Blazo went shopping with his nephew and came back with
English language versions of this and other books.
I immediately started on Bosnian Chronicle. Such a good book. I will give you back Andric's Bridge over the Drina, and if you like that we can decide who will buy a copy of Bosnian Chronicle for the US. The original title was Travnik Chronicle (it is set in Travnik, Bosnia in the early 1800's). An earlier translation was called Days of the Consuls or some such thing. The current title was most certainly selected because people have heard of Bosnia. |
| Gaskell, Elizabeth --- North and South | Bought in Podgorica. |
| Hardy, Thomas --- The Return of the Native | As far as I am concerned, the main character is Eustacia, not the native who returned (Clym). She certainly made a few mistakes, but none so severe as to deserve the disastrous outcome. |
| Ishiguro, Kazuo --- When We Were Orphans | The beginning was good but the 2nd half was unpersuasive. |
| Kafka, Franz --- The Trial | In Prague, Kafka's birthplace is now a bookstore. They had a good selection of books in English but I haven't started this one yet. |
| Kundera, Milan The Joke | Another Prague purchase. Very good if a little distressing. Silly me, I thought from the title and the picture on the cover that it would be a comedy. The book covers a man's life beginning from the time he is a student in 1951 in Czechoslovakia. He writes a postcard as a joke and sends it to a young woman who is attending a training (Communist indoctrination) course. He loses his position in the party, gets kicked out of school, and sent to work in the mines. 15 years later ... well, life has not been kind to him. |
| Lawrence, D. H. --- Sons and Lovers | Started. |
| Peters, Ralph --- Beyond Terror | One of Blazo's choices, he wants me to read this. |
| Reich, Wilhelm --- The Mass Psychology of Fascism | One of Blazo's choices, I haven't even seen him read it. |
| Scott, Sir Walter --- Ivanhoe | I was surprised how much I enjoyed it, considering that I picked it up expecting a children's adventure story. |
| Jane Smiley --- Horse Heaven | I started it at the end of last summer's vacation and hadn't finished it. So I started over. It is great for the first half but bogs down during the second half --- too much time spent on Rosalind, the wife of an extremely rich but uncultured guy. She finally decides to stay married to him, and gives him a party with their race horse as the guest of honor. It does get good again toward the end and the first half was a joy. |
| Tolstaya, Tatyana --- Pushkin's Children, Writings on Russia and Russians | One of Blazo's choices, I read a little of Pushkin's Children on the train but was not motivated to pick it up again when I had something else. |
| Wilde, Oscar --- The Picture of Dorian Gray and other writings | I read Oscar Wilde on the train and between trains and enjoyed the book very much (I still have a few to go in that book). |
| Woolf, Virginia --- Mrs. Dalloway | Mrs. Dalloway was pretty hard slogging for the first half, but I finally got into it. I can't say that I will read it again --- maybe if I forget it entirely. |
| Hardy, Thomas --- Far from the Madding Crowd | Bought in Kotor; not started |
| James, Henry --- The Aspern Papers | Bought in Kotor; not started |
| Cooper, James Fenimore --- The Last of the Mohicans | Bought in Kotor; not started |
| Fielding, Henry --- Tom Jones | Bought in Kotor; not started |
There was one other book, the title of which I have forgotten. It was supposed to be a mystery in which you learned economics at the same time. It was unconvincing as a mystery and I left it on the airplane.
And I am working my way through a book on Javascript.
The artist's sister was so eager that Blazo and I attend that she gave us a ride --- quite an undertaking to come from Bar on a Friday night (lots of traffic) considering that she was the organizer of the event with other commitments, I am sure. She was going to take us back, too, but we didn't want to wait until e veryone else had left, so we took a cab.
We picked up Mijo the sculptor (he lives in Sutomore, which is between Petrovac and Bar) to attend the Art Exhibition as well. He said he had ordered a ton of rock from Durmitor. He is still polishing rocks. I asked him what he did with the leftovers, but I had trouble understanding the answer. (Go to http://www.montenegro.org and take the sculpture link to see examples of his work.)
Ljubo and his sister (Tanja) dropped by on Sunday to see the web page (http://www.montenegro.org/ljubo/). He said that he has licensed another version of his Montenegro mosaic for use on billboards. That will be interesting to see --- unlikely to show up while we are still here. His use of the Coca Cola emblem appears to have a mercenary motive. His English is not great, so perhaps I am not getting the intent properly.
Ljubo's sister Tanja is a painter --- she lives in Paris. She had her own exhibition in early August. Pictures are at http://www.montenegro.org/tanja/index.html
Usually we take the bus, although when Blazo has gone to Bar to go shopping, he has come back by cab. Hard to carry a water heater and 2 watermelons on the bus.
How is the bus service? Well, nominally, it is very good. The schedules are posted and buses run frequently. They are generally clean and not too crowded. Some are air conditioned. They seem to have more than their share of breakdowns --- sometimes a bus simply doesn't come, and the explanation that Blazo gives me, which presumably is the explanation that the ticket agent gives him, is never very helpful. We were on a bus to Sutomore last year that broke down, so I assume that is the explanation. But this year we took a bus to Kotor that came 10 minutes early, so that is another explanation --- if we hadn't been more than 10 minutes early, we would have missed it.
We are pleased to see that many things are improving each year. Garbage removal is reliable (although they are squabbling about where the landfill should be). Water seldom fails. Electricity was stable until a thunderstorm took out a transmission tower. Now we don't know whether outages are due to transmission problems or the overwhelming number of tourists.
The stores have almost everything although not necessarily the style or size or brand you may want. And we found English language books in Kotor as well as Podgorica.
The beach is very clean in the early morning and the trash that accumulates during the day is understandable with the number of tourists. And people seem to be making a real effort to put trash in receptacles instead of leaving it on the beach or in the sea.
Traffic continues to be somewhat unregulated. People go in both directions on our one-way street. And when the city put in a traffic bump to slow traffic on the way to Lucice Beach, some vigilante citizens ripped it out overnight.
One day we had lunch with two young men who work for some sort of Citizen's political party. One carries two cell phones --- he says the cell phone has replaced the gun as the symbol of power in Montenegro. (Apparently neither cell phone company has 100% coverage; hence, if you want to be available all the time, you need one phone from each company.)
Some small evidence on the other side: at lunch a few days ago, one guest came with a driver who turned out to be a bodyguard. He sat at a table by himself, presumably to have a better view of the entrance. (He had both a cell phone and a gun, for maximum power.)
Also, Alice has tested the mail delivery system and found it wanting. She sent a letter July 20 from California and it has not arrived (it is now August 22). Our mail box so far has had nothing but utility bills and snails. (I don't think the snails ate Alice's letter. At least, they don't eat utility bills.)
August 7: our phone went dead. After two days, Blazo bribed the repairman to come and fix it on the weekend.
To acclimate Alice to this experience (you ARE coming next year!), I suggest spending a few hours on a weekend at a flea market. To buy housewares, for example, you go to a booth in which you recognize housewares and ask for the specific item you are interested in (requires an escort speaking Montenegrin, of course). We found coasters in one booth, a large spoon in another, buckets and mop in a third. To buy hardware, likewise. We actually found a 6v flashlight bulb in Bar which we had not found in Podgorica. Small items went into my string bag (thank you, Ruth, for this idea). We told the shopkeepers that we would come back to pay for and pick up any big or heavy items.
Short break in an outdoor cafe for Coca Cola and to reread our shopping list. Then on to the food market, which was a real pleasure. Selection was endless. The cheese vendors let Blazo and Djidja sample several kinds before they made a selection. When we had all we could carry, Blazo called for a taxi. The driver met us back at the flea market where we picked up the "layaway" items and stowed our purchases in the trunk. Then a pleasant trip back to Petrovac for resting up.
A cruise ship (Costa Tropicale) was at the port, just outside the Old City.
(See 2002 Summer Vacation
for pictures of the Old City.) We were hoping to find a cruise ship that
would take us from Kotor to Dubrovnik and back, but have not succeeded.
The Costa Tropicale has a 7 day cruise starting and ending in Venice, with
5-1/2 hours in Dubrovnik and 6 hours in Kotor, not enough time in either
place.
Kotor continues to amaze me with its spectacular mountains rising
from the sea and with the effort made to protect the city with walls
going up the cliffs. The picture on the right below is a detail of the
S shaped curve of the wall.
Copyright © 2003 by Mary Sredanovic. All rights reserved.