Haggling for Socks

In Reno, I would often make pizza, homemade, from scratch. I made a fantastic red sauce and also a pretty good garlic ranch sauce. The toppings were easy to make and, of course, cheese was easy to scatter about. But the one thing that I could not master was making the pizza dough. When I made the dough, it never came out round. It was in these weird oblong bent shapes that our family referred to as tectonic plates, or continental pizza.

I remember one time that we had homemade pizza and the pizzas were so nice and round. My son, trying hard to be kind, complimented me on how beautifully round the pizza dough was this time. And I had to admit, "That's because your sister made the dough." So let's just say pizza dough is not my strength, unless you like geological landmass shapes. And who doesn't? (Well, maybe not for pizza.)

We have now gone from one geological landmass shape (let's call it Europe) to another (and why not name that one Africa). But before I tell you about that trip, I have one more Balkan mystery for you.

Okay, maybe, maybe, I could see how this means the Women's Bathroom

But in what way does this indicate a Men's Bathroom?

We left Belgrade on Thursday, super early in the morning. Syarra flew to Copenhagen and then from there back to New York, as today is the first day of her semester. Alrica and I flew to Barcelona, Spain where we had a one day layover.

Did we see amazing sites? Did we have incredible adventures? No. The reason why we lacked any noteworthy accomplishments was that I frittered away much of the day napping. After all the activity in the Balkans, the early morning awakening to get to our flight, and the journey, I was exhausted. In my defense, I could argue that I was actually becoming culturally acclimated to the Spanish tradition of siesta.

On Friday, we flew Morocco. We landed in Rabat and then took a train to Marrakech. (So here, I have to decide which spelling to use for Marrakech. In pronunciation, it is Mare-a-kesh and so maybe Marrakesh is the way to go. Certainly the spell checker wants me to use Marrakesh. The Arabic language doesn't have a "ch" sound, but it does have a "sh" sound. So to truly anglicize the name, it should be Marrakesh. But the English weren't the ones who first translated the name from the Arabic alphabet to the Latin alphabet. That was the French. And in French, the "sh" sound comes from the "ch" spelling. Think of Charlemagne or champagne or nouveau riche. That's where the Marrakech spelling comes from and that's the one you see on maps or even here in Morocco when it is written in Latin characters. So I will go with Marrakech.)

That was a massive proportion of the previous paragraph inside the parentheses. Are there rules about how much of a paragraph can be inside parentheses? Who enforces those rules? If convicted, what are the possible sentences. (Sentences! See what I did there?)

We have been to Marrakech before, when we traveled with the kids. It was almost exactly nine years ago that we came here. But it is a wonderful place. The people are very friendly to foreigners, appreciative if I know any Arabic at all (and I know only a little), and also communicative in French (which I know a bit more of than Arabic). But actually our lack of Arabic skills helped Alrica pull off a spectacular bit of haggling.

I needed socks. I left the United States with five pairs of these small black socks which are great in that they dry fast, but also being so small and thin, and me having such flat feet, I was ripping through them. After five months, I had thrown out seven of the ten socks, and I arrived in Marrakesh with one more that exposed my entire heel and would need to go. So I was really down to one pair.

We passed a man who was selling various articles of clothing on the sidewalk, you know, like you do. And one thing he had was socks. It was a pack of three pairs of similar small socks to what I already owned. He barely spoke any English, and one thing I do not know in Arabic is numbers. I did look them over once, but they are hard to remember. I can count to one: wahid. Okay, we've exhausted my knowledge. The names of the numbers are so different than any other language and so many of them are long words.

I held up the socks and asked, "Dirham?" That is the name of the Moroccan currency. And in English he said "Forty." That is about four dollars and I was going to pass on that price, so I set them down and prepared to leave. There were other places to buy socks, it wasn't a big deal. But the man didn't want to lose a sale, so he asked something that we understood to mean how much would we be willing to pay.

Alrica replied "thirty" but he didn't apparently know what "thirty" meant, so his next bid was "twenty". So I bought the socks for twenty dirham, half what I had originally been asked. Of course, if he had understood thirty, I would have paid thirty, but sometimes you get lucky. (I recognize that when he was so willing to go down to twenty, that means the socks are probably worth ten, but I'm happy with them so far.)

On another note, they do have pizza here. And it's round much like you would expect. So no one is going to hire me as a pizza chef in Marrakech. Not that I was looking for culinary employment. But it's nice to know your limits.

What about Elevensies?

In The Fellowship of the Ring, Pippin asks about eating breakfast and is told by Aragorn they already had it. He asks about second breakfast and Merry tells him, "I don't think he knows about second breakfast." Hobbit culture is very different than any culture that Aragorn is used to.

I posted a couple weeks ago about how I enjoyed being in Sarajevo for Christmas Day because the city is still open. Being a place of many religions and cultures, not everything shuts down. In doing so, I spoke too soon, or blogged too soon. I guess I was the Aragorn of the story. Because now I am in Belgrade, Serbia, and today is "Second Christmas." In the Serbian Orthodox religion, Christmas is celebrated on January 7, not on December 25. And here, everything does shut down because this city is big time majority Serbian Orthodox. So I get to live the nothing open on Christmas experience after all.

St. Sava's Cathedral

Belgrade is an interesting city, a mix of very bland architecture and then in parts some beautiful architecture as well. If you are ever here, the one site you must visit is the Cathedral of St. Sava. The building is impressive as a huge domed structure that was modeled after the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. But beyond the engineering marvel of it, stepping inside is magical.

The rules of the cathedral say no cell phones, so I didn't take pictures of the inside. But almost every surface is decorated. There are carvings along the arches, beautiful marble pillars, stands coated in gold which hold portraits of saints. And the walls, ceiling, almost any available surface is a work of art. There are paintings and mosaics everywhere. They depict characters and events from Christian history, which is not my forté. Many of the characters shown have words above their heads that say who they are, but this is written in the Cyrillic script used in Serbia and with the Serbian names of those characters. I was able to work out a few of them, like St. George, and the Virgin Mary, and Jesus himself. But many of the names weren't recognizable to me.

They built the stage in Republic Square around the statue of King Mihaelo

We visited the National Museum in Republic Square. We went on a Sunday and the museum is free on Sundays. That was nice. The ground floor, which they called floor zero, has an archaeological exhibit that starts 300,000 years ago and traces hominid and human activity in the area of present day Serbia. There were many artifacts like chipped axe heads and small blades and eventually pottery. The timeline goes on and on up to more modern times, but abruptly ends in the 1800s.

The walls don't have eyes, but the poles do

One floor up from that, the first floor, has paintings from medieval times onward that were painted by Serbian artists and mainly for the Serbian Orthodox church (or on those themes.) And the second floor houses their collection of other European artists. There were works by some famous names like Picasso, Gaughin, Degas, and more.

We also visited the Historical Museum of Serbia. This museum really made me think about teaching. As a teacher, you have to decide how to present topics. Do you group them thematically, chronologically, or in some way that involves foundational lessons and then extensions. With mathematics, you primarily want to do the last of these, make sure you have covered foundational ideas, and then move into the more advanced topics that use those foundations. But even then, the order of some topics could be arranged in several ways.

That says Starbucks in Cyrillic

Why did the Historical Museum of Serbia remind me of this pedagogical question? You enter in the center front of the museum. The exhibits are in the front left room, the front right room, and the back room. And museum goers follow a path, first to the front left, then through the back room, and end in the front right room. It's much like going through IKEA.

This museum is very wordy, most everything is just panels with written information in both Serbian and English. There are a few artifacts, though most of the crowns and scepters of various kings are not original but rather recreations. So already this museum was hard, lots of reading, tons of names of this royal person and that royal person, many of whom have the same name as their grandfather so you have to keep track of which Alexander or Peter you are thinking of. But what I found most strange was the choice of what to put where.

The Crest of Belgrade (literally "the white city")

The two front rooms dealt with Serbian royal families in the 19th century. There were two families, the Karadžordžević family, and the Obrenović family. Chronologically, the crown bounces back and forth between the two families as one gets ousted and the other takes its place. This back and forth happens several times. But the museum doesn't choose to present this chronologically. Instead, in the front left room, the first one you enter, you learn only about the Karadžordžević family. So there are gaps between this king and then next king, and it mentions that someone took over from the Obrenović family. I kept looking back, thinking, wait, but that king wasn't mentioned. There's nothing about him here. But in the front right room, the last room you come to, that room tells you all about the Obrenović family. So the museum made the choice that, rather than present things chronologically, it would be better to group the rooms based on which family they were talking about.

The Crest of Belgrade on the back of a fire hydrant

In their defense, perhaps if I were already versed in 19th century Serbian history, I would have understood better. Maybe kids here learn all about this in school, so a trip to the museum makes sense to them. But remember that back room I mentioned. Well, the back room covers Serbian history from the 10th century to the 15th century.

So I am reading about lots of Alexander Karadžordževićs and Peter Karadžordževićs and I finally reach the 1900s and step through an archway to the next room. Suddenly, I have gone back by a millennium and I am learning about kings in the 900s. By the time I reach the front right room, I've lost the Karadžordžević thread entirely, but now I am back in the 19th century learning about Obrenovićs (which does include an Alexander, but we've added several men named Milan and Mihaelo as well.)

The point is that I got next to nothing out of this museum. It was static, it was dull, and it was arranged in such a way that I couldn't retain any of the narrative of Serbian history. And it also stopped telling tales at the beginning of the 20th century. That's interesting, because Serbia's 20th century history is much more controversial. And the sense here is that none of the controversial things actually happened. Or at least, they don't get mentioned.

But there is some controversy which is being mentioned. Just this past fall, on November 1, 2024, a tragedy occurred in Novi Sad. That's the second largest city in Serbia. The concrete canopy of the train station there collapsed and fell on people who were sitting in benches underneath. A rescue began, but it took time to get people out. Fourteen were found dead, three injured, and one of those three later died of her injuries. Of course, the Serbian government is investigating what happened. But many Serbians are furious with their government. They claim the system is corrupt, inspections are not performed, officials are bribed to let things slide by. There have been protests in Novi Sad and in Belgrade.

These posters mean you have blood on your hands

Then, at the end of December, a week or so before we arrived, some graffiti went up over many buildings in Belgrade which reads 1.11.2024. Zoran Kesić Show Must Go On! You see it all over central Belgrade. I didn't understand it, so I did some research.

The graffiti I mentioned

Zoran Kesić is one of the most influential satirists of the region. He is a Jon Stewart or Jimmy Kimmel of the Balkans. And like most satirists, he is often critical of the government. He was doing a show in Sarajevo on November 1 (which is 1.11.2024 because in most of the world the day comes before the month.) During the show, he referenced the tragedy and talked about how the government must be held accountable. He did use the phrase "The show must go on" while talking about it.

And I still don't know what the graffiti artist intends with this graffiti. Is it agreeing with Kesić and saying the Serbian government must be held accountable? Is it angry with Kesić for going on with his show when something terrible had occurred earlier in the day? I'm not sure. It might be neither of those.

I don't have enough context to make out what it means. It may be very understandable to the people of Serbia. And that's interesting. I see the same thing they see. I read the news articles and do some research to find out the backstory. But I just don't know the character of the people here. And it makes me wonder how often we misinterpret things we read, especially those things written for an audience of another culture or time or place.

When I read Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett, I enjoy them. I understand they are also commenting on modern society. But how much am I missing? I'm not British, I don't know London culture. What extra meaning would I understand if I did? Or when I read Don Quixote, not only was I even further removed from the time and place, that was a translation. I don't know what Cervantes wrote in his native language, nor what elements of his society he was satirizing. Or even worse, when we read a book of the Bible, how much of our interpretation is correct? That's like Don Quixote taken to the nth power. This is something written thousands of years ago for a completely different audience with a wildly different worldview, and I'm likely reading a translation of a translation of a translation. How can I have any context to know what the author meant? How can I interpret the imagery that author used, imagery that could have meant something very different to the people of the author's time than it does to people of my time and my culture?

So here I am again, feeling like Aragorn trying to fathom the ways of Hobbits. Don't even start on Elevensies.

Whistling in the Dark

We are now in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. This requires that we somehow traveled from Podgorica to Belgrade. You know the saying: Getting there is half the fun. It's pretty close to true. Getting here was fun. Was it half? I'm not sure of the exact fraction (it could even be irrational), but it was fun.

We took a train. This train starts in Bar, Montenegro and then comes to Podgorica, from where we embarked, and then travels through Montenegro and Serbia (and for a few kilometers the train is in Bosnia, but it never stops there). The Bar to Belgrade train is considered one of the most beautiful, most scenic train routes in all of Europe. Poems could be composed about the lofty mountains and the graceful valleys. And we got to ride this magical path.

Was it beautiful?

I don't know.

Why don't I know?

In the off-season, which includes the winter, the train only runs at night. It leaves Podgorica at 9:20 PM and you sleep on the train, arriving into Belgrade somewhere around 7:00 AM. So those mountains may have been as lofty as tales claim, the valleys could have possessed even greater grace than words can impart. But I didn't get to see to any of that because of the awkward orientation of the Earth, placing its bulk between myself and the major light source.

And still it was fun. We got a sleeper car which slept three people. This was a tiny little cabin. There were three beds, one above the other above the other. Syarra generously took the top bunk, which isn't a full length bed. Somewhere around the thigh, it changes from bed mattress to metal rack, but there is a cushion you can place under your ankles and feet to keep them above the metal. I had the middle, which is full length. Alrica had the bottom which is easiest to use, but has the least space above you. Also with the ladder in place which allowed Syarra and I ingress and egress, it became something of an obstacle to Alrica's easy access in and out of her bed.

Our Sleeper Cabin

And still it was fun. The train rocked and moved, and when it hit a curve, you could feel the curve. Einstein would explain that throughout the trip, you knew you weren't in an unaccelerated frame. Most of the journey, I slept. Though I did have to wake for border control when we were leaving Montenegro. I expected to be awakened a second time for border control in Serbia, but that never happened. I'm not sure what this will mean when I try to leave Serbia in less than a week, but I suspect they won't stop me from going away. Plus any border control officers will be able to see the stamp that tells them when I left Montenegro. So that should establish I haven't been in Serbia for longer than is allowed.

I'm not entirely sure what made this journey fun. It wasn't the WC (the bathroom) which was passable but not pristine. It wasn't the mattresses or the pillows, both of which were passable but not plush. It wasn't the corridor outside the cabin which was passable, but you had to squeeze to pass others. It wasn't the interaction with my fellow passengers as there wasn't any such interaction. I guess it was just the adventure.

I would love to redo this trip someday in the summer, when one could ride in the day and see some of the spectacle. But even at night, it was novel for me to sleep on the train. Wow, did that rocking lead to some crazy dreams. I can't really remember many of them in detail. I recall that one of them involved Melissa Taylor directing Murder on the Orient Express, an ancient Greek pillar which had fallen over, and an announcer voice-over, but I can't piece together how those things connected. I can only assume that the train experience led to the Orient Express reference, and who knows how brains work from there.

On a less enjoyable note, we left Podgorica on January 2. But on January 1, there was a mass shooting in another city in Montenegro, a city called Cetinje. This was a tragedy on a national scale. It was unprecedented, even though Montenegro has a huge proportion of gun owners. It shocked the nation.

Both January 1 and January 2 are national holidays in Montenegro. This is perhaps their biggest holiday of the year. It's secular, so all the various religious groups can enjoy it together. But after the tragedy, Montenegro declared a three-day period of mourning. The super festive Podgorica New Years Bazaar (Montenegro's version of a Christmas Market) was shuttered and a makeshift memorial for those who died was erected in its place. Even though this was one of their most celebratory times, the country cut the party short and mourned.

Being a holiday, Parliament was not in session, but immediately some of the politicians spoke about enacting some sort of gun control. As I said, Montenegro has a lot of gun owners, they are ranked third for the proportion of the population who own a gun. Yet, after one mass shooting, they are considering what to do to assure it never happens again.

The U.S.A. is ranked first for the proportion of the population who own a gun. If we declared a three-day period of mourning after each mass shooting in our country, we would probably be in a continual mourning state. And we never enact anything to try to keep it from happening again.

I don't know what the solution to gun violence in America is. But becoming so used to it that we merely shrug and say, "Just another Wednesday" is not a solution. Have we become so inured to the deaths of innocents, the deaths of children? Maybe we have.

Just declaring that America is the safest, the best, the most exceptional land in the world, well, that's somewhat like saying I experienced the most beautiful train route in Europe. I don't really have the evidence to back that up.

We're all, like a night train, just whistling in the dark.

You Only Get One

Welcome to your one and only perfect square year. We have entered 2025 which is 45 squared. It is, for most of us, the only time we will ever live through a year that is a perfect square. It is your once in a lifetime event.

The last time it happened was 89 years ago, in the year 1936. So unless you are already 88 or older (turning 89 or older this year) you haven't reached your second of these rare events.

It will happen again in 91 years, in the year 2116, and most of us aren't going to live to see that occur. Maybe some preschoolers now will, but I suspect preschoolers aren't members of my reading audience.

The thing is it has probably been a once-in-lifetime event for most people throughout history. Perhaps you are saying: hold on, Erich, what about in the first few centuries. I mean between the year 1 and the year 4, there were only 3 years. And from 4 to 9 is only 5, surely lots of people lived for that long.

That's true, but in the year 1, they were not using the Anno Domini designation of years. It wouldn't be invented for centuries. In those times, usually years were marked based on when the current ruler became the current ruler. So the year might be the eleventh year of the reign of Emperor Penguin the Second, or whatever the ruler's name was. But eventually scribes and the educated found this annoying. It was pretty hard to figure out how long ago things happened when you kept restarting at 1 each time your king died or your land was conquered. The intelligentsia wanted some sort of fixed system that would just keep counting.

In sixth century Christian Europe, a monk named Dionysius Exiguus wanted to figure out what day Easter would fall on in the upcoming years. So he decided to set up a numbering system for years based on something having to do with Jesus. Today we think of it as being when Jesus was born, but it isn't clear that this is what Dionysius was considering. It may have been the conception of Jesus or some other event in the early life of Jesus or the life of Mary slightly before the birth. Anyway, according to the system invented by Dionysius, this was in the year 525.

It's also not clear that Dionysius was the first to do so, nor that it was his system which eventually spread and became the one used today. It's all murky. Where there are sufficient records, we know that somewhere in the 8th or 9th century, monks in England were using AD to denote the year. Still no one knows exactly when in the 8th or 9th century this began.

But let's be generous. The first perfect square in the 8th century would have been the year 729 (which is 27 squared.) Let's assume that this system was being used at that time. Then the following perfect square would have occurred 55 years later in 784. So yes, some people probably did live through both of those years, though average life expectancy was much much lower than this (probably somewhere around 24 years.) But keep in mind that is the average, and it is brought down by the fact that so many people died of childhood ailments. So the ones who did make it to adulthood, some of those could have reached ripe old ages like 60.

Still, it wouldn't have been most of them. It would have still been rare to live through two perfect square years, even back when they were closer together.

Because perfect squares get further and further apart in a predictable way. If you want to know how long between two consecutive perfect squares, you can just add the two numbers they are square of. Like today is 45 squared and the next perfect square is 46 squared. But 45 + 46 = 91, and that is the distance between those perfect squares. The distance between 27 squared (729) and 28 squared (784) is 27 + 28 = 55. Another way to think of it is that the nth perfect square is just the sum of the first n odd numbers.

I am not, in general, a big time New Years' Resolutioner (or Resolutionary, maybe?) If I really want to resolve to do something, there is no reason that January is the best time. In some ways, it is the worst time, because I would only be making a resolution because I felt like I was supposed to make one and not because I wanted to accomplish it.

That being said, maybe I should reconsider that this year. After all, this is the only perfect square year I will ever see. So join me: let's embrace this year, this rare event, this moment we are lucky to live through. Let's make 2025 a signature year for each of us. Let's accomplish our most square deal in this most square year. Let the rarity of this moment remind us all that life only gives us so many opportunities. It's certainly a lesson I need to take to heart.

Under the Hill

Montenegro may seem like a strange name for a country in Eastern Europe. Not strange because of its meaning, which is the phrase Black Mountain. It is strange because of the language, Spanish, which is not the language spoken in Montenegro. And it may not be the language of the name either.

There are some mountains, not black exactly.

What do we know? In the local language, the Montenegrins call this country Crna Gora. (Keep in mind that "c" is pronounced like "ts", so this transliterates as "tserna gora". This phrase also means Black Mountain with Crna meaning black and Gora meaning mountain. The name comes from the many pine covered mountains which can look black from a distance. In particular, Lovćen is a mountain of national pride, a symbol of the country, and often considered the black mountain.

See the pretty red roofs of Podgorica

Where does the name Montenegro come from? That's not entirely clear. It may have been from Spaniards, but it may have come from Venetian sailors or from the Dalmatian language. Regardless of where it originates, it does mean Black Mountain and that is the one element on which everyone seems to agree.

In the Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian/Montenegrin language, you form the diminutive of a word with the suffix -ica (pronounced eetza, like the end of pizza.) So if gora is mountain than gorica is little mountain or hill. This leads to the name Podgorica which means "under the hill." If being over the hill means getting old, then maybe being under the hill means getting young. Or staying young? Though, from my observations, there are older people in Podgorica along with younger ones. Perhaps they age the same as the rest of us. Or perhaps they only aged during the time Montenegro was part of Yugoslavia. In this period, the city was renamed Titograd.

Some of the manhole covers still say Titograd (this one in Cyrillic)

There is a particular hill in the city called Gorica which has a very nice park on it. I went hiking there and saw some lovely views of the mountains that surround the valley in which Podgorica sits. Also in the park are a Mediterranean Garden (which is a lot less bloom-filled in December), the Partisans Memorial (to commemorate those Montenegrins who fought in World War II), lots of exercise equipment and fun rope bridges, biking paths, and a restaurant.

Partisans Monument

Though Podgorica has been settled for a long time, it doesn't have a lot of historical buildings. Most of them were destroyed during the bombings of World War II. Very few survived, and we saw many of those as we enjoyed a walking tour of the city.

A piece of the old fortress, not so effective any longer

One is the clock tower. It was built during the reign of the Ottomans, not originally intended for a clock. It was a lookout tower. The Ottomans built a fortress and walled city southeast of the confluence of the Ribnica River and the Morača River. They wanted to hold this land, a good place for trading, against the native Slavic people. At some point after the Ottoman Empire fell, a clock was placed on one side of the tower, though today it isn't working. Still, this building wasn't destroyed in the war.

The Clock Tower (from the clock side)

We walked to the confluence of the two rivers, an area called Skaline. It is much lower than the surrounding lands, quieter as you are away from the road noise, and has two lovely and very transparent rivers. Crossing the Ribnica River is the Old Bridge, also built in Ottoman times, and another piece of architecture that survived the war. The Skaline area is a favorite for the people of Podgorica. In the summers, they come here in the evenings after it cools outside. There are concerts or movies. Though in the summer the Ribnica is dry and the Morača has a lot less water.

The Old Bridge crossing the Ribnica River

Independence Square is in the cultural center of Podgorica. Nearby are the National Theater, the governmental buildings, and King's Park. But at present, Independence Square is home of the New Years' Bazaar. This seems to be the same as a Christmas market, but named for New Years instead.

We tried some wonderful traditional Montenegrin foods. We had podgorica popica. This is a pork cutlet which is pounded flat (like you would for schnitzel). It is then rolled with proscuitto and cheese, breaded, and then fried. Ours was served with a sauce, (I have no idea what was in it, but it was off-white if that helps.) Very tasty. We also tried japraci, which is a roll of seasoned beef and cheese in grape leaves, served in a bowl of red soupy sauce. It is similar to sarma, the Greek or Turkish rolls, but the leaves are darker.

Today is New Years Eve, so we are planning to go out tonight to see the Podgorica celebration, something like Times Square but on a Montenegrin scale. It should be a delightful way to ring in a New Year. And best of all, we won't be aging when we turn over to 2025, because we are "under the hill."

Nikola, Two-Face, and the Dead Duke

Sarajevo is weird. And I love that about Sarajevo. I love the quirky decorations, the sense of humor, and the odd ways they commemorate things.

I just liked the view of the snowy trees on the mountains

We went out exploring on Christmas Day. One lovely thing about Sarajevo is that things are open. It is a city of many peoples. The Croats are primarily Roman Catholic, so Croat owned businesses were closed on Christmas. But the Serbs are Eastern Orthodox and celebrate their Christmas in January. And the Bosniaks, who make up the majority of the population of the city, are primarily Muslim, so Christmas is just another day. That's fantastic for me, because I wanted to use my few days in Sarajevo to see what I could see, eat what I could eat, and enjoy what I could enjoy. (Plus, for me, along with almost 70% of the world's population, Christmas is just another day.)

For lunch, we started with gelato. I know that usually gelato is not considered an appetizer, but we were passing one of Syarra's favorite gelato places on our way to one of her favorite lunch places. You wouldn't expect us to go back and forth, would you? After yummy gelato we moved on and had pasta for lunch. And then we still stopped at a slaštičarna, which is a sweet shop, where one buys desserts. We tried tufahija, a traditional dessert made of an apple soaked in simple syrup and stuffed with cream and nuts. This is only one of many amazing desserts you can try in this country. We also enjoyed tulumbe (which is a fried dough dessert with a star shape somewhat like churros, though tulumbe is not filled like a churro) and hurmašica which is another cake soaked in simple syrup. Let's say this: If you like dessert, then you will find lots of please you in Bosnia.

This is bear territory

Both sides of the street are bear territory

Walking about with our full and satisfied stomachs, we found a bar protected by bears. It was actually one on each side of the street. And sitting nearby was Nikola Tesla.

Just inventing something else brilliant, don't mind me.

That's right, Tesla, the genius behind alternating current, Tesla coils, and plasma was just chilling (somewhat literally as it is winter) in Sarajevo.

Continuing on we found a large snowman. Someone or someones had collected up the snow in a particular street and turned it into this snowman. But this was no ordinary snowman. Here is what we saw as we approached. (Note: he has buttons on his non-existent shirt.)

I'm so fancy!

But when you walked past the snowman and turned back to see him, he had another front side! That's right, this snowman has two faces (and two chests for non-existent shirt buttons with the shirt being the non-existent part and the buttons existing.)

I'm fancy too, but less happy about it

Finally, we visited the Latin Bridge. This is a very cute bridge from the Ottoman era. But it is most famous for what happened there. This is where Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sofia, were riding when they were assassinated by Gavrilo Principe. It was this event which sparked the War to End All Wars (the first world war, which apparently did not end all wars, since there was a second world war.)

Over troubled waters?

Here you can see the footprints marking the spot that Principe stood as he shot the Archduke and Archduchess. (I assume the wife of an archduke is an archduchess, but maybe she is a catenaryduchess or a paraboladuchess.)

Even the snow doesn't want to stand there

One thing we didn't get to see much of are the Sarajevo roses. During the siege of Sarajevo, there were many bombings and other violence. Places where three or more people were killed by a mortar blast were then marked. The mortars left these scars in the pavement, and Sarajevo later filled them with red resin to commemorate the loss. But because these scar patterns are vaguely floral in arrangement, they have come to be known as Sarajevo roses. We didn't see these because there was a layer of snow or slush over the streets, so the roses were hidden away.

The next day we headed out of Sarajevo, taking a bus to Podgorica, Montenegro. That was over six hours on a bus. But we did get two breaks and we got out twice to cross the border. We all exited the bus with our passports, made a line, walked to the border control station in Bosnia, and got stamped out of the country. Then we got back on the bus, crossed a bridge, drove about a kilometer more, and repeated the line up to get our passports stamped into Montenegro. Some of the people on the bus have cards instead of passports, probably because they cross often enough that they don't need stamps over and over. Imagine if the bus driver had to get new stamps everyday. He would go through a lot of passports.

A single lane bridge that connects two countries

It was a short trip to Sarajevo, but a fun one. Now we will see if Podgorica is as weird as its neighboring capital city.

Unexpected Dog on Roof

I am not like Bing. Or Rosemary. I mean Crosby and Clooney, respectively. Because they were dreaming of a white Christmas. Not only was I not dreaming of a white Christmas, had you asked me a week ago (or even today) I would have voiced a preference for a Christmas lacking in any sort of frozen precipitation, snow, slush, sleet, or freezing rain (which should start with the letter s if it wants to fit its companions).

Intellectually, I can understand the appeal of a white Christmas. It is very lovely to see the barren trees with snow on all the branches, to see the fields as blankets of white. I'm sure Santa's sleigh has a much easier time taking off from rooftops with powder to reduce the friction between runners and shingles. But for me, it is a question of footwear. I didn't want to experience a white Christmas because I just don't have the appropriate footwear for snow.

Alrica and I carry everything we own on our backs. I don't have any shoes packed. The only shoes I have are the New Balance sneakers I wear. This means they have a rough life. When I hike, they hike. When I walk long distances (which is very much like hiking) they walk long distances. When I step in a puddle, they step in a puddle. And when I walk through the snow, they walk through the snow. But the whole idea is that I shouldn't be walking through the snow. And yet, here I am.

That dark figure on the right is Alrica.

But where am I? Sarajevo, Bosnia. Which has, in the past two days, gotten about ten inches of snow.

Why am I here? Yes, the plan had been to avoid winter, because we weren't packing for winter. But Syarra has come to spend her winter break with us. She wanted to go to places that spoke Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, the language she learned when she spent her senior year abroad. And the place she spent it: Sarajevo. So we had to come for a few days to see where she lived, how she lived, and to experience this very impressive city that captured her heart. If only it hadn't decided to snow.

The birds got here before me

It leads to a lot of funny stories. (By funny, I don't necessarily mean humorous, though you may find them so as you are only reading them and not living them.)

Story One: getting here. We took a bus from Mostar into Sarajevo. That went great. The bus dropped us near a tram station and we took the tram to Sarajevo City Hall. All we had to do was walk from City Hall to the apartment where we are staying. Now Google says this is an eight minute walk and it is mostly flat. Let's chat, Google. What qualifies, in your extensive algorithms, as mostly flat? Does that just mean an absence of ladders or other vertical climbing implements? Because this walk is not flat. It is far from flat.

In normal circumstances, that wouldn't be a big deal. But add a couple inches of snow and shoes that aren't meant to be snow boots, and this far from flat becomes close to treacherous. (Lack of the proper winter tread, you see.)

One of many pretty places of worship here

We are staying in an apartment, but no one was going to be available to meet us when we arrived. No problem, the host explained where a key would be left for us. Except it wasn't there. There was a key, but apparently the communication about where said key would be kept had a bit of a disconnect between what we were told and reality. Now, the host did text Alrica last minute to tell us about the change. But we didn't have internet while we were frantically searching for the key. It wasn't until after Syarra, luckily, found the key, we got in, and then connected to the internet, that we learned where the key would be.

Story Two: the apartment itself. Our lodging is fine, there are beds and a bathroom and a kitchen, all good right. Even better, check out the washing machine. It has a five god guarantee! That's really good if we are thinking gods like Athena (who would totally know how to keep a washing machine running). Not so good if one of the gods is Loki who will make socks disappear and turn all the laundry pink for no reason except it amuses him.

And if you order now, you get not only one god, or two, but five!

But there are some oddities here which have nothing to do with divinity. For example, one of the bedroom has no outlets at all. No worries, I charge my devices in the kitchen. The double bed has a blanket which just fits the top of the double bed. There is no extra to hang down over the sides. Now if Alrica and I could just lay on our backs, fall into a cryogenic slumber, and never move, maybe this would work. Sadly, this is not our reality, and last night involved a battle for coverage. I wish I could report my absolute victory, but honestly, I think we both lost this one.

The shower is a fascinating little anomoly. You know the pull thing that changes from bath to shower, well, Superman, the Hulk, and probably Andre the Giant would have the strength to pull that thing without breaking a sweat. For me, there is sweating, there is grunting, there is gritting of teeth. Once you have it turned to the shower, not all of the spray comes out of the front of the shower head like you would hope. About half of it sprays out of the side like a peacock tail of water. This loss of water has the further effect of diminishing the pressure of that which does spray in the expected direction. But maybe getting less water isn't such a problem, because even when you get it, you don't always want it. Imagine spinning the Wheel of Fortune and that determines what temperature of water you are going to get. But there is a second Wheel of Fortune that determines how many seconds that temperature will last before another spin of both wheels must be accomplished again. Speaking like a mathematician (which is a thing we mathematicians do sometimes) I would say both the temperature and the duration of the temperature are independent random variables.

Story Three: Back to shoes. As I mentioned, I have only my sneakers. Syarra, likewise, has a pair of sneakers. But Alrica's shoes are even less conducive to snowy travel. Alrica has what she calls "river sandals." They are more shoey than sandals and more sandaly than shoes. (I know spell checker is going to object to both shoey and sandaly. Too bad, technology. You don't even know what "mostly flat" means, so grow your vocabulary!) The point is that while they are mostly closed, they have holes to let water in and out if you go walking in a river. (How often does Alrica walk in rivers? You should ask her. She chose the shoes.) So whereas my shoes get snowy and wet, and eventually that seeps into my socks and wrinkles my feet, at least the water has to work at it. For Alrica it is like, hey snow, free access to socks, go for it!

Mosque made even prettier with the snow

Before I go on with more so-called "funny" stories, let me tell you some of the wonders of Sarajevo. We did go out last night, even with the treacherous slippage and open access shoes. We went to Baščaršija, which is the Sarajevo Old Town. This long pedestrian only area has restaurants, museums, shops, churches, mosques, and other attractions. It is also beautifully decorated for Christmas. One famous item is the Sebilj (which is just pronounced Sehbee, I don't know what happened to the L. The letter J in Bosnian is like the Y in English.) This wooden water fountain has a spigot where the people can get free water! But it has become a symbol of Sarajevo. We had delicious doner for dinner, and then we split up. Syarra has a list of friends from her time in Sarajevo that she is getting together with. Alrica and I were left to explore on our own.

The Sebilj

We visited a very powerful, but disturbing, museum called Gallery 11/07/95. This is a reference to July 11, 1995 when the Srebrenica killings took place. This gallery was about the thousands of Muslim victims of the genocide that took place in Srebrenica, Bosnia, the aftermath, the failure of the international community to do anything about it, and the work to identify the remains found in mass graves throughout the region. Sometimes we need to remember terrible things so we don't let those same things happen again. This museum was a powerful story telling exhibit about this tragedy.

Okay, that changed the tone. Let's get back to funny stories.

Store Four: Today's excursion. We discovered at the apartment that there is one pair of boots here. So today when we went out, we thought maybe Alrica would wear those instead of her partial cover shoes. The problem was one of size. They are just way too big for her. So we got creative. I wore the boots. They are too big for me also, but not at much too big. And then Alrica wore my Horace and Shirley. (Now you are thinking I have added new characters to the tale. But actually, Horace and Shirley are the names of my shoes. Horace is the right shoe, Shirley is the left shoe. So now you are thinking, do you always name your shoes, Erich? Well, yes, but they are always named Horace and Shirley. When I get a new pair of shoes, the right one is named Horace and the left one Shirley. If I own more than one pair of shoes at a time, it is generally the main one, the one I wear most often, that has the names. Though if pressed to refer to one of the lesser worn shoes by name at any time, it would be Horace, were it a right shoe, or Shirley, were it a left one. And no, I did not name the boots I wore today Horace and Shirley, because they aren't my boots. My shoes, even when worn by Alrica, are still the ones named Horace and Shirley.) This meant both Alrica and I had our feet in vessels larger than optimal, but it also gave us both superior snow soakage protection.

Today, our big trek was across the entire city to reach the home of Syarra's host mother from her ten month study abroad year. Syarra wanted to visit her and Alrica and I wanted to meet her. The host mother is very sweet, though she doesn't speak any English. So Syarra got to play translator for the entire exchange. But before we get to that, I want to talk about UDOR.

On the way to the trolley bus which would take us across Sarajevo, we had to walk through the snowy streets. Then suddenly, without warning, there was barking... from above. There was a dog on the roof, letting us know that it was displeased with our proximity to the ground level of the house. While I am sure the dog probably already has a name, not knowing what it was, I named the dog UDOR, an acronym for Unexpected Dog on Roof.

Sit, UDOR, sit. Good dog.

It was nice to meet Syarra's host mother and to see the room which Syarra called her own for ten months. It was... cozy. (Isn't that the euphemism for small?) Now host mother is a very gracious host. She insisted we try Bosnian coffee, because that weak American stuff just doesn't count. Alrica rarely drinks coffee. I never do. But you can't say no, so today, I drank a cup of Bosnian coffee. It was served with delicious sweet cakes, so I got a hunk of cake in my mouth and used that to help disguise the bitterness of the coffee. But that wasn't generous enough, our hostess also had to give us fruit. She peeled oranges and handed them to us. Not the peels, but the fruit. So, oranges are another thing I don't tend to injest. I like orange juice, but there is something about the texture of orange slices that I find somewhat "ew". So I got to have coffee and oranges. Hooray. Still, our hostess was very sweet and very happy to see Syarra again.

Who's down with SCC?

Next we visited the Sarajevo City Center (SCC). This is a big mall, but it is always interesting to see how they are the same and different than our malls. Now I have a puzzle for you. Let's say you are going to the WC (the restroom) and you see this.

There is a missing second sign, isn't there?

Which side is the men's room and which side is the women's room? How are you supposed to interpret this?

I, very tentatively, decided on the left fork and crept in slowly, hoping I wouldn't get myself into legal trouble. First I saw hand dryers, not helpful. Then I saw sinks, again, that was not identifying. But after that I saw urinals and breathed a sigh of relief.

The truth is, in spite of the challenges, we are having a lot of fun. Sarajevo has a vibrant energy that I really like. And perhaps one day, not in winter, I would enjoy returning. But in the meantime I will enjoy what I can when I can. Tomorrow is Christmas and its going to be white, whether I want it that way or not.

White Christmas decorations

So to misquote Bing (or really Irving Berlin), "May your socks be cozy and dry! And may all your Christmases be full of unexpected adventures." (Admittedly, not my best lyric. Irving Berlin would not approve.)