Back in Beograd

Now that the jet-lag seems to be mostly gone, I think I can string enough sentences together to actually write something pseudo coherent. But be forewarned...

The rest of my time stateside was mostly a whole lot of fun - Minneapolis was a blast even if it was colder than, well, cold. I met excellent people, got to walk on a lake (how cool is that?), learned that I'm not good at guitar hero but still decent at foosball. Returning home meant facing the not-as-fun task of cleaning out most of my room so Barb can turn it into an office. Still, probably should have been done a long time ago and I was able to see/chat with lovely folks to split up the time. Also read a whole ton of things glutting myself on basically unlimited English book access. A small joy that unfortunately is a downside of living abroad - what I can get my hands on is a bit bizarre at times. And anyone who likes books should read Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading by Maureen Corrigan. It's funny and reflective, she makes good points about work and literature that I appreciated a whole bunch.

Coming back across the Atlantic was a bit more eventful than I'd planned. For one my flight time changed and I'd never gotten an email telling me so, thus rushing up to Indy. I also traveled with a friend's trombone - it got to travel up in first class closets, lucky thing that it is - although it wasn't too much of a hardship (I also had no close connections). In DC I ran into Anna, a fellow American who was a colleague in the spring, she's back in Belgrade on a language learning grant for the semester. We used the long layover in Munich to catch up. Small world. Even funnier is that another friend runs the NGO that gave the grant.

The other unlooked for excitement came on the plane to Munich Thursday. I was trying to sleep and started thinking about some notes that I wanted to write. This prevented me from sleeping so I decided to pull out my computer and start typing. Turned it on and then everything froze. Odd, I thought, so pushed to restart. Except that then it wouldn't boot correctly, got this blinking question marked folder. In airport later looked at a manual on Anna's computer and tried to fix to no avail. So the first real thing I did after getting home and being welcomed by dear friends was find an Apple store. And then learned a few hours later that my hard drive was toast. To-ast. And that it was going to be a decent chunk of money to fix; but I had no choice. Then on Friday morning my befogged brain cleared a smidgen and I got my Applecare number from Barb; went in to pick it up and asked if it was covered. They had to ask basically everyone in the store it seemed but apparently yes! Apple comes through again! So I now have a bigger drive and I didn't have to pay for it (although I suppose they could still call me later demanding my first born or something). The next hurtle was figuring out how to get the backup I made before I left to load since it now has a newer OS... oh, the joys of technology. But everything seems to be in order now and I didn't loose anything that I can tell. Whew. Lesson: ALWAYS get extended warranties.

This weekend also saw me back in the classroom for two groggy hours - thankfully my teens were mostly kind to me (I wooed them with stories from my travels, breaking the golden rule of keeping "teacher talking time" to a minimum). Sunday I went to Zagreb with Bodin and some of his colleagues to return an instrument (gotta love these orchestra types). Even though I'd vowed to stay out of cars for awhile it was good to see some countryside, actually walk around city center (even if that wasn't for very long - the lunch at his friend's place took longer than anyone anticipated and thus we only could scurry a bit in the center before hitting the highway again). There was a funny moment when Roland introduced himself to everyone and a little later asked me where I'd learned English. Everyone laughed when I said I'm American, that's how (he's a tuba player from Hungary). It was yet another multi-national, multi-lingual extravaganza. My Serbian still exists (yay!) and I'm playing around with the idea of starting lessons again just to get things regulated a bit more.

So there you go, I'm back mostly catching up with friends and settling back into Beograd life. The next nine months promise to be anything but boring; here's hoping everyone has a grand new year (since it's still January we can still wish happy new year, right?) and that we all do better about keeping in touch!

From the cold north...

I figured that I'd write a little something here in the post holiday aftermath. It's been wondrous to be back home again, although I don't feel like I've really stopped moving since mid-December. Somehow Christmas was celebrated six times among my various family branches, I saw a good number of old friends, whisked Mike around Bloomington and tried not to overwhelm him with people (although think that I might have failed). I had to explain that Serbia isn't Saudi Arabia (which was more than a bit silly) one night as well.... don't even ask.

The trip north has been grand as well. My sister Cassie and I went and saw The Phantom of the Opera in Chicago, a fabulous production with lights that made me want to get back into tech theatre. It's been cool to walk around cities again, I also now am the proud owner of red cowboy boots and ridiculously excited about that fact. New Year's Eve rocked with silliness and a ton of food at Gray's house with Katie and Jim, a Night Club reunion from Greece that included way too many jokes made about Thunderball... As if that's possible.

Another fun thing is that my summer appears to be set - I'll be working on a dig in Turkey! Will go end of June to mid-September, check out the site because it's incredible. Met with the director in Chicago and looks like I'll be helping out with some photography work, assisting the ceramics specialist, and actually digging. So that'll be rad even though bug bites and heat aren't my favorite companions ever.

So yes, puns and fun have abounded over the past few weeks. I'm not sure why I'm so into the passive voice right now, but I'll admit that I'm very glad to finally be in Minneapolis and not having to drive for at least a week. Saw Elly in Madison yesterday, we chatted with random people as she tried to convince Mike and I to move there. I'm validated that others also talk to strangers much as I do.

Hope you've been enjoying the holidays and the transition back to "real life" - if you're around the twin cities in the next week and a half let me know! Stay warm!