body

remember when i went to see the vagina monologues? well, the funny thing about that night is that rather than making me think about my sexuality, it made me think about my ethnicity.
being serbian is very confusing for me. i'm not sure what it means, or how good or bad a thing it is. i have all these conflicting stereotypes in my head about serbs. i have all these ideas about honour and ingenuity and wholesome farm lifestyles, but i also have encountered so many serbs who are narrow-minded and bigots. i want my ethnicity to mean something, but i'm struggling to figure out what the something should be.

then there are days like today, when my heart suddenly pines for belgrade and bela crkva and kalanjevce. days when i want to see my mom and grandparents and walk those streets and hear those sounds and eat those foods.

ergo, i present:
elf's virtual (and very short) tour of belgrade

it is wise to begin with a map. belgrade is located where the danube and sava rivers meet. it's rather nice to go to the place where you can watch the two rivers. i like to stand there and think about the waters, and how after that point the sava ceases to exist.

another useful map is this one, because it shows kalemegdan, a big park, and also bulevar revolucije, the street where i lived - the boulevard of the revolution. stare at the map for a while, see if you can find it.

on the boulevard, 10 minutes form my house, is the parliament building. i used to walk by it every day on the way to shopping or kalemegdan or the cyber cafe. the building in the background is the head post office. it's fun to live in this neibourhood, because this is where angry protestors come to be heard.

this is where i live. well, ok, i don't like in it. that's the church of st. mark. but my place is 2 minutes from here. i have lots of fun memories of this park (tas majdan) and the church. (more about tas majdan here.)
this is the other big church in belgrade, and the biggest orthodox church in the world - the church of st. sava.

lastly, i leave you with this, which is a stack of photos from belgrade. i am especially fond of the pic of knez milos on his horse.