And I'm in Serbia-How Surprised Are We?

Let me start off this particular post at the end...I want to die.

So I'm in Belgrade again and I know you're all really shocked about it. I've had an excessively quick trip this time around-two weeks exactly. No extensions, no changing my ticket half a dozen times, no evacuations...just two weeks. I haven't blogged before now because I think honestly unless I manage to take some vacation days and do something or there are more super fun riots there's not much else for me to write. How many times can I go on about how pretty Kalemegdan is or how much I *heart* Coffee Dream? I do however feel that a quick overview is needed, if for no other reason than Lauren and I have been lazy posters recently.

There are demonstrations everyday protesting the extradition of Radovan Karadzic (whose name I can now finally pronounce) in Republic Square. It's generally only between 20-50 "hooligans" but they manage to shut down one of the major streets everyday around 5-6 pm as they march down said street blaring a song that, as my friends told me, is an anti-American semi pop number, blowing whistles, and generally just being a nuisance.



My job here was possibly going to be ending at the end of September, however, in the face of all adversity and doubt from everyone that we could do, we won the new program! Which means a couple things: 1) This blog will never stop getting Greetings from Serbia posts, 2) My absinthe supply is endless, and 3) the farewell party we planned turned into one of celebration. We rented out a great restaurant in Zemun and hired a completely fabulous band. It was a work party so almost everyone who had ever been somehow involved with my program here was invited. There was a fair amount of mingling although I'll openly admit that I used the restaurant's cat and the fact that it was sleeping contentedly on my lap as an excuse to not have to actually mingle. Bad Andrea. However as the evening wore on and people got a few drinks into them we used the dance floor space to its fullest extent. I ended up dancing with the absolute spriest of old men ever. He asked me to dance during a slow number which I did and we shouted business talk at each other during our rotation around the floor. After the slow song the band broke into a fast piece and the little old guy actually EXPLODED! into dance. I cannot really do it justice...suffice it to say that there were moments when he would simply gallop across the floor. Gallop. In addition to the music and enthusiastic dancing there was also food and enthusiastic drinking, mostly by moi, which brings us to the beginning of the post-I want to die. Being no stranger to showing up to work either hung over or (twice) still drunk; I made it into the office this morning. But I would kill one of the Karadzic hooligans for an Egg McMuffin.