04-IX-2010.
On 2nd, bought a mirko, in that little shop by the brewery. The owner himself brought it in the afternoon. It cost around 4000 dinars, which would be 40-50$, cheapest so far. Simple, no keys, just two analog dials - one for percentage, one for timer. And a real bell. Nothing digital, doesn't have a 12+12 hour clock either.
A bike trip to downtown, to try to cash another 1000$ in travelers cheques. Almost no customers there, and as is usual on saturdays, only two clerks work. I'm getting the latest news from my clerk:
- ah, checks... well we've got a new order, that all the currency checks should go into polog (layover) first, before you get the cash
- then you'll have to see me on monday again, which is not a pretty sight
- um, no, they have to stay for a month
So every bank sooner or later succumbs to its nature, which is to keep our money in their hands for as long as they can. I guess these checks will cash in Hungary in 15 minutes. I did feel a bit self important, for being the probable cause for the change of rules, though, and equally pissed off that they didn't wait a couple of weeks with that.
They send me to the other bank across the square. The security kid tries to explain to me where exactly, but his coordinates are too new - names of today's shops, which I still didn't memorize. After asking for some older ones, he describes it as "where mcdonalds used to be, the only one ever that closed". "Not exactly, I know a few over there that did" - "well, in Europe at least" - "Yep, couldn't stand the competition of pljeskavice (burger) from Cvele's* kiosk - both cheaper and better".
At this other bank, the clerk has no clue, they don't do currency on saturdays. We'll see on monday.
Johan has caught and eaten a fly. Another one, well, almost - he opened his mouth and it flew out. I posted his pic on the ppp forum, and he's already getting invited to make kittens in Belgrade.
The bathroom is as we left it. The towel and toothbrush holders (same as in DBA), sturdy slovenian plastic, still holds; the turkish basin with a leg is still as yellowish as it always was, the mirror and shelf smuggled from Romania (guess we transfered that from the old place in 1993). I see Lena keeps her nose rinse pot there, souvenir from that yoga course. The cable plugged in is from the hair mower (for hair and, in my case, just for beard), the chinese Simel at 700 dinars, not even close to the Remington we left there, but for the 3-4 runs a year, I don't need a better one. We call that „nularica“, nula is a zero, which is the generic name for that kind of cutter ever since Slavko Vorkapić's „Zero mark“ manual model from... well, close to a hundred years ago.
----
* the nickname of an engineer, who used to teach in MPSŠC while I was there, charcoal pays better than chalk ever did
Mentions: DBA, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Johana, mirko, MPSŠC, ppp, in serbian