16-XII-2014.
Big packing. Nina was mostly in charge of the hundred rags - kids clothing, other clothing, everything. The laptops and Raja's tablet, of course, go into hand luggage. Ender, on his part, mostly packed his colchicin stash. Each box contains a strip or two with tablets, the rest is the hughe sheet of small print and the box itself. He'd bundle the strips by tens, tie them with a rubber band, and stick them into various corners between the clothing, so they wouldn't be in one big heap and thus hopefully would look less suspicious on the xray.
The whole house was in chaos, it lasted until 22:00, or at least that's when I stopped taking shots. Judging by the situation on the last shots, there was still a lot to pack then.
Their flight was on seventeenth in the afternoon, so we had time to drop by dad's, to say hello. The rite was performed - dad measured Raja's height against the frame of the door between the bedroom and dayroom, and I neatly wrote down the date. The weather was appropriately smudgy for this time of year, neither frost nor not, cloudy and murky yet nothing's falling, everything kind of dirty yet no mud in sight. Well, december.
At the airport there was chaos, as the lower part of the parking was closed off. They sent us into a side path, we barely found a slot. There was no chance to do the regular stop at the entrance, unload, go find a parking space, walk back to join them. Park where they sent you and be glad.
Some parts of the airport were also closed off, some security buzzed around. Well, we checked the luggage in and waited. Nothing happened on time, so we sat (Lena with us, don't remember how she came, perhaps cab or bus). Violet picks whatever she can reach, a lively baby. We take a couple of sandwiches, one was moldy, took a while to get a replacement, time passed. Eventually it all passed, we said our goodbyes, and they took off.
Then it turns the reason for the whole ruckus was the allegedly hundred strong chinese delegation, who came to open the bridge the next day. Eh, had the flight been a day or two later, we could have taken this new bridge, it's 15km shorter that way, which may not be much, but it's about 30 traffic lights less, which means a lot. So this was the last time I had to take the long way around, over Mostar loop, up Kneza Miloša, Vuk, down Ruzveltova, Pančevo bridge, Borča...
When they opened the bridge, they also uncovered a monument, dedicated to builders, sino-serbian friendship and whatnot, done in gold letters on black polished stone, chinese style, so here it looked like a tombstone. All of ppp and burundi and facebook and Vukajlija were abuzz with mockery. It was removed within ten days.
Mentions: burundi, Ender Aquila (Ender), Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), ppp, Ryu (Raja), Violet, in serbian