Beginning of the big vacation of DBA in Sutomore. The year before I opted out, and so did Grgi, and we kept the fort together for the duration. Lena was just a baby and we weren't really up for travelling. This time, I just said "now or never", specially as Nena cut a deal with some tourist agency to make this cost 100DEM per capita, but as the inflation was raging daily and we have paid a few days later, it came down to even less. We'd have rooms in bungalows, i.e. the hotel wasn't just one stacked building, it was spread in dozens of small house around the forest facing the sea.
The travel arrangement had us gather at the bus station here, some time in the afternoon. Didn't talk much with anybody until train station in Novi Sad (quirk of the agency... the bus trip to Novi is short, perhaps 45 minutes vs 80 to Belgrade, but the train will more than eat that up till we pass Belgrade). The atmosphere was sort of nice, but already there I heard some gossip. Which was to be expected - it's not that even the office meets in full personnel every day, we're traveling too much and sit in our offices and the phones keep ringing. This is the time, apart from lamb-on-the-spit on Mayday, when the company gets together and just has the time to chat without unfinished work behind its neck. But now there's also the families, specially the wives. I thought the geeks mary special kind of girls which would be above that, but no.
By the time we were boarding the train, I had the lyrics of "Deca loših muzičara" (bad musicians' children) in my head
možda je stvarno bolja
kolektivna paranoja
(perhaps it really is better, the collective paranoia)
The atmosphere on the train got much better, as we had a lot of brandy and played cards (lorum, of course). Despite Serbs' general aversion, bordering with phobia, against draft, we kept the corridor windows wide open, the night was pleasant even in the mountains, and the time just flew. Kids were sleeping, but most of us didn't.