31-XII-2017.
She made šne nokle (snow dumplings, eggwites beaten into foam and then cooked in the mix of milk sugar and yolks). I prefer the hungarian name for it (or what her dad called it), madár tej - bird's milk. Haven't eaten these in years.
Well, we finally go for a doček. Haven't done one since new 2011. The weather being unseasonably warm, we just walked to downtown. I imagined this to be a photo-safari, so I took the eos70 and the new flash and started shooting as soon as we approached the downtown. Were supposed to meet with Arpi, but when I called him he was just getting dressed, and my (šne) nokla gave the signal that the battery is nearly drained. It didn't look like there's much of a crowd when we got there - and the famous (from late 1970s) band "Atomsko sklonište" from Rijeka would begin a concert at 22:00. Assuming they were true old rockers, so the concert couldn't possibly begin on time, we tried to have a beer at "Biblioteka" ("Library"), one of the dozen cafés in gimnazija street, but it was closed. Well, next one, "Trocadero". Funny lights, just a handful of people, good belgian Leffe dark beer... small, though, so we had two. A dozen good shots.
We arrived at the main square around 23:00. The guys were dusting it properly, and amazingly managed to spontanize the audience - sparse first, filling perhaps just about 20m nearest to the stage, but as midnight approached it filled to almost 2/3 of it. You could still walk between the people in the farther half, kids were running around. Anyway, as it went, the spontanizing worked better and better, and the people really sang with the band, specially their legendary "Treba imat dušu" ((for love) it takes a soul). I recognized the guy who ran the little bookshop in the middle of štrafta, previously known as Šacina knjižara (Šaca's bookshop) after its pre-war owner. BTW, Šaca jr was a member of DC-99. So it was one of those double-take moments, when you almost let the other guy pass and then click back to get him before he vanishes in the crowd. Well, some reminiscing took place.
Took a bunch of good shots, including some video - canon caught the sound famously, hats down.
After midnight she had the right idea to leave before the crowd rushes away - though the concert would last for another hour, the many who came with kids, for the fireworks, so we started walking and ran into Arpi. Right on time. And within the minute, Mire and Zorica. Bingo. We went back to "Trocadero", which was now almost full. Found a table in semi-upstairs (there was a row of tables below it, a couple of steps below the main floor level), and first lined up our jackets over the speaker box, which was oozing fresh and stale turbo folk, to damp the sound so we can somehow talk. Which is today's pop music here, it has converged long ago, but it's still annoying and can't move me, no matter how much I drink. Sklonište did, my throat tightened and I couldn't even shout, let alone sing (which is good, I can't sing my way out of a wet paper bag, awful pitch control). Had two more beers, many good shots, promised to visit each other (yeah, right, crate of beer that they probably won't)(met him ten times and her four or five over the next four years, and they didn't).
Arpi's nose was scratched, prominent on most of the pictures (flash into the ceiling most of them, and while it wasn't white, it was at least low enough). Few days ago he arrived from somewhere, and spotted Milena on the busodrome. Ran to her, but as his hands were still in his pockets, when he stumbled on something, his hands weren't at hand to catch some balance, so he stretched prostrate, nosediving into concrete. We didn't mock him too much, only what he was due.
Mentions: january 1981., 24-III-2024., Arpad Gunaroši (Arpi), DC-99, doček, eos70, gimnazija, Milena Požarić, Milorad Škanata (Mire), nokla, štrafta, Zorica Škanata, in serbian