11-XI-2018.
OK so we had our sunday lunch on saturday, but it doesn't matter, there's still more soup :). And russian salad.
We finally took the girls in the new stroller, the weather still being extremely mild (c'mon, it's mid november, it should be depressing... this feels like Texas, or late april). I think we walked at least three kilometers altogether. Met practically noone, the streets were empty*. Well our lunch is a bit early, everybody else seems to do it later, plus siesta and whatever is on the teevee then (which we wouldn't know even now when we do have a set - the internet being the only connection it has, no cable, no antenna).
Took eos70, shot a bunch of photos, including some interesting examples of Balkan art deco.
Okay, this is me pushing the stereo stroller for the first time, on the worst part of the path. The tiles (same as they once were all the way to downtown, or in our old street, and still are between šećerana and the railway, our infrastructural dead end). They got mostly dislodged over time, as decades of rain and frost have softened the ground and the grass grew between them, so the path is not flat at all.
The simpler bike lock serving as a gate lock. Neat idea, but in this unlocked position it looks kind of ridiculous. And the reason it is used is that the gate poles probably sank a bit and didn't stay parallel, so the tongue of the lock doesn't quite hit the slot. This is cheaper and simpler than actually fixing the cause, as that would involve smashing some concrete and pouring it again. Not painting it is also cheaper than painting.
This was supposed to be a tavern. The chimney on the left stands on a serious fireplace, with a spit with probably same powered mechanism to turn it. Inside there's also a bar, but we never saw more than a couple of guys there. The window hole in the fence wall is probably a sign of „we started building this but then changed our mind“. I never saw any smoke coming out of that chimney.
Further down the street, the typical everything-is-improvised look of this kind of art deco. The clothesline held by a simple branch, a junk car next to a trashcan, bare walls with concrete parts exposed, the gutter barely usable but sporting some flora.
The open floor plan. Same street, which is the central street connecting the community center and the outer end of the area, by the railroad. The other streets are crossing that one, there are ten such streets, each next a few houses shorter, as this street is somehow diagonal to the area. Our street is the seventh.
This kind of „changed our mind about which decade will we proceed with construction“ is not rare, leaving just a foundation is a kind of staking out the lot.
Our sleeping arrangements are kind of weird in this transitional period, when Raja and Violet are adjusting to CET. Which they seem to be doing the long way around - they go to bed around 17:00 or hopefully later, and then wake up at any time of night. We manage by staggered sleep - I stay until 2 and then she takes over. Last night it was until three, where I slept on the couch from 2 to 3. This night we changed the layout - I'll sleep on the couch for as long as I can, or she comes down, whatever comes first.
Well, the first thing on monday morning was Violet's shout. I did hear some sounds before that, but not enough to wake up. Well this was, and I saw her standing by the open fridge. Ah, ok, she's standing and the fridge is open, so something fell out. Nope, it was water, the bottle was horizontal and she opened it.
She came down when I was about halfway through mopping up, taking off the wet shirt, finding something else for her to wear, more mopping up. But this was actually good, the kids stayed awake until about 17:00, i.e. went to bed earlier than the day before, and stayed asleep for almost 12 hours, which is a great step toward syncing with our timezone. Come think of it, considering that they went from GMT-5 to GMT+7 back to GMT-5 to GMT+1 in the same year, this is quite good.
Next night I slept on the couch all night, no problems at all.
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* it's Armistice day, one of the just four official holidays that we have. The state is still young and the fake tradition they invented has already changed a few times, so nobody really knows the holidays. I finally memorized this one a year later, when I kissed the door three times and then finally there was one with a notice taped to the glass, it's a holiday and we have a day off.
Mentions: eos70, Ryu (Raja), šećerana, Violet, in serbian