22-VIII-1974.

On 22nd was in Belgrade, submitted my papers to the Academy. Checked with ETF (electrotechnical), their admission exam is on the same day, 2nd of september, too bad.

On the bus to there had a seatmate, some syrian student, with sloppy knowledge od english and french much worse, which means we talked all the way to there.

When I got the ticket back, sat on the staion staircase (not main stairs, so no crowd there), munching on something while I wait for my bus, read Ulysses. Some guy sits nearby, sees that I'm reading in English, strikes up a chat.

- you english?

- I live in London, but I'm Irish.

- that's better.

- I know.

In the afternoon I took the car to see Kid and Eči, about the stuff they were supposed to bring me from Italy. About Eči I actually knew already, the jeans he got me were too small and tight; wanted to check with Kid about his record player, did he fix it. Before I got out of my street, some white mercedes passes me, and I already started cursing the cretin gastarbajter who makes a show of passing me less than 50m before the intersection. Then in it I see first Veca and Sneca, then Lajna and eventually Rudolf. We got out of our cars, greeted each other lengthwise and widthwise (literal translation), then he drove behind me to the other end of town to see with these guys, I picked my jacket, then all went to her but she wasn't there. Left a message and then we left.

Rudolf dropped by Zagreb first and brought Lajna. His old Mercedes survived the last year's trip home, but not the next inspection, so he's now got his dad's next old one, younger by at least a decade and looking much better and far less playful. Just like last time, he brought a few albums just to play while he's here, and if I'd perhaps buy some. I didn't have the money, but Dženk did, so he bought some. Apart from Rare Bird, I think there was also the "In-a-gadda-da-vida", some Pink Floyd, don't remember much else. The paperwork which came with praktika was still around. Interestingly, the importer was "Cineoptik" - with C instead of K or rather S - it was pronounced sineoptik. The shop where we got that first enlarger and the 8mm camera and projector was "Cinephoto" (pron. sinefoto) - but that was in smack downtown Belgrade, they knew their french or whichever language they chose.

The events accelerated in those few days, which was exactly the reason why my diary ends here, I just couldn't keep up with the events. I think the last I wrote was "she came by soon and then we had dinner and they went to Milivoje, then went to kantina but the music was quite tasteless" and then we whistle*, I can't even remember whether we got inside or decided to go elsewhere. In my head there's a mix of places we went to. The (now) famous "zašto vino ne hladan" is Rudolf's almost correct serbian (except "ne" is for verbs, not adjectives, should have used "nije" (isn't), and the wine is of neutral gender, so "hladno") was, IIRC, spoken the first evening, in Trpeza. The wine was still white, amazingly. We read the label, and indeed it said so, "still white wine" - we were lucky to get it before it changed color. IIRC, Tejka was at the table. Veca and Sneca were somehow absent, but Dženk was also around...

Rudolf was in Thailand earlier that summer, and brought me a pair of chopsticks. Despite the common belief here that those Asians have some magic trick or waste a year of childhood learning how to use them, it's actually something that can be learned in five minutes. And so he taught me, and I practiced some, and soon got the hang of it. On this photo of me lifting a grape with sticks, I'm wearing that black shirt with the upholstery tape, that I had for the prom night (22-V-1974.).

In the evening, Vanji came by for some reason, and we got the idea that, since Dženk and I were born on the same day (he's one year younger), we could throw a party somewhere... outside perhaps. Few obvious choices were off the table soon for this or that reason, mostly for being too well known and not desolate enough, so I suggested the little forest behind the gas charging station (liquid gas, not gasoline, fuck english). "Ah so you also know the place... don't remember seeing you there" "Must have been on different nights". IOW, we both had a škodilak at our disposal and that was the way to get laid, drive somewhere hidden and not too far.

Which is what we organized the next evening, first in the chain of august birthdays.

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* "from there it's whistled" - we don't know the rest of the words for the song, v. house dictionary

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Mentions: 22-V-1974., Prom night, 23-VIII-1976., 19-IV-2019., august birthdays, Endre Felbab (Eči), gastarbajter, Gradivoj Jankulov (Dženk), house dictionary, Kantina, Melanija Merćep (Lajna), Milivoje Stojanović, praktika, Rudolf Ochsner, Slavica Tejin (Tejka), Snežana Stojanović (Sneca), škodilak, Trpeza, Vera Stojanović (Veca), Vilmoš Baranji (Vanji), Zoltan Kadar (Kid), in serbian