The rumble in the jungle day. The evening before, precisely.
We met somewhere downtown, and didn't feel like going anywhere. Or we were to a movie at an earlier run, perhaps at six or seven. And then went for a walk. Since my lodging was beyond fish market, and her by the fair, this was something like at home, except the distance was shorter - 3km instead of 5.
We still didn't begin to look for shortcuts, took Futoška [street] instead. At the corner where we were supposed to turn we realized we still have the time... well, really, we had as much time as we wanted, we are not at home. There we learned that the taverns in Novi are open only until 21:00, which nobody believes now. That is, that was the closing time for those with better locations, the plainly visible, society owned ones, probably those that belonged to the hotel-hospitality enterprise. So all the way from the centre to Cara Dušana [street] we found no place to sit. Yet here... they have a little tavern on the corner.
Not much of a little tavern at all, but it's open longer. No music, excellent. No crowd, the better. That evening everyone went early to sleep, to wake up at 4 to watch the live transmission from Zaire, Mohammad Ali vs George Foreman (which most reporters pronounced correctly, as formen, but some stuck to the phonetic reading of unphonetic writing, forehmahn). The retiree's atmosphere was disturbed only by the two guys at the only other occupied table, who were pouring suspense into themselves, in expectation of what they will observe (if they stop on time and stay awake). "Kad bata Ali opali" (when Ali bro slams) was heard several times.
We drank, I guess, a beer. I don't think we had a second, this place may have closed at 22:00, and I had lectures at 8 next morning.
As far as I know, we didn't watch the match, we flatly slept over it, including landlord's son. That is, if he watched, we didn't hear it.
The Novi city bus. Now that I saw how they differ from ours, wow. For one, the ticket is cheaper at the kiosk, and it's a ticket for a dozen rides, there's an optical reader in the car, you insert the ticket and it cuts out the next available corner and prints the date/time/line on it. Ours would get the idea to sell them at kiosks... only a few years later, and even then there won't be any reader, they'd sell tokens, coins with a hole, one ride each, so carrying a dozen in your pocket would be heavy. Next, the vehicles themselves - while ours stayed faithful to old TAMs, which were forever billowing smoke, sometimes inside too, the doors often wouldn't close properly, these guys had Volvos with semiautomatic gears. The shift stick was 8cm tall, under the steering wheel, operated by two fingers. They'd use them to make room - two stiff starts and stops, and the people would bounce back and forth and thus make room for fifteen more. This was the first time I saw smooth low white curbstones, and later heard that the city transport paid for the old rough and tall ones to be replaced by these, as the tires wear less, they recovered the cost in less than two years just on tires. On top of it, they didn't have a timetable like ours, theirs said at which times of day the buses arrive at 5, when at 10 or 12 minutes etc. The cars had radios, so they'd call the dispatcher if more vehicles were needed on their line. You get the feeling this is a big city and that we've already paid for all of it.
They had controllers, because there was the university and so lots of folks who'd go for a free ride (we did too, perhaps two or three times total). The controllers wouldn't ride from the first station, they'd jump in on 2nd or 3rd, when the crowd thins out a bit, and when the passengers notice them, anyone disembarking would just ask „anyone needs a ticket?“. Those single ride tickets were issued by the driver, there were no conductors, on a small gadget, some kind of desk calculator with a printer, which was incredibly fast. When ours removed the conductors, they introduced a box where you just drop the token or cash, not getting any change nor ticket, and these guys were still faster than that, what with receiving the money, printing the ticket, handing the ticket and change.
15-III-2021 - 26-IX-2025