02-VI-2011.
The whole gang ( (Go, Stanley, Nina, Ender, Raja, Lena) got into saxo and went for a little trip. They first visited Fantast castle behind Bečej, spent some time there. Saw all of it, made dozens of shots, even the ostrich farm can be seen, just no lunch photos. But here, a message from Lena, „Having lunc in Fantast. I tink we'l go to Palic over Srbobran, if we can. If not, ten we'l come back to Fantast“. Her nokla E71 is american issue, doesn't have the keyboard driver for anything except english, hence haircut latin.
The „if we can“ is about the road blockades. The peasants still didn't receive what the government promised, so they resumed. Three hours later, she reports „You can leave a coment on tat map to tel tem tat tere is a blockade between Becej and Radicevic but tey are leting us pas at te moment“ (ditto re haircut, should be Palić, Radičević). The map of the current blockades existed somewhere, and links or screenshots of it were regularly pasted on ppp.
At Fantast they made a bunch of shots, in both the halls and the yard. And look there, they have horses... and an ostritch farm. What a sales artist that guy must have been. I remember there used to be another farm on near side of Klek. It may pass here as „we're a tourist landmark and we also have a zoo“. The trouble with ostriches is that they eat a lot and grow really big, and then nobody can sell neither the meat nor the eggs. The omelette is great, they say, but how can you put together ten people to eat it?
Another few hours later they already had rooms at Palić, settled nicely, made dozens more photos at the lakeshore. In the evening Ender and Nina went to Subotica to check the Bates tavern, where we dined gloriously last year. They were floored by the food, a matter of tale. At some point he got up to look for a toilet and spotted the waiter in the kitchen, then realizing that the guy is the whole staff, doing everything by himself - cooking, bussing the tables, cleaning up. Rememberd his bussing days, how that was, and topped the tip with extra five bucks. Then later took extra pleasure in telling us what a gulaš that was, and how the guy was incredible and yet a one man show.
They came back on fourth. No matter what gastronomical bacchanalia they went through in these two-three days, they came to a regular homemade lunch - soup, sauce, meat... and mufljuzi with cherries (v. house dictionary). Of course, there was something vegetarian for Lena.
I see there's DeCuir's [di cure's] book „Yugoslav black wave“ on the table - which Lena got straight from the author, who stayed here while he wrote it, met him at some party. Somehow the Amers recognize her and hook up to her. Book is interesting, the same content is in both languages, printed from either end towards the middle, just flip over horizontal axis to change language. I did read all of it (just one side) and it's not enough that it's good, it's that I'm shamed to confess that about half of it was news to me.
Mentions: Ender Aquila (Ender), Gorana Sredljević (Go), house dictionary, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), nokla, ppp, Ryu (Raja), saxo, Stanley Berger, in serbian
4-VI-2024 - 7-IV-2026