Going out to town was far less of a problem now, it was more relaxed up on the hill. I'd usually visit uncle Staja first, who grabbed yet another tezga here, fixing shades, doors, windows and kitchen cabinets in officers' apartments. He lodged with the same colonel again. When he'd arrive, he'd usually announce that I have a visit, which then went through its own channels and would find me. Once we met downtown, on Poljana (meadow, that's how they call the main square). That was my first walk down the hill, so it seems I've strained a few muscles. Nothing serious, it's just that once we got off the table I couldn't lift my feet off the ground. Took me a while until I worked those muscles into walkable state, and walked him to the apartment.
Afterwards I buzzed around town, and rememberd the Gold cafe (owned by, guess, one Zlatko Gold [zlato=gold], someone had the sense of humor). The place was on the blacklist of places forbidden for soldiers, but then the military cops never went in there, so a fuckup was due only if you create a mess in a wrong place. The cafe was regularly quite crowded, despite its being off the main thoroughfares. The street was one of those which meander downhill to the boardwalk, and the door wasn't facing the street at all, had its own staircase.
The shelf above the bar held a liter stein, filled with coin up to, approximately, a quarter. On my second or third visit I told the tender that it's a pity that the space in it is unused, why not move the coins into a smaller vessel, so when I come next time, I'd drink from that stein, and save myself a trip to the bar and save him the work. He made it so, and the stein waited for me. I did that maybe two-three times.
The trouble was the lack of company. At times I'd chance into conversation with the localas, though they regularly avoided the vojska, one never knows what kind of idiot or simpleton may the uniform hide. Well, I guess some of the culture or manners would emerge, or I was interesting for rolling my own, so I heard a story (or maybe heard it from Šime a month or two later) about what the Dalmatians do in winter. Having stuffed their pockets with cash over summer, they get into tourism in winter. So a bunch of them is in Prague, fill themselves with czech beer, get on the tram and remember that the nearest stop is half a kilometer from their hotel. One comes to the driver, waves a 100DEM banknote in his face and says „drive to so-and-so hotel“. „Can't do, pan, there's no track there“. „Want the hundred marks or not?“
The other problem was that I lost the habit of cap. We didn't wear it up on the hill, it blows, every now and then someone'd have to chase his. In the city, however, we had to wear it, by peeess (pravilo službe - service rule), except in a tavern. Then it was a problem to thread it under the epaulete strap on the shoulder, or not to forget it on the table. I've seen guys running back from the street, to retrieve theirs.
Some other time I met with uncle Staja in a tavern closer to the apartment, at the ground floor of some novogradnja, which looked more like a mess hall than a tavern, but had the view of the sea and a nice sunset, and they had the Inex beer from Vršac. Excellent, and I couldn't believe my luck to find, on the coast, any other to drink but the Ožujsko (to wash feet) or, at best, the Lederer.
4-VII-2025 - 25-III-2026