"The Amazing Race" Kind of Summer: Belgrade

When I was 10 years old we spent a summer in Loutraki, Greece with my aunt's family. Beautiful beaches, vibrant city life, hibiscus trees in bloom, spa water wells, the fascinating Corinth Canal and the rich history of the Peloponnese peninsula near by. For my two cousins (Milan 12 & Mihajlo 14) and I, summer meant telling jokes, playing cards and laughing all day without a care in the world. If we could only get our parents to shell out some drachmas we could either pick a deliciously cold over-sweetened lemonade from the machine or play one of those games of tossing small and treacherously bouncy rings onto sand-filled beer bottles for a lousy yet tempting little prize: Twenty Drachmas sixteen!

Belgrade skyline at dusk

As we debated where to invest the loose change one particular day, a couple that was sitting on the bench near by slowly got up and approached us.

    "Deco, odakle ste vi? Kids, where are you from?"

    "Iz Beograda! From Belgrade!" We replied in unison as there was no other place from which we could have possibly been.

Their faces lit up and they beamed at one another. The woman told us they had been living in the USA for over 30 years, never once returning home. She asked with a tremor in her voice:

    "Da li jos uvek postoji Cvetkova Mehana? Is Cvetko's Restaurant still there?"

None of us were the right age to know the answer, but the rarely used Turkish word mehana - meaning restaurant - made it sound beyond hilarious. At first dumbfounded we quickly recovered and then burst into laughter as we ran away. I heard the couple behind us call out a faint: "Wait... stop... please" but the boys kept running and so did I. These were the first emigrants I ever met and I still remember them as vividly as ever. They introduced the word NOSTALGIA to me.

Why am I telling you this? All of Belgrade, the third stop of our family's adventure is a "Cvetkova Mehana" of my emigrant's life. It holds the essence of nostalgia. The flavour of longing. The joy of hugging my dear ones after a really long time. The excitement of introducing my family. The jitters of discovering what has changed. And the relief of realizing - nothing ever changes. I belong here. This is home.

The drive from Budapest to Belgrade through harvest-wealthy Vojvodina - where Pannonian Sea once stood - felt surreal. With each kilometre getting closer my breathing became more and more shallow. I have five days. Five days to show, tell, feel, laugh, cry, introduce, eat, hug, cry, visit, experience, re-live, understand and then cry some more.

This was a summer of walking - our step-counters beeping as we clocked close to 300 000 steps. The five walks we took in Belgrade are essentially five most important walks one can take in life. I hope everyone gets to do it sometime - it is riveting and profound.

Walk One: The Family Album

My aunt (and second mom) @79!

"Friends are family we get to choose" goes the saying and I fully agree (see Walk Two), but how lucky am I to actually have family I would have happily chosen too? 

This most important walk confirms the old cliché 'blood ain't water'. Decades and distances only served to bring us closer. Belly-laughs, long tight hugs, tears of joy and tears of deep sadness, stories of present-day drama, memories of good old days - these all comprise the emotion-packed goodness I'm lucky to experience. 

Filip ❤️ Family ❤️ Filip

My kids meeting their uncles for the first time putting all Serbian words they've ever learned - funny slang and light obscenities - into use, just for attention: Шта је бре човече? Где си Шиптару? Џукело једна!

My husband quickly resolved to surrender to the abundance of delicious foods and affectionate people around him to feel just at home. Loud and loving, that's how we Serbians roll. 

My highlight: seeing my oldest son connect to our family and to his roots. It is a mixture of pride and relief to see him form a deep bond with his uncles (Mihajlo and Milan from the beginning of this story!) and grandma who made his early years safe and filled with love. The language he speaks, the culture he knows, the temperament he understands finally all coming together making the tapestry of his past that he had only heard about, became palpable and real. 

Our family album is precious - it's full of good memories, dense with love, understanding and respect for one another. A few photos are faded, one whole page is torn out and there are coffee and a few chocolate stains on it - just like our family life itself. And it has many pages yet to be filled. Hooray! 

Walk Two: Of Best Men and Besties

Oh the joy!

We sat in the same classroom and went on field trips together. Our parents were friends. Their parents were like my parents. We stood witness for each other in love and loss and lots in between. We went on sleepovers. Hitchhiked in the rain. Broke curfew. Wrote tests together. Monkeyed around, big time. This is what it looks like when the meaningful childhood never ends: no comparisons, no jealousy, no envy. To me, this is what it truly means to be wealthy. 

Walk Three: Back to School

Belgrade skyline - the Art class project

It's a scorching hot July day and I am standing in front of Smiljanićeva 11 with my family. The old house I grew up in is no longer there, but the feel and the smell somehow is. Next door to us #13 still stands - and I become aware of the foolishly superstitious exclusion of this number all over North America. I remember the names of the neighbours who lived on the ground floor and tell the anecdote of two young dogs that once wanted to "play with me" tugging on my knee-high socks with their teeth, making me dog-weary for an entire decade that followed! 

OOŠ "Vladislav Ribnikar" Elementary School

Then we start the walk - up to Njegoševa St. then left towards the tram-busy Beogradska and a traffic light my parents coached me to obey when I was 8 so that I could start walking to school and back all by myself - unthinkable to our back-to-school present-day routine even though we also have a third grader. One more block and a stroll up King Milutin Street under the thick shade of the chestnut trees and I am in front of the double glass doors. It's middle of the summer but my school is open. The familiar layout and smell of the lobby hi-jacks my senses and all of a sudden I can recall the ring of the recess bell, the stomp down the stairs, the commotion of changing the cabinets between classes.

With my Principal 

I ask if I could say hi to the principal - she knows who I am because of the blog I once wrote reminiscing about my favourite teacher - and the smiling Snežana Knežević storms out, arms wide open for the sincere, warm embrace. That's how we Serbs are. We become good friends in a heart beat even though it's cyber-space. What ensued is one of my favourite memories of our time in Belgrade: a full tour of my school, with my husband and boys - starting with the scariest dark hallway leading to the gym to my grade 1 classroom, library, then cabinets for biology - where my grandfather's student Ilija Ilić got to be my own teacher. Then chemistry - lab smell frozen in time under the unblinking watch of Lavoisier, Curie and other chem-celebrities. The physics room where I still feel the presence of the fiercest teacher ever and my all time favourite - geography. 

My kids kept asking why was I crying. I willingly signed up to be the sentimental fool in this lifetime is only part of the answer. Simply put, I enjoy feeling things. 

Walk Four: The White City

View from the Kalemegdan fortress

I will try to be objective when I recommend you must put Belgrade (translation: White City) on your travel itinerary: you will feel safe, you will feel welcome, you will be extremely well-fed and you won't want to go to sleep - the night life is one of the gems expert travellers keep raving about. Belgrade is Europe's feisty teenager, the relentless activist and the avant-garde artist all in one. Check out the history books and you will learn that centuries of attacks, attempts to defeat and conquer as well as bribe into submission never worked. This comes with a price - life could've been easier for Belgrade citizens if they had compromised their sovereignty during the world wars or their integrity if they had endorsed murky Merkel-like politics. There is something utterly proud and borderline stubborn in the attitude of this city - and I deeply love it for that, although I risk being perceived as the "Belgrade snob". Let me clarify: I am happy to be one. For me, this doesn't carry any notion of superiority, rather it is inferiority free. Knowing who you are, where you're from, proudly and loudly showcasing it whenever possible. 

Knez Mihajlova Street

New Belgrade

Kalemegdan - Game-of-Thrones-ready since 3rd Century B.C.

Clock Gate

Terazije Square

Tašmajdan park

Museum of Nikola Tesla

Walk Five: The Legacy

Ask my husband and he'll tell you I wept pretty much every day in Belgrade. But at least I now understand why:

Because I am grateful for the childhood I got to experience. 

For the pure friendships that are only getting stronger with time. 

For the superior education I received without getting into debt and which still serves me so well. 

For the blessing of a warm, affectionate and honest family. 

For deciding to embrace my nostalgia while creating as much of Belgrade as I can in Toronto.

For witnessing my eldest boy fall in love with his heritage, standing tall and standing proud, connecting with all the dear people who influenced him growing up.

Marina has sons - in Belgrade

Belgrade coordinates: 44° 48' N, 20° 27' E

For having my husband understand how come I actually got to be this way. 

And for hearing my little Canadian kids cheer while watching the recent Rio's Olympics: 

                                         "Srbija, Srbija, Srbija 🇷🇸🇷🇸🇷🇸! "

For me, Belgrade is not a place. 

@Nikola Tesla International Airport

It's an emotion. It feels like nostalgia and it looks a lot like longing. It thuds like a loud heartbeat in my ears. It smells like the time before I knew words such as war and divorce. It tastes like home-made pastries for breakfast and a late night pljeskavica on the go. It warms up like rakija. 

And it sounds just like this: