It's beginning to look a lot like...

This weekend we were surrounded by snow.  The first snowfall of the season quickly evolved to the second, third, and fourth. It snowed all day Saturday and Sunday and then again today.  I do enjoy snow, but here, they don't do a good job of shoveling or clearing up the streets.  People just go about their business as if nothing had happened.  Contrary to President Obama, who made fun of DC for "overeacting" to snow, I am appalled at how Serbs under-react.  Snow, in my PR-weather-filled brain, should mean an automatic day off, under the covers or on the couch, with some soup.  Here, women still rock their high heels, buses are still full, and cabs are still speeding.  No issues, no closures.  Nevertheless, we did as they do and ventured out a couple of times on Saturday for a Christmas concert, a Hanukkah party, and good-bye party for some friends who are going back to Australia for good.  We also decorated our tree and put up all our ornaments.   Phil and I are not religious people by any means, but for some reason, we are really into Nativity sets.  We are lucky that our place offers a nice little ledge which proved perfect for displaying all four of them.

From Mexico circa 1985 stolen from my parents two years ago

From Portugal, gotten on our anniversary trip

German wood carved - Xmas Market find

Inca/Alien Set -  from Peru

Produce is already dwindling, but three weeks ago I was able to get another awesome sample for my "Giant Produce of Serbia" column.





Carrots!

Two weekends ago we went to a Cranberries concert.  I used to be a really huge fan, back in high school, in my EMO days.  I was looking forward to a good, show, since I had seen them once before in Baltimore and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Well, the concert did not disappoint.  Dolores, despite her "old" age, can still rock it, and is definitely cute in dorky sort of way.  She played a lot of new songs, and those were not the greatest, but she still sung their best stuff, like Dreams (our wedding entrance song!), Zombie, Ridiculous thoughts, Linger, and Salvation.  Some of the songs, literally took me back to my bedroom growing up.  It's weird how music can do that. The true 'highlight' of the Cranberries concert is how the venue was changed without us learning about it; and how, after we finally knew, assigned seating became a free for all at the door.   No joke.  The whole 5 months that I had been holding the tickets, I thought they were at the venue PRINTED ON THE TICKET.  But no, somehow, sometime, somewhere, it was changed to another arena and since we clearly don't watch local TV, we missed the memo of the change.  Luckily, a friend happened to mention it to me and we were able to go to the right place.  Once we got there, late of course, our friend K. had elbowed her way into some decent seats, so we weren't completely out of luck.  Except there was a crazy cloud of smoke that was so thick I had to keep blinking to see the concert.  When we got home, we had to strip by the door and run to the shower to scrub ourselves, the smell was so bad.  Maybe I am getting as old as Dolores.