Because I am exhausted and will be going to London next week for the IOSPE conference, I will just offer some brief thoughts on our trip to Serbia. These are in no particular order and only a few pictures from the 100+ I took are added below.
1. A snow-capped Mt. Vitosha is easily the most beautiful landmark I have ever seen.
2. When traveling in a group, you hate the group; you love the group.
3. There will always be a boy (male) who can quote The Simpsons. This is wonderful; this is disgusting.
4. I have no imagination. Blame it on TV, Hollywood, a small mind. But don’t forget they are called ruins. No one’s calling them integrities. Show me a fully developed replica in a warm cozy museum.
5. Everyone in Serbia speaks English.
6. Unless you are a medievalist, everything you know about that time period comes from Monty Python, The Princess Bride, and Ladyhawke (the best of the three).
7. In Greece they sell Fanta Apple!
8. Small children are, hands down, the best kind of people.
9. I should feel super fortunate to have a real shower with a shower door, and a toilet, not just a whole in the ground. I will never complain about my apartment again.
10. There are women who look like they were born with a kerchief tied under their chin; and their mother named them “Grandma”.
11. You should never feel small, when you're standing by the ocean. That is a stupid sentiment and a ridiculous song. Sure, you should acknowledge that the world is so much bigger than you. And that millions of people have their own problems. But still, things are happening to you. You are the one living through it. Feel huge and super important, when standing near anything. Everyone else does. (Forget Oprah!)
12. The simple farm life looks inviting.
13. Looks can be deceiving.
14. The only way to travel is as passenger looking out at landscape, while listening to music and questioning all your life choices.
15. If you are a classicist, for so long it has been the Rhine and the Danube. When you see the Danube, you may tear up a bit because as much as you read and study and listen to lectures and go to sites, you will never really know the lives of the ancients. Even when I squinted and tried really hard, I couldn’t be certain of what I know.
16. Eastern Europe has a very particular “charm”.
17. There is a cool way to go through customs. And there is the real way: the agent asks in Serbian “what is this Turk doing here?!” and in English another agent says “ah Whitney, like Whitney Houston huh?”
18. Breakfast is always very weird in Europe. Ok, yeah slices of cheese and some cold cuts, but roasted mushrooms. You could become very rich if you opened up a pancake house with great coffee, 24hrs a day here.
19. Social realism is the best genre of artistic expression. The lines are just so appealing.
20. All the tropes and stereotypes are absolutely true. And everything is a picture postcard.
21. Upon returning from any such trip, to steal from Sondheim, “You are sorry, grateful... You always are what you always were. Which has nothing to do with, all to do with [the trip]”
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| The village for the Chiprovtsi Museum. Brain drain leaves the old and disabled to fend for themselves. The difficult answer to: has capitalism been a complete victory for Eastern Europe? |
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| The view from the castle in Belogradchik. |
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| A once lovely Jewish temple in Vidin. |
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| Replica of Galerius' palace at Romuliana. |
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| This is a photo from the Nis WWII. Concentration Camp. It was as horrible as one can imagine. I didn't take out my camera, until I saw this image of a baby in a bowl. Everything was written in Serbian, so I don't know what happened. I don't care to know. That baby is wonderful. |
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| Emil is in blue, giving a lecture at the Chiprovtsi Museum. Joe is in the stripe shirt. |
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| This is John a prehistorian archaeologist, enough said. |
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| Center is Denver, ARCS' director |
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