Visit to Sarajevo, Mostar, Adriatic coast, Zagreb (Oct. 2022), Part 2

Next, Nina took us to Trebevic (hill) where we went for a little walk in sunny and warm weather (the forecast said rain and cold, but we got nothing but sunshine during the entire trip!) I saw the old hotel with a paved circular path outside of it where I remembered riding bikes with my sister and parents as a little girl. Everything seemed smaller and the distances shorter from the American perspective. It took no time to get up there and back. And then we continued towards Nina's and my old neighborhood. We passed by my old street that looked unchanged and through that entire area, stopping briefly to take a picture in front of the elementary school. It bears a new name and a new external paint color, but everything else about it is the same. Then we continued towards Ilidza and Vrelo Bosne (spring of the river Bosna), another nearby getaway from the city where I sometimes biked on weekends. The horse drawn carriages still go back and forth down the alley of oak and chestnut trees between the thermal baths and the springs, and we didn't skip the treat. I remember how terrified I used to be of those horses!

Visit to Sarajevo, Mostar, Tucepi, Makarska and Zagreb (October 2022), Part 1

Wow, it's been long since my last blog, but it's been much longer (30 years) since my last time in these places that Robb and I just visited in October 2022. We landed in Zagreb and immediately continued for Sarajevo. There we spent a week, first at Nina's and then at Elvedina's place. I wasn't sure how I'd react, but it simply felt as if I had never left... except that I wasn't running into familiar people out in the streets. Nina and her 5-year old Dan were fun, warm, and full of energy to host the two of us who wanted to see everything and taste everything. I never dreamed that I'd actually get to do as much as Nina had planned for us! We roamed downtown, right out of her apartment by the park. From there we walked to my high school, now an International Baccalaureate school, then past it to Ciglane and Kosevsko where my last apartment was before the war. We walked in the other direction to Vijecnica, Bascarsija, etc., with regular breaks for coffee, wine, or lunch. Nina took us to one of her regualar places, Dveri, in Bascarsija, where we got to have simple, tasty Bosnian food: grilled eggplant and peppers, homemade ajvar, pogaca (bread), smoked meats, sopska salata with the best sheep cheese on top, great wine, rakija, sljivovica, etc. With Nina the conversations continued right where we had left them last time we saw each other, in Tampa actually, during her visit. I was very happy to see her mom, too! Her mom was particularly enthralled by Robb :) We had another lunch/dinner up in the hills where I had actually never been before, way up above Mahala, in nature now popular with hikers, in a private yard of a friend of Nina's ex. The whole city was below us, we could barely see it, but we saw the hills on the opposite side of the city in red, orange, yellow, and green and enjoyed a beautiful sunset (when a peasant from the area just happened to pass with 2-3 cows returning home straight through the yard where we sat! It was hilarious! I wish my 5-year old was there, too.) Speaking of tasting everything again, a group that was having a birthday dinner in the same place shared some celebratory cake with us - it was 'egipatska torta' from our unique downtown cake shop, Egipat, a cake that was on my list for this trip. So I got to have a couple of bites of it! And a glass of elderflower juice, too.

Druga Gimnazija (my high school):

My most recent apartment in Sarajevo:

Here come the cows:

Baka moved to town! (this post if from November 2021!)

Baka officially retired at the end of the year and moved to Gainesville, 5min away from our house. I'm just realizing that we finally live in the same town again since I left Sarajevo, with the next closest 5hrs apart in California 14 years ago. While she is still settling in, James got to spend a day with her while the older kids were away for soccer/baseball tournaments, and after that short stay he had to make a comment about how her place was more comfortable than ours (even with boxes still lying around) and how her food was yummy. Everything is better at grandma's, that's just how it is! It was for me, too, when I was little :) On a walk with baka through Paines Prairie, we took some pictures (notice the little alligator in the background):

Soon after that, on a walk through our neigbhorhood we saw a corn snake (Stephen still remembers the place and type of a snake, a year later...):

At the Butterfly Rainforest:

End of soccer fall season (Sonja is the second from top left):

December 2020

Here are some funny moments, courtesy of Stephen the Entertainer: Sonja, Michael and James participated in the Piano Festival this year again, but this time we had to record the songs at home and submit them digitally. Sonja is playing classical music beautifully by now, Michael prefer quirkier pieces, and the teacher is especially impressed with James's progress,and especially since he's learning via Zoom. James has always had some crazy talent for music. He continues to sing with perfect pitch and he still memorizes whole songs after he hears them a few times, but now he is teaching himself to play them on the piano, too. Back in December he decided to play the theme song from the cartoon Masha and the Bear. After a few days of practicing the right hand, he added the left hand, without notes, just by ear. I have absolutely no idea how he did this! Now he is teaching himself one of the popular songs he heard on the radio, "Save Your Tears For Another Day." Not to leave Stephen out, he is hitting the notes on the piano, too, and at the end of every performance he never forgets to bow to the audience. And now the older kids:

Nikolas is officially taller than mom

This is already old news... Back at the end of November, we did a precise measurement and Nikolas beat me in height.

James lost his first tooth!

Last week, the long wait was finally over! James top tooth that has been loose for a few weeks finally came out. He's been yanking it for a few days and used dad's and Nikolas's help to pull it out, unsuccessfully, but now it's finally gone, and he is very happy that he won't be stuck with baby teeth all his life :)

James's First Reconcilliation