09-VII-2010.: The big return
Landed in München one minute ahead of schedule. As expected, Balkans begins in Schillerstrasse, and the airport seems to be to the south of it. There were signs leading to gates 1-23, 26-39... but none for gate 25. Everybody was asking for it... and of course, it was quite simple, one level up and all the gates are there. Except 25 isn't really a gate, it's a staircase leading down, to the buses. An old lady (or so she seemed) with two sons (if they are) managed to confuse everyone to try to go back, seeing that gate 26 doesn't go down, and they must have shown us the wrong door. This was the first encounter with home... an old lady complaining about pretty much everything, and ranting at every step.
At landing, we had to wait in a long queue at the passport control (our passports did get stamped). There was some confusion as to which booth does which set of countries (EU and a few more in one, and the rest in the other), but we deliberately stayed in the wrong queue - guessing (right) that the division is obsolete and not enforced. We picked up our luggage and tried to stroll totally blase by the customs (we are exempt, as repatriates), but the customs officer asked whether we have any goods to report. Without a word I pulled out the exemption paper I got from the embassy (which cost me 188$), but he wanted to have a chat, which ended with opening the large suitcase with zmajček and monitor, and the smaller sewing machine again. It was just a chat, though, because he was just bored, and let us go. He did mention that this exemption is, „you see, valid for a year, but it doesn't say when that year begins, and that's not today, you may go as you are, so you pick your date at will“. Cool, I wanted to have that paper for so many years, to be able to import whatever I want without a word from the customs, and now that I have it, I don't need it. Never used it, everything's available everywhere.
Dad was supposed to wait for us, but we couldn't spot him. She stayed in the tunnel (between arrival gates and the parking) just to be in the shade, while Lena and I went around to see if we can see him. Got some mineral water (Knjaz Miloš, after all these years), and a card for Lena's nokla. Just when she wanted to understand how to make a call, there came dad with the cab driver, and off we went. Over Beška, because the Gazela bridge was under reconstruction, and the traffic in the old city was in permanent congestion. So it was easier to go around.
The cabbie used to be my student long ago, in 1981. The one with hair down to his kidneys. The hair I remember, not the name. He did most of the talking. Dad brought a bottle of yogurt - liquid, proper - and a bag of savijača with cheese (multilayered, philo-like dough, but much thinner), which was the proper welcome.
There was our first triper - he had to make another round to the airport, so his wife would meet us halfway, we'd switch cars... which worked. The switch was in Đurđevo, one of the places where it used to be impossible to hitch a ride from, back in the day. We waited on the main street, perhaps some twenty minutes. It was hot, though not unbearably so - it was DRY heat, finally.
Susjetka (v. house dictionary) (the wife of the guy who was a young man when I was a kid, now a widow, re-married to another guy of the same name) came, after her daughter recognized our voices through the bathroom window. So they both came and sat for a while. Then Zina came. Eventually the cabbie came with the rest of our luggage.
The apricot trees in my parents' yard were hanging low with heavy fruit, juicy and fragrant, the likes of which (but cooled down and barely recognizable) we found only twice in the US. The branches were propped up by about a dozen poles, a whole Acropolis. Some neighbors came, had a long chat with us. Ate a lot of apricots.
Also, a couple of interesting guys came to buy rakija from dad, with a few interesting stories (about one of them throwing a CEO through the window etc). I guess this is when I first met the current edition of Paja. I guess we knew each other back in the day, but from afar - when I was a kid he was already a guy, seven-eight years older was a lot back then.
Mentions: house dictionary, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), nokla, Paja Čkaljević, rakija, triper kombinacija, yogurt, Zina, zmajček, in serbian
9-VIII-2010 - 16-VII-2026