20-IX-2024.
We already had the routine to pack everythng - the charger for the phone, the tablet for the maps, eos70, the mac, and what bathroom stuff we carry, and embarked at 12:25. To Sombor, on the road we discovered back in 1990 and learned to like it as good enough, shortest for us and yet not the main [one], so it's never congested and yet quite scenic, all the villages along it somehow differ from each other. And it didn't change much, didn't need the maps. Just a few minor differences since the nineties - the route through Bečej is a lot clearer, the blacktop has a well-worn tinge on it, and there are even a couple of roadsigns. From Bečej to Topola the pavement is better at the ends, but the middle third is rather bad, it's wavy, didn't ride faster than 90 and even that was loud. In Topola there's now an underpass where the screwy railroad crossing used to be. The insane switchback curves in the creek after Gornja Rogatica is much milder now than what I remember, they must have added at least two meters of soil at the bottom. Entering Sombor I fail to spot the bus station, they built something there. The Gugao uncannily calculated everything in and we really got there in two hours and a quarter, despite bad stretches of road, and the congestion on the first 20km of it.
Another major difference - this time this is not a business trip, I don't have to drop by any of tensome customers on that road, nor do I have to drive on over the line, to Délkút and Gemenc. That was actually the plan bee, to go to Délkút the next day if we don't like it in Sombor, lunch there and drive on that side via Tompa to Subotica, the road is better.
I found a slot to park in the city centre relatively easily, by the musical school, and from there we went for a walk. Of course, Globaltel messaged me to say that my phone is close to broke, as I had only 340 dinars in it, and on monday I failed to add money (tried, failed, emailed them, they said server fucked up, try again), and the daily parking cost 240 dinars. It being lunch time already, we sat in front of the Gradska (city, adj.) tavern, behind gradska kuća (city house, aka city hall). I went inside with the shooter to memorize the legendary circular bar of about three meters in diameter, which had a large barbecue in its middle, but nope, it all vanished, it's all in some large black tiles and mirrors, they killed the legend. The toilet was even worse, it's all so black, the eyes still not adjusted to that darkness, the lights turn on when you come close but you have to see what to go close to first, the male-female door markings are different everywhere, takes time to spot and then interpret... and just when I thought that this was it, this white door, I spotted some woman sitting by a desk, with paperwork. An office. Accessible through the restroom hallway in the basement. Well what the fuck. She gave me directions routinely, I must have been the seventh guy this morning.
The čorba was excellent, the pinchings (like pljeska but smaller and thicker by half, there's some pančeta inside, what with pieces of rib cartilage), very good except this was not even close to how the once medallion was, which had better meat and a full fat kačkavalj cheese, the likes of which can't be bought today, except maybe in Pirot. We drank a small nikšićko dark [beer], but fuck that, 300 dinars for a small beer, well go into your dad's [dick], I can't believe that inflation in euros is so big, to make it from 100 dinars of 2005 to this much. Well, anyway, the only principle when deciding the price is IIPIP (if it passes, it passes; ser. APP - ako prođe, prođe). More a matter of inspiration than of calculation.
We meant to night in Sombor, but let's take a walk frst. And then we sat in front of the city hall, to have a coffee. The worst coffee of the year, may it be cheap but I'd gladly top the 120 dinars with 30 more just to have it made out of something valid. And there we noticed that we've already seen everything that was worth seeing, as Sombor ain't much of a city, it's nicer in the songs than to walk through it, and the looks are worsened by the [green] market being next to the city hall, just around lunch time when it's vacated and the sweepers didn't begin the cleanup yet. And the weather was somehow smudged, what the rhmz* calls „bright“ but not sunny, i.e. the sky was criscrossed and the sunlight diffuse, as if being in a white tent. Which should be better for photography, the contrast is not so exaggerated, but nope, when I processed the shots later it didn't go well, whatever I did to them they came out somehow shoddy done. The sun showed when I took the few shots of the [green] market, the strewn garbage, and even that didn't satisfy my desire for quality. We found a kiosk where we parked, so I paid into the phone. The message to confirm the payment came already by dosk. I last few months, ever since MTS bought Žeks's Globaltel, these confirmations would usually come the next day, but then six times in a row.
[Žeks is Željko Mitrović, a tycoon from these parts, the owner of regime-aligned television Pink and other things, even had an airline company until he was found out fiddling with the paperwork; appears in public often drugged to the gills, pretty much like half of the rest of the current first set do]
So we decided to go straight to Palić. The geepyess in the tablet was acting up and didn't manage to catch the signal, whatever, I drove off by dead reckoning, as I remembered the map, and came out with flying colors, the road just as good as it would have been through Hungary, just much shorter this way, we were there in an hour. Recognized two-three village names along the way, where we had customers, but I never drove this way, got treated a brand new road, there were others who were regulars there.
Not to lose time on looking for a room, I went straight to the same place where we nighted on 03-VII-2015., and even got the same room, she fixed the aircondition and it's not noisy anymore. Went for a walk, just as we always do on this weekend, bought in the Ideah* four nikšićko dark[ beer]s in cans, a can of nes coffee and a liter of milk, then walked more.
If the landlady was bitching last time about how investment from Palić is dragged away to the nearby Ludoško lake, where some have business interests, this time the subject was that there are now many b'n'bs in Subotica which take away their guests, pushing the 'sleep in town spend the day on Palić'. The Ludoško wasn't mentioned, and we saw the same roughshod construction with huge buildings and big hotels. She said the business ain't what it used to be, but she's still not complaining, good enough as is. It cost us 3000 per night, which doesn't look much, but then in Sokobanja we had a regular sized bathroom (this is less than meter by two) and a room twice as large for the same money... and a regular sized blanket. Everybody knows the truth in the proverb „as screwy as a short blanket“, which now wasn't short, it was narrow. Actually right for one person, and okay for two if they adher to each other and don't move. As soon as one stirs a little, the other gets cold air under the other edge. For the first night we turned the aircondition on so it got warm, but for the second we didn't, so we slept intermittently, and woke up many times, now for bad position of the head, then for the other one's move...
In the morning we had a coffee on the terrace, sat into the Joda and went straight for the border. Not far, Szeged is 34km away. This time I spotted the sign for the old crossing, renamed to Horgoš 2 now, which is reduced to one lane there one back, and the services (border cops, customs) of both sides are in just one building, a room for each side. All the surrounding fences are still richly studded with thick coils of razor wire. Lots of pedestrian traffic, it seems the locals on both sides have honed the practice of having someone bring them to the border, walking over, having someone pick them. We waited a total of forty minutes, and they passed the opposing direction traffic faster than ours, but even this is a wind up pussycat when compared with five or eight hours this summer. At least there's no no-man's land, the lines are coalesced.
In Szeged I found, relatively quickly, a place to leave the car, in Knight's street (Vitéz utca, ser. Viteška ulica, translation unnecessary), figured out that they don't charge on sundays, okay, let's go for a walk.
Comparing Segedin/Szeged with what I remember from sixties, then nineties, then fourteen years ago, everything is far more lickety split. With emphasis on more. To differ from almost all the cities I saw in the last fourteen years, the part of the downtown which got the new sidewalk pavement, and where the façades of the old buildings were refreshed, is much larger. While in Zrenjanin it's the pedestrian zone and two-three major routes, here it's a circle at least two kilometers in diameter. The kiosks are gone, at least 90% of them, it's all clean, just every bench sports a dozen cigarette butts in front of it, just to make it known that this may be in the EU, but this is still a smokers' country. Resistance.
We sat to have a coffee, into the Vitrin by the Dóm, same as last time. She had a latte, and I had a long one, which the waitress explained as starting as an espresso and then blabla... more coffee. That's what I want. Now the toilet is a story to itself, it's in the basement. There's a rear entrance to it, with proper markings and even a sign pointing to it, but there's an iron grid door, locked. On this side, it has an... elevator. All in stainless steel, kitchen sink type, five buttons inside, it speaks the name of the floor you reached, of which there are two: zero and doubyasee [WC is european for toilet, from 'water closet']. And the top floor box has two doors, so I took the tavern side door when I returned, not the way I came in. And folks who went before and after me were all foreign tourists, the waitress did her best english, including later to me, forgetting that I got the coffee description in hungarian.
The greenery on the wall is all plastic, but well done.
Then another walk. I noticed a lot of fat chicks, but guys not as many, or they're too lazy to go for a stroll. Ten years ago there weren't any, neither here nor at home.
The item to waste time on and buzz around shops these months is the maggi spice. I learned to like it back in seventythree, then it would appear at times from Germany in the eighties and sometimes nineties. In America we also found it a few times, and then kept buying it regularly when it'd appear in Lidl, and around [year] thirteenth we grew the plant ourselves and used it while it lasted, but it didn't multiply. „Regularly when it appeared“ means we'd take two of those small bottles, and when we're around half of the second, we start looking for it in Lidl, and appear it would, always on time, until this year. Didn't see it since, it's gone, the last bottle lasted until this spring, end, no more. Though, we visit Lidl now only when we run out of coffee, and their method of having half of assortment appear periodically, that on cat's tail**, that's for regular customers, which we were while they had the goods we wanted, aren't anymore.
So I peeked into several shops we came across, both here and on Palić, but nope, nada, the assortment is the same everywhere. The goods will find a buyer, and the market will respond to demand... except when it plays dead. At least I swept the shelves with my quick look and absolutely nothing attracted my attention. And again the clerk replies in english to my hungarian. And the choice of goods being the same shit here as at home (where did the spams and good sausages go, how come there are so many different fish cans and poultry sausages and salami), looks so synchronized that it comes across as either a conspiracy or an EU directive.
Two-three times we'd sit to stretch our spines and have a smoke. Here, in the park at the bridge, a good occasion for yet another good panoramix... with them fat chicks in the right corner. Though, there were just as many wasp thin and busty, but the experienced photographer's eye stores that into memory even without a camera. Later one came by with a belated model of torn jeans, and rightfully so, those knees and thighs are indeed a pretty sight, and her cleavage was just to the edge, something to behold.
Went on to look for an eatery, and had a true WTF moment - is there anything in hungarian here? There's the kayefsee, there's Megdonaltz, three or foour pizzeriae... and found something which had just eight tables outside, just one taken, but the (kokakola's) blackboard had chalked on it „harcsagulyás turós csuszával“ (catfish gulash with young-cheese slide) and „marhahúspörkölt galuskával“ (the young beef simmered, with galuškas). Didn't even bother to read the other side. We took a pörkölt each and... waiter adressed her in hungarian and me in english. Have I gone so rusty, spoiled my accent, what is this.
And it didn't matter that the tavern's name was „Concept“, they didn't give a five percent fuck for any conceptualism, the pörkölt was the essence of hungarian cuisine, done exactly right, and we finally saw what that galuška was, I met it in menus a hundred times and never even saw how it looked, let alone tried. Well, it's something like tarana (pea sited dough balls) but clustered four to six at a time, and the dough is just like her dumplings for the paprikaš, just strained through a piston with a nozzle, or something flat with holes, straight into boiling water.
The dish was decorated with some bits of salad, but this piece of bell pepper was.... owww, brotherly measured around few thousand scovilles. The fuckup is that you take a bite not expecting the bite back, and get pleasantly surprised. What's on the shot is what we couldn't eat. The green under my spoon is the leftover from her bell pepper, I devoured mine. The thing in jeans in the top quarter of the shot somehow managed to squeeze itself into that chair. I sat in the exact same one with my legs apart, and I still think I should lose a kilo or two.
On this shot I erased the copyrighted material, and didn't turn my head to the Megdonaltz behind my back. She said she saw at least five bicycle riders with those big square bags on their bags, quick delivery. Mostly youngsters, but one head of gray hair too. Guess the guy likes to be on the move, or that capitalism isn't exactly the milk and honey. And I don't get it at all, this is Hungary, it's saturday lunch time, here any Janoš or Juliška can cook right, and they order the McShit...
We visited, just to do the due, the Coop Super Plus (Szuper Plusz)... which is so far the most idiotic name tucked on the one and the same big supermarket that we visit for decades now. As the name grew, the assortment shrank. I bought three quarter kilo of cheese. No maggi, no magic. She took a look of the sauseges, but none instilled confidence, who knows what's inside, that rope tore long ago. This is not that capitalism, maam, someone switched it while you were looking.
Found where we parked, and made it straight to the main border crossing. The queue there was long at least two kilometers... of trucks. Cars not as much, three lanes were open, we crossed in some twenty minutes, got to the room in less than an hour altogether. Took a twenty minutes nap, rapid tempo, and then another walk. I measured later, from the room, through the park, to the Ideah and back, it's four kilometers. This time we took Staropramen [czech beer] and a roll of toilet paper, not to bother the landlady (from whom we could have demanded an extra blanket). There was a sudden rush in the shop, some team from Bosnia, of children, guess their training just finished and they hurried to buy snacks. I shot a couple of touristy ones, why not when I'm playing a tourist.
She's off dinner for two weeks now, but seeing a baker's kiosk... and the clerk addressed her straight in hungarian. Had I been ordering, she'd address me in english, for sure, such a day. We took pogačice with čvarci, fit for a dinner. And then that beer. We gave up on poor man's entertainment for lack of hot water. Which we actually had, it's that the faucet was marked the wrong way, and she didn't think to try the handle to the left.
We didn't get much sleep, short blanket... When I got up, she already had one coffee, then second with me. Then we packed, rather precisely, the only thing forgotten was my hairbrush, which isn't much of a loss, it was about time to get a new one anyway, the only thing missing is that it had a mirror on its back, which used to be handy. We checked out, then drove off to Subotica. Took a good walk, and it didn't look bad at all, but the lickety split circle is muuuch smaller. Here you can find three shop windows all in glitter and sheen, and then the fourth with a layer of dust and pigeon shit. The buildings of hungarian and italian consulates are spit and shined, but then the next one is almost a ruin, the flowerpot fences under the windows are full of beer cans, plastic bottles, condoms and cigarette packs. Of all the cities where I walked on those eurounial cubes, this is the first one with a ten meter stretch where they see-saw loud under [your] foot.
Had a coffee somewhere (she didn't, it would be her third before lunch), at a 101 year old cakeshop... which seems to have been founded by the same Shintze (hun. Since) just like many other establishments in Szeged, thoug in serbian they aren't mentioned, it says only „od 1923.“. Despite being so traditional, they didn't have domestic coffee, only espresso or nes. The squares teem with fathers with small kids, guess their missuses shooed them out to make the sunday lunch at ease.
Which came close to us as well, our clocks lagged behind the appetite, so we just drew ourselves at Bates by half twelve. Just like yesterday, there was nobody around, and by the time our veal paprikaš came, it had few tables full. We had our fill, and then took a slow walk to the car, two corners away. I stepped on the pedal and we got home in two hours, mostly highway. All in all I showed my orientation skills, knew where I was and where to go at all times, in car and on foot, here and in Hungary.
The state of affairs found: hens laid 18 eggs and ate two-three more. Cats accounted for, nothing wrong with them, they rushed to food when given, fishes likewise okay and with appetite. Told our children into the platoon meeting that we arrived.
By dusk I noticed that Dragana called, called her back „you called?“ „um, yeah, I did“ „well, what good cause?“ „to hear your voice“. Um, yeah, of course. No, it's that the IV4 will do their parastos on saturday. Well okay, can do, skipped twice, this time it doesn't overlap with anything.
Later in the evening Linda complained about some game, which we were suppose to know of because Violet played it while they were here. Didn't quite understand what she said, she mumbled into her chin while using very few words, miss two out of five and get no sense, didn't quite managed to come out clear. But she cheered up rapidly when she remembered to show off with her new poncho and all the ways she can don it, put the hood this way or that. By then Go called too, so we told Linda we'll call again tomorrow, so she disconnected and we called Go. Anita's ace tooth is already moving into position, and the old fang is already out... it's all coming into place. Go walked us through the yard so we saw her whole garden and Stanley's queue of cars, he's got at least seven of them on the driveway and two on the street. He was fiddling with the wipers on his current regular car, it's raining there often, will need them. She's more lucky with her garden this year than we, despite starting it in mid june. Has tomatoes and peppers, and the artichokes are growing nicely too.
Along the way the reason for the call appeared - Nina wasn't at home, went to a handgun training course, and passed the certification right away, got a paper from the NRA that she's a trained user.
They found a house to rent at 2800$ a month, instead of current 2100, but it's four rooms, two and a half bathrooms, and an even larger lot, the better to do a garden. They went later to take a look, sent us some shots into the platoon [meeting], looks good, at least it's brick on the outside. The main gain is the commute, a whole hour shorter, one savings on fuel and time. They have until end of spring to do the move, but then they can move into this one in october-november. It's a friend of Stanley's, freshly divorced, kids stay with him, moves to a different city. They won't have to move everything in a day, they can stretch that over a few weeks, can take cars one by one and the tools in them. He'd have more room there, there's a double driveway. And it looks Neša also likes the place.
We meant to go straight to bed after the talk, but then okay can do one. We got to the third, laid some after three, good is the 20.1 tutifruti.
Three liters of friday's milk were untouched, so she made pancakes on monday, some twenty of them just like once upon a time, and filled most of them with ground meat, poured yogurt/cheese/eggs over, baked it in the oven. Half of a small jar of apricot pekmez left from last time has developed a culture (fungal), but didn't go to waste. I took off the cultural layer, and dropped the rest into the mush, may there be one shot of rakija more, we throw nothing away. She took a fresh jar, of which we first didn't know what was inside, is it plums, cherries or cherries. Neither, it was blackberries. From last year, when we once picked more than could be eaten, so again not to go to waste, she cooked three jars of it. And it's good, really good.
In the evening we finally got to our entertainment, blew one with a flower, turned off the lights and monitors, and just when we aimed for the bedroom... Nina called. So we had an hour of chat with her, trying hard to sound normal while at it. She showed us how she spread the lights around the deck's fence, so that's it, that's what made the saturday's video, with Linda and Sanda dancing, in those masks, looked really great with those lights.
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* Idea is a supermarket chain here; 'ideja' is the word in serbian. Note the absence of j, which makes this a foreign word, which I tend to pronounce as such. To achieve the same effect in english, I added the aitch, which then makes people pronounce it the same but it's foreign now.
** [hang] that on cat's tail - means it's no good, unfeasible, won't work.
Mentions: 03-VII-2015., Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), čorba, čvarci, Délkút, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), eos70, Gemenc, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Gugao, IV4, Joda, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), maturski parastos (parastos), Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), pekmez, pljeska, pogačice, rakija, Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), Stanley Berger, tutifruti, Violet, yogurt, in serbian
23-IX-2024 - 15-IV-2026