In hindsight I should have kept better track of where we actually went today. But, today some of us took a little day trip outside of Belgrade up to Novi Sad which is Serbia’s second largest city and is about an hour North of Belgrade. We stopped at a monastery along the way, checked out Novi Sad’s main square and went up to the fortress there. Then we did a wine tasting and headed back to Belgrade. I was unusually tired at the end of the day so I called it another early night.

Hey, 50 days into this little adventure of mine. The late night at Vox was catching up with me and I wanted to make sure my work docket was clear for a Saturday day trip outside of Belgrade so today I just lounged and worked. Grabbed a mediocre pizza from some place in my neighborhood for dinner and called it an early night.

Didn’t do much in the early part of the day. Just spent the time working and got a burger from some take away place in my neighborhood. In the evening went to dinner at To Je To with some people. To Je To is a traditional Serbian place, very low key but I thought the food was excellent for as simple as it was. If you really want to get a feel for what Serbian cuisine is like I think that’s your best best. As these things tend to, that escalated into drinks and we headed back to my favorite place in Belgrade, Vox Blues Club.

Started the day early to head over to the Tesla Museum which is only one black away from my apartment. Pretty cool given my lifelong Tesla enthusiasm. The museum itself is just ok, only four rooms really but Tesla’s ashes are here and it’s still worth seeing. After that some of us stopped for coffee and breakfast and then headed over to the office.  Worked there until the evening when I headed over to Mikser House for our periodic talks by locals and also our other cohorts. We ran into a big protest march that was coming down that way to protest the development of the Belgrade waterfront. …which was also interesting to see.

On my way in to Smart Office I stopped at Coffee Cup to get a coffee and something for lunch and got another reminder that things aren’t always what they seem in different cultures. I may have mentioned already that in Belgrade an Iced Coffee is not a coffee with ice in it but rather an elaborate milkshake thing made with coffee… not that I’m complaining but I certainly can’t suck those down like plain coffee. I also ordered what was very clearly labeled a chicken salad sandwich and was given a mason jar filled with lettuce and chicken. Still not bad… but surprising. Some of the other members of the group have been good enough to put together weekly “Tech Talks” so I headed to the office to attend an introduction to Swift. For dinner I went to Casa Nova which was very good. Belgrade doesn’t seem to have quite figured out fine dining yet. They’ll do things like prepare a filet mignon and then pile a bunch of McDonalds style french fries and onion rings on top… not necessarily bad. The real stand out at Casa Nova was the service, that alone makes it worth visiting. After, I headed over to the joint birthday party for my roommates last month which was excellent.

In the morning we did a walking tour of Belgrade that focused on the history of the town during the 20th century. After a three hour death march through the city (interesting but still quite a trek on a hot day) I returned to Mala Fabrika Ukusa again for lunch. The rest of the day was spent enjoying the air conditioning at home and working rather late.

After the the late night last night this was a pretty low key day during the day. I had lunch at Hotel Moscow and sat on their terrace and read. In the evening we headed up to the walls of the old Belgrade Fortress which overlook the river and watched the sunset. Then we headed to a sports bar on Republic Square to watch France v Portugal. After that we made the poor choice to head back to Cetinjska again to pass the birthday baton. I didn’t have much in me so I left at the early hour of one or two… or something.

I stayed home during the morning and had an unusually productive day. In the evening I met some folks at the Radisson Blu here where there was a tasting of sparking wines going on. After that we headed over to Frans for dinner which was quite good. More than anything the setting is impressive, the whole thing feels like you’re in a garden or green house. They’re also good enough to provide complimentary toothbrushes in the bathroom and the girls even had free champagne in theirs. After that we all headed over to Vox Blues Club. After we closed them down we headed to Red Bar and then to this area called Citinjska which is basically where a bunch of clubs open up into a parking lot. There’s a random alley/tunnel between two where a DJ jets up on the weekends so we danced there until I noticed the sun was coming up. At which point I bailed.

I got a late start to the day and had a ton of work to do besides that so I didn’t get moving until late. I had an awesome dinner at Mala fabrika ukusa which pulled in to the number two… maybe number one position for my favorite restaurant in Belgrad with Ambar. After that I headed over to Vox Blues Club. I was a little skeptical of this place at first but it blew me away. The band was great, they had a great set loaded with Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jack Daniels is only $2. On top of which everyone was super friendly… whether or not they even spoke English. Of course, that’s been my experience with all Serbians so far truth be told.

With a bunch of work to catch up on still today was another low key day. Had lunch at Red Bread which was quite good and then over to Smart Office to work all day. Had dinner at Na Cosku and then to sleep early.