1. Ideas about service seem to be lacking. Where are the smiles I wonder. After having to pay excess baggage on a half empty plane, I expected a few smiles and some eye contact. We were handed a miniscule roll and tiny biscuit to be washed down with watered down apple juice.
2. The landing was alarming as the plane appeared to be touching down in the sea. Some precision evidently is required. One foot out and splash into the water.
3. The arrival took me back several years, a walk off the plane in the hot sun to the small terminal. Still no smiles at passport control. The first smile came from the nearly one year old. I wonder if he recognised me.
4. Another large white knight greeted me - would you believe a four by four. What a stretch it is to climb into the cab. However, I gather it is safer to have such a vehicle in this country.
5. The scenery is dramatic with memorable views down to the coast. Yes the mountains are black. The tourist area is around the coast. Budva is the most renowned resort and perhaps the most advanced of all the towns and cities.
6. The house is in the middle of a field with the hills surrounding it. A sense of city is nowhere to be seen. The dogs bark and the birds twitter and random buildings splatter the view. The owner is a diplomat currently ambassador in New York.
7. Sixty expatriot families live in Podgerica. The British and Americans have an embassy here but not sure how many other countries are represented here. Certainly smaller countries still have their embassies in Belgrade.
8. Bribery seems to be the order of the day. When costing any project one must add at least 20% for backhanders. Oiling palms seems to be the only way to get on in the world.
9. Isaac has already started Kindergarten during the mornings. I intend to ask if I can go in the help. I was not ready to leave at 8 a.m. this morning as I wanted to orientate myself with the house. Kaaren is up at 5.30 every morning and spends at least 30 minutes or maybe more in the gym which has three pieces of equipment.
10. Podgerica apparently was destroyed during World War II. So what happened here there. That will give you something to tell me about.
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2 comments:
1 Those two Ps: places and people. I associate the Black Hills with banditry. Or smuggling (if there is something to smuggle.) Or life-long feuds. Of course, I'm drawing on tales, images which are rooted in the 1900s and later. Tales of the Black Hand. Tales of wild Montenegro. Tales of wildness, of barbaric living. Something akin to notions of 'The Highlands' and 'Highlanders'in the 17C and 18C.
1.1 Now think of boundary at Southerton between the cultivated land and the uncultivated. Think too of Dr Johnson's travels in the Highlands. Those lands were far, far from London. And, as you know, the uncultivated lands were not subject to the rules which obtained within the realm of the cultivated.
2 I note what you say about the unwillingness to take classes in customer-service. Your daughter will be able to tell you all about that.
3 Ah, a house in a field. I wait for further news. I take it that you won't be walking to the village or to South Grinstead for your morning paper nor, perhaps, for a morning cup of coffee and a danish pastry.
4 Listen for stories of the wartime experiences. Let me have the experiences and I'll see if I can put them in a wider picture.
No-one speaks English and there are no English papers or magasines.How does one find out about things!
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