Dobro jutro Beograde, moje ime je Nelson!

"Good morning Belgrade, my name is Nelson." 

Ok, so it's not morning here in White Town, it's 6:30 
pm. We got in at just after 12:00 noon, but I liked 
the sound of good morning Belgrade, and had to use 
it. 

Petar and Nina (Zak's brother and Zak's niece) picked us up at Nikola Tesla airport. Coming from sleepy but pristine Munich airport, NT airport has a certain dishevelled charm. I said to Zak, it had the feeling and look of an Indian regional airport like, say, the one in Udaipur. Zak reminded me, and this somehow seemed apropos, that Mumbai has more people than all of Serbia. Lots of that dishevelled charm has to do with the people, they just seemed so relaxed. Or, maybe it's the blistering heat? It's hard keeping up appearances when it's in the high 30s.

Leaving the airport we passed an abandoned airport building, it was a circular ribbed concrete structure, like something from a Mad Max movie. Surrounding it was an airplane and helicopter graveyard--dominated by an enormous Sikorsky. I know, I know, a photo would useful here. But we zipped by to quickly to get one. I'll try to do so when we leave on the 13th. 

Belgrade has the look of a more prosperous, happier, St Petersburg. It was the mix of awful, make that brutal, concrete bunkers alongside beautiful Beaux Arts palaces (seemingly), with faded 70's post modern buildings. People here don't have the downcast look that so struck us in St. Petersburg. 
Thankfully. 

White Town does live up to its name, diverse this city is not. Having lunch at Via Del Gusto on the Knez Mihailova pedestrian mall I kept on forgetting to count people of colour, there were so few the game seemed pointless. What I did see was several families of Roma. 

Nina said that this summer there has been a big influx of refugees clustering around the train station and the park nearby. On the pedestrian mall we could have been a 100 miles away. Tomorrow, I want to have a look. It's not a purient interest, I just want to see for myself an awful story and how it unfolds in a frontline state. As I write this Zak is watching a panel discussion on Serbian TV about the refugee situation. (Take that Mr. Alexander.)

Lastly, have I commented on the number of tall people here? Here's how height plays out in Zak's family--all of them taller than me. Tomorrow we'll be joined for supper by Igor and Pavle, Zak's twin 16-year old, 6 foot 3 inch nephews.