There are still some anti-government protests in some cities in Serbia but it’s more peaceful than a few months ago. There are no issues for foreign citizens, though. Speaking of Serbia, Belgrade is cool but visitors like Novi Sad as well, it’s beautiful. I’m more of a rural type, though, I’d always recommend mountains, lakes or, if I really have to, sea!
3 Likes
We don’t have mountains, lakes or sea in Wales.
2 Likes
Not like these in Montenegro and Serbia, you don’t! 
3 Likes
Dunno the Welsh coast line is among the most beautiful.
3 Likes
Absolutely.
Croatia is Schengen, though.
1 Like
Hence why I deleted it 
2 Likes
Quite an interesting article.
One thing that was quite poignant on a personal level was his feeling an outsider and never quite belonging. Where relatively benign or throw away comments are often shaping.
Having lived 15 or more years (each) in England and Scotland and indeed having worked in England, Scotland and Wales, it has always been very clear to me I would never be English, Scottish or indeed Welsh. I was always British - at best.
My first port-of-call as a 7-year old was England. When I went to Scotland at 18, for undergraduate studies, it was often the following when I met fellow students for the first time:
Person x: Where are you from?
Me: Birmingham (I avoided saying English as the question was always led to the next one eventually)
Person x: Yeah but where are you really from
Me: I was born in India
Person x: So not English, you’re ok!
11/12 years was a rather long time to come to the realisation that I’m not English, and won’t be Scottish or any other nationality within the union.
In a way the not being English was engrained into me from very early - though I guess I just didn’t realise when I was younger.
One thing that sticks in my mind was a trip from Leicester to Great Yarmouth. As a 8 year old I was one of 5 that had won an art competition across the midlands linked to the RNLI - the prize being a trip to Great Yarmouth and a ride on a Life Boat. On the journey across on the mini-bus one of the other kids chirps up with “Wow, where are you from, it’s like someone poured chocolate all over you”… I seem to recall the adults on the mini-bus looking sideways - making the situation a bit odd to a 9 year old. It is a slightly benign memory (the kid was just being a kid in the mid-80s) but clearly one that has stuck, resonated and reenforced with further experiences.
Of course this does not compare to his arc but it is more about how one always wants to belong/fit in as a child and the pain and struggle of rejection.
5 Likes
My son is moving into his first owed apartment. I am trying to help him. Went down Tuesday to Wednesday to watch him start some decorating.
Going for this weekend, plans might be changed. He’s killing himself with work and decorating. I’m trying to slow him down as we have options. It’s never easy to persuade your son that you don’t need to get it all done in one day.
I feel he has bitten off more than he can chew. I didn’t try to stop him from attempting what he’s doing as it’s a good experience for all of us. It’s just the hours he’s putting in I feel isn’t good for his health.
Anyway we’ll sit down and chat tomorrow to see where we go from here. I need more planning 
.
12 Likes
I got the “but where are you really from” question, my entire childhood . But it’s been a few years since I was asked it now due to changing times and demographics.
Personally it never bothered me and I viewed it as a natural question curious or interested people asked, since I did after all look a bit like an outlier (my biological father was from Marocco and Norway is much more ethnically cohesive than the UK, so I often looked a bit different).
6 Likes
Long day driving but we made it to the air bnb near our son’s college. He is in a seminar until 9pm and we are picking up pizzas and taking them over for his dorm after that.
We are dab smack in the middle of tornado alley, right in the corner of Missouri, not too far from Tulsa Oklahoma and you guessed it - severe thunderstorms are coming through until around 1.00 a.m. and we are under a tornado watch. Couldn’t make it up.
The air bnb is a quaint little 2 bedroom house, about a hundred years old. No basement, but I’ve already assessed the two safest spaces to go just in case
The owner told us to listen in case the sirens go off. I think I just saw a witch cycling by in the sky!
12 Likes
Stay safe @RedOverTheWater .
I remember tornado watch season in Toronto when i was living there. I was kind a fascinated by it. My mum wasn’t, she wanted to get back to the UK as soon as possible.
Are you 24 hours from Tulsa? ( i mean it in a good way, weather aside)
3 Likes
All is well here. Thanks for your thoughts. A tornado hit a bit further away, but not right here. We did get lots of lightning, high winds, and torrential rain that caused temporary flooding on some roads.
Got soaked running just a few steps in and out of the pizza place with a stack of pizzas. It seemed dodgy to me and we probably should have stayed huddled in the house, but Mrs ROTW would not be stopped from seeing her son. It was a lovely night catching up and meeting his friends in the dorm. Chilled weekend coming up seeing him and feeding him up before heading back home on Monday.
5 Likes
Just sticking to the tornado theme for a minute, but the worst tornado on record hit here (Joplin, Missouri) in May, 2011. It was a massive EF5, 1.25 miles wide, and tragically it killed about 160 people in this town. The toll would have been much, much higher as it went through the high school, but most of the high school kids were at the college three miles up the road, as it was the graduation day ceremony and the auditorium there was bigger to fit everyone in.
The tornado destroyed 25% of this town. My lad took us around and showed us an interesting phenomenon I’ve never heard of. There are murals in a few places, so bright and colorful, with children and normal everyday scenes, and on all of them there are butterflies.
They symbolize the butterfly people that many children (and a few adults) reported seeing in different places as the tornado hit. There is a book about this and I believe there may have been a documentary. Basically lots of houses had their roofs ripped off, and many were completely demolished. Butterfly people (or butterfly angels) seemed to have two roles - they were reported to have come down and spread their wings to stand over families and protect them from the tornado, while for others who died, they took them up to heaven.
In grief counseling afterward numerous children reported what they saw - they were in different places and didn’t know each other, and their testimony was separate. A Red Cross worker also reported seeing it.
There were also reports from a number of people who said they were going to a certain room in the house for safety, and they heard a voice saying instead ‘go in here’ and one half of the house was ripped away, while the part where they stayed remained intact and they survived.
I just heard about all this, and I can appreciate it sounds ‘out there’. I would imagine most would say it is a coping mechanism of some sort, to try to process the complete horror of the natural phenomenon that took place.
Others would acknowledge that while there is probably some sort of lore mixed in, they do wonder about the supernatural, and suspect there is more going on than meets the eye.
(Don’t want a big debate or anything! This isn’t that. Just a report from a small town on Route 66 that was hit by the worst tornado in 2011. My lad took us around to a few murals and I asked about the butterflies on them, and it prompted a little look into it, and I believe there is a book and a documentary or maybe a film).
Enjoy your weekend!
10 Likes
Thank you for this @RedOverTheWater
4 Likes
So I am with my son decorating his new flat and sleeping in his old one.
I’m out of slow acting insulin as I am an idiot.
Even so last night I didn’t sleep between hypoglycemia and leg cramps.
Anyway we have managed to get the decorating on track after some mis-adventures committed by my son. Looking forward to slapping so paint on walls however worrying about it splattering where we don’t want it. Rollers make decorating quicker and easier however more messy from what I can remember.
5 Likes
Depends a lot on the quality of the paint. Used Valspar to paint my sons room and it worked very well with a roller, not messy at all.
5 Likes
We’ll see. I think the roller is a factor as well. All I can remember is being really happy to have finished just to see the paint splattered all over me, on the ceiling and other walls I didn’t want it on 
.
2 Likes
Right now Japan is marking the 15th anniversary of the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami. Just a moment ago the sirens sounded in the area as a minutes silence was observed.
On a personal level it’s unbelievable that it’s 15 years. It happened on the day my eldest graduated from elementary school.
4 Likes
Bloody air-raid sirens have just gone off. Apparently they are testing them across Nordrhein-Westfalen today. I missed the usual announcement on the radio so I was needlessly woken up during a boring meeting.
6 Likes