Guca Day 3

And I'm beginning to slow down. Last night was about as ridiculous as the last one, ending with me climbing to the top of a statue of a man playing a trumpet with a Serbian dude, then almost falling off and breaking my back. Good times! But I can't take that much more of this, for two reasons. First of all, I'm tired. My stay in Serbia has been basically a nonstop party, and I simply am not used to partying this often. Nor do I particularly like it; if nothing else, all this jumping around has taught me that I really, really, really value my quiet time. Secondly, somewhere along the way, probably in Belgrade, I ingested something that I shouldn't have ingested and now my stomach does backflips pretty much every time I put anything into it, including water. So you can image what booze does. 40 days in Africa and I didn't get sick once, and here I am with stomach pains in Serbia.

So even though tonight promises to be more frantic than the last two nights combined (all the Serbs who couldn't get time off work will be flooding into town tonight), it will necessity have to be a quiet night for me. In an hour of so, I'm having lunch with my host family. From what I have gleaned about Serbian hospitality, there will be more food than I can possibly eat. That will likely be followed by an hour or so hovering near the toilet as the food makes quickly makes its way through my system. And then tonight, Boban Markovic plays a concert in the stadium. Markovic leads the best brass orchestra in Serbia; if I hadn't randomly bought a Boban Markovic album three years ago, I wouldn't be there today. The concert starts at 11 in the stadium and will go probably until 3 in the morning. I probably won't get to sleep until 4. This is what constitutes a "quiet" day at Guca.