Anderson's Visit

We had a wonderful week-end with a visit from the Anderson family and now its very quite in our house now and I am all alone. Everyone left this morning - Harald for work in Richmond at 6:00, Miran for work in Charlotte at 8:30, and Cecilia and the girls for Staunton about 9:15. I've been cleanin, straightening, doing laundry, and catching up on email since everyone left.

Cecilia and the girls arrived Friday afternoon and we headed to the playground.

After that the girl's helped get ready for dinner, and then waited anxiously for Uncle Miran to get home from work. After dinner they watched a movie.

Saturday we spent the whole day at the Renaissance Festival and everyone had a great time. Uncle Miran enjoyed participating in all activities - with the girls and with Harald. Cecilia and I joined the girls on the da vinci flying machine swing ride.

 

It was pre-Halloween week-end so costumes were encouraged - we had a couple of princesses with us, but they made friends with some scary other monsters. They could trick-or-treat at the different shops and there was also a treasure chest at the end that they could get soemthing from if they got stamps at all the kids rides.

Sunday Cecilia and I went to an exhibition at the Mint Museum uptown and Harald and Miran played with the girls - they went back to the playground and ran around in the yard a lot. Miran is trying to play soccer with the girls here, but I think they are pretending to be cats.

laminate flooring

Our week-end wasn't nearly as productive as the Gunzburgers', but we did manage to finish installing the laminate flooring in our former master bedroom. Actually we still have to do the quarter round and the door sills, but that will probably happen next week. 

I'm pretty thrilled with how it turned out. It isn't a great color match with the rest of the house, but it is so much better than the carpet that was in there before. Its going to make a great new bird room / office for Miran. But we aren't going to move forward on that switch until after the Andersons' visit this week-end so they can use it as a guest room.

Sarajevo

Finally I'll post a few pictures from my trip. This week in Sarajevo I've been doing a little sightseeing / research, with a bit of a focus on sites that somehow I've never managed to visit in all these years of coming here.

I took a "Times of Misfortune" tour the other day as "research" for a project I'm contemplated that compares popular and tourist-focused histories of Sarajevo with academic histories with "what really happened." As part of that tour I finally visited the Tunnel that was used during the siege to sneak food and weapons into the city. Its been open for tourists for about ten years, and Miran and I tried only once to go, but it was closed.  It was kind of kitchy, but interesting. I didn't manage to take a picture while actually going through the 60 feet of tunnel they have reopened, but here is the outside of the building and one of the exhibits inside the museum part (showing how goods were transported through after a track was built).

Today was lovely, in the 50s and sunny and I spent most of the day touring cemeteries. It sound morbib, but there were a couple that are interesting that I've meant to visit.

First I went to the Jewish cemetery, which claims to be the second largest in Europe (after Prague). I don't know if thats true, but it was definitely huge. It has a fancy gate and chapel that have recently been restored.

The oldest graves are from the 17th century when it opened.

There was a little holocaust memorial as well as memorials for World War I and the ashkenazi. I'm not sure, but I think it is unusual for sefardi and ashkenazi to share a cemetery. Here are two shots of the Holocaust memorial.

Then I went all the way across town to visit Bare Cemetery, which was built in the 1960s and is still the main active cemetery in the city. It was cut off from the city during the war, so is a very normal cemetery, not a war one. What is interesting about it is that at the time it was built, at the height of socialist "brotherhood and unity" it had a central complex with 5 chapels - for Orthodox, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and Atheists. And within the graveyard there are sections set aside for each of those "faiths" as well as for Evangalists. So a nice example of multiculturalism. Plus the architecture is interesting.

In this shot you can see the tall skinny, white Muslim nisani gravestones in the background, and orthodox graves in the foreground.

And I ended the day by actually going into St. Mark's Cemetery, which I've passed a hundred times to take a picture of the chapel built in 1939 and dedicated to Gavirlo Princip and friends who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. There graves are also there, but I'm not sure if they are in the chapel or somewhere nearby, I couldn't tell.

I also checked up the other day on the Austro-Hungarian Town Hall, which was being used as the National and University Library at the time of the war and which was so notoriously burnt. Its been being restored the past few years and it seems they still aren't done but the exterior looks really nicely done. Very colorful in any case. Someone very patient must have painted it!

international fest

Here are some more pictures from the day before I left for Bosnia. It was the annual international festival at UNC Charlotte and this year Miran volunteered for a few hours at the Bosnian exhibit. He served cevapi to customers. I showed up a few hours later and ate lunch, then we watched some Bosnian folk dancing, and walked around a bit.

new floor in our old bedroom

I'm in Sarajevo now, but wanted to post some pictures from the project Miran and I started the night before I left. I had picked up the laminate flooring from lumber liquidators earlier in the week, and we both really wanted to get it started before I left. We thought maybe if it was started, Miran could finish it while I was gone, but we decided you really need two people. It helped for me to hold boards while he knocked them into place.

So here is the room cleared of furniture and ready to go ...

 us at work ...

I'm not sure waht Miran is doing in this picture, but this is about the moment we gave up for the night.

Me resting after we had stopped ...

And a detail because I'm particularly proud of how neat we were around all the door moldings. I really wasn't expecting much considering we've never done this before and we bought the cheapest laminate possible, but it is turning out really well. Now I want to do the kitchen downstairs!