Thursday, July 10, 2008
Stuff that is different here...Trivia....
Lots of stuff is different here of course, that would be the point of having another country right? So things could be different....
1. I note more scooters all the time, they are real daredevils, and they seldom wear helmets. I have noted ONE female scooterist.
2. The proliferation of little stores, none of which have anything resembling inventory control. So if you go to one D.P. hoping to find a given item, do not repeat Do Not expect it to available in the D.P. two blocks away... Same goes for other stores....
3. Newspapers here have funeral notices, and a section devoted to crime. The crime section is usually called 'Crna Hronika' it might have pictures of the crime scene, beware, these pictures will be graphic in many instances. Accidents are there too.
4. Back to newspapers, in the U.S. newspapers have a section devoted to weddings, engagements and anniversaries, not so here! No such section. American newspapers have a section for wedding licenses and divorces as well, again, not the case here. Death however is in splendid prominence.
5. The T.V. section in Sarajevo is two pages, and has helpful station logos along the side, I like that, because it is a long time between ads, which
6. tend to occur in seemingly endless blocks, but once over, you have uninterrupted programming.
7. Household cleaners may come from places like Germany, or Bulgaria, instructions may not be available in any language you actually personally speak or could fake it with. For me those languages are Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, (I don't really speak Serbian but close enough for Government Work!) Spanish,
I can fake my way through with Italian, it is close to Spanish just enough to frustrate me. I got some drain cleaner labeled ONLY in Italian, it was good, but the store switched, to a cheaper Bosnian brand. I found the Mr. Muscle worked better, but I can't get it without going all the way down to Ferhadia now.
So I gave the cheaper Bosnian stuff a try. It had no instruction saying it was safe to use over-night. The chemicals used for these things differ from the States. So I feel twitchy if a brand change is forced by the lack of inventory control in stores here. I don't want to try to clear the drain only to cause some sort of problem.....
7. Trash containers... In the States, each household has it's own separate trash bin, or an apartment complex may have communal dumpsters, here the whole street has communal trash bins. There is an etiquette of disposal here. Anything slightly old but still edible by man or beast is often hung in a plastic shopping bag on the handles, so old bread, will hang that way, clothing that is still wearable is hung on the sides, out of the way of the smellier contents. There are people who depend on what is thrown out. Pensioners and Roma mostly.
Otherwise no effort is made to separate trash. Trash is collected here more than once a week. Back in the States, trash was collected weekly, even in HUGE cities.
And under stuff I meant to mention earlier but didn't for some stupid reason or other, I saw my first Segway here, downtown being used by someone employed by 'Bolje Posao' later that same week, I noted the Segway being used to negotiate the dicey run up the hill past the bus stop in my neighborhood! Probably it is the only practical vehicle of modern invention for the streets here! She was having a blast, blond hair flying behind her.
1. I note more scooters all the time, they are real daredevils, and they seldom wear helmets. I have noted ONE female scooterist.
2. The proliferation of little stores, none of which have anything resembling inventory control. So if you go to one D.P. hoping to find a given item, do not repeat Do Not expect it to available in the D.P. two blocks away... Same goes for other stores....
3. Newspapers here have funeral notices, and a section devoted to crime. The crime section is usually called 'Crna Hronika' it might have pictures of the crime scene, beware, these pictures will be graphic in many instances. Accidents are there too.
4. Back to newspapers, in the U.S. newspapers have a section devoted to weddings, engagements and anniversaries, not so here! No such section. American newspapers have a section for wedding licenses and divorces as well, again, not the case here. Death however is in splendid prominence.
5. The T.V. section in Sarajevo is two pages, and has helpful station logos along the side, I like that, because it is a long time between ads, which
6. tend to occur in seemingly endless blocks, but once over, you have uninterrupted programming.
7. Household cleaners may come from places like Germany, or Bulgaria, instructions may not be available in any language you actually personally speak or could fake it with. For me those languages are Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, (I don't really speak Serbian but close enough for Government Work!) Spanish,
I can fake my way through with Italian, it is close to Spanish just enough to frustrate me. I got some drain cleaner labeled ONLY in Italian, it was good, but the store switched, to a cheaper Bosnian brand. I found the Mr. Muscle worked better, but I can't get it without going all the way down to Ferhadia now.
So I gave the cheaper Bosnian stuff a try. It had no instruction saying it was safe to use over-night. The chemicals used for these things differ from the States. So I feel twitchy if a brand change is forced by the lack of inventory control in stores here. I don't want to try to clear the drain only to cause some sort of problem.....
7. Trash containers... In the States, each household has it's own separate trash bin, or an apartment complex may have communal dumpsters, here the whole street has communal trash bins. There is an etiquette of disposal here. Anything slightly old but still edible by man or beast is often hung in a plastic shopping bag on the handles, so old bread, will hang that way, clothing that is still wearable is hung on the sides, out of the way of the smellier contents. There are people who depend on what is thrown out. Pensioners and Roma mostly.
Otherwise no effort is made to separate trash. Trash is collected here more than once a week. Back in the States, trash was collected weekly, even in HUGE cities.
And under stuff I meant to mention earlier but didn't for some stupid reason or other, I saw my first Segway here, downtown being used by someone employed by 'Bolje Posao' later that same week, I noted the Segway being used to negotiate the dicey run up the hill past the bus stop in my neighborhood! Probably it is the only practical vehicle of modern invention for the streets here! She was having a blast, blond hair flying behind her.
# posted by Katja R. @ 1:14 AM 
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