Bruce with his birthday cake cooked by Hostel Mama!
Day 34: Novi Sad and Chocolate Cake
Tuesday July 30 - Day 34 - Rest Day - Total 1313miles
A thunderstorm last night woke us up at 5am. There was some serious thunder and lightning out there, which was very fun to watch and then go back to sleep afterwards... because it is our Rest Day! We slept in late (after the 5am wake up). We woke up to a much cooler day than we have had in a LONG time. But we have to say that it is weird when 85F feels cool... though there was a breeze. We had breakfast in the main hostel kitchen, when another guest and his 14m.o. son came out for breakfast as well. So we had breakfast with Nick and Adam. Nick is actually from New Hampshire and was born in Massachusetts! He has lived in the Czech Republic for the past 10 years and works as a translator. His son Adam was a toe-headed bubbly little boy who made Bruce for the softy he is. Adam was up on Bruce's lap in no time, eating his breakfast and then feeding Bruce the pieces of plum Bruce was trying to feed him. The little boy looked just like Bruce which was funny because even Adam's mother (Nick's wife) commented on it. It was a good morning full of laughs and giggles.
After breakfast, Stefan and Rebecca went out to go sightseeing in Novi Sad while we stayed in the cool shade and wrote blogs for most of the morning. We wanted to rest our legs and our brains today, so we decided to take it easy and relax. Unfortunately the internet connection at the hostel was on the slow side so it was difficult to upload photos. We went out into town in search of a better wifi signal and whilst walking to the McDonalds came across a local pizza place with free wifi. We stopped there and had a fabulous pizza with a sesame seed crust. We also ordered a Caesar salad, but this came with chicken and bacon and ranch dressing....which Bruce loved!
We posted a couple of blogs and headed back to the hostel. Bruce was complaining that his hair was getting too long, so Andrea trimmed a little bit all around, which was a little disconcerting for Bruce, but it worked out well all round!
As we were writing the next round of blogs the daughter of the hostel owner appeared at the top of the stairs and says she hears that there is a birthday and her mother wants to make a cake!! Do you want fruit or chocolate? Bruce chose chocolate.
When Stefan and Rebecca got "home" we had the watermelon we had bought the day before. After washing our hands and faces from the incredibly drippy watermelon, we planned for tomorrow and booked another hostel for tomorrow night in Belgrade (Bruce's Birthday).
We had planned to go out for dinner to a fish restaurant that the hostel owner had recommended but no one was particularly hungry (after the water melon) so we hit the grocery store again and stayed in and noshed on bread, feta cheese and tomato (no cucumber). We bought some Macedonian white wine, which wasn't too bad! And took the freshly baked Serbian Chocolate cake out of the fridge to be ready for dessert.
During dinner, we taught Austrians some good scottish/british words (Numpty, foosty, whilst, yonder) and the austrians keep trying to teach Bruce how to pronounce German words (Brot - bread, knoublauch - garlic, and fumf - five).
While we were eating and trying to mess with each other's learning of a foreign language a Polish couple arrived (with another baby) on their way back from a Macedonia/Albania trip. We didn't think they would be very talkative (little did we know)... so we continued playing verbal gymnastics. When we opened the beer, we offered some to the Polish couple that just sat down at the common kitchen table. This opened up the flood gates of a very talkative Polish woman, Ivona, who was also a German teacher and learning English as a hobby. She went on and on about anything and everything switching back and forth from English to German, so excited to use her languages and to chat with new people.
Bruce felt really cool when he got to use all of his Polish lines like the one about conjugating the Polish words for juice with voldka, (The zabruwka and apple juice story). He also got to use his story about touring through Europe in a Polish Fiat 500, at which point Stefan called Bruce a Crazy Bastard. Now, getting called a crazy bastard by and Austrian is like being called a numpty by a Scotsman... so it was just perfect. As Bruce says, "He was just jealous. :::wink:::"
We finished dinner, beer, water melon, and Bruce's Chocolate Birthday cake (which was delicious!)
at just about midnight on his Birthday. We all sang Happy birthday in 3 languages at midnight to my husband, each got 3 kisses each from Ivona, and headed off to bed thoroughly rested and exhausted at the same time.
An early start is going to be hard tomorrow.
Happy Birthday Bruce!
The World is Ours!
Bruce's Birthday party in Novi Sad
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