The first two weeks were a bit slow, a bit boring, a bit gray, a bit cold, a bit rainy, and a bit lonely. My Airbnb hosts were nice enough, and the Turkish guy who gave me a good haircut was friendly, and I went to a volleyball game and found a few good-enough restaurants and cafes, but ultimately, with the exception of a short three-day sojourn in Kotor Bay with Liesel, the beginning of my time in Podgorica was a fairly solitary, uninspiring experience.
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| Kotor Was Great, Though — Rainy, but Great |
But once I got back from Kotor, and moved from the City Kvart part of the city across the river to the City Center, things quickly got much better. I made friends with Andrija, my young tennis-playing opponent, at the café directly across the street, with 19-year-old Russian immigrant Sonja and her colleagues at the Corcovado Café, and with the barista and absolutely-no-English-speaking waitress at the Nag’s Head English Pub in the Bokeska Street bar district (when I complained to the barista about the inescapability of the early morning loud pop music at each and every café, she explained that “it’s time to wake up!” and I guess I couldn’t argue with that),
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I went to the gym each day, where I was regularly greeted by a friendly young woman who waived off my attempts to pay the required EUR 1 for a towel, and I got to know Cat and Mina, the two young American teachers who invited me to speak at their school — even running into Mina a couple days ago on a pedestrian bridge over the river, at which point she brought up the subject of how absolutely delighted the students were with my presentation, raving about it. I met the staff at the American Corner, participated in the acting class there one evening, and attended an English-language play it helped sponsor for non-native speakers.
I made several visits to the giant produce market down the road from me, marveling each time at the freshness, variety, and quantities of fruits and vegetables there, not to mention olives — “taste some, choose the kind you like!” — home-made jams and jellies and honeys, fresh strawberries, nuts, flowers, and so much more.
Last Friday, in fact, with only a few days before I was to leave the country, I needed only one tomato and two potatoes, but had only a EUR 50 bill. The friendly man and woman I was at waived away my attempts to pay — my insistence that I be allowed to pay — even when I explained that I was going to go upstairs to buy some clothes (ended up getting a polo shirt, t-shirt, and pair of shorts) and would be happy to come back and pay them after I got change. Nonetheless, about an hour later, my 1-euro coin in hand, I stopped by and insisted on giving it to them. They again refused it, almost offended that I was making such an issue out of it.
Charming.
I made friends with Jerrold — Jerry — the newly retired Professor of English and Rhetoric from the University of Massachusetts Amherst who lived in my long-term Airbnb before me, and who is traveling around the Balkans waiting for his visa to clear before returning to Slovenia, extremely reluctant to move back to the United States, and hoping to find a place in Southern Europe to teach rhetoric or provide some kind of consulting services on the subject. Through Jerry I also met my Airbnb-host’s father and brother, Misko and Pavle, and spent an evening over beers with them, doing my part by buying around of local rakija.
I found places with delicious borsch (Your Time cafe) and perfect Greek salads (Boskovich Hotel restaurant). I found the best pizza in Montenegro (the Calabria restaurant, near my house — which provided me with the weekly treat I would take back and eat over sports on TV).
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| Calabria Restaurant |
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| Borsch at Your Time |
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| Greek Salad at the Boskovich |
In other words, I found myself part of a community, with real routines and familiar-faces-turning-into-friends, with places all over I could wave to someone as I walked by, or people I would run into on the street.
Montenegro, it turned out, is a small, justifiably proud little world — only about 600,000 people in the entire country, and only about 200,000 in the nation’s capital — of mountains and valleys, lakes and vineyards, amazing coastline and hidden bays, clear clear rivers and blue skies. And friendly, good people.
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| A panorama shot on my running path up the Gorica Park hill |
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| Relaxing Under a Tree Along the Running Path on Gorica Hill |
The biggest lesson I drew from this experience — not for the first time — is not to be so quick to draw conclusions from initial experiences. Of course the first people you’re going to see are people smoking at coffee shops, unfamiliar faces appearing either hostile or indifferent, and teenagers laughing at secret jokes while hanging out on the street. Nobody’s first experiences involve theater, friendly invitations to hidden tennis courts, and access to sophisticated considerations of complicated philosophical or political concepts. But it would be a mistake to assume those initial experiences provide a full or accurate an understanding of a country. Turns out … you gotta give it time, allow yourself to meet people, and give them the opportunity to welcome you into their interesting worlds.
I’m really glad I did. Montenegro, you couldn't have done better. You win this round. 😀
- Lawrence, Kansas (twice)
- Saline, Michigan
- Ann Arbor, Michigan (five times)
- West Berlin
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Boston, Massachusetts
- San Francisco (four times)
- St. Louis, Missouri
- Vladivostok, Russia
- Lexington, Virginia
- Moscow, Russia
- Charlottesville, Virginia
- Seattle, Washington
- Los Angeles, California
- Budapest (four times)
- Prague (three times)
- Sao Paulo, Brazil
- Syros, Greece
- Tucson, Arizona
- Podgorica, Montenegro
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