Eventful voyage

My trip to Serbia could definitely be classified as eventful. Because the trip was only approved a few days before I left, I bought my ticket at the last minute and so ended up stuck in the second-to-last row of the plane. The good news (or so I thought) was that there was an empty seat next to me, with a French gentleman in the aisle seat.

Shortly after dinner the Frenchman disappeared to the galley in the back of the plane from where a wonderful sewerage smell was wafting. My row-mate did not return for quite a while which was fine with me as I really just wanted to get some sleep on the plane as I knew I would have to hit the ground running when I arrived Belgrade the next day. At some point just as I was drifting off to sleep, I felt him crash down into the seat next to me – the empty seat. I took off my eye patch to glare at him and discovered that he had found a friend. He had brought a woman back to the seat and proceeded to spend the entire night flight drinking wine, chatting with her, which led to holding hands, smooching and even a little groping – all of which entailed a lot of noise and movement including bumping me several times as I was attempting to sleep leaning on the opposite side of the seat. It was one of those situations that was so bizarre that it did not really sink in until after the fact. The best part is that in the morning after she had returned to her seat, I realized that he had a wedding ring on – needless to say this was clearly not his wife as they ignored each other and headed off in opposite directions when we deplaned.

I had a 4 hour layover in Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris in the B terminal. Take this as a warning – if you ever have a layover in that terminal, just change your flight plans. There are a grand total of 10 seats in the entire terminal (no exaggeration) and to get to any other terminal you actually have to go through customs. After confirming with an AirFrance employee that this was really the situation, I went through customs and found and empty bench where I curled up like a bag lady and slept for a couple of hours inhaling second hand smoke with my cell phone in hand with alarm set.

Fortunately when I arrived in Belgrade I discovered that my colleague’s flight was delayed so I did a few hours of work and then did a few hours of sleep before heading out for dinner with the three colleagues from the home office who all happen to be out here at the same time. My first impression of the city is incredulity that the US government is actually investing in economic development here. (I am here again researching a potential new project in agribusiness development). Belgrade is now one of the hot spots for nightlife in Eastern Europe with brightly lit pedestrian streets filled with restaurants, shops and bars that I am told are even more lively in the summer. It seems like a bustling Eastern European captial with functional systems and a strong enough economy to support the consumerism on display.

Belgrade has a cell phone parking payment mechanism that lets you send a text message with your license plate number and time that you want to park and the amount is charged to your account. The parking police then just check the automatic database to see if you have paid. It seems like the US could learn something from Serbia! That said, drive around Belgrade and start talking to locals and I think the reasons for the US Government investment become clear. There are still many bombed out buildings in Belgrade from the 1999 NATO bombing to end the Milošević-lead ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo. The tensions here still run high, but my information now is all second hand – I am sure I will have more first hand information tomorrow.

One correction – the country is no longer Serbia and Montenegro. Montenegro declared their independence in June of last year (the day before the first World Cup match of the Serbia and Montenegro team) and they are now completely independent.