Ape Rifle

1) Eat a Pljeskavica, an enormous Serbian hamburger, or at least die trying. Wash down with a mixed grill of every farm animal imaginable. Repeat as needed. Wonder whether Serbia has yet to invent vegetables after consuming at least twenty-five pounds of meat over a four-day period.

2)Attend various open bar functions to mingle with the local European diplomatic elite/NGO people, all the while pretending you have a clue what’s going on/what they do. Get asked by a woman at one gathering if you work for a particular international organization, and have your sarcastic host friend answer that you both work in the “Star Wars Defence Initiative” department. Watch as he is taken seriously.

3)Be entertained by the sexually graphic nature of AIDS awareness billboards, which helpfully remind you to bring condoms to your next ménage à trois. That same evening, meet those responsible for such genius at an open bar AIDS NGO party…at which the waitresses are sporting the very same graphic images on their t-shirts. Try not to laugh as a waitress, with a couple 69ing across her chest, serves you drinks.

4)Knock at least a decade off your life with lots of cheap Marlboros, cheap/free drinks and bus fumes.

5)Catch tv programming such as “Seks i Grad” (”Sex in the City”) and,yes, “Road to Avonlea” in Serbian. When the news comes on, catch a stylized recreation of the latest politically-motivated shooting.

6)Tour the club scene. Get into the VIP room wearing running shoes by speaking English, but feel a bit disturbed as suspected war criminals are pointed out to you by knowledgeable locals. Be reminded of a certain large Asian country by the complete craziness of the nightlife, go-go dancers included.

7) Realize that no one in their right mind could every accuse socialist Modernism of being attractive.

8) Get lost in an overcrowded taxi looking for a club in a desolate industrial area. Then, for good measure, get stopped by the police.

9)Be in awe of how very, very, very attractive a certain female half of the population is. Decide something must have been put in the water.

10) Wonder who is more dangerous on the road: chain-smoking Chinese peasants who don’t understand what traffic laws are, or chain-smoking Serbs in old Ladas and Yugos who don’t care what traffic laws are?

11) Wander through a paramilitary police inspection of a car, pulled over in the middle of the sidewalk to completely block pedestrians with its open doors. Watch as one officer is forced to close a door so that impatient commuters can get by. Wonder why Eastern/Central European law enforcement officers look so damned sketchy.

12) Wonder what percentage of your cab drivers spent 1999 “vacationing” in Kosovo.

13) See the gigantic, abandoned defence ministry that was “re-decorated” by NATO cruise missile strikes. Wonder why the building is still bombed out 5 years later. Realize that CNN wars aren’t so trivial when you are on the receiving end. Be happy your city has never been bombed.

14) Realize that “transition economy” is a polite way of saying that the pinnacle of urban development activity was reached sometime in the 1970s, with the infrastructure and questionable architecture still around to prove it.

15) Be happy that you got to see the sun one day out of four. Be mad that it happened while you were on your way to the airport to fly back to London.

16) Spend a hilarious four days in Belgrade with a good friend.

17) Back in the UK, take the tube home from Paddington Station on the Bakerloo Line and question whether London really is much more advanced than the Balkans. At least the 1970s buses in Belgrade still work.

18) Be fascinated, through exposure to NGO activity, by a place that seems to care more about political development and civil society than redundant infrastructure projects and big, shiny expensive things.

19) Take lots of pictures!

Well, I’ll be the first to admit that Ape Rifle in London hasn’t exactly been the most prolific of blogs lately.

My first term has gone by in a flash, and I have yet to write anything substantial about London and my life here. Hell, I have yet to figure out what I even think about London and my life here. The trouble is, when I’m printing journal articles, going to class and trying to produce multiple essays, I often forget I’m even in London at all.

In China, the whole thrill was just being there. Sure I was “teaching”, but I spent endless hours absolutely fascinated by the scenes of daily life unfolding around me. I could look out my window, see the sea of cheap highrises, hear the din of the patented Chinese traffic, or try and listen to what the guard and the old lady were arguing about that particular time. I could just look outside and be amazed that I was in China.

Here in London, things aren’t quite the same. It is a fascinating city and all, but my focus is, by necessity, on academic activities. Rare is the day I find myself wandering neighbourhoods to find out what makes this city tick; not so rare is the day spent running between residence, class, the library and the sandwich shops. Furthermore, the UK is a little less culturally distant from Canada than China was: although to some people it is undoubtedly very “foreign”, it is hardly a source of culture shock for me.

Yet do not despair, for excitement is coming to the world of Ape Rifle. Tomorrow morning, I’m off to Serbia for four days to visit a good friend in Belgrade. It is, quite simply, impossible for that not to be a great time. And then, on the 23rd, I’m heading back to Montreal to celebrate a genuine Christmas with the family for the first time in three years (Christmas in China was, well…rather untraditional) .

So don’t give up on this blog yet, it still has a few good stories left to tell.