Belgrade, Days 3 & 4 - The Emergency Clinic and a Rough Ride Home

Thursday, Mirko left us on our own and we decided to do more wandering to some of the sites we hadn’t seen.  Our morning consisted of the Saint Sava Cathedral, a beautiful building that is still under construction (it was actually started before World War II, then was put on hold during the war, and then was put on hold as no new church construction was allowed in Yugoslavia... Saint Sava was the founder of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the 1200's), Belgrade’s open market, where you can buy anything from fresh strawberries to bathtub hardware to Hello Kitty beach balls, and Tašmajdan Park and Saint Mark’s Orthodox Church, which are in a beautiful part of the city.

After lunch, we ventured back to Kalemegdon Park to let the kiddos ride the carousel and blow off some steam at the playground.  It was here that Rosetta decided we should test Serbia’s medical system.  One quick fall, a gash in the forehead, and we were left wondering how to figure out where we should go and how to get there.  Luckily for us, we asked someone nearby and he immediately jumped up from the park bench, called a taxi, took us down to the street to wait for the taxi, and told the taxi driver where to take us.  It’s amazing how willing people are to help no matter where you go.  The taxi driver sped through town to a medical clinic (again, no car seats, very unnerving).  We called Mirko to let him know what was happening, and, of course, he dropped everything to come and meet us.  We have to admit that the Belgrade Emergency Clinic wasn't top on our list of things to see, but we were pleasantly surprised with how well everything went there and how quickly they had Rosetta stitched and bandaged.  Afterward, of course, Mirko bought the kiddos more gifts.

We figured we had avoided disaster…until Friday morning, when we were packing up the car and heard a loud bang…which was our rear suspension retiring.  We probably shouldn’t have driven back, but Grandma Rose was due in Ljubljana the next day.  So, we decided to head out, take it slow, and see what happened (which could be our mantra for this whole experience).  Serbian highways are far from smooth, and the kiddos thought it was funny that we were bouncing around like a slinky on wheels while Chantelle and I wondered how long it would be until we bottomed out on the back tires and were stranded somewhere in the forests near the Serbia-Croatia border.  But, as we wrote a week ago, we had just asked our Megane to hold up through one more trip, and it did.  We were a bit worried entering Slovenia when the border patrol scrutinized our car (they must have been wondering if we were starting a Serbian boulder collection), but eventually we made it back, parked the car, and walked home.  And Grandma Rose arrived the next day as promised, so all is good.