Travels With Baby: Strike Up The Band
The last installment in Ayun's Balkans adventure: Sremski Karlovci, Serbia.
by Ayun Halliday
August 7, 2007
I remember how I'd tried to psych Inky up for our month-long trip through the Western Balkans by telling her that we would find ourselves in places that would look like something out of a fairy tale.
Many of them didn't, but tiny Sremski Karlovci, the birthplace of the Serbian Orthodox church, inarguably does. It was a quaint location in which to end our travels. The big draw is the Cathedral, and the sole lodging option, directly across from it. The Hotel Boem's humble, homey vibe put me in mind of the New Glarus Inn in kitschy, Swiss-centric New Glarus, Wisconsin, except there was no yodeling and also, no shower curtain. A curtainless shower didn't strike me as such a big deal, but the proprietor seemed so pained that this was the best he had to offer the big shots from New York, he offered to chuck in a free room for the children. I didn't have the heart to tell him that we're the low-rolling type, the kind who aren't deterred by a cigarette burn on a plastic shelf, provided the price is right, which it most certainly was, even before his spontaneous, and much appreciated two-for-one special.
Having hauled our filthy luggage upstairs for this, its final hurrah, we descended for a late luncheon at one of the tables the hotel sets out in the town square. I ordered beer, and a tureen of soup made with Danube fish. But for the children and my stained tank shirt, the whole thing was very Somerset Maugham, or perhaps even Hemingway.
Greg, who spends every New Year's Eve bedeviling me with his catalogue of the waning year's
Why does it always seem like I'm the only one who's jazzed to wear a costume to the costume party?
high and low points, was strangely mum on this occasion. The thousands of miles he logged at the wheel of our rental car must have taken their toll. I was further disappointed that neither of the kids felt compelled to wax philosophical over the events of the last four weeks. Inky had surrendered herself, as usual, to the battered Betty and Veronica comic that had sustained her throughout Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, while Milo was grumpily examining a brochure touting the Museum of Beekeeping. How discouraging that no one wanted to share some special memory, some instance where we learned important things about ourselves as a family, or as citizens of the world! Why does it always seem like I'm the only one who's jazzed to wear a costume to the costume party?
And then I heard the band. The sort of crazy-ass gypsy brass that always makes me feel ravishing and temporarily out of control, a festive and rare sensation in one whose fortunes are so intimately tied to the wants and needs of little kids. "Do you hear that?" I gasped. Not that anyone could have missed it. It sounded like the circus was in town.
Greg, looking mildly apprehensive, nodded, and prepared to assume responsibility for the young. He knows how potent I find this sort of freewheeling, horn-based music.
©2007 Ayun Halliday and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Ayun Halliday is author of The Big Rumpus and No Touch Monkey! and the popular zine East Village Inky. She is a columnist for Bust and a frequent contributor to Babble. Visit AyunHalliday.com.
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