drama last night was: out of all these worldly devices i have schlepped with me, not one of them could double as a reliable alarm clock—and although i brought the ancient one (christmas present in middle school, used trustably in the uchicago stacks through long days and nights) for such a time as this, i neglected to take AA batteries (have scads of AAA for various bike lights, also with me). spent a good 45 minutes trying to manipulate a solution. in the end, the best i could do was instill a fear deep-seated enough to wake me every 2 hours and, ptl, at 7am....

Snežana came and picked me up and we drove to Noah's Ark, where i met some of the kids and built towers (of babels). amela and natasa arrived after a while, and we went over the Memorandum of Understanding for Personnel Secondment. that is to say: as if It was not apparent, It is official. also met with Tijana, who will be my language teacher; i begin studying on thursday (sneza was proposing waiting until monday—but amela, who, in a paltry number of days has learned to read me incredibly well, picked up on my anxiousness to start straightaway and advocated for me. and: guess who's getting mail, forwarded by the rapidly-rising-in-regard USPS? yup.

i wasn't quite sure whether i was to stick around the kindergarten, but it didn't seem the case—so i took the opportunity to flee into the city. walked around pretty much all afternoon and evening. went up to Kalemegdan, the fortress in the middle of Stari Beograd. it's been sacked more times than can be counted on the fingers and toes of a small village, rebuilt by almost as many ruling groups (as is often the case in this region). from the top, i can see across the junction of the Sava and Donav/Danube rivers to Novi Beograd and...my apartment, with its air traffic control tower atop the two columns and overall strange imposing visage. i should look at some postcards of Beograd, as i'm sure it figures prominently in any wide-angle shot. for all my scorn of ostentatiousness, i happened to be very thankful for the visibility—as i'd not written down any address for the apartment and needed to get home.

amidst all the walking around the city, managed to finegal some wireless in one of the busy squares downtown. intermittent, at best, but better than i've had since friday. should be able to connect dial-uppedly as soon as i go to one of the EUnet centers and plead my sorry case.

bought some food on the way home, and am now having late dinner. i would just like to express my delight that i found mustard strong enough to clear sinuses from here to North America and back. this is no small feat, given the state of my nasal cavity recently. i'm just going to have to figure out whether to put the receipts under "food and household" or "medical" when i submit them to MCC.

hmmmm. i'm sort of exhausted in a manner that is helping/forcing me get used to being here.