Log from Saterday July 10: In transit to Belgrade
Quote of the Day:"You are the last ladies?" (air steward of Swiss Air)
Early morning:
On the plane between Zurich and Belgrade. What a stress! Delays everywhere. It is like there is a curse on genderchangers when we are travelling: we always have to run like crazy to catch our planes! In Zurich we just made it with two or three minutes left before they close the gate behind us. But, now finally, we are on our way, and on schedule to Beograd, the White City (Beo means white and grad is city). I wonder what kind of person she is. What are her surprises, how are her moods like? How does she look like in the rain? Will she reveal a secret or two? Dear White City, are you aware of that Sara, Maya, and Sisi are soon entering your domain?
Lunch:
Since we were the last ones on the plane our luggage did not come aboard in time. Sigh. It is hot and humid in Belgrade when we finally come out of the airport. There is a bus leaving to Hotel Slavia in the center of the city (120 Dinars per person and the busdriver does _not_ accept Euros!). Look out for greedy clerks at exchange offices at the airport. They tend to forget to give you the small change. The first landscape impression: flat country. Somehow I had expected to see hills but I guess I was fooled by tourist impressions. We pass by empty commercial boards along the well kept road, and there is an odd mixture of post-communist "fit-as-many-people-as-possible" appartment blocks with new fancy office buildings.
Coming to Hotel Slavia we send an SMS to Milica, one of the main organizers of /etc, and ten minutes later her sister Zoe picks us up with a taxi and takes us to the office of Zene Na Delu. Many of the developers have already arrived. There are hugs & kisses and delicious food, and we all enjoy being together again after months of online chat. After this we split up and go to our appartment where we will stay for the week. After some freshining up we go to the Republic square in the center of the old town to attend a Women in Black demonstration against war crimes. This particular group met at this square every week during the war, and is one of the strongest forms of protest I have ever seen. Women dressed in black stand together in a circle and hold up placats, ignoring sounds and occasional protest of other people. Very strong.
Evening:
Milicia shows us the space REX. We enter a large lobby with a small bar. On opposite sides there are two rooms, one small one with eight computers, and one big hall that really looks like a mid size theater. It is all there, a podium, a balcony, and a large open space for our autonomous zone. On one side of the room there are two large windows facing a backyard where laundry and old cars mix. It looks great! We meet people from REX and discuss logistics and technical details. After a short discussion which Linux distribution is the best (difficult to avoid in a group of nerds ;-) there is enough mutual trust for cooperating together for the coming week. OK, so we do prefer Debian, but they can use Suse if they want to ;-). Well oh well. There are drinks and icecream, and late at night we all go home. Time to sleep. Definitly.
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