Sunday, February 22, 2015

AVASH AVASH

"When you travel, remember that foreign countries are not designed to make you feel comfortable. They are designed to make their own people feel comfortable."
Clifton Fadiman (1904-1999), American writer.

Zitsa, Greece, February 20, 2015

We feel very sorry for our thief. We usually leave the bikes parked in the main square, surrounded by people. But at nine o´clock on a freezing morning, nobody walks the streets of Cetinje. No one but the clever character who opens the bag on the handlebars of a loaded bicycle probably hoping to find something valuable.  He has just seconds to perform the maneuver before someone sees him, but things look good: he grabs a pair of sunglasses cases and under them is a flask with rakja. He thinks today is his lucky day, he will get some good money selling the sunglasses and will celebrate with a drink. What the poor thief does not yet know is that one of the cases is empty because Gabi prefers to put his glasses in his pocket so later he can lose or squash them. What he also doesn´t know is that the other case contains patches and glue for punctures and that the flask was a gift that we have already enjoyed. When we return from a visit to the Orthodox monastery and evaluate our losses we only regret the loss of the gift (it takes us two weeks to realize that we are missing the cases). The Berbers say that if anybody takes something that is not theirs one shouldn`t blame the thief, but the former owner for not having been more responsible with his possessions.

Enjoying Winter!!