Balkan-Haul

Hello, everyone. I hope you all had a great weekend and aren't affected by ye ole Monday blues too much. I have some photos from my recent trip to Belgrade that I want to share, but as I am too tired at the time of writing this I decided to write the shopping post before the "sightseeing" one.

By now you should know that I could be dispatched on a business trip to the Siberian tundra or an oil rig in the North Sea and still come back with some souvenirs.

This does not mean that Belgrade is such an unlikely city for a little shopping spree. In fact they have a Sephora and GAP, two stores I would really welcome in Vienna. While I compulsively have to buy something from Sephora anyways (the nail stickers I picked up on Sale in Belgrade were a flop, unfortunately as their adhesive had dried up and I had to throw them away), I really like to shop at local stores if I find something nice. Case in point: a knitwear designer called Ivko that I had never heard before whose flagship store I discovered. I bought a cardigan from their Sales rack for 50% and have already worn it twice. It's really good quality (merino wool) and has beautiful details and finishing.

I am in love with the colours and the design that reminds me of a pond with waterlilies. I was so proud of having disovered some obscure gem and was really baffled when la Mademoiselle asked me on Saturday when I took my coat off if the cardigan was by Ivko. Apparently there are some select boutiques in Vienna (including one near the school where she teaches) and she herself owns something by this brand. Ok, not so exclusive then, but I am happy with my bargain import all the same.

Other than that, I bought a new addition to my ever-growing collection of mugs. It says "Beograd" and contains a "recipe" for coffee+milk and a Plazma cookie.I find this a somewhat unfortunate name for a treat, but gathered that this must be some kind of local cult biscuit as McDonald's even has a shake with Plazma cookies in Serbia. I also discovered some fancy-looking bars of soap at the local DM:

What I found interesting was that several stores had official-looking announcements taped to their shop-windows to inform customers of the duration of the sale:

By the way: while I might not speak many languages, I certainly speak sale in ANY language and immediately learnt a new piece of vocabulary: sniženje means sale or reduction in Serbian. In general, I like to pick up random words from every trip and my favourite Croatian word is slušalice, headphones.