Novi Sad!

I finally got to see the beautiful city of Novi Sad over the weekend! There was another pastors meeting and luckily they decided to have it a the church about 5 minutes from downtown Novi Sad! This was a special meeting because the Methodist Bishop of this region was here for the weekend. He was a very nice man and very down-to-earth. He is from Switzerland and is fluent in German, English, and French. I enjoyed hearing the Bishop speak because it was fun hearing a language other than Serbian or Slovak. With how German is pronounced, it is also a very fun language to listen to! I felt a bit "lost in translation" at times because he addressed the pastors in German. One of the other pastors was translating that into Serbian which Liljana then translated into English for me!

Lunch was nice. The secretary of the Church here is very sweet. She remembered that I am vegetarian so she made fried zucchini for me. yummy! After lunch, I went out to explore the town. Novi Sad has a very pleasant historical center. The buildings were very nice and many of them were different colors. It is a very nice city - just the right amount of charm. There was a really nice park and of course great views of the fort. Even though this is the second largest city in Serbia, I felt like there were hardly any non-Serbian tourists. I couldn't even find postcards! It is nice to be in a city that seems untouched by outside tourism.

I also found a nice outdoor market that sold fresh produce and clothing. I wanted to take pictures, but I decided not to. The rows were very narrow and it didn't look like there were any tourists there. When you are walking around a foreign city alone, its nice to to dry to much attention to yourself and taking pictured definitely would have made me stand out. A beautiful tabby cat was walking through the market and seemed completely unfazed by all the activity around him. He came up to me, got a little back scratch, and then was on his way.

The best thing about the day was just being in a city! There were cafes, restaurants, and real shops! Padina is a nice little town, but it sure does make you miss being near a real city!

I hope you enjoy the slideshow below!