Taking It Easy

This week I am really taking it easy. Mom is pampering me well, and I ain't complaining. She gets up couple of hours before I do and goes to the market for some fresh pastries and anything new for breakfast that I even remotely mentioned. I am not at all picky with what I eat, but she likes mothering me.
Yesterday we walked to few stores in the neighbourhood looking for decorative buttons for my new jacket. Then we went to pre-pay more Internet hours and left the laptop at the shop to download updates which takes too slow on my mom's dial-up connection. While waiting on it, we walked to Merkator to have coffee on the terrace. It was too hot under the umbrellas, so we set inside under the AC. I am still bothered with the cigarette smoke everywhere we go. Smoking is allowed in most buildings, so I feel I can smell it almost all the time we are in public areas. Even in our apartment building when someone is smoking in the staircase, I can smell it inside our apartment. After the laptop download was done, we walked back toward home, and stopped at the building where mom will be taking some English classes. It belongs to a foundation sponsored by Iranian organizations. They have other classes there, some religious, Persian language, and talks for young people. My mom knows the administrative assistant there, they used to work for the same company, and she gave me a book for young people they use in one of those lectures.

Today we were supposed to go to the tailor around 3.30, so we didn't leave the apartment until 2. We had a long morning coffee and breakfast and were just dragging ourselves. We called few places on the Adriatic coast to try and figure out where to go to the beach next week. Then we went for a coffee in our neighbourhood. There are coffee shops on every corner, so we have several options to choose from, based on type of coffee they have, outdoor seating, or view. This one was by the river in the shade. Then we hopped on the trolley and went to Dobrinja for the jacket fitting. Mom was planning to go home for dinner, that she cooked in the morning, but I convinced her to go downtown for some pita. We stopped at one mall looking for a soccer shirt for my brother, and then walked to the pastry shop to eat.

Then we walked some 30 min more to the new Avaz (local newspaper) building to have another coffee there. This building has a twirl shape, has 36 stories, is 175 meters high, and is supposedly one of the 10 tallest buildings in Europe. It wasn't built yet the last time I was in Sarajevo, so it was interesting to check it out. The views are great from the top platform, even though it was a hazy day.

From there we walked for another hour through Wilsonovo, a pedestrian avenue next to the river with high, lush trees. This street is opened to traffic only on weekdays until 6PM. In the evenings and weekends it buzzes with walkers, runners, children on bikes and roller blades, and families with babies in strollers. The weather was very nice to be outside, in the low 70s. This entire week it will about the same, and we usually have short showers in the evenings.