This happened in May. It was long time coming and now I feel as though I've crossed a major item off the 'places to see' list. I mean, here I am, writing about living in a former communist state, trying to dispel many of the typical Western/North American stereotypes about this part of the world, while I'm still sitting in my comfort zone hesitant to visit our similarly afflicted neighbours. Long story short, an old friend from Toronto wanted to combine his Serbia trip with a Cluj visit. That done, we left Cluj in a rented Dacia Logan for the brutally long drive to Jagodina, Serbia, where he grew up. My first impression of Serbia was that things pretty much looked like they do in Romania; rough around the edges. The people, too, reminded me of my fellow Romanians; worried about life. It was only the language that I wasn't getting, but after a couple of days, I'd picked up some useful words: dobre den, hvala, and most importantly, zhivili! Hello, thank you, ...