We were amazingly able to get a great flight over and flew direct from San Francisco to Paris (12 hours!), had a 7 hour layover in Paris then had a direct flight to Podgorica, Montenegro (2 hours). All was well with all legs of our flight and our bags made it through just fine!
Our first adventure came with the cab ride to the hotel which we very well! The cabbie even complimented Jim on his language skills! We were off to a great start. The Hotel Podgorica that they booked for us through the embassy was very nice. We had a beautiful King room and even had a lovely welcome package waiting for us from the embassy. We crashed early but I was awake as day at 4 am! I guess the 9 hour time difference caught up with me. The nice part about being awake so early is that we were able to sit out on our balcony with a cappuccino and watch the sun rise over the black mountains for which the country was named. It was quite a sight to behold on our very first morning. Just another reminder that God is good!
After the beautiful sunrise we enjoyed a lovely breakfast at the hotel then off to the embassy. It was only about a 10 minute walk from the hotel. From what we've heard, almost everything in this city is walkable, which we love! We were greeted at the embassy by Meri, who is the amazingly helpful girl who booked everything for us and set up all our appointments. The rest of our morning was filled with meetings with various people in the embassy. We were briefed on everything from security and housing to mail and the gym on the embassy grounds. After our meetings, we enjoyed lunch with Meri and another embassy staff member. The jet lag hit us a bit in the afternoon and we came back to the hotel to rest before setting out on foot to explore some. We walked into Old Town and across the Millennium Bridge. After our afternoon of adventures, we had dinner at the hotel.
We woke up Tuesday morning to a huge thunderstorm that ended up lasting all day. We used the morning to communicate via email with the embassy, real estate agent and the university. It actually ended up being a very productive morning. In the afternoon we ventured out in the pouring rain to walk to "Delta City," a new development where there is a mall and apartment buildings. If you were dropped off in the Delta City Mall not knowing where you were, you would definitely assume you were in the US. There were even American stores!
Wednesday morning we were picked up at the hotel by the real estate agent that we were set up with by the embassy. Jasna was extremely helpful and was able to show us four apartments that fit our needs perfectly. After returning to the hotel and spending some time thinking and praying about it, we decided on the one that seemed best. It is a very modern, fully furnished, 3 bedroom apartment that is in a high rise building in the Center City part of town. It will be only a 10 minute walk for Jim to get to school and there are lots of shops and restaurants nearby. We can't wait for visitors to come hang out with us on our "rainbow couch"!
Today after we signed our lease for the new apartment, we had a blast walking miles and miles around Podgorica exploring. We came upon the Serbian Orthodox Church of Christ's Resurrection that is brand new. It has been in the process of being built for the past 2 decades and just opened last October. There is a controversial fresco painted on the wall by an unknown artist that depicts Tito, Marx and Engels burning in the fiery depths of hell. Yikes! On a lighter note, the church is absolutely stunning in all it's brand-shiny-new glory. And as you can see, it was a gorgeous day today!
We also had fun exploring 14th century Turkish ruins that were just across the river from our hotel.
On our way back to the states, we had a layover in Paris! We took a train in to the city from the airport to meet up with fellow Olmsted Scholar and his wife, Tim and Jess Boswell. They decided to do their language training in country so they have been settled in Paris since September. They have a beautiful apartment about 2 blocks from Notre Dame Cathedral! We enjoyed a great dinner at their place cooked by Jess and then Tim took us on a 2 hour speed tour of some high points of Paris. Jim had been to Paris before but I never had so I was just in heaven admiring the architecture and culture of that beautiful city. Unfortunately, our camera battery died while we were walking around so some of our pics are iPhone quality. We can't wait to get back to Paris to visit and hopefully Jess and Tim will come visit us in Montenegro! That is one of the things I love the most about this program is the opportunity to have automatic new friends all over the world!
All in all we feel like our Familiarization Trip went very well. We got to know and love our new city in spite of some inclement weather with the help of a few wonderful people at the embassy. We are so excited for the next chapter to start and are excited about moving to Podgorica, Montenegro!
