January 6, 2019

New Year's Eve in Sarajevo was probably one of the strangest we have experienced.  We went to a matinee at 1:00 pm.  We saw Mary Poppins Returns - it was delightful.  The original is still my favorite but this one was very good.  John thought it was a little bit too long but it kept him entertained; I even noticed a little toe tapping from his direction!  When the movie was over, the theater was shut down.  No movies on New Year's Eve, can you imagine?  We thought we might go to dinner but most of the restaurants were also closed by then.  We went home, thinking we would order Chinese or pizza delivery but no such luck, they were also closed for the day.  So no movies and no eating out on New Year's Eve here.  Christmas Day was a normal business day with stores, offices and restaurants open as usual.  So I guess we know what the priority is here - New Year's is a big deal.  We heard fireworks for 3 days prior to New Year's but never really saw any until that eve.  They started at dark and didn't stop until after midnight.  I looked out the window at midnight and could not believe what I was seeing - the entire cityscape was exploding with fireworks.  I don't think there was a foot of space in any direction that wasn't lit up.  I could be wrong, but I don't believe there were planned or organized firework displays.  It seems that you are allowed to purchase and set off fireworks as you wish.  Now that I think about it, I guess maybe there were some organized displays, perhaps at the soccer stadiums.

Tomorrow is the Orthodox Christmas observance.  I don't think we will notice much difference here for that day.

It was a slow week for us, with many of our partners on holidays.  I didn't even take any photos.  We have had snow all week, probably 6-7 inches total.  It doesn't seem like so much but the 2-lane roads can be treacherous, especially traveling through the mountains (and pretty much everything is through a mountain from Sarajevo).  President and Sister Melonakos were scheduled to arrive Friday for interviews and attend church in our branch today but they turned back to Zagreb on Friday.  The plan was to travel though northwest Bosnia after church to the Croatian coast for interviews there on Monday.  I think they made the right decision.

This is short, but nothing to write about!  And it's time to finish dinner preparations for the missionaries arriving in 2 hours.