TomTom map of Serbia (Belgrade)

I’m preparing a holiday in Belgrade, Serbia. Apparently it’s the New York of eastern Europe. I’m not sure why Europe would require a New York, but my interests are peaked  by the slightest promise of grandeur to look at and cheap lodging to enjoy. I’m such a bum!

Anyway, being stationed in the Netherlands right now, which isn’t bad, except that it’s rained for forty days and forty nights and the cows in the field outside my window are teaming up in two’s and looking hopefully up at me. They know I’m into boats and such.

But boats get tedious and every now and then I rig up the old VW and head out for grazier pastures by road. Belgrade this time, in Serbia. So I bought a TomTom, a pocket dictionary for basic greetings and all that. I went online and rented an apartment in Belgrade and as I type in the address, there’s no Belgrade in my TomTom!

Belgrade, Serbia, is a white patch of concrete according to my brand-new TomTom, which comes with all those nifty features such as map-sharing map-uploading, free newsletters and Zeus may care what else! But no Belgrade! What is wrong with those TomTom people?

I checked their website and yep, there it is: a map of Europe with dark green countries that have streets with houses and numbers; light green countries that only have highways and one pale hole in the ground with only one major artery cutting through it. That’s Serbia. It still needs to be discovered. I mean, Belgrade is the New York of eastern Europe! I can’t be the only fool who wants to drive there, can I?

I travel. I have traveled all over the world. I’ve used maps scribbled on the back of napkins in shady port-side bars by tattooed mama-sans, but I thought those days would be behind me when I bought my TomTom Live. I guess they’re not.

I’ll  just follow that one main artery until I see a sign that says Beograd That Way, and I’ll follow it. I’ll pull over at the first available watering hole, and I bet there’ll be a tattooed mama-san with a napkin in her hand, waiting just for me.