Halfway down the Danube

Tell me why

The other day, a friend of mine asked me why Doug and I are keeping this blog. She finds personal information on the net at least questionable and blogs in general an odd fad of the early 21st century that will hopefully die the quick death of all fads.

I was at a loss to explain to her our reasons and I'm still not quite sure about what compels us to post.

I could say it's sort of a diary of our experiences in Eastern Europe - but that doesn't quite cover it. After all, we are trying not to put too much TMI out there. If you grumble publically about your spouse/kids/neighbors/friends, you have to keep in mind that it's not only recorded for eternity but also that it's being read by people who don't know you at all and can't tell whether you're just being bitchy, off your meds, or entirely justified. Additionally, they might not be all that interested in the fact that your writing this post was interrupted by a poop explosion...

Thinking back, it was Carlos who first pointed me to the world of blogs of which I had been blissfully unaware. He sent me the link to a blog (I forget which one) and I was intrigued by the concept.
I thought we could have a blog to keep our scattered families up to date on our current living/moving/working/family situation(s). Sharon Casteel referred me to Movable Type, my brother helped me setting the whole thing up - and voila! we were online and publically writing. As these things go, my mother is the only family member who regularly reads this blog. Go figure.

Since then, the content has changed somewhat and the stress is now on reports about the country we live in at the moment, plus some kid stories to lighten things up a bit. (The title of the blog used to be accurate back when we lived in Belgrade; we decided not to change it despite the fact that the Danube is an hour's drive away now and quite close to its final destination.)

I've always been writing and this format gives me two things: an incentive to write regularly (after a fashion) and a forum to practice writing in English. I've been trying to write in English for some time now and as with so many things, I found that practice is everything. I won't say that it is helping me to write fiction because I'm not writing much fiction these days -- but maybe one day, it'll pay off. Until then, I get to torture you guys with my struggles with style, vocabulary and punctuation.

Last, not least, there is also the idea to supply the world with interesting, amusing or plainly weird facts about living in the Balkans - eh, sorry, I meant to say Southeastern Europe. Since writing a blog is a lonely occupation and feedback from the readers is sparse, we are just asuming that people are interested in reading what we write. Amazingly enough, there are some who seem to have taken a genuine liking to our blog.

At which point a loud Thank you! is in order - thanks to our readers and especially to those who also comment. We are very happy about each and every comment, even if we don't write back much (kids! we have kids! that means very little time!).
Anca & Misha, Carlos, Pouncer, Ellen, Cat, Marna... You are the guys we think of when we're writing. Keep those comments coming - or just read and enjoy.

Thank you all.

[Bowing to all sides and stepping off my soapbox. Phew.]

Posted by claudia at December 5, 2003 12:31 PM