Ana is Hanna’s friend who was getting married, and the reason for Hanna going to Belgrade. I was doing my interrail thing and made sure to plan my trip so that I was there at the same time as her. Kirke just decided to tag along, a couple of days before Hanna was to leave Sweden. So, it ended up being a weekend in Belgrade for the three of us.
Ana lives in Stockholm, but she’s got her entire family in Belgrade, and so does her (then) fiancé, so obviously they would have their wedding in Belgrade. Ana’s parents live in Novi Beograd, so on Thursday night we took a taxi out there to go to her bachelorette party.
I’ve never been to a bachelorette party, so I didn’t really know what to expect. Turns out, though, that in this particular case the party consisted of a whole bunch of girls dancing and having fun together.
It started with cold meats, vegetables and rakija at Ana’s parent’s in Novi Beograd. Rakija is the traditional Serbian spirit, a distilled liquor usually made of plums, but sometimes also made of pears, apples or other fruit. It is strong, 40-70 percent alcohol, and I was told that mostly every family has one uncle or grandpa who makes it at home. And they can drink it any time of the day. One morning, Hanna, Kirke and I were offered a shot of rakija when we were having our breakfast at a café, because ”it is a great way to kick-start your digestive system”. We declined the offer for breakfast, but at the bachelorette party the rakija shots just kept on coming and they were just so easy to swallow.
The exhilarated atmosphere and the shots of rakija created a certain kind of high and it felt like everything was just glitter and laughs.
From Ana’s parent’s, we packed ourselves into taxis and rode down to the river (I think it was the Danube, but I am not sure, I wasn’t really in the right state of mind to ask about the geography of Belgrade). There, the quay was lined with club boats. According to Ana, this was the place to be if you wanted to experience the real Serbian club vibe. She had booked a table at one of the clubs, right next to the stage where a band was playing Serbian hits.
The party girls, consisting of Ana’s sister, her friends from Belgrade and her Serbian friends that live in Stockholm, two friends of her fiancé’s, and us. Luckily, most of them spoke either Swedish or English – and they all seemed to love dancing just as much as us.
Pretty early in the night, Ana climbed up on the bench by our table, and was instantly followed by a couple of her friends. Soon, we were all standing on the benches or the table, dancing and singing along to the live music. And it is a weird thing, how easy it is to sing along to songs that you’ve never heard, in a language that you don’t know, when you’ve had a couple of shots of rakija and are dancing on the table at a bachelorette party. There were men down on the floor, eyeing us, trying to get our attention – but why ruin something so perfect? This was a girls night out. The men eventually moved on without so much as a pat on the cheek as reward for all their efforts.
Ana the bride and Hanna, dancing on the table.
The golden trio, singing along, sweating and screaming.
The energy in that boat was intense, the heat almost suffocating, and it actually is possible to get too much of something good. At about one in the morning, Kirke and Hanna decided they wanted to leave, and I was fine with that. We kissed Ana good night and caught a taxi back to Nevenka’s apartment.
Back in Nevenka’s kitchen, I managed to find some salted cashew nuts left over from one of my train rides. So we ate those, chips and nectarines, drank water and just laughed, still too wound up to go to bed. Serbian bachelorette parties are wild things.
At six in the morning, I woke up and the room was spinning. I went to the get a glass of water, realizing that I was still drunk. Rakija is strong stuff. I rarely drink alcohol (except for when I’m traveling, for some reason) and I almost never get drunk, but the rakija, man, it gives a wonderful kind of intoxication. It’s like bottled happiness. At least when you drink it together with your best friends. At a bachelorette party. In a new and exotic city. Adventure and adrenaline. Life.
Katja Malmborg 