Petrovardin Fortress towering over Novi Sad in Serbia

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Today was a sightseeing day — the fortress across the Danube river in Novi Sad was our destination. Masayo and I woke up to a rainy day, however — but nothing we couldn’t handle.

My BG was 135 when I woke up, thanks (yet again) to the Humalog I took before bed last night to correct the high. Breakfast was cookies and yogurt — a good, cheap travel meal!

First we walked around the center of Novi Sad a little, among a couple big churches and the shopping districts. We went down a side street to see a large, ornate synagogue that was really nice.

I am going to be getting low on test strips for my OneTouch UltraMini soon, so I stopped into a pharmacy (“апотек”) we passed by. The bottles of strips I have are Japanese, although OneTouch is based in America. I showed my bottle to the pharmacist, and she immediately waved her hand — no, they didn’t have those. “Chinese”, she explained dismissively (and inaccurately).

I asked what she did have and she showed me some AccuChek products. A bottle of 50 was 2,100 dinars, about $21. But I could get a bottle of 50 plus a free meter for the same price. I didn’t buy them, but I figured I would eventually — if AccuChek can be found in this part of Europe more readily than OneTouch, I could just carry both machines with me. I guess $21 for 50 strips isn’t too bad, though it’s more expensive than my strips cost on the Japanese health insurance system.

Then it was time to cross the Danube to the other side of town. The river is wide, and the bridge we walked over had a lot of cars going over it in the rain. We could see the fortress on a hill as we walked.

Once across, we weren’t quite sure how to get up to the fortress, but soon we came upon a small bakery called Multi Tarte. It was dark and cozy inside, and we each got a sandwich and some water. Everything seemed homemade, right there in the store, and the guy running it spoke English. My BG now was 82, so I took my shot.

Before we left we got a bag of cookies — one of each kind they had. The cookies were small, and so was the price, about $1.50 for the bag of 10 or so. We joked that a single cookie would cost that in the Baltics.

We cut down a drizzly side street and found a path leading uphill, which we blindly followed until we arrived at a large gate into the fortress area. We went through; there was no charge or anything.

At the top there is a hotel and the remnants of this big fortress. A museum was there, but because it was Monday it was closed. (A lot of stuff around here is closed on Mondays for some reason.)

We walked around the big clock tower, and found a new path down the other side of the fortress next to the river that wound down old steps and between old walls. It had a really nice, ancient feeling.

We crossed back over the bridge and went back to a street we’d passed earlier that had a barber shop on it. I wanted to get my hair shaved down again, so in I went.

One of the guys spoke English, and I explained that I wanted everything shaved down to 3 mm, which a guy did. He was very good, even clipping my ear hairs and doing my eyebrows when I asked. The total cost was only $4; I tipped $1. I’d been nervous because no price was mentioned, but it was no problem.

Then we went to a big discount store we’d seen earlier. Having had two daypacks break on the trip already, I was looking for another replacement. I settled on a little pouch that goes around the neck, just big enough for my insulin and blood sugar stuff, plus a bottle of juice and candy bars and stuff. It was $4.50.

Then we went home to rest. At 4:30 my BG was 96 — good job on the shot for the sandwich and the walking around. I had a cookie to celebrate (and also because I’d been walking so much, I thought I could handle the carbs).

At 6:30 I checked again and was 87, so we headed out for dinner. The restaurant we chose, Askal Šaren, is right across from the barber shop, and we were the only customers. I got mushroom soup and some lamb kebabs, which came with bread. Masayo and I each got a water too. The food was great, and not too expensive.

My BG had been excellent all day — 135, 82, 96, and 87 — so of course after dinner it went its usual way, and was 295. Talk about consistent. I took some Humalog, apologized to my toes and eyes since they’d be amputated because of all these post-dinner highs, and went to sleep.

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