Blair Paddock ’15 | Staff Writer

While most people spent their summers’ up north, Lyuba Popadic ’15 spent hers on the other side of the world.

Popadic said she spent a month of her summer in Italy, Serbia and Portugal. She was in Italy for a night, Serbia for three weeks, and Portugal for two.

“I went to Italy because it was an overlay, I went to Serbia because my family lives there, and then I went to Portugal because my dad had to work,” said Popadic.

Coming from a plane in Toronto, Italy was an pit-stop. Popadic said her family was supposed to only spend eight hours there, but they extended it and spent the night. They dropped off their suitcases at a nearby hotel, and walked a short distance into downtown Rome.

Then, they spent the night and got on a plane to Serbia said Popadic.

“We went to Serbia to see my family,” said Popadic, “It was great getting off the plane and seeing them waiting for me. I haven’t seen them for two years.”

Lyuba’s mom, Nela Popadic, said that her family and her husband’s family both live in Serbia.

“In Belgrade, we visited my mother-in-law and my husband’s nieces,” said Nela Popadic, “In Southern Serbia, we visited my brother in law, his sons and my mother.”

Lyuba Popadic said she spent most of her time in the capital of Belgrade, moving around in the city by walking or her cousin driving her family around. Most of the time, the whole family went to the beach. They also went out at night because it’s safer than going out in Detroit.

Lyuba’s younger sister, Sandra Popadic, said that her most memorable moment in Serbia would be going to her cousin’s house on the Dunab River.

“The river’s currents were really strong so it would carry us away and then we would have to try and swim back,” said Sandra Popadic.

After spending the time with her family in Serbia, Lyuba Popadic headed out to Portugal for her dad’s work.

For five days, they were in the capital of Lisbon. In the city they visited the castle name St. George, went to an aquarium and went sightseeing while her dad was in conferences, Lyuba Popadic said.

“My dad’s friend who was also at the meeting was from Portugal and she knew what to do,” said Popadic, “We went to Aljezur in Southern Portugal and rented a house.”

In Aljezur, they went swimming in different beaches around the town, Popadic said.

“The water was freezing,” said Popadic. “It literally felt like ice water so nobody really went swimming.”

Even with three years of taking Spanish, Popadic said that it was very different in Portugal than what she learned in class. Reading it was fine, but hearing people speak it threw her off.

“It sounds like someone’s throwing up,” said Popadic.”It sounds like French but it looks like Spanish.”

Besides the language differences, there were many cultural differences too, Popadic said.

There were no new cars because only very wealthy people have newer cars, Popadic said. Also, they were all manual transmissions, with stick shifts.

Popadic said that in all of the countries they wore very longs skirts and scarves in the middle of the summer. Many of their skirts and shirts had American flags printed on them.

“I was with my cousin in the city and we saw a girl wearing a skirt with the American flag on it,” said Popadic. “My cousin pointed it out and said: ‘You should grab that skirt and tell her you want your flag back!’”

Next summer, the Popadic family plans to visit Serbia once again to see their family.