A business proposal

One night, in the earlier days after my arrival, I was up late and unable to sleep due to leftover jetlag and overall mental excitement.

I decided to step out to grab a quick little snack from the kiosk at the bottom of our street. It was late, so the street was virtually empty. I saw her spot me from a distance and start moving towards, clearly intending to ask for something.

She was a young gypsy woman, short, poorly dressed and quite dirty and unkempt looking. My Serbian at that time was virtually non-existent, the most useful sentence for me at that time was "izvini, ne govorim srpski" (sorry, I don't speak Serbian). This is virtually always sufficient to deflect any unwanted impromptu conversation in Belgrade, so I dutifully used it when she stopped me and said something. I figured she was asking for money.

When I said that thought, she instead perked up, held her finger up to say "wait a sec" and after a few uuuuum and aaaaahs, found the words she was looking for.

"Umm, SEX?" she said, pointing to me, then her, then rubbing her fingers together in the international money sign, with an eager smile.

I wasn't exactly expecting that, so the surprise of it made me laugh. I politely declined and went on my way.