Just rolled in from Kosovo, and boy, am I dizzy!
Okay, sorry about that. But I'm feeling a bit high on life right now, for several reasons. Two big ones are this: it's sixty-two degrees outside right now, and I just returned from a country that treats me as a celebrity by virtue of my passport. More on that in a bit, though.
I departed for Kosovo at what-the-fuck-thirty AM on Monday morning, feeling like hell for not having slept much the previous night. I got on the fortress-sized bus, made myself a little nest towards the middle, and curled up for the ride out of the city. We took off by 8.
The Road led out of Belgrade and into Lancaster County, PA, inside of ten minutes. We took the highway at a good clip. The buildings abruptly melted away into sprawling farmland/fallow, with softly rolling hills eventually yielding to mountains far off on the horizon. Personally I likened it to home sweet home; I also heard a comparison to Ireland, and have no trouble believing it.
We eventually reached that horizon, and found ourselves off the highway and riding (read--careening) through gorgeous mountain passes, breaking now and then to move through expansive valleys, sometimes alongside sparkling lakes that stretched for kilometers at a time before moving under us as rivers beneath bridges. Sunlight faded in and out through the clouds, shyly basting the forest canopies for a few seconds before retreating again.
By midday, we arrived in Pristina (Prishtine).
Pristina is the capital of Kosovo, making it a regional or national capital depending on who you ask. For the purposes of a concise narrative, I'll say this much and leave the highlights for my observations: Pristina is a unique little city. In a town in which the call to prayer echoed through the streets five times a day, we were able to find (as my good friend Dave put it) "a sex shop, a gambling parlor, and a truck full of Heineken" on the first day. Which is not to imply that Pristina's a wretched hive of scum and villainy, nor that it's unfaithful as a Muslim country (editors note--also not to imply that we were looking for sex, booze, and craps on the first day). I think the reason that there's very little problem with this discrepancy is the utter, unceasing friendliness exuded by the people of the city. Cars will stop for people waiting at crosswalks (as opposed to Beograd, in which cars weave around the imaginary crosswalks created by the pedestrians), people will freely smile at one another, and there's no sense of rushed urgency that pervades most cities.
Shit, that was actually a lot of information. Oh well.
We shacked up in the Hotel City Central, a great place a few blocks from the main pedestrian drag, two to a room. I very much enjoyed the group dynamic that comes with living in close-quarters with one another, which was largely absent since we moved in with homestay families. It's always interesting to see how we've changed and adapted to living here.
Prizren was next, a town to the south of Kosovo that's sat with a view of Albanian mountains since time immemorial. The place is a sleepy little hamlet (yes, they do exist) that looks at home in a Christmas card--except for the fortress overlooking the region, nestled atop a mountain like the stronghold from Where Eagles Dare. I made it a point to charge to the top, which my calves informed me was a dumbass idea about an eighth of a mile up. Still, I had trouble containing my excitement to get to the summit, and here's why:
The Road again was as gorgeous as I've come to expect, and several days later we took the Battle-Bus around Kosovo, viewing various monuments and visiting Mitrovica, a town divided by the Ibar River into Serb and Albanian sections. I'm dropping the photos on facespace; I highly encourage you to check them out. There's nothing quite like a KFOR blockade.
On the last night, I had an utterly fantastic time with some of my favorite people on this trip. I climbed through the window to reach our balcony, only to turn around and discover that the door had been behind the curtains the whole time. Derp. In our defense, they put a bed in the way of it, so it wasn't exactly an easy thing to find. Sure, that's my excuse.
We headed out early (relatively) this morning, and arrived back in Beograd to an absolutely gorgeous (if gray--it is Beograd) day. The ride gave me plenty of time to reflect on things like this:
Okay, sorry about that. But I'm feeling a bit high on life right now, for several reasons. Two big ones are this: it's sixty-two degrees outside right now, and I just returned from a country that treats me as a celebrity by virtue of my passport. More on that in a bit, though.
I departed for Kosovo at what-the-fuck-thirty AM on Monday morning, feeling like hell for not having slept much the previous night. I got on the fortress-sized bus, made myself a little nest towards the middle, and curled up for the ride out of the city. We took off by 8.
The Road led out of Belgrade and into Lancaster County, PA, inside of ten minutes. We took the highway at a good clip. The buildings abruptly melted away into sprawling farmland/fallow, with softly rolling hills eventually yielding to mountains far off on the horizon. Personally I likened it to home sweet home; I also heard a comparison to Ireland, and have no trouble believing it.
We eventually reached that horizon, and found ourselves off the highway and riding (read--careening) through gorgeous mountain passes, breaking now and then to move through expansive valleys, sometimes alongside sparkling lakes that stretched for kilometers at a time before moving under us as rivers beneath bridges. Sunlight faded in and out through the clouds, shyly basting the forest canopies for a few seconds before retreating again.
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| Pictured: Rohan. |
Pristina is the capital of Kosovo, making it a regional or national capital depending on who you ask. For the purposes of a concise narrative, I'll say this much and leave the highlights for my observations: Pristina is a unique little city. In a town in which the call to prayer echoed through the streets five times a day, we were able to find (as my good friend Dave put it) "a sex shop, a gambling parlor, and a truck full of Heineken" on the first day. Which is not to imply that Pristina's a wretched hive of scum and villainy, nor that it's unfaithful as a Muslim country (editors note--also not to imply that we were looking for sex, booze, and craps on the first day). I think the reason that there's very little problem with this discrepancy is the utter, unceasing friendliness exuded by the people of the city. Cars will stop for people waiting at crosswalks (as opposed to Beograd, in which cars weave around the imaginary crosswalks created by the pedestrians), people will freely smile at one another, and there's no sense of rushed urgency that pervades most cities.
Shit, that was actually a lot of information. Oh well.
We shacked up in the Hotel City Central, a great place a few blocks from the main pedestrian drag, two to a room. I very much enjoyed the group dynamic that comes with living in close-quarters with one another, which was largely absent since we moved in with homestay families. It's always interesting to see how we've changed and adapted to living here.
Prizren was next, a town to the south of Kosovo that's sat with a view of Albanian mountains since time immemorial. The place is a sleepy little hamlet (yes, they do exist) that looks at home in a Christmas card--except for the fortress overlooking the region, nestled atop a mountain like the stronghold from Where Eagles Dare. I made it a point to charge to the top, which my calves informed me was a dumbass idea about an eighth of a mile up. Still, I had trouble containing my excitement to get to the summit, and here's why:
The Road again was as gorgeous as I've come to expect, and several days later we took the Battle-Bus around Kosovo, viewing various monuments and visiting Mitrovica, a town divided by the Ibar River into Serb and Albanian sections. I'm dropping the photos on facespace; I highly encourage you to check them out. There's nothing quite like a KFOR blockade.
On the last night, I had an utterly fantastic time with some of my favorite people on this trip. I climbed through the window to reach our balcony, only to turn around and discover that the door had been behind the curtains the whole time. Derp. In our defense, they put a bed in the way of it, so it wasn't exactly an easy thing to find. Sure, that's my excuse.
We headed out early (relatively) this morning, and arrived back in Beograd to an absolutely gorgeous (if gray--it is Beograd) day. The ride gave me plenty of time to reflect on things like this:
- Kosovo was a breath of fresh air in that I've never been to a country that's so incredibly pro-American. An Albanian man came up to us in Mitrovica and told us that "America is not only our friend, but our savior" and thanked us and our country for what was done in the 1990s. It gives me a measure of faith that my country is capable of doing the right things for the right reasons.
- Some things are just so incredibly sublime no matter where or when or why they are--it's that same amazing feeling of belonging, and it's every bit as perfect in a backyard in King of Prussia as it is on a hotel balcony in Pristina. Great times with people you really click with are more valuable than gold.
- It's definitely too early to say, but Kosovo has made a damn appealing case for ISP material. Although I'd be taking a language hit, learning even rudimentary Albanian could be hugely effective for future career possibilities. Kosovo is also a great case study for organized crime, which is basically what my topic proposal has shaped up into. Additionally, with the Serbian PM's announcement the other day saying that "the Serbian people have been lied to" concerning Kosovo, I have a feeling that the area is about to become very interesting. Who would want to miss out on that?
- Weird as it is to say, I missed the menjacnicas and the pekaras in Kosovo.
- Kosovo is on the euro. Now, based on my experience of the cost of living in Belgium and Germany, when you say the word "euro" I hear "Oh sweet lord, all I bought was a bottle of Orangina and a small pastry and I've already had to take out a second mortgage", but in Kosovo, things were about the same as they were on the dinar. Far and away the most relevant difference was the acquisition of the 1 and 2 euro pieces that make me feel like a character from a DnD scenario, carrying around gold coins. Go ahead, judge me.
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