A Retrospective

After many many years, too many of them really, I'm leaving the job that introduced me to the Balkans and the countries of the former Yugoslavia. I'm not sorry to be leaving the job but I am sorry to lose the trips to see my friends in Serbia and Kosovo. I have been incredibly blessed to have had the opportunity to come to know these countries and people (and the food!). They're what kept me at my job for so long and I will miss them.

 Belgrade Parliament

 Jewish Cemetary, Belgrade

 Kalamegdan, Belgrade

 Radnom side street, Belgrade

  

 St. Mark's Belgrade

I can't believe I've never been inside

 Busy cafes, Novi Sad

 Novi Sad

 Mocaccino from my favorite coffe house, Belgrade

 Dinner at Iguana with friends, Belgrade

 Skadarljia, Belgrade

 Mother Teresa museum, Skopje

 Old city in Skopje

 Yummy yummy meat, Pristina

 Prizren, Kosovo

 Prizren

 Prizren

 Sarajevo

 Bas Carsa, Sarajevo

 Sarajevo, BiH

 Sarajevo, BiH

 Old city in Dubrovnik, Croatia

 Old city in Dubrovnik, Croatia

 Kotor, Montenegro

 Cetinje, Montenegro

 Cetinje, Montenegro

However all is not lost. My new job comes with vacation, which I'm hoping I'll get to use more than every other year, and I will return! Even Bill wishes me well and hopes I'll return soon :)

  

 Pristina

Prizren

Because I am incredibly lazy; I never got around to blogging about my last trip to Kosovo…which was in April. But I’m doing it now while I sit in yet another country that I’ll probably write about in another three or so months. And honestly, now that I am trying to write about Kosovo, I am remembering why I never wrote about it in the first place. I had nothing to say. Which pretty much negates any need to read further really...but ooohhh...pretty pictures.

I had the misfortune to be in Pristina during the tail end of the mud season (they have three seasons in Pristina: ice, mud, and dust) but was lucky enough to have a colleague who took pity on me and got me out of the city for a day. We visited Prizren which is an interesting city in the south of Kosovo. According to my colleagues in Pristina, people in Prizren all speak Turkish, Albanian, and Serbian which they use interchangeably and all mixed up in the same sentence. Like many cities in the Balkans, it got smashed during various wars as far back as the Ottoman Empire and as recently as the 2004 unrest in Kosovo. Despite that it remains a charming town and I should like to visit again.

Greetings from Kosovo (pt 5)

I've been dreadfully remiss I know. I'm swamped with work that leaves little time for the pleasures of blogging.

One of my colleagues here read my coffee grounds for me the other day. I've been reading Tarot cards and palms and the like for years but I've never had anyone read my coffee grounds. I've been told that she's extremely accurate and I can only hope so because I have to say I liked her predictions! I'm going to have a rather heated conversation with someone that will be unpleasant but will eventually lead to success (I hope for me). She also saw me talking with a man and said that by the end of the year I would not be alone..which lead to a lot of requests for wedding invitations from my other colleagues. I can only hope that she saw the same man whom I've been eyeing and that "not alone" meant not alone with him.

If you ever find yourself in Kosovo I can only say that you won't starve. The food here is excellent. For one thing, everything is fresh and comes from the various farms around Kosovo and sometimes Albania or Macedonia. I am a dyed in the wool carnivore, I would eat bloody steaks everyday if I could afford it...and here I can! Last night I had an amazing thick and juicy flank steak served with carmelized onions in a balsamic reduction for the ridiculously low price of 6 Euros. Both the meat and the seasoning they use for donners here are amazing (the beef, lamb, and chicken varieties), fish is incredible, and fruits and veg fresh and tasty. They have several excellent green markets in addition to supermarkets and market prices are incredibly low.

One thing I've found that I did not like was their yogurt. I've become accustomed to having yogurt with most of my meals in Serbia so when it was offered here I decided to try theirs. I have to say...I am not a fan of the natural yogurt. I enjoy the fruit flavored, sugared up, slightly tangy yogurt. The fresh home made stuff I had the other day was thin like milk and tasted like the liquid part of cottage cheese. I managed to drink a respectable amount of what felt like a very large glass...but I will not be having seconds!

They do have excellent ice cream here though. Yay for ice cream.

Greetings from Kosovo (pt 4)

I have been to Mass in a number of countries (nine in fact) and until now the strangest mass was in Tübingen, Germany. I’d spent a few weeks in Tübingen studying and had the opportunity to attend Mass several times, however I will always remember the first one. Everything was going well right up till after the second reading when we stood for the Gospel…and a women got up to read the Gospel and went on to give the Homily. A women. I had to sit down I was so shocked and utterly horrified. In fact, eight years later I am still shocked and horrified. I think thought that the Mass I attended tonight comes close to equaling my Germany experience.

Yesterday, the celebration of the Assumption of Mary was a holy day of obligation. Mass was only in Albanian yesterday which was fine. Lauren remembered that I needed a Missal for this trip so I was able to following along with at least the readings etc. I was told that on Saturday at 7 pm was the regular weekly English Mass so I was happy to attend that (although still armed with the Missal as I am wary of so-called “English” Masses while abroad). I got to the church and that’s when all the weird crap started happening:

Weird thing number one: Dude in an Irish KFOR uniform walked up to the Alter and started setting up for Mass.

Weird thing number two: Dude formerly in a KFOR uniform walked back onto the Alter now wearing priestly vestments.

Weird thing number three: There was only one reading, the one from the Old Testament. There are supposed to be two. I don’t know what happened to the second one.

Weird thing number four: There was no Homily. THERE WAS NO HOMILY!!! Mass went from the Gospel reading right into the prayers of Intercession. What the Hell happened to the Homily?!

Mass was like 23 minutes long and as I exited the church feeling bewildered and cheated there was a huge KFOR jeep with a couple more Irish KFOR soldiers waiting for the priest. I mean, I hope he was actually a priest and not some older Irish gentleman they got to play dress up.

THERE WAS NO HOMILY!!!!

Seriously, I thought if anyone would know better it would be the Irish for Pete’s sake. And to top it all off this church has the absolute most uncomfortable plank o’ wood kneelers I have yet to experience. I am now a connoisseur of plank o’ wood kneelers. If I ever plan on spending a significant amount of time in Prishtina, or, you know, a weekend, I’ll remember to attend the Albanian language Mass.

Oh, by the way, Mother Theresa who is Albanian (despite what the Macedonians tried to convince everyone of during the beginning of her Beatification) is indeed Kosovar Albanian. Her parents were from Prizren.

Greetings from Kosovo (pt 3)

I love generators. It is true that I do. I could compose and ode truth be told. No no, I'll stop that.

It's true about the generators though. Power cuts in Pristina and I believe throughout Kosovo are pretty common. My office has a huge generator and we're all already shuddering at the thought of trying to move it when we move offices next year. My hotel also, thank goodness, has one. It is freaking hot in Pristina. It was about 93 today (35 C) and will be even hotter (37 C) tomorrow. If there were no AC I don't think I could survive. There's also a lot of water shortages here. I'm lucky being in the city center where, as I understand it, there's almost always water. But the parts of Pristina that are not the center have water cuts around 6PM and towns outside don't have water more often than they have it.

Speaking of my hotel..if you're ever in Pristina I very much recommend where I'm staying. This trip I am staying in the Hotel Real (pronounced Ray-al not Reel as in the opposite of a fake or poser). Staff is super nice, there's cable, modern bathroom, fairly comfortable bed, and a generator. And they make really good coffee at breakfast.



My last trip to Pristina I stayed in the Baci which was much larger than the Real and fancier, but apparently their power has been totally cut because they were stealing it from the power company and got found out. Also there was a bomb there a while ago (while two of my consultants were staying there) so we haven't used it much since.

Pristina's not the prettiest city in the world. The massive amount of people, droughts over the last 5 + years, and construction make it dry and dusty. And it doesn't do the city any favors that Kosovo was already the poorest of the former Yugoslav republics before both the conflict and the recent declaration. I'm liking it though. Good food and drink and Turkish coffee all for low prices. They may operate on the Euro here but unlike everywhere else still have reasonable prices and didn't just exchange the Euro symbol for the currency symbol they left behind.

Greetings from Kosovo (pt 2)

Oh what a long day yesterday was. Long, yet very enjoyable! Lauren and I joke that I have far more of a social life in Belgrade than I ever do at home and it seems that it is the same in Pristina!

After a full day in the office during which I had three Turkish coffees (yay!) and forgot about lunch, one of my Kosovar colleagues invited me to dinner with her family. She has a lovely family and a beautiful apartment. Everyone seems to speak excellent English (which is great because my Albanian is non existent, at least currently) and were all very friendly. After dinner I accompanied her one floor below to her mother-in-law's to attend a birthday celebration for one of her young nieces. I had an absolutely lovely time sipping tea out of tiny delicate glass cups (also singed my fingertips a bit) and eating biscuits and cake while visiting her family.

After the birthday party we went out to have drinks at one of the quieter cafes. Her husband joined us there and we moved onto yet another cafe, Phish. This one was far less quiet but I had a very nice glass of locally produced red wine that just about put me under the table. It was also mildly depressing being around so many of what Grizz would call "the Youth" and I felt all of my almost 29 years. I blame the jet lag. I must not yet be recovered. Also depressing is how pretty everyone here is, both men and women. And the men are pretty...did I mention that? My colleagues here and in Belgrade are determined to help me find a husband (I do need all the help I can get). In Belgrade I gave them my first criteria: he must be tall, preferably taller than I. No problem they said. Then I mentioned my second criteria: he must be Catholic. And oh how their faces fell. Here I give my first two criteria and no problem. They can find me someone. Odd as it may seem but apparently there are more Catholics in this Muslim country than there are in Serbian Orthodox Serbia.

After Phish it was onto a bistro called Odyssea which was very posh and happily rather empty. I prefer the quiet to shouting over music. Three cafes in a row on a Tuesday night...gives me illusions that I am some sort of social butterfly.

After turning down a trip to a bakery for burek which I couldn't possibly have eaten at 11:30 I returned to my hotel. While I had planned to simply eat dinner and go back to the hotel much earlier to keep working, I had much more fun with my colleague than I would have with my original plan. I was so tired when I returned that I did not even care about the power cut. But yay for generators nonetheless.

Greetings from Kosovo!

Woohoo! I am back in Kosovo. Several things have changed since my last trip over a year ago including that Kosovo is now an internationally recognized independent country and it's not Lent so I can drink as much Turkish coffee as I like. Yay. My last trip was for an entire weeks and half days and with this being close to two weeks I'm hoping to see a little bit more of the city.



I left DC on Sunday at 6 pm and arrived in Pristina on Monday at 4 pm. Damn time change. It was neither my greatest flight ever nor my worst so I guess I can be thankful for that. Usually a slave to United (which I in general dislike) I was on Austrian Air this time around which I think is a bit of a step up from United. I got stuck in the middle seat between two men both larger than I was so there went my plan to work on my report for the eight and a half hour flight. I was completely squashed and someone needs to teach the guy on my left how to sit on an airplane (no dude, you do not get to take up as much space as you want and if you elbow me again twitching in your sleep my elbow will accidentally jam into your head). At least I had my favorite new toy, my Amazon Kindle, to keep me occupied. I do not sleep on planes. I have tried everything including over the counter sleep drugs, prescription sleep drugs, alcohol, alcohol and prescription sleeping pills...nothing works. I was hoping that my busy and active Saturday at the Montgomery County Fair and general lack of sleep lately would make me so tired that I would sleep but I was mistaken.

Then I had a charming six hour layover in Vienna. In Vienna falling asleep would have been no problem. I spent a lot of time walking around the terminal to force myself to stay awake actually. I did not, however, want to fall asleep here because there was not really a lot of places to sit, let alone fall asleep, and what if I missed my flight?! I really am creeped out by airports and I let that keep me awake. I did doze a wee bit on the two flight to Pristina though. Speaking of my flight to Pristina, let me please sidetrack a moment and wonder why American airlines in general completely suck when compared to, well practically any other airlines in the world. They don't charge you for luggage, for alcohol, and feed you regardless of the flight length. I had a lovely hot meal during that two hours between Vienna and Pristina. And you can't tell me that its because of rising gas prices in the States because Europeans at least have always paid more for gas than we have. Rant ended.

Upon my arrival in Pristina I immediately fell in love with its airport. Airplane landed, we got off and walked across the tarmac to the airport. That was nice, no wasting time trying to dock with the bridge thingy then walking endless corridors to get to immigration. The airport itself was fairly small square building which reminded me more of an airplane hanger rather than an airport. I walked in and immediately there was passport control. After passport control was the luggage belt which spit out my suitcase pretty quickly, then out the door. The entire process took about 15 minutes and most of that was waiting for my luggage. It was brilliant and this is now my favorite airport in the world. Seriously.

Because it was already so late in the day and I was such a zombie (if it was 4 pm in Pristina that meant it was roughly 10 am in DC and I had been awake since 7 am the previous day...) I skipped the office (I'm here for work) and went directly to my hotel. I unpacked, set my alarm, and fell immediately into bed for a nice 12 hours.

All in all a rather boring first day in Pristina but at least I am now awake and ready to appreciate the city.

PS-Before leaving on trip remember to do two things I forgot to do:

1. Check your watch battery. Normally I don't wear a watch because I have a cell phone but I bought one for those times I would be without. Unfortunately that means I never wear it and when I adjusted the time and put it on this morning I realized that the battery was dead.

2. Never ever rely on the fact that you'll remember what colored bottle you put your shampoo and conditioner in! I discovered also this morning that I have a lot of conditoner, but no shampoo. Sigh.

Greetings From Serbia - Kosovo Declares

At about 3:00 this afternoon Kosovo declared its independence and sovereignty. The United States and the EU are expected to recognize their move on Monday.





Not surprisingly, shortly after Kosovo’s declaration, Serbian prime minister Kostunica broke into most TV stations declaring Kosovo’s declaration null and void.

"Kosovo's unilateral declaration of a false state is the final act of a policy that started with the NATO aggression against Serbia in 1999," the prime minister said.

"Never has the truth about why Serbia was savagely destroyed by NATO bombs been more clear," he continued, and added that "NATO's military interests lie behind the proclamation of this false state."

"The United States have also humiliated the European Union, and forced it to trample on the principles it is built upon," Koštunica added, and warned that Europe, "which has lowered its head", will be responsible "for all the serious consequences that Kosovo's independence carries with it." (from B92)

This evening on my way to dinner I came across a large group of men with Serbian flags, marching en masse towards what I presume to be the Slovenian embassy where yesterday’s protest was held. I do not think I have ever eaten dinner so quickly as the constant wail of police sirens and a text message warning me to stay off the streets made me nervous enough to not enjoy my tagliatelle al quattro fromaggio.

On my way back I pass by one of the main squares which was fringed with police to hold back the protesters. Elsewhere in the city were protests in front of the American embassy during which two policemen and several protesters were injured and McDonalds and several cafes got a bit banged up.


(courtesy B92)


(courtesy B92)


(courtesy B92)

The story right now in Kosovo is much different.


(courtesy The Washington Post)


(courtesy The Washington Post)


(courtesy The Washington Post)

Tomorrow I am confining myself to my hotel. Maybe it’s not entirely necessary but better safe than sorry.

Greetings From Serbia-Political Rallys

Zdravo!

I arrived in Serbia yesterday after a 7-hour flight to Munich, a 3 & 1/2 hour layover and then another 1 1/2 to Belgrade...all after having got up at 6 that day and not sleeping at all during the trip. So all told I think I was awake some 28 or 29 hours yesterday. Still feeling a little loopy.

I'd have liked to get to sleep fairly soon after arriving but was prevented by the exceedingly loud political rally going on practically under my window. Serbia had their first round of presidential elections on January 20th and the 2nd, and deciding round, will be this Sunday. The rally last night was for the incumbent Boris Tadic of the Democratic Party (DS). Thankfully, because there's a ban on all campaigning for the two days prior to the election and election day itself, they had to stop at midnight and I was finally able to sleep.



After the first round the favorite to win is the Serbian Radical Party's (SRS) Tomislav Nikolic. The feeling from my friends here is that if Nikolic does indeed win, how do they get out? Will life here return to what it was like in the 90's during and just after the war? Serbia still hasn't come as far as other former Yugoslav countries. One of the markers of success is whether or not the GDP has gone as high as it was in, I believe, 1989. Croatia's has, Bosnia's has...but Serbia is only at about 70% of where it needs to be. While I complain that I don't like any of the candidates for the American presidential campaign...at least for me the decision won't plunge the country into civil war or require me to convert all my less than considerable savings into portable wealth and flee the country (well, unless Hillary wins that is). Both candidates are giving lip service to a desire to join the EU but both are very opposed to independence for Kosovo and neither seem to be saying much about finally coming into full compliance with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague and turning over the remaining war criminals who are "in hiding" in Serbia. While I haven't studied the political environment here deeply enough to really have an opinion I do rather feel that the devil you know may be the better choice this time.



My friends are advising that I practice my Russian at least through Sunday, not go out much on Sunday, especially in the evening, and avoid talking about Kosovo. This should be an interesting weekend.

And It's Back to Serbia!

Just a heads up to everyone that I'm off to Serbia again next week so look for continuing adventures of 'Greetings from Serbia.'



It'll be full of me trying to have a meatless Lent in a country which diet is meat filled with meat wrapped in meat (seriously), lots of Absinthe cocktails, and me waiting (and meanly hoping) that Kosovo will unilaterally declare independence and sovereignty thus plunging Serbia into turmoil and maybe I could catch another protest in front of the American Embassy.