Do I smell smoke?

I thought I smelled smoke one morning - and not just the smoke of the ubiquitous cherry bombs and firecrackers which every boy over the age of 3 seems to have in endless supply - but smoke as in "hmmm, is something burning?" Once I deduced nothing in my place was on fire, I went to the balcony where I spotted lots of smoke coming from a business on the ground floor about two doors down from me. A police officer was on the scene first and joined dozens of five and six-year old boys in observing the smoke, and then came the fire trucks. One was a regular ladder truck, and the other was this....

I just love it. It looks like a toy truck. I feel like I time warped to the past to watch a fire being put out. I never did figure out where the fire was exactly although I think it was in the hairdressers. It smelled for days afterwards but other than that and ankle deep water where the firemen pointed the hose, there were no other consequences.

A Kosovo Thanksgiving

I had 20 people over for Thanksgiving. Much to my surprise, there weren't that many Americans around for the holiday, so I think I had a captive audience. The deal with my office colleagues was that I would cook dinner if they would get me the turkey - and it is not easy to come by here - they are not a popular food. The office manager and senior staff attorney traveled around Kosovo, village to village, and finally came across a bunch of turkeys wandering in a yard. They found the owner, picked out a bird they assured me via text message was 8 kilos and had the owner slaughter the turkey. The wife of our handyman plucked and gutted the bird, and it arrived to my house Thanksgiving morning and was - a mere 4 kilos! (8.8 pounds - the size of the bird my mom cooked for her and my dad). It was the scrawniest bird I have ever seen - clearly a marathon runner amongst Turkeys - nothing but skin and bones - I imagine that he kept himself fit believing his anorexic physique would keep him safe from ever being chosen for the chopping block, until my senior staff attorney and finance manager saw him, that is. They still swear he was as plump as could be with feathers. Anyhow, the sight of the scrawny bird precipated a call from me to my country director who then at my behest traveled to the Irish pub downtown (where I learned they were hosting a sold out Thanksgiving dinner, go figure) to persuade the owner to part with 10 servings of turkey, which he did along with an unsolicited side of boiled cabbage - apparently a bit of our tradition was lost in translation. So ultimately the dinner was a success, everyone ate their fill, and I had to wait two days to do dishes because we had no water. (I also have 21 bottles of wine - I feel as though I should open a wine bar for my closing month here to cash in a bit).

Greece

I spent two weeks in Greece in September - the first week with my friend T who has created the blog to end all blogs, and the second week on my own in Corfu, then Albania, then back to Athens and the drive home. I truly could not add anything of any relevance to T's amazing descriptions of our journey - at least the first week of it, which we traveled together, so check out http://www.travelathomeandabroad.blogspot.com/ to see where I spent the first seven days of my time in Greece.

For my photos, check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/15077479@N08/collections/72157602915736521/

Instead of description, I will, therefore, offer you teasers of the places I visited which will in no way edify you, but may entice you to look at the blog/photos, and if anyone wants to know more, just ask:

Thessaloniki [Day 1, 2: drive from Skopje, Macedonia to Greece;

great museums (an ancient Olympic gold medal - how cool is that);

a closed-for-development waterfront;

Roman and ancient Greek ruins everywhere, presumably

to the great frustration of urban developers;

Ottomans still around, well, at least through their minarets; not so late diners (restaurants quieting down by 11 p.m.) and some good food, but some salty food too]

Vergina [Day 3: reached by driving and "not turning anywhere" from Thess; underground museum center encompassing famous ancient people's tombs (Alexander the Great's father) & the belongings they were buried with; acres of partially excavated or currently being excavated ancient ruins. some watched over by Greek farmers who were lucky (?) enough to happen upon ancient tombs while running their tractors]

Dion [Day 3: more driving to foothills of Mt Olympus, an ancient Greek theme park waiting to happen - a huge Roman and ancient Greek and Byzantine settlement, excavated for the most part, but lacking tourist-friendly guides/signs; well preserved Roman baths; awesome mosaics; also a great museum with a lovely courtyard of more ancient statues; a restaurant, deceptively appearing as a tourist trap at first glance, but with the best eggplant dish in the world]

Meteora [Day 3, 4: drive to rocks, pinnacles, monasteries, almost inconceivable - needs

to be seen, to be believed, crowds and crazy bus drivers]

Galaxidi [Day 4, 5: drive over mountains to unexploited, nearly deserted

seaside village with few tourists and lots of elderly shopkeepers

and proprietors who are constantly shouting at one another - hard of hearing or just angry - you decide]

Delphi [Day 5: drive by largest olive grove in Greece to see - wow - the ancient stadium including starter blocks!, amphitheatre, temples, athlete training center, all built for an oracle]

Livadia [Day 6: drive to Frankish stuff, why were they in Greece and when? No idea - lost that page of my guidebook, but pretty park in center, and it's on the way to Athens]

Athens [Day 6, 7, 8: park car at airport; more ruins than should ever be seen in one day unless you like collapsing into fits of hysteria - but all amazing - a marvelous archaeological museum - and an absolute must try for a restaurant - Ksenios Zeus; fly to Corfu; T ferries to Naxos]

Corfu [Day 9, 10: reasonably priced flight from Athens; new fortress and old fortress meant lots of invaders; good food, good shopping, wild Medusa, boat to Albania]

Saranda/Butrint [Day 11: You're in Albania now; modern town under construction and ancient town under excavation -- really, really bad roads but really, really good bus drivers]

Corfu [Day 12: rocky boat ride back from Albania; a day at the beach watching octopus hunter and pack for Athens]

Athens [Day 13: pick up rentacar left at airport; IKEA - yes, that IKEA - needed some sheets and a vegetable peeler - probably didn't need to go all the way to Athens for them, but it was on my way home]

Dion [Day 13: a return visit to the town and an unexpectedly nice, and very blue inn, more than welcome after a four hour @*!# traffic jam on the Athens highway, and not-a-tourist-trap restaurant still has the best eggplant in the world]

Skopje [Day 14: to drop off rentacar; always remember when leaving Greece, do not underestimate how much the Greeks do not like the idea of a country called "Macedonia": no signs to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia whatsoever as you leave Greece (until you are 2 km from border), so find on your map the smallest village in the world on the Greek side of the border, and watch for signs to it off the Athens-Thess highway, otherwise you'll just keep heading in the direction of Turkey, until you realize something is amiss and have to backtrack 25 km, grrrr].

The Last Straw

One morning, at 2 a.m., I awoke to the familiar sounds of my neighborhood pack of dogs chasing someone, but something about this chase sounded different. I took up my front row seat, that is, stood on my fifth floor balcony, to observe the proceedings below. In the courtyard were two packs - one of dogs, the other of people. Several of the people were holding chairs out in front of them, like lion tamers, balancing the chairs in one arm. I thought the cafe owner would be upset to know his chairs were being removed from the premises until I spotted the owner amongst them. And in lieu of the long whip you would expect to see in the lions ring at the circus, these folks had rocks in their other hands and were throwing the rocks at the dogs in an attempt to prod the canines back so that the people could reach their cars. I felt like a Roman watching the Christians and the lions but I wasn't really sure who was who.

This early morning spectacle followed a knock on my door earlier in the week by two of the young girls living in my building. They were about 11 or so years old. They handed me a clipboard with a document attached that looked like a petition and I heard one of them mention the word "dog". I assumed that they were looking for support to stop the police from carrying out their now long overdue stray extermination policy, and I handed back the petition, unsigned, to the girls, saying in bad Albanian, that "I didn't like dogs" - now this blanket statement isn't true, but due to my severe language restrictions, subtlety in meaning was not an option and it was the best I could do in conveying my actual sentiment which was: "I have nothing against dogs. While I have never owned dogs, I appreciate why pet owners love their dogs, they are furry and fun when they fetch, and I wish all dogs could be in loving homes, and I am sad that this situation exists in Kosovo where strays are forced to fend for themselves and become territorial through no fault of their own, and yes, life is unfair, but there is no way in hell that I am going to do anything to stop the potential removal of those four legged tormentors from beneath my windows." The girl, who took the clipboard back, fixed me with a stare so focused and determined that I was momentarily at a loss, and then she said in a steely, eerily mature voice, "we don't like dogs either" at which point I realized that the 11 year olds had started their own campaign to try and get the police to finally take action. I signed, willingly. And yet, the week went by with still no results.

So the morning after my circus show, I called my friend at the OSCE and she sent me all the apartment postings on their intranet. Within two days I had found a flat an additional 15 minute walk from the center (called the suburbs by locals), twice the size, nicely furnished, same price, and blissfully quiet (well, relatively, as despite being dubbed the suburbs, there are still lots of city noises), although me determining that resulted in dubious glances being exchanged between my future landlords as I grilled them and their 9 year old son about dogs and birds for at least ten minutes: "so tell me, how many strays are in the neighborhood? do they socialize with each other? ever been chased? ever heard them? tell me about the birds? do you hear the birds? how many birds have you seen? where do the birds sleep?" ... While they think I am a crazy woman obsessed with dogs and birds (and they are right), they still agreed to rent me their flat. The move was not traumatic, I have settled in, hosted my book club here and have even had two house guests from the States since then - Prof. B and T, Esq. - who alas did not get to experience the joys of the dog pack or the blackbird chorus at 4 a.m. Some things we can all live without.

A Montenegrin Glacial Lake & A Not Quite Thai Massage

Not long after the trip to Albania, I did indeed get behind the wheel of a car again, from the same rentacar company, to head to Montenegro. I traveled for a long weekend to Kolasin, a Montenegrin ski resort with a five star spa called Bianca. I picked the locale because it was only 5 km away from the Biogradska Gora National Park which is known for its primordial forest and its glacial lake, situated at 1094 m, where I hoped to do some hiking.

Prior to my departure, people warned me that the roads across the Kosovo-Montenegrin border were bad and that the Montenegrin roads were treacherous. Of course, these were the same people who told me that the Albanian roads were good. Fortunately, I paid them no mind. While I am certain that my Albanian adventure honed my driving skills the same as if I had graduated summa cum laude from an offroad driving school, the roads in fact were okay. There were treacherous mountain roads with hairpin turns, evidence of an unnerving number of rock slides, and an eerily long no-man's land between the Kosovo border post and the Montenegrin border post, but the road was paved and occasionally came equipped with a guardrail - what more could you ask for. I made the journey in 3.5 hours, instead of the anticipated 4.5 hours.
I checked into the Bianca spa. (Here's a link to a review of the resort: http://www.visit-montenegro.com/our-reviews-1.htm ). You can spot it miles and miles away as it towers over its surroundings. I was one of only two guests whom they were expecting that day and as such, I was addressed by name when I walked through the door. Like I said, it is a ski resort, so summer is definitely its low season. The plus is that there are no crowds at its indoor Olympic size pool and it is no problem to get an appointment at the spa, which my friend had told me, was staffed by a group of Thai women who had moved to Kolasin from their homeland. It wasn't exactly right. When I went downstairs to book some services, I discovered they are from the Philippines. Then I discovered that a five star spa, even one in the middle of Montenegro, is damn expensive. Gone was my dream of booking an entire day of spa treatments, but I had come all this way and was not going back without something at least, so I booked my 30 euro (about $40) pedicure (I figured it worked out to $4 a toe - not so bad) and a 60 euro back massage for the next day.


The town is tiny, although it purports to have a population of 9500, it looks more like 500. The center, and really the entire town, consists of one crossroads and a multitude of cafes. The next morning, I sat in one, drank possibly the worst coffee ever brewed and overheard a neighboring table of a group of local middle aged men, who were all smoking and doing shots, speaking of their plans for massages later in the day at the spa. One gentleman bemoaned the fact that he only had enough for a thirty minute massage. I must admit that for a moment I thought the spa might be a front for some other professional craft, but as I learned later, it really was a spa, and this tiny town in the middle of Montenegro was now getting used to having weekly massages. East meets West, or at least meets the Balkans.

I headed in my car to the National Park. At its base is a hut and a pole blocking the road. A woman in a uniform came out of the hut and approached my car and said "one euro". She then apologized, although I had not objected, that I would have to pay but said that was policy. I gave her the euro, the pole was lifted, and I set off up a mountain.









Eventually, the road ends in a dirt clearing and opens up onto Biogradsko lake. It's clearly worth the price of admission.
The lake is tucked into the mountains and surrounded by forest. An Austrian organization donated funds to clean up/create a path along the 4.5 km long shoreline of the lake.



You can hike around the lake or into the mountains on well marked trails. I did both until it started raining later in the afternoon. I didn't mind having to pack it in because I knew I had a massage and pedicure waiting for me back at the spa. When I returned to the spa, I saw the cafe gentleman coming from his thirty minutes of massage heading to the sauna. It all looked above board to me. My massage was okay - thirty minutes with the expected background sounds of some new age music featuring harp and punctuated by the occasional sound of nature - the croaking frog, babbling brook or chirping cricket, all of which usually makes me more anxious than relaxed, not being a particularly outdoorsy person. Why would I want to be in a room with a frog or cricket? During my massage? Mystifying. But the pedicure opened up a whole new world. For some reason, I suspect boredom, the woman who took care of my feet made it her mission that day to loofah, soak, paraffin and massage the bejesus out of them. Ninety minutes later, I felt like I had someone else's feet - never had I seen them looking so shiny and new. I felt bad having to walk on them at all and was sad that the five star spa did not have man servants standing by to carry me, Cleopatra like, back to my room. Alas, I returned to my room as any mere mortal, on my own two (now fabulous looking) feet.

(Not so) European Vacation - the end

Within twenty minutes of setting off from Shkodra, we reached the turn marked by a slightly askew and severely faded sign which contained the word "Koman" - the name of the town where the ferry stops. Sure enough, our badly paved road had become a dirt path covered in rocks of various sizes, dips and ditches, and I braced myself for the 2 hour drive to come. Within fifty meters though, the rocks become pavement, and not the badly scarred, dangerously pot-holed pavement we had come to expect on those rare occasions we encountered paved roads, but a smooth, even glossy, surface. I held my tongue sure that if I declared aloud my ever growing happiness at this development, I would jinx it. Yes, there were patches of rock, usually around the sharp corners, which I suspected may have been deliberately left unpaved in order to try and prevent more people from plummeting off the sides of the roads to their deaths, but for the most part, the road to Koman was a veritable autobahn.

About fifty minutes later, we had taken the picturesque road which goes along the mountains and hills which surround a huge lake, seeing a farmer here and there and maybe a half dozen houses scattered in the hills. We came into a valley with about a dozen buildings/trailers and I stopped to ask how far we had left to go until we reached Koman. The nice cafe owner told me I had reached Koman as he pointed to the sign over his establishment, "The Koman Cafe". Okay, so I am not the most observant person sometimes. The owner added that a policeman standing on the other side of the bridge could direct me to the queue for the ferry. It was only 8 o'clock. Our estimated two to three hour journey took a mere seventy minutes. Not bad.

We pulled across the bridge, had the policeman point to a couple cars parked on the side of the road around the corner, and we followed suit. Still not entirely sure if we were in the right place, because but for a couple trickles of water, there was definitely no place for a ferry to pull up, we sought reassurances from our nearest neighbors, the car in front of us, and satisfied ourselves that yes, indeed, this was the line, that we would drive through the mountain somehow and come to the ferry stop at around 10 a.m., when the cars coming off the ferry had finished coming down the same road.

And so we waited two hours in the three cafe town of Koman. They too demonstrated a fondness for ceramic tchotchkes. The town really does have three cafes, an electric plant connected to the dam (although there was no electricity in the town while we were there), and a "cement hotel", or so it was dubbed by my friend in Prishtina, whose tale of the evening she spent there once with her family and the deaf mute son of the owner contained many references to the establishment in The Shining. While we did not enter the cement hotel, we saw it down the road, a pink cement concrete block, and it looked quite benign. Perhaps, on another trip, we can stay there ourselves. Yeah, right. Moving on...

As we waited the two hours the line grew, which confirmed what I had heard about the ferry generally being full to capacity. Meanwhile, the local population went about their business including shepherding their sheep up the same mountain road we would take to the ferry.

Finally, at around 10 a.m., I could see a trail of cars starting to make its way down the mountain road in front of us. The ferry had obviously arrived. We waited another twenty or so minutes, then we were off. The mystery of where exactly the ferry comes in is solved when I see a tunnel through the mountain.

We cross through and come out on the other side of the dam, where the water is captured in deep mountain gorges. When we finally get to the ferry, the men organizing entry to the ferry tell me that I have to back the SUV onto the boat (instead of drive on/drive off). This nearly gives me a heart attack, but with the help of about four men, yelling at me in Albanian and gesturing wildly, I succeeded in not sending the car off the sides of the dock or into any major part of the ferry, and tucked the SUV safely onto the side of the ferry. The very first people on had to back on to the back gangplank and were practically hanging off the ferry.

Had I had to do that, it probably would have finished me off.

(By the way, the little tin hut which you can see to the right of the photo is in fact the ladies bathroom - I seriously curtailed my liquid consumption to avoid having to use it.)

Loading goes rather quickly and I think we are about to go because it looks like there is no more room when a truck full of huge cement pipes pulls up.

Surely, I thought, it can't fit, but the men reorganized the cars, and the truck driver backed the truck up on the ferry.

When this truck boarded, the entire ferry sank a foot. At last, we could go. And for two hours, we moved slowly through the gorges.

The two hour journey was impressive, beautiful and worthwhile. The tranquility of travelling by ferry almost made me forget the trauma of travelling by road. Because of it, I would actually recommend a weekend visit to Albania - skipping the Kukes-Shkodra road but taking the ferry in and out instead.

We pulled into Bajram Curri, where the ferry docks, and where our road to Kosovo awaited us.

A short twenty minute drive later, we came to the border. As soon as we crossed into Kosovo, but for the section near the border crossing, where we had to drive down a dirt embankment, at the instruction of the police, in order to reach the paved road, the roads were brilliant.

We stopped in Djakovo, a small town notable for having an interesting Ottoman period bridge and a large Catholic community (evidenced by the new Catholic church going up - I think the largest in Kosovo).

During lunch, Prof. D. asked me what it would take for me to drive back via Decani, a town near the western border of Kosovo, famous for its monasteries. Since I didn't know exactly how long it would take us, and I knew Prof. D. had a flight out that evening from Prishtina, I begged off, saying no because of time constraints. This was true, but also true was the fact that I was counting the minutes to when I could get rid of the keys, the car and the need to take up any further road challenges. Public transportation and taxis, here I come!

(Not so) European Vacation part 2

So the day after Professor D and I flew back to Prishtina, we left rather early to collect a rent a car outside town. Alas, Prof. D did not have a very restful night as he was introduced to the many sounds of my inner city neighborhood, including the pack of dogs which awoke him at 5:00 a.m., then 5:15, 5:25, 5:35 (you see where this is going), the sounds of the city water supply being turned back on (water is turned off every night from 11 pm to 5 a.m.), and a few car alarms. I don't make this stuff up.... if you are coming to my house, bring earplugs!

Now I had put a great deal of thought into our journey, and I had certain voices in my head that morning. "They've redone the road from Kukes to Puke. It's fine now." said the senior staff attorney in my office. Meanwhile, a guidebook published last year said "the road between Kukes and Shkodra has been fully upgraded." Armed with this knowledge, I decided we would go into Albania via the town of Kukes and drive the 120 km or so west to Shkodra on Saturday, and on Sunday we would take a ferry through gorges in the north to a different border crossing and head back to Prishtina for Prof. D to catch his plane. A two day Albanian adventure.

A cab driver in Prishtina dropped us off at around 7:30 am outside the rent a car gate that was locked. I yelled a hello or two to no avail, and the cab driver, taking some pity on us, the two Americans he just left on the side of a rather deserted road, honked his horn. This awoke the guard who came out and let us in. After an exchange of a handful of cash for a set of keys & a letter from the car company saying I had permission to use the car [no need for a pesky contract], we were in a Nissan Tirana (how appropriate) heading toward Albania.

The border crossing was uneventful. The border guards took Prof. D away into the building - told me not to come - into a room with a computer, which they paid no attention to at all as they pulled out the registry book to hand write all our info and give us a paper for our car. Apparently, they asked Prof. D something about soccer, not understanding that he is American and that he would not have an opinion on European soccer even if he could understand what they were saying. After about 20 minutes at the border, we were free to enter Albania.
The first thing we noticed were the pillboxes. We read about them, that they were everywhere in border areas, and they are. A fear of invasion by the (fill in the country of your choice) in the 1970s resulted in thousands being built - most big enough for one soldier. They are still scattered around the countryside.

I had heard that the entrance to Kukes was rough, and reality proved this correct. It was dirt and rocks. Sometimes, the road diverged into two and you really couldn't tell which side was the one less travelled by. Once, we climbed a hill and found ourselves in a gas station - not along side a gas station, but in one, as the road went right on into the station and by the pumps. We didn't stop for a refill.

By the time we got to Kukes, some thirty minutes or so after we crossed the border, I was tired and was looking forward to the fully upgraded motorway that awaited us to Shkodra.

In Kukes, we stopped for coffee and got our first taste of the Albanian fondness for ceramic and plaster figurines - our cafe terrace was full of them. The waiter and the owner of the hotel/cafe were very nice and helpful with changing money and telling us that Shkodra was about 2 and a half hours away. We also stopped in the center to take some pictures of the area.

Water levels throughout the area are extremely low, due to lack of rainfall, and you can see how far down the banks the actual water level is - it usually goes right up to the greenery. We wondered if our ferry was even running if water was so scarce.

Beautiful towering mountains surround a portion of the town. Our guidebook noted they are part of the Dinaric Alps - the highest peak about 9000 feet. (I know this should have been a clue, but it did not sink in.)

It was time to depart Kukes. We found the road we wanted, and while the workers were literally paving a part of it, it was good road - smooth, paved, modern, with marked lanes, for about 2 miles... we rounded a corner and the world opened up before us. Those mountains we took pictures of now stood between us and Shkodra. And that fully upgraded road, well, I guess it could be in the eye of the beholder - I have been debating: if 60 % of a road is now paved while previously 0% was, does that qualify the road to be described as "fully upgraded" - a question perhaps more suited to philosophers than mathematicians. And we could see the road winding up the mountains (anywhere between 3,000 and 8,000 feet) before us. It was a challenge, an adventure, a nightmare(??), as Prof. D. reminded me of his absolute fear of heights as he wondered aloud if the road was like that the entire way to Shkodra and whether he would survive such a trip.

I was doing all the driving as Prof. D does not drive stick. And it was okay although exhausting for the first thirty minutes, that felt like 5 hours, and during which time we traversed about 10 km. Then the mountains got steeper, and the turns sharper. At one point, the steepness of the first outright switchback took me by surprise, and the car stalled out - on a hairpin, at 6000 feet, with no guardrails anywhere (the only thing on the side of the road are plaques every 50 feet or so dedicated to individuals who have died on the road), and we rolled back a bit before I got the emergency brake up. I restarted the car and off we went, but not I suspect before Prof. D lost 10 years off his life. After that, if I put the car into third gear, Prof. D. would ask me to slow down, so I traveled about 50-60 km in second gear - poor Nissan Tirana.

About two to two and a half hours later, we arrived to the town called Puke (pronounced Pook-ah), about half way to Shkodra. I was intensely aware that per my office colleague's comment, we had just finished with the good part of the road, and would now be driving on the old, unrenovated road. By this point, my shoulders were cramped, and my hands permanently clutched upon the steering wheel, but there was no way I was driving back, so forward we would go. Puke was the biggest town we saw on the road - about five blocks, two cafes, a store, and a mosque.

And true to my colleague's word, the road was now mostly dirt and stones and holes and trenches and ruts. Every now and then, I would look around and notice how breathtaking it was to be up in these mountains. It's very unspoilt natural beauty, but utterly brutal for drivers. At one point, we were on our way down a pretty high mountain when we looked off to the side and saw this crazy dirt road cut into the side of another mountain. We laughed and consoled ourselves that "at least we aren't on that one. ha, ha." Predictably, when we reached the bottom, we realized our road was taking us straight there.

I was parched after hours of driving and wanted some water. Prof. D. however would not give me the water bottle until we found a wide enough part of the road for me to pull off onto, as he believed, not unjustifiably, that should I take my attention off the crazy, winding, dirt, mountain road for the second it would take to put a water bottle to my mouth, we would die. It took a while to find such a pull off, but when we did, water never tasted so good.

There wasn't much traffic on the road. We saw the occasional bus with passengers, and several police patrols sitting by their cars along the way, which I thought was smart as they are presumably there to respond to accidents, of which, judging by the number of memorial plaques along the road, there are many. And every so often, usually near the mountain peaks, children would appear along the side of the road, selling cherries or something puffy that looked like a flower. We never saw a house, or an adult, and so could never explain how they got there, yet children sightings were frequent.

Four and a half hours after we left Kukes, we arrived to the end of the mountain range, and the river valley of Shkodra. I never wanted to drive again, although recognizing this was not realistic unless we wanted to investigate taking up permanent residency in Shkodra, I was willing to settle for finding a hotel, parking the car, and taking the night off.

The first hotel we tried had no vacancies, and for a moment, I feared we would be sleeping in the car, but then the second one, the Colosseo, had rooms and we checked in. It was right across the street from the Al-Zamil mosque, which dominates the architecture in the center of town. The hotel was fine - comfortable and clean - and it had parking right in front.

Shkodra is on a lake - 4000' above sea level - and is where two main rivers come together. Its main tourist attraction is a castle. I didn't know the Albanian word for castle, and multiple attempts-at-giving-our-destination-in-the-four-languages-we-knew-between-us later, a taxi driver finally understood where we wanted to go, and for the price of about $3 round trip, he took us up the hill on the outskirts of town where the castle was perched. The views were impressive.

The earliest walls of the fortress date back to 350 BC, and the castle and ramparts to medieval times. The castle is known as Rozafa in the town, named after a legend. Three brothers were building the castle, but the walls kept falling down each night after they spent the day building them up. They decided a sacrifice was necessary to appease the divine power, and that it would be which ever wife would come up the mountain first with their lunch. The two older brothers told their wives to stay home, and Rozafa, the wife of the youngest brother, was the one to bring their lunch by. She agreed with her husband to be walled into the structure on the condition that her right arm was left free to hold their son, her right breast left free to feed her son, and her right foot left free to rock their son's cradle. Legend says this is what the brothers did - immured half of her in rock, and the castle remained and remains standing.

A much happier fate awaited me as we finished our tour of Rozafa and headed back to town for dinner. An attempt to locate a restaurant from the guidebook failed, and we ate at the hotel, and it was fine. I fell asleep to the Eurovision song contest playing on my television - and by chance ended up seeing the eventual winner - the Serbian entry.

As I slept, I seriously felt as though I was still driving - even to the point of feeling the air from the dashboard a/c vent on my face. I awoke at sunrise to the call to prayer from the mosque across the street and felt as though I had driven another 120 km overnight.

I had been told to leave 2 and a half hours for the trip from Shkodra to Koman, the ferry town, and the ferry was scheduled to depart at 9 a.m. Prof. D and I set off at 6:30 a.m. for the next leg of our journey.

European Vacation (part one)

You may recognize this… the gilded statue of Nike, the Greek goddess of Victory, the gods' personal charioteer, outside Buckingham Palace – taken on a particularly blustery day in mid May. She personifies how I felt at the end of my vacation, but first, how it began… in London…

Reconnecting with old friends, doing embarrassingly touristy things (touring Tower Bridge, having tea at The Orangery , wandering the Tate, and catching Wicked), and having the ideal hotel location (the Citadines at Trafalgar Square) proved to be the perfect combination in London. The great memories have numbed the absolutely painful shock of how expensive things were in London. I had heard all about it: the dollar had dropped; London was always expensive; be prepared. It’s more than 2 to 1, dollar to pound, at the moment.

I landed in Gatwick’s North Terminal and changed $100. By the time I reached the South Terminal, 10 minutes later, it was almost all gone – spent on a train ticket, a bottle of water and a map. I persevered. I tried to develop immunity. “Five dollars for a coffee, no problem, two please.” [I highly recommend the Flat White Café in Soho for a great coffee.]

Coffee was one thing, but the big money was yet to come. My need for new jeans (remember, holes developing from the wash) and new shoes (also had holes, but not because of Prishtina water, but because of Prishtina sidewalks) meant I had to start mentally tricking my extremely frugal brain into thinking that the prices were really in dollars, which I did. Seventy “dollars” for a pair of shoes – not bad, and 45 “dollars” for jeans, sure, I can do that. I shopped around to find those bargain jeans - most were 90 "dollars" or more. What was I supposed to do? My jeans had holes, people! Not since I was 12 years old and saved 8 months of allowance to buy my first pair of Levi cords (baby blue in color) have I so agonized over a purchase of clothing. So I left London with two new pairs of jeans and two new pairs of shoes. The shoe sales lady seemed inordinately pleased that I was purchasing two pairs of shoes - as if they did not sell very many of their ridiculously overpriced shoes. And then I said something at the register, and hearing me, the sales lady's expression changed to one of comprehension, as if she had me figured out - this stranger willing to lay out a bundle for a couple pair of walking shoes - and she said "So, you're Canadian." "Sure," I responded. Why not? Although now I wonder, are Canadians wealthy, or big spenders, or fond of walking shoes, or do I now have a Canadian accent? I'll never know.

I also entered the first Boots I came upon and went to the cold/flu aisle where I filled my basket with a variety of cold remedies, having exhausted what I thought would be a year's supply in my first six weeks in Kosovo. (No, they don't sell decongestants or the powerful cough medicine in Kosovo - at least not without a prescription. Instead, they offer you herbal remedies in the pharmacies - please...) My shopping apparently caught the attention of the store security guard who began following me around - my choice of decongestant and ear plugs obviously intriguing. At the counter, the cashier looked very concerned and brought over someone else in a white coat. I then vaguely recalled that in the States, some kinds of cold medicines are used for manufacturing meth, and I think the number of boxes you can purchase is restricted, so I pondered the believability of my story should I have to tell it ... an American... in Kosovo...herbal remedies only...in London on holiday...stocking up... Oh, yeah, that would work. As I was assessing the feasibility of having to buy one box of cold medicine in every Boots in the area, the white coat person turned to me and told me not to take all the medicines at the same time -- (four boxes of pills, two bottles of cough syrup). -- "Um, okay, thanks" I said. And off I went with my purchases.

After five days, I reluctantly returned to Gatwick to depart (not before I bought another box of cold medicine at the Boots at Gatwick - no such thing as too prepared). I flew back from London to Prishtina with Professor D who had come over to Europe to celebrate his 40th birthday – the celebration included a very nice dinner in London with friends at the Grape Street Wine Bar (highly recommend it – reasonable, tasty food, and a nice selection of reds) and a wish on his part to see Albania. This set in motion the second part of my holiday…

Daily Stuff

Here is an update on some of the subjects I discussed earlier as well as some random stuff.

On the protests, the police arrested the leader of the self determination party shortly after the deadly protests in February. He is still in jail awaiting a trial on charges which I am told amount to failing to apply for a permit for a public gathering. His supporters held protests in late March which were peaceful and uneventful.


The birds are gone...for now. Someone had told me in mid-March that the birds only come into Prishtina from the countryside in the winter because the city is warmer than the country. I didn't dare to hope that this could mean the birds would actually be leaving their perch outside my window at some point, but indeed, they did. By the end of the first week in April, all but a few had flown away. The trees lining the fields along the roads leaving Prishtina are now full of giant nests - so the birds are busy multiplying in time for next winter.


I had maybe two weeks of peaceful sleep when it began to be interrupted again on a nightly basis - this time by dogs. Yep - now we have a pack of stray dogs living in the courtyard. Not packs of dogs at the level of post-Ceausescu Romania, at least not yet. It is a group of three or four which during the day, don't bother anyone. I walk by them every morning. But at night, late, at around 2 a.m. or so, if anyone is per chance unlucky enough to be coming home at that hour, the dogs give chase and bark and growl as loud as they can. And then at around 5:30 a.m. or so, they just start howling. An end may be in sight for this as well, however. Protesters gathered last weekend outside the police building to express their disagreement with a soon to be implemented stray extermination policy. I suspect they lacked the political clout to force changes to the policy.

On garbage, someone, probably the owner of the Thai restaurant in the courtyard, organized the removal of the garbage on my side of the building. One day I came out and it was gone - a pleasant surprise. As for the piles on the other side of my building, someone set it on fire so it too is gone in its original form. Now there is a waxy black ash with charred jagged plastic edges scattered throughout a stretch of land about the size of half a basketball court. Let's see if it lasts.

What else? It appears that the washing machine/water/detergent is eating through my clothes. My jeans have two holes in them as does a t-shirt. I think the water is very harsh here. Considering I only brought two pairs of jeans with me, this could be a problem at some point. I am choosing to ignore the holes for now, but believe me, they will not go unnoticed for long, and not in a "look how fashionable she is in worn jeans" way but in a "OMG doesn't that American chick have any self-respect at all, how can she wear clothes with holes in them" way. There is no chance of me finding a pair of jeans here to buy. The average Kosovar woman is about a size 2, and the boutiques reflect this fact- literally not stocking anything above a size 6. So, to my petite friend T., this place would be mecca to you fashion-wise.

I found soy burgers in a grocery store. The box is in German and Turkish. It was a great find since soy has not yet taken off here. The burgers are unlike any soy burgers I have ever seen in appearance or texture. Nevertheless, they are strangely edible.

I am very much looking forward to a vacation in London in May followed by a weekend road trip to Albania. I hope I come back with some good stories and photos to share.

Kosovar Signage

A typical road sign in Kosovo looks like this - in this case, the destinations are provided in Albanian, Serbian and Turkish. This sign was from the Prizren area where a number of Turkish minorities reside, thus, the Turkish translation. [I have heard a number of Kosovar Albanians complaining about how poor the road signage is in Kosovo, but speaking as a resident of D.C., where it seems entry to certain roads, like Rock Creek Parkway, is a well kept secret, devoid of any signage whatsoever, I have actually found the Kosovo road signs to be accurate and helpful.]

Now if you are NATO in Kosovo, you have to come up with a road sign understandable to all 17,000 troops who are on the ground throughout the province and originate from some 35 countries (the force is made up of troops from both NATO members and non-member states). The answer.... animals. [In Bosnia, if memory serves, they used colors, so Blue Route, Red Route, etc., and you would look out for stripes painted on various landmarks along the routes - just like hiking trails are marked.] All over Kosovo roads, you will see yellow signs with images of animals such as snakes, birds, rats, and this one, for example, indicating three roads - Duck/Goose (I can't tell), Horse and Lion.

Finally, in signs unique to a peacekeeping region, all the bridges in Kosovo are preceded by signs indicating speeds not just for trucks, but also for tanks.