Blogs from Kosovo, Europe
May 2nd 2012
Well it's a lazy Sunday afternoon, and I'm safely back in my quiet little neck of western Suburbistan near Boston. As it's now a month overdue (I regret nothing), and my only other thing worth doing is a tax return, I think it's time I tidied up the story of our little trip through the Balkans. As a final sidenote, I think my backlog's at like...four entries left, including this one. How soon they're finished depends on a lot of things, mostly since I wrote the last ones under periods of great stress/sometimes drunk I'll probably wait until that happens again (read: after I'm employed). Right, so Kosovo. Welcome to Kosovo! Hope you weren't fond of those kidneys! So I guess it's fair to say landing in Pristina's airport (via steep dive and prop plane) it ... read more
January 5th 2012
. Kosovo - Pristina It took longer than anticipated to get to Pristina, so by the time I got there it was well after nightfall. Back on my own again and completely without my bearings, I opted to take a taxi to get to the hostel/hotel I had found on the internet. I checked in to the hotel, where I talked to the owner for a bit about Kosovo and its politics. He was Albanian/muslim and it was interesting to hear his perspective as I had previously only talked to Serbians about what went on there. Needless to say his perspective was different to the Serbian perspectives I had heard which all differed from one another in themselves and all of the perspectives put together varied from the perspectives that I had been exposed to via ... read more
October 3rd 2011
One of our - and when I say our, I mean Jane, Deb, Cate, Krista, and I - goals this year is to see more of Kosova since we spent much of our vacation time traveling outside of the country in which we are actually living. So when we heard that a cultural herritage group was running tours to Pejë - a city that we have been through on the way to the mountains - every Saturday and Sunday for a month, we knew we had to go, especially after we found out that the whole trip - from train ride to tour around Pejë was free! So early Sunday morning, we embarked on our journey to Pejë, not quite sure what to expect. But we were pleasantly surprised by the entire day. When we arrived ... read more
September 29th 2011
Today, the fifth through eighth grades went on a field trip to Novo Brdo. Only about an hour outside of Prishtina is a landscape of rolling hills topped by an ancient fortress, the ruins of which were once built and occupied by the Ottomans. Once a teaming metropolis - an old saying says that a cat could walk for 13 kilometers without its feet ever touching the ground - Novo Brdo is now quiet and unoccupied. Our guide, Fitim, explained the history and showed us around the fortress and the ruins of the cathedral. All of the students loved the scenery and couldn't believe that this place was so close to Prishtina and none of them had been there. The rock of the fortress was interesting as some of it - called simply red stone for ... read more
August 11th 2011
The next day me and my new chum Michelle headed off from Berat to Prizren in Kosovo, to do this we first had to catch a furgon to Tirana, during the trip we were joined by an Italian Albanian who entertained us all for the journey, he didn't stop talking and had a typically Italian view on women much to the amusement of my travelling companion:-) Once we arrived in Tirana we had a walk round the building site and then caught the bus to Prizren, as with all the other buses it wasn't AC but this wasn't a problem when we were travelling through the mountains. The route took us on the brand new highway between these two cities, that had been built to the cost of an estimated 600 million euros. As it had ... read more
July 17th 2011
The driver was considerate enough to voluntarily slow down as we drove along the streets and perve at some good looking Kosovan women. Taxi driver perving it’s a fine art of sleaze and in the capital of Pristina the driver took it to a fine art. What the taxi driver also gave me was a quick chance to not only perve myself but sit back and take in the scale of this city which was a lot more modern than I expected. Green hills surround the city with tall buildings and big homes on the outskirts. My bus from Skopje Macedonia was A/C and comfortable and the taxi was a modern Mercedes with A/C as well. This was not the Kosovo I envisaged. I came here ready for carnage. Bombed out buildings, poor people roaming around, ... read more
June 19th 2011
Hicran Cigdem Yorgancioglu Kosova 2011 Hicran Çiğdem Yorgancıoğlu ‘nun Kosova devr-i Alem Hicri Alem Hicran Çiğdem Seyahatnamesi’nden ..seyahat notlarından alıntılardır . Her hakkı saklıdır .. / Eserin tüm telif hakları H.Çiğdem Yorgancıoğlu’na aittir . Eserin izinsiz kopyalanması çoğaltımı ,yayını ,dağıtımı halinde 5846 sayılı Fikir ve Sanat Eserleri Kanunun hükümleri geçerli olacaktır. Kosova Cumhuriyeti Ne güneşten gözlerim kısılıyor ne de yağmur yağacak da ıslanacağım diye düşünüyorum. Balkanlar üzerine kelimenin dağlık anlamı üzerine , dağ dağ gidiyorum. Zaman yayını ve okunu alıp hazırlanıyor yine atmaya beni dünyanın bir köşesine .Her hâlükârda bir sesleniştir yazmak. Eski Osmanlı sancağını “Dardania” antik ismi ile çağırıyorum bakalım kim gelecek. Boomerang değil ya eko yapan ... read more
October 8th 2010
After visiting the much talked about, yet slightly disappointing lake Orchid in Macedonia, all 4 of us hitchhiked to the massive Tikves winary in the South. for €5 we got a personal tour of the factory, 5 bottles of fine wine and a few shots of lethal 60% local rakkai. Hitchhiking back drunk in the evening was quite a funny experience. I’m not quite sure how I made it back to our hostel, but on our rides I kept on rambling on about how much I love the rakkai here, and somehow 2 different people gave me a 1.5litre bottle of homemade 60-80% brew. most people say threes nothing to do in the capital Skopje, but I found it one of the best cities I’ve been too - a modern part with cafes and random sculptures ... read more
September 12th 2010
I am re-posting my first blog, so that I can include the pictures. Well, I arrived in Kosova a week ago, although it hardly seems possible that it was only a week! The city of Prishtina is interesting. It is easy to tell that it is still a developing city, and the country as a whole as well, but at the same time, it seems a city ready to welcome the international population. There are a variety of restaurants that serve anything from local traditional meals to Thai to Mexican food. Much of the city, including the roads, is under construction, or it seems that someone started building something then decided not to finish it. Driving is something that I know I will never attempt in this country. There seem to be very few rules that ... read more
August 28th 2010
Location: Peja, Pristina, Prizren Length of Stay: 2 Days Cost per Day: $74 Hmmm... not a great deal of inspiration here... Its highly unlikely that you will need more than a day or 2... Poor little Kosovo... the past has not been kind... its had an extremely tough time of things and in fact has only been an independent nation for just over 2 years... Serbia btw still refuses to recognize its independence... Its going to take time to get well though as there is an awful lot of healing for this little girl to go through... There is, as to be expected still a great deal of animosity towards the Serbs... Still... people are kind and extremely proud of their new found independence... They will ask you straight away... So... Do you like Kosovo?... Umm... ... read more
