Kosovo – Day 131 – Day 133 Friday – Sunday 1/20 – 1/22/2012

Lizzie and I decided to take a weekend trip to Kosovo to visit another Fulbright English Teaching Assistant.  We set out on Friday mid-day.  Our first stop when we arrived was our hostel for the weekend.  The hostel was called Guesthouse Velania or Guesthouse Professor.  The second name is what many know it by because it is owned and run by an old professor; whom I might add was very endearing!   

The Hostel 

The streets walking to the hostel

Lizzie and I were very hungry, so we left our stuff and headed to the center.  The hostel was up on a hill so it was about a 10 min walk to the center.   On the walk we saw an old building, well part of an old building with some amazing spray painting on it.  Once in the center, we stopped at the first little place we could find. It was a little hole in the wall. We each got a salad and goulash!

From there we walked back up to the hostel to wait for Mary’s arrival from Prizren, Kosovo.  We snuck in a nap before she got there and were ready to go see the city.  She walked us around different parts of the center. We saw the New Born sign which was built when Kosovo became an independent country, it is bright yellow, but people sign it with markers so the middle portions of each of the letters are pretty covered up.  It was an amazing sign knowing how proud the people are of their independence.  For dinner we went to an amazing Thai restaurant.  The three of us spent several hours talking. There is comfort in sitting with friends and just talking about life!

The next morning we awoke to several inches of new snow.  It was beautiful, so delicately laid on the branches of trees and telephone wires. We walked through the city park on our way to the center. The trees all were covered in snow, and other than one path the snow was untouched and beautifully shining in the sunlight.

We made it to the city center and Mary gave us an amazing tour of the city! We saw a church that was built by the Serbs right before the war. It was not finished before the war, and remain still today unfinished. It is sort of  a reminder of the struggle and oppression.

Our next stop was the National Library on the University campus. This was quite the interesting building. Some would say that it looked like bubbles while others think a spaceship.  When it was built one of the government officials said to the builders that he liked it, but asked when the scaffolding would be taken down!  I personal thought it was a really neat building!

We then went to see the construction of the new Catholic Cathedral.  It looks like it will be an amazing building!

Being mid morning, we decided it was time for some coffee… I took a picture of the outside of the building because I wanted to show the vast architecture in the city. This was an example of typical socialist style building.

We continued our walk around the city… someone found a very creative way to display the newly fallen snow, so I took a picture with it! 

We also saw a lot of these signs hanging around the city. They say: “Thank you USA”.   Being a US citizen it was surreal to be walking around somewhere that your country is so prevalent and well respected. Several times during the day when people knew where we were from would say something positive to us about the US. One said “Aw, we love the USA!”

Walking by one of the governmental buildings we saw an effect left from the war. The fence outside of the building was covered in pictures and posters of the faces of people that are still missing from the war.  I just can’t imagine….

As we continued on we saw the oldest building that still stands in Prishtina. It is a mosque. As you are walking, if you turn to the left you get a really awesome shot, in the reflection of one of Prishtina’s newest buildings is that same mosque, the oldest building in Prishtina…. It  really is a city that the transformation is very apparent.  There is new construction all around, but socialist buildings and a few from even before that era still stand throughout the city. 

This next picture is a statue that was put up during the Yugoslavic era.  Prior to the statue being here, this was an old bazaar area.  The “modernization” that occurred during that era included the tearing down of historical places like the bazaar to put up statues like this one.

We continued on our walking tour… We go to the City Museum, but unfortunately it was closed for renovations.

Next was the newest mosque in the city, this is the backside of it…  Across the street from it was the old Hamam. It is empty and not in the greatest condition, but plans to rebuild it have been started.

The clock tower in Prishtina.

Next was the Ethnographic Museum which was on the grounds of a former residence.  Part of it was built in the 18^th century and part in the 19^th. We also were able to have a tour of the inside.  It was arranged as the life of an Albanian that might have lived in the home.  We started in the guest quarters- where people were ALWAYS welcome. We then entered the main house where there were many authentic items from Kosovo’s past.

When we left the museum we walked to the front of the newest mosque to pictures of it from the front as well as the back.

For dinner it was off to a traditional Kosovar dinner at Tiffany’s.  We told the waiters what we did not want and then they brought us a 3 course meal!  It started with bread and 3 dips.  Followed by an amzing fresh salad.  The main course was several different dishes: meat with yogurt sauce, sarma, roasted vegetables and beef, and layered meat pastry with yogurt on top.  It was an AMAZING dinner!!!

Kosovo was a great place to get to travel to this weekend.  We got to spend time with friends, ones that because of this experience we are sharing, will be life long friends.  We were exposed to a country in transition not many years after a war.  I can say that prior to traveling here to this region, I did not realize how unique and different they would each be.  Now I know that Europe as a whole is extremely diverse and cultural.  But for some reason I thought that the former Yugoslavic republics would be more similar.  Slovenia and Croatia are similar, they are both in the EU, well Croatia will be in 2013.  But Macedonia is dramatically different than those countries and I thought Kosovo would be the same.  However, it is somewhere in between.  There is a very large international presence in Kosovo and I think that makes a difference.  It seems like Kosovo is more similar to the EU countries than even Macedonia is.  This is not to say one is better than the other, just that at the surface it is a difference I noticed.  I really enjoyed Kosovo, and would like to go back to see more of it in the future.  Unfortunately Kosovo still has pockets of unsettled areas, and as Fulbrighters we are advised to stay out of northern Kosovo.  But that leaves many other cities that would be wonderful to travel to!

Lesson: One experience or one moment can change your outlook on life, don’t close yourself off to opportunities such as these.