They’ll eat me. They’ll eat me not.
A few serious discussions with friends from Sarajevo effectively crossed out Albania from my summer trip. Why would I go to a place where local people told PG-10 rated stories about how unsafe the country was, how dangerous people were after many years closing their country to the outside world during Communism, how our school bus tour to Greece had to change route heading to Macedonia instead of crossing Albania. Thinking that Muslim countries sympathize with one another, I told my friend I would pretend that I spoke Bosnian so they’d be friendly to me. “No. Then you sound like a Serbian, and they will hate you even more.” My friend laughed and joked that they might ‘eat’ me. (For those who don’t keep up with events in this region, Serbia and Kosovo had been fighting for years for the independence of Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians made up the majority of the population.)
I teamed up with a Slovenian couple and an English guy whom I met at Velania guest-house for a trip to Peja. I didn’t know at the time how important Peja was, but I learned to trust people who traveled with a guidebook. Without much planning on where to go other than Pristinia, I feel relieved to find someone who would lead me during my remaining days in Kosovo. We arrived in Peja early in the morning, had a burek breakfast and a round of espresso before setting out to explore the city. Peja is a small town; we didn’t break a sweat finding our way. All we needed to do was following the main street from the bus station toward the mountain which dominated the city landscape, passing small shops, car parks and street cigarette vendors until we arrived at the entrance to Peja’s bazaar.
I left Velania guest-house, bought two bananas and an apple at a neighborhood store and walked down to the city center through small area pathways. At the main intersection, not knowing which direction to proceed and not bother to look at the map, I grabbed a man and asked for Bill Clinton and Mother Teresa. “Bill Clinton is there, and Mother Teresa is this way.” He pointed to two different directions. “Is it far?” “Bill Clinton is further down that direction. Mother Teresa is right here. Where do you want to go?” “I want Mother Teresa.” “Come with me.” He said and directed me to cross the street.
I woke at 3.30, not able to sleep because of the light from the window. I sat up from the seat, lowered the window and looked outside to uninteresting countryside landscape. I woke up the Macedonian, my bunk-mate, an hour later to move his legs aside so I could get out and find a train conductor who was nowhere in sight. One thing about train conductors is they are everywhere when you don’t need them, interrupt you in your meditative state of being to check your train ticket and wake you up from your beauty sleep at night to do another ticket controlling. The Macedonian rose from his
On Sunday, 17 of February 2008 Kosovo’ parliament declared independence from Serbia with the backup of the USA, Britain, Germany, and France.
Kosovo’s parliament has unanimously endorsed a declaration of independence from Serbia, in a historic session.
Four astronauts land on the moon. An American, a German and two Serbs.
The American jumps out and plants a flag on the surface exclaiming that US derring-do and money made their mission possible so the moon will belong to America.
The German pulled out the flag and stuck in a flag from his country proclaiming that it was German scientific knowledge and technological precision that made the landing possible, so the moon was Germany’s.
The Balkan border is a disputing issue as Slovenia is included on some maps and not on the other, and the part of Romania which belongs to this region is unclear.
Balkan Scissors blogs a short but fairly detailed post describing the Balkan:
Remark: The deadline for this year has passed. If you are interested or know those who do, please pass on this information. The deadline should be sometime in June.
My name is Cindy, also rhymes with travel junkie. A friend said I was probably a gipsy in my previous life. One of my many secret missions in life is to convert you to run off every once in awhile.
