your *free* dose of liz :: kosovo

Alive in Greece

Let's see, friends, where did I leave off? Well, after swimming around islands and taking it easy with my flippers, snorkelling gear and set-free boobies, X and I headed to Albania by way of Montenegro. We stopped for one night in the seaside town of Perast in MNE, very beautiful, non-touristy and idyllic. After a quick morning dip, onward to Albania.

After crossing what appeared to be a rather serious border crossing, the first thing we saw? Bunkers. Thousands of them. Big bunkers, small bunkers, graffitied bunkers, bunkers having attempted to be deconstructed. The land of the bunker. We spent only 2 nights in Albania, a far cry from the 7 to 10 that X had planned on. The thing is, Albania was just a little too close to home (being Kosovo) for me. Just hearing the language, seeing the brick outlets on the side of the road and the driving habits only experienced until this point in Kosovo, made it feel a little bit like taking our holidays in Kosovo - a very interesting place in its own right but you know, once you've tasted the good life of Croatia, it's hard to go back to baked beans out of a can, if you know what I mean. Some unremarkable aspects of Albania:

• The dysfunction of the roadways
• The trash, pollution and general disregard for the environment and aesthetic
• The amount of unfinished buildings littering the gorgeous coastline
• The history of the country itself (pick up a book, it's fascinating stuff)
• The appalling quality of the food, despite the gorgeous fruit trees, fertile land and access to Adriatic/Ionian seas (the last night we had overcooked spaghetti with ketchup for lack of anything else to eat)

Anyway, X claims that I've become a woman of high-maintenance due to my desire to head south and quick, but his smile equalled mine when we found ourself in Greece after seeing thousands of hectares of burnt Albanian forest en route.

In Greece, we visited first the Zagorian villages of the north, really just beautiful, right out of Grimm's fairy tales. Next stop was Metsovo and Meteora, a place where monks built monestaries perched atop massive rocks over 800 years ago, many of which are still in operation. And finally, we settled in the Pelion peninsula for a few days, where a string of bad luck hit us like a ton of bricks.

Day 1, in a freak encounter I got stung by a poisonous, potentially paralyzing Weaver Fish. We didn't know until it was too late, when my bones were locked and I was starting to experience numbness in my hands and feet, so X rushed me to the nearest clinic some 45 minutes away through small mountain winding roads to get a cortizone shot.

Day 2, I recovered, sleeping most of the day away, regaining my joint motion.

Day 3, our car got robbed. My camera and all of our holiday photos, gone. 500 euros in cash that I intended to pay for the thai massage course that I'm on now, gone. My sunglasses, gone. The only thing I wanted desperately to get back were those pictures. 4 weeks of stories and joy to remember this trip by, gone. Letting go, letting go, letting go...

Day 4, our car died. On the bottom of a mountain we had to drive over to get back to our hotel.

Day 5, the rental car man appeared totally unprepared to deal with the dead car, so most of the day was trying to help him start our dead car, which never did start. Sadly, we left him and the car at the bottom of the mountain waiting for a tow truck that someone who was kind enough to stop on the side of the road called for us. I wonder if he ever made it back to Skopje.

I'm now recovering from my holiday on the island of Eviia, where I'm taking a thai massage course. It's fabulous so far, but will be an intense schedule starting at 6am every morning. Meanwhile, on an island nearby, X is learning to sail...

More soon.

Dalmatian Tales

After spending the first 5 days hiking beautiful, yet hardly marked trails in Durmitor, Montenegro, X and I have driven through Bosnia north to Croatia, and settled for the past 6 nights in Kortula, a small island just north of Dubrovnik. We have two more days here doing nothing but swimming in the sea and taking naps in the shade before again heading south to Dubrovnik for a few days, then on to Albania. That's the plan anyway, but we actually don't have much of a plan as it turns out. We have absolutely ¤lucked out¤ so far, with no hotel bookings we managed to get a room in a family pension that even has a large chess board on the floor of the terrace and a very quiet rocky coast that enables us to tear our clothes off and jump in whenever we like. Even in the middle of the high season, where we are staying, the southern tip called Lombarda, isn't too busy and by all accounts is very low key. In the meantime, X has been offered jobs at both the OCSE in Kosovo as well as the African Development Bank in Tunisia. We already decided to turn down the OCSE offer, but the African Dev. bank will need to be disussed in detail over the next few days. That said, Xav's dream last night was about his first day of work at the EBRD. His boss greeted him in his bathrobe, on the way up to the office he briefly stopped at the indoor pool and said hello to a few people he knew, including several ladies lying topless by the poolside. After getting settled in his office, his new boss (still in bathrobe) took him to get the french paper and for a coffee. So apparently he has some high hopes for this job, or maybe it's the sun getting to his head. In any event, we're having a wonderful time relaxing, playing chess and swimming until our skin is wrinkled with salt. Stay tuned for more soon...

Our trip through the Balkans - Travel Itinerary

At last, the time has (almost) come for our departure on a 6 week trip around the Balkans. The plan is as follows:

Sometime today, leave for Dormitor National Park, Montenegro
    Stay 4-5 days, doing a few overnight hikes, maybe horseback riding and rafting if time allows

Next stop: Croatia, visit a few islands (Hvar, Vis, others?)
    Stay 4-5 days, relax and find a shady beach to swim and catch up on breathing clean sea air

On to: Dubrovnik
    Stay 2-3 days, checking out the windy fortress and influx of tourism

Then, drive south along the Montenegrin coast and into Albania.

Drive down Albanian coast, tuck in to Tirana, and on to the southern coast where we might find a small bungalow to relax for a few days.

Later, drive across Greece, stopping at a few places as time allows, popping olives and baklava along the way.

Destination: Pelion Peninsula. Was there about 7 years ago and it was just gorgeous, small apple orchards nestled in the hillside, clean water with a dramatic coastal current.
    Stay as time allows before August 10th, when Xav and I go our separate ways.

Xav goes onto Skiathos for a 7-12 day sailing course, I go on to Evia for a Thai Massage training.

We reconvene on August 20th to spend the last week on a Greek Island chilling out.

Then, the drive back to Pristina, where our plane awaits departure on August 31.

A bientot!

Istanbul Constantinople

Last weekend for my birthday, X surprised me with a trip to Istanbul, a city I love for its rich heritage, intricate textile arts and diverse religious and political history.

We left on Friday morning and spent the afternoon walking around Sultanamet, going to the hammam and stopping in a few kilim shops. On Friday night we went to an Amazing Cretian retaurant with a fixed menu, mezzas up the wazoo and fresh fishes...

Saturday was more walking around, visiting mosques and bazaars, eventually having dinner with friends Ali and Alev and seeing the Royal Dutch Symphony perform in the Istanbul Concert Hall.

Sunday, more walking! We found a very lovely gallery featuring Kaitag art from Daghestan, something very special and rare to come by. The embroidery is wrapped around the baby at birth and stays with their owner for a lifetime, acting as the wedding dowry and growing old with the couple, unless it is sold in the meantime for financial gain, as many of the ones in the gallery were.

In the evening we went to see the Whirling Dervishes perform in the old train station where the Orient Express originated, which was beautiful to watch, but a bit too touristy for my taste - they should really not allow pictures, or the people taking the pictures should pay attention to the 2 large signs stating no flat at the front of the theare! Some people were so consumed with their photographs that I'm quite sure they missed the whole performance. End rant.

Monday morning was a lazy walk around Aya Sophia and then back to Prishtina....our home that we will leave behind in less than two weeks!

Visit to Ohrid, Macedonia

We spend a fabulous two days escaping the heat of Pristina at Lake Ohrid, Kosovo. The lake provides clean water, and the area has a 6000 year old human history, complete with religious relics. Over 365 churches and monestaries flank the area, one for every day of the year!

Apparently the lake is one of the two oldest in the world, and is the deepest lake in all of Europe. Albania is on the west coast, but too far away to see anything.

There are a special kind of trout in this lake called Ohrid trout, that are now protected on the Macedonian side of the lake with prohibited fishing, but not on the Albanian side. This apparently leads to smuggling the fish from Albania to Macedonia for gastronomic purposes, of course.

I'm a bit slow these days with posting images, but expect them in the next day or two.

Open for Business

Well, it's been about two months since my last post, and if anyone is still reading, for that I am sorry. No warning, no nothin'.

I've been in the good ol' USA for about 6 weeks doing my Jivamukti teacher training which was just an extraordinary, life changing experience. So much to say, but words could not explain. In the coming posts however, I'll do my best to try.

I'm not back in Kosovo with a pretty severe case of JetLag, but on the upside I've managed to read some excellent books like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, and my current read, The Red Tent. More on both of those later.

Getting back to Kosovo is easier than I thought it would be. Everyone is very enthusiastic to see me, and teaching yoga is a wonderful gift to give someone. I have also been to the University in the meantime and plan to teach Advertising Principles and Designing with the Computer in the fall. Meanwhile, Xav continues to interview, including two this week in London and Tunis. We are not getting hopes up and are prepared to stay here for as long as needbe.

Next week I'll travel to Amsterdam to visit the doctor and see some friends. While I was away I had some blood work done that indicate my liver is not as healthy as it could be, so it's time to start checking in more frequently with the doctor and perhaps doing some cancer screenings. For those of you who don't know, I have PSC, a disease in the bile ducts that can lead to a failure of the liver. But mine is basically ok.

Lastly, I have signed up for a Thai Yoga Massage course in August to get certified in this form of massage. Very excited about that! Between getting settled in, starting up a website for Jivamukti teachers and teaching 4 classes of yoga a week, I'll promise to be a bit more regular in the coming time about posting to the ol'blog. Stick with me. I promise my stories of personal struggle, organized crime and bizarre and funny travel mishaps won't leave your mouth in a frown!

back in kosovo - mini post

We made it back to Kosovo safely and in time for my yoga class last evening - the last Tuesday class before I head out for the teacher training in April/May. We traveled back through Serbia which shaved 2 hours off the trip. Lots more to tell, but I'm busy uploading the pictures from the trip that will better tell of our Bosnian and Herzegovina adventures. Stay tuned!

sarajevo intermission

Well, I wasn't expecting a chance to blog over our mini holiday, but while getting under way from sarajevo to mostar it came to our attention that the tire from our rental car was tampered with while in the hotel parking - hence, we have a flat tire! It has been a rather interesting process of getting the tire changed to our spare followed by two of the hotel guys taking the rental car to the opel dealership to get our original tire fixed. I sent X to check out and confirm a guide for hiking in the highlands on Monday and haven't seen him since, and voila! A second or two to blog. Sarajevo is a fascinating city, very clean compared to other places I've seen so far in the Balkans with a beautiful old part of town that vaguely reminds me of Istanbul but cleaner and without the pushy sales guys. I find the shoe makers particularly involved in their craft (well, I do have a shoe fetish) and we've had an incredible time so far. The plan was to head to Mostar for two days and then come back for 1 day of hiking to some small villages that are only accessible by foot before returning to Kosovo on Tuesday in time for my yoga class. The drive was a bit longer than expected though (beautiful countryside!) so I hope that this plan really works. Car expected back in 10 minutes and counting, and off I go to search for the missing X.

i [heart] macedonia

On Friday evening X and I left for Skopje, Macedonia. Not the most beautiful of FRM destinations, but a short hour and a half drive over the Kosovar border and a world away from Pristina. We checked in to X's 'regular' hotel, the Aleksander Palace Hotel, a massive square building boasting a casino, fitness center and 5 star restaurant. We decided on Lira restaurant for dinner, a fabulous place that only gets one line of text mentioning live in the Bradt guidebook (no mention in Lonely Planet). There we had a great 4 course meal, wine, dessert, afterdinner tea and a very relaxed friendly atmosphere with 2 fiddlers, a guitarist and a standup bass. Damage done? 24 euro. Not bad for a night out on the town.

The next morning we climbed to the top of Mount Vodna and enjoyed beautiful views of the mountanous Kosovar border, neighboring snow-capped northern Albanian mountains, Macedonian mountains, and farther in the distance, Greece and Bulgaria. The refuge on the top of the mountain was very cozy with some kind of fire and locals of all ages enjoying the beautiful and somewhat scary weather. It must have been 18 degrees. The outfits of our fellow hikers is definitely worth mentioning - many of the older men wore a kind of hiking half pant with pulled up socks and hiking shoes, carrying a walking stick. There was also a bountiful number of tracksuits, which seems to be all the rage in the region for children and adults alike.

After a very enjoyable outdoor lunch on the lower slope of the mountain (save for the abundance of stray dogs), we headed for our next adventure- the search for Cherry Orchard ranch, a reputable riding facility out of town.

The drive was somewhat unbelievable, through small villages with children playing in the dusty, pot-holed road, men walking in their driving caps with pipes, delapidated stone houses, 30 year old cars spewing out black emissions, and, believe it or not, an array of colourful tracksuits reminiscent of the 70s. The reception we got from the locals implied that we were either aliens from the future or coming from a very distant land.

After crisscrossing over the railroad several times, we reached the end of the dirt road and landed at Cherry Orchard. There before us was a professional equestrian centre with people on the lawn sipping warm Raki, and others practicing their dressage style in the ring. Immediately X ran into some aquaintances that we joined for a drink. The people from Pristina come almost every weekend and ride for several hours in the Macedonian hillside. Sounded too good to be true!

On top of it all, there is a small apartment with a fireplace and a bath for guest use. So, X and I will sign up for 16 lessons - 4 lessons a weekend for the next month, so that we can feel comfortable going on the countryside rides with the others. As long as the weather stays spring-like, better to be outside enjoying it! On top of that, there is a lot we still have to see in Skopje when we're not in the saddle, including the public swimming pool, the health food store and the multiple lakes in the region.

I was so happy upon leaving the Cherry Orchard that it's about the only thing I could talk about for the next 2 hours back to Pristina. Poor X!

Pictures (fingers crossed) posted wednesday when we have home internet access. Hooray!

Montenegro Intermission

Over the weekend, X and I got a car and drove over the mountains to Montenegro. There was snow, magnificent vistas, and most importantly, clean air.

We stayed at the Bianca Resort, a very pleasant and tasteful hotel with an elegant swimming pool, wood interior, and spa facilities such as sauna, turkish bath and other spa services (think: massage, manicure, solarium, etc).  Compared to the rest of Kolasin, the village where it's located, it is a serious contrast, though the village itself was very charming in a run down kind of way.

On Saturday afternoon we took a walk and after seeing multiple cars with dead oak branches attached, we realized it was a symbol of the Orthodox new year. We visited the church and witnessed some kind of new year ceremony- loud orthodox music blaring from speakers planted on the bell tower with a very large fire. Each person brought their own dead oak branch to throw into the fire as the pope chanted. (As soon as I get my computer working with internet I will post the video and many pictures.)

On Sunday we decided to go skiing, which was one of the highlights of the weekend. We drove 9 km from Kolasin up into the untouched mountains to find the most charming ski area I've seen. It was as one would imagine Switzerland 50 or 70 years ago. The only ski rental happened from the trunks of a few entrepreneurial Montenegrins' cars, and when we realized we had no sun block, an  area search yielded only one person at the entire resort who had 'crema' - Nivea skin creme, no sun protection. X coated his face white with the stuff, and I didn't have the heart to tell him it might actually attract the sun instead of block it. At the last minute I remembered my Blistex lip stick, and with a claimed 15 SPF, X and I coated our faces with the waxy stuff. It seemed to do some limited good.

The ski centre had a few chair lifts and unmarked slopes with a small crepe stand and cafe serving various unidentifiable local specialties. We ran into a colleague of X and his friend, and that evening had a very good local meal together. Of note, the Vranik regional wine. Delicious.  It was interesting talking to two men of my generation about growing up in Kosovo, the war, being displaced, and trying to find one's way in a very confusing and uncertain time. More on that in an upcoming post.

After a relaxing Monday morning spent at the pool and sauna enjoying the last moments of feeling truely clean, we drove the 5 hours back to Kosovo, arriving back last night at around 8pm. 

It was delightful to get away for the weekend. Even though I'd only been in Pristina a few days, my lungs were esctatic to get some fresh air, and it seems that if getting away is a mere car ride, it might just be bearable to stay for awhile.

In other news, we should have internet in our home by January 24. It turns out that Labinat, our landlord, knows someone who knows someone etc who can connect us. Fingers crossed...