Kosova

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On Saturday May 19, I went to pick up a rental car that I had rented for the next two weeks to explore Macedonia and the surrounding countries! Cecelia went with me because we were going to Kosovo for a day trip. I had reserved this car through Interways RentACar because they had the cheapest price and through in a GPS for free! And SURPRISE you had to do everything online! It was so different, when they said, go to our website and make the reservation, I think I looked at the phone like they were crazy! SO I go online and request the Opel Corsa Automatic for my two weeks, get an next day response to the reservation in my inbox and it confirms everything and lowers the price that I was expecting to pay! Way to go. Or so I thought.

We show up at 9am when they open to get the earliest start possible on our day trip since I was driving to Krushevo when we got back. We do all the paperwork, check everything out with the car, and are ready to leave at about 9:30. Then I get in to leave and go to put it in drive…it’s a manual. So back inside I go and tell them I can’t drive that car. When I requested an automatic, and you confirmed that car, I should be getting that car. Well their system is stupid and apparently doesn’t tell them if someone wanted an automatic or manual, even though online I requested Opel Corsa Automatic. That car was also apparently rented out, so they were going to upgrade the car. They said I would have to bring it back in the next day when the other car was available. I told them no, because I wasn’t slotted to be back in Skopje until Tuesday. What I should have said was I wasn’t coming back to Skopje- it was too much hassle and stress later. (wait for that blog post).  But the kicker- the other car was at the airport a 30 minute drive from where we were. So out to the airport we go! And then back to the center to drive to Kosovo! We left almost 2 hours after we wanted to leave. VERY upset customer, even though the upgrade was super nice!

We had no problems at the border. And we went off to drive to Prizern, mostly because Cecelia really wanted to see it. I wanted to see Prishtina but the road back from Prizern is scary and you don’t want to do it at night if you don’t have to! We stopped along the way for a few pictures and a video or two.

We also had an encounter with the police!Apparently I was going 55 km/hour in a 40 km/hour zone (34 mph in a 24 mph). They flagged us over and one guy (Cop A) comes over and says “Miredita” which is Albanian for hello. It is also one of the few words I know. He then proceeds to try to tell me something in Albanian, and I have to interrupt him and tell him I know no Albanian. He thinks, then shows m the radar gun (they have radar guns?)  which reads 55 and says “40” in English. Immediately contrite, I apologize and wait for him to say something else. He then asks for the car documents and my drivers license. Next there was the word “ticket” with hand motions. He walks away as I go “well crap” to Cecelia. Then we realize that I’m supposed to be over there with him as he writes the ticket. (cultural difference from America!) I go over there and Cop B comes over and tries speaking to me in English. Then I realize something: how much is this thing and how do I pay it? So I ask the guy in English and he tells me that his English is exhausted and he doesn’t understand (roughly). So taking a leap, I suggest that I know some Macedonian. This is a leap since I would be expecting them to know Serbian, which is not as good in Kosovo. Cop B tells me that is fine and we switch to “Macedonian.” Turns out the fee is 35 Euro and I could pay it somewhere else or right there. I do have that on me, so it would be a problem. But this turns into the “Why are you here?” questions. Once I tell him that I am a student in Skopje studying international politics, Cop B tells cop A to let me go because I am a “good student” (never knew that could get me out of a ticket). But Cop A tells Cop B that NO! I will get the ticket. And snatches the papers back that Cop B tried to pull away. Cop B shurggs and goes back to talking to me. Once I tell him that Kosovo is beautiful and that I am only spending one day in the country he tries to tell Cop A that I shouldn’t get the ticket but Cop A insists! Then Cop A calls some one and hands the phone to me, convo goes a bit like this:

Random Person: Hi
Me: Hello?
RP: What’s going on?
Me: I think I was speeding. I think I was going 55 in a 40. But I’m bot really sure.
RP: Oh! You’re American!
Me: yes
RP: what are you doing here?
Me: studying in Skopje.
RP: oh cool. Well this guy is my cousin, I’ll tell him to let you go.
Me: ok….

There was some silence, so I hand the phone back to Cop A and he talks for a bit pretty upset then hands me everything back kind of mad and say “ok go.” I walk back to the car thanking him profusely and apologizing. Then Cecelia asks if she can take a pic of me with them. Cop B says no and Cop A say of course and tells Cop B to get in the picture. I won’t post the pic online to not get them in trouble!

When we got to Prizern, we stopped for some lunch at a restaurant downtown, before just wandering around and taking pictures. And getting ice cream. And getting yelled at for taking a picture of a sign that said no pictures of the church. And then taking another picture of the church later just on principle.

Then we headed off to the capital. We had been told there was an interstate between them. There was not. There was a back county road.  Pretty sights, but it took more time than we were expecting, so we got into the capital after all of the museums closed. We arranged to do dinner with Andy at 6:30p, so until then we just walked around. We wandered on the main street, where they were setting up a big screen and viewing area for a futball match that night. Then we went to go try to see some of the mosques listed in Lonely Planet, but they were all mostly closed. We were able to go into one of them and look around- it was very beautiful!

There is a wall of pictures of the missing or dead from the war with Serbia for independence in 1999 along one fence in the center. It was disheartening. So many faces, so many young boys, so much death. After the mosque viewing we also found a park with older Roman style stones in it with a plea for people to help get the antiquities that were stolen by Serbia in 1998 back to Kosovo. Only one has been returned.

Cecelia and I had a bit of a problem finding the place we were to eat as it isn’t very well marked while being hiding behind an umbrella. But nonetheless, we got there and sat down and waited for Andy to show up. While he promptly did! We enjoyed a delicious dinner of various things while have intelligent conversation. We ate for 1.5 hours if that is any indication. Then Cecelia and I had to leave to head back to Skopje. She drove while I took a cat nap, since I still had three hours to go once I got back to Skopje. That border was an uneventful as well. We were worried a little bit since Cecelia is going through the same process as Erin did in the beginning of me being here. But no worries we were back!

Stay tuned for the next part of the adventure!

Road Trip Day One!

We all got up bright and early on Friday the 13^th for our long road trip through 5 countries. I have to admit. I was SUPER SUPER nervous for this trip. Jen and I had it planned for about a month, and invited Lizzie/Justin/Aryn and others who couldn’t make it along with us. And then they changed the plans. I get car sick ever since I was 15 if I don’t start out driving. So we were going to rent an automatic, but a few people refused to do so and said if I wanted an automatic and the ability to drive I needed to pay the difference by myself. All 130 euros of difference. Needless to say I was not happy to be starting this trip. I felt like people were telling me that my health/comfort didn’t matter and they didn’t care if I was sick for two of the 5 days of our trip. And there were other things involved, but to keep things nameless, I will leave those concerns out.  I almost backed out a few different times. Every time I thought about it, I got nervous and a little sick to my stomach. However, with medication and Justin’s driving skills I only got nauseous 3 times.

We started almost exactly at our target time of 6AM in our tiny Kia Rio towards our first border crossing of the day. We pull up at the Macedonian side and the guy waves us through. We slow down and look at the next group of guys and they don’t move or even look at us. We basically stopped and they did nothing, so we start going forward and Then They Care. So Justin backs us up and we pass through customs on the MK border. Then we drive through no man’s land to the Kosovo border. Where he accidently misses one window (because there were two) and has to back up again! They let us through after laughing a bit and asking us what we were doing in Kosovo.

The mountains were beautiful. Breathtaking. Even though it was cloudy.

We stopped once for a bathroom break and then got lost in Prizern. Apparently signs aren’t as necessary in Kosovo as they are in the US. And a straight arrow actually means turn left. So after about 30 minutes of driving, I check on our GPS (aka my US HTC Evo that allows GPS to still work w/o a data connection), and see that we seriously missed the highway.

bridge we wouldn't have gotten to see if we didn't get lost!

I was worried about that, but we trusted the sign (not the last time of this problem on this trip, spoilers!) and got a bit lost. Eventually we found the correct way and made it to the border. The Kosovo border police literally just waved us through. I have no idea if Kosovo computers still show me in Kosovo or not. But we actually stopped at this crossing and they (from inside the office) waved us through, and there was only one office so we didn’t miss it. The Albanian side actually had a bit of a bottle neck- many cars waiting to get through. So about 20 minutes later we make it through and our on our way!

Shkoder Lake

We get to pass through a 5.3 KM tunnel, and as we are coming out, we get flagged by the police. In this part of the world, the police stand on the side of the road and flag people over rather than follow them with lights and sirens on. So we pull over. (I’m going to tell you as it happens rather than how I found out, which was after we left the cop.) He walks over to us and tries talking to us in Albanian but only Aryn speaks it and she is in the back seat behind the passenger side. So she starts speaking to him in Albanian (he speaks a slightly different dialect and the car is beeping so she can’t hear him all that well). But he tells us that it is illegal to pass a truck coming out of a tunnel (which we were inadvertently doing) and asks for Justin’s passport (I had to look through about 5 of them to find his! All of ours were just in the glove box for easy border crossings.). Then he looks in the car and through the passport a bit and asks Aryn what Justin’s name. And she blanks and has to ask Jen what it is! Then she calls him over to her side of the car so she can hear better. The conversation goes something like:

Cop: Are you the only one that speaks AL in the car?

Aryn: Yes

Cop: Can anyone else understand?

Aryn: No

Cop: Are you being trafficked?

Aryn: What? No!!!

Cop: So you are really American? All of you?

Aryn: yes

Cop: Then what are you doing on this road? American’s don’t take this road!

We were all glad that he was concerned, but it was HIRLARIOUS in hindsight! He let us go, and we then had a good laugh when Aryn said “He thought we were being trafficked!” We continued on the road until we got to Shkoder we ate lunch. We ordered salad, and the waiter had to go get the veggies from the market! I had pilaf with yogurt and salad. After walking a bit, we got back in the car and were off. This is where the day got interesting. Up until this point the word “highway” meant the same thing in every language. Not so from this point on. Highway in Albanian can apparently mean ½ finished highway with gravel connecting the parts that aren’t finished. And to stop you from going over the bridges that aren’t finished there is rocks placed across them. It made for some interesting roads and stories! Like this video! (The video is not as scary as it was!)

We then made it through both the Albanian and Montenegro borders with no incident. (or any funny stories.) But the “highway” in Montenegro was a one car lane road up a steep hill. We stopped because Justin’s nerves were on edge by some goats, and this car come careening around the corner at breakneck speed!

it was raining and I didn't have my umbrealla out, but I had just straightened my hair and didn't want it to get ruined by the rain!

We had thought that this was a one way street and were a bit freaked out. So he drove extra careful until we got to a real road. (which was a bit far away, by the way…we had a fun time following the “highway signs”) We drove through a few towns and some mountains with no eventful happenings. Then we stopped for coffee. (That sounded more eventful than it was. We just stopped for coffee at a lake. Had coffee. Got some pictures of the lake. Left.) Then we drove through some breathtaking scenery. Like wow. Gorges and lakes and rivers. That you can apparently raft. There were a lot of guard rails, and some of them (like literally every single one) had been hit in some way. We figured that most of them were from snow plows since they were the first part of the rail.

these were taken byholding the camera out of the car window and snapping as fast as it would let me!

When we made it to the itty bitty border crossing in Montenegro and handed over our passports. Then the guy proceeded to talk on his phone, talk to whomever stopped by, joke with the other workers, and generally just try to show off his border crossing power. About 20 minutes later (we were the only car on this side, so no blaming it like the Albanians with actual people there) we cross through no man’s land over a rickety one car bridge and in Bosnia (and the Repulika Srpbska)!

said bridge and view. Juston drove slow so I could quickly snap this picture before we got to the other side

It was odd that the EU was supporting a border creation/joint post. But the Montenegrins were in a fancy building, and the Bosnians were in a shack. But off we went on our last border crossing. If you are counting that was 8 (if you count them as leaving MK (1) entering Kosovo (2) etc…)! This road was a bit scary. We knew what the mountains looked like off the side, but this time there were no guardrails and it got dark, and there were no lights, and there was mist. But we didn’t really see any cars, so we were lucky.

Then there were signs. Gloriously big signs with big arrows! And we were on our way to the capital! When we got within the city limits, suddenly the radio started working. Literally, we crossed the sign and suddenly there was radio. And we got pulled over by the cops again. This time one he realized we didn’t really speak a lot of Bosnian, and we had US passports he waved us on. We also told him we were tourists. It was a tad difficult to find the hostel. We drove around in a circle and then parked while I went to find the hostel. I guessed a few streets based on how we had drove around and where we thought the hostel was. And you know what? I literally came out at exactly the right place, like next to the hostel! No joke! Ran inside and checked us in, then the guy was showing me where the parking was, and I asked him how to get back here and he said he would show us. So I walked him back to the car and dropped him off with the crew then walked back to hostel. It was nice to be out of the car and walking around.

Aryn, Justin and I were actually hungry (did you notice the complete lack of food throughout the day?) so we went to find dinner. Note that it was 12 AM at the time. There was a place open and we got pizza! We ordered a veggie pizza and it came with tomato, corn and peas. And wine. Then back to the hostel to discover that there was no hot water. Well not for me and not any day was there hot water, ever. Not even lukewarm water. But other than that it was ok. But I do not recommend this hostel. It's called Hostel Tito by the way.

Saying of the day that will only be funny if you were there: “It’s not about you Cassidy, it’s about David.” These will get no explanations. None at all!

See you around the globe!

So Where Don't I go? (OR) travel plans!

I decided to wait to book my travel until I could book the round trip ticket, so that I wouldn't have to pay for a change fee later on. Which meant I had to wait until July 12th to book the ticket. So agonizingly waiting and checking the price for tickets for 10 days- don't recommend it. But it did help me realize that I was getting a good deal when I finally did book the flight!

However, it is one of those itineraries where you look at it and go- there has to be something cheaper for the airline than where they are sending me. See, I leave the closest airport to my house on Aug 28th at 7:30AM CST and then I go to Washington, DC, where I have a 7 hour layover. Then I fly to Munich, Germany and arrive the next day. I then get 1 hour and 30 minutes to go through customs and board my next plane to Sofia, Bulgaria around 12pm local time (or 4am CST). Which isn't that bad of a trip, with only one international connection- I didn't think Bulgaria would have enough demand to have direct US service, so not too surprising.

However, on the way home I get to visit Austria and Switzerland before heading back to the us! And I get to navigate customs in Austria with only 1 hour and 15 minutes. And I can't even fib that language! I am fully expecting to miss my plane in Vienna. Can I hope for a long enough lay-over to get to leave the airport? lol.

Confused? Maybe a picture would help:

no? me either!

But I have also booked my hostel in both Sofia and Skopje for 7 nights.

Why am I going to Sofia, you ask? Well, I figured I would be over there anyway and it is cheaper to travel once you are on that side of the pond, so might as well. And Bulgarian is supposed to be similar to Macedonian. SO I thought I would give it a try. What's in Sofia (or Bulgaria for that matter) you ask?

I have no clue.                               But it sounded fun! :)

No really, I just got some guide books at the local library to look up what to do in Bulgaria. It looks like I can make several day trips from Sofia to other parts of Bulgaria and then come back to one hostel with all of my stuff.

I will then take a 5 hour bus ride to Macedonia where I will check in at another hostel for 7 days as I arrange for more permanent rooms (read- apartment). I will also endeavor to find a Macedonian language class.

See you around the globe!