Formerly

Day 559

I was up early and Hanka decided to come with me to Skopje, Macedonia. The ride was only about 4 hours long and was really quite scenic. At the border neither of us had any problems. Hanka had been worried because he had less than 6 months left on his passport, but no one noticed.

Hanka’s linguistic skills got us an ok price on a cab to the hostel. I had prebooked, he was hoping that there was space, there was. The hostel was ok, but all the rooms were in the basement and seemed a bit damp.

Skopje is actually quite a nice little place, although very communistic in its architecture. There was an earthquake here in 1963 and some of the buildings had still not been repaired.

We didn’t go into any of the museums and after a few hours of wandering we headed back to the hostel. Hanka had a friend and headed out with him for diner while I stayed at the hostel and played around on the internet. I tried to go to sleep early, but this didn’t last as some jack ass Slovenians came in at midnight, turned on the light and made a lot of noise. I will not miss hostels!

Exploring Kosovo

Day 558
Part of me has begun to wonder why I’m even doing this part of my trip. I’m tired of traveling, this just happens after a while. Before I took this trip and other long term travelers told me about becoming jaded I would reply that that would never happen to me. And maybe it took longer for me that it has for other people. At this point I can very easily say that I’m definitely jaded. Once this trip is over I think it will be some time before I backpack again. However I know I will at some point. My real answer for why I’m still going now is rather terrible, it’s all a number at this point. When I’m done I would have been to 60 countries.

Despite how sick of travel I was it was still rather exciting to be in Kosovo, Europe’s newest country.

Hanka and I decided to spend the day together. After breakfast and some internet time we headed to the History Museum. Apparently most of the collection is being held captive in Belgrade. It wasn’t very large, or even very good. Upstairs the focus was on the war. Nothing was in English and Hanka’s Albanian wasn’t good enough to read the descriptions. All I could understand were pictures and dates. So many of the soldiers had been born in or around 1981. When I was graduating high school and heading off to college they were fighting and dying for their country. One room was full of very gruesome pictures of dead and wounded people, including a father crying over his child’s coffin. We left the museum feeling rather depressed.

There wasn’t much to do besides wander the streets. The art museum was closed. We went by the unfinished Orthodox church built by the Serbians, Kosovo is a Muslim country. The national theater looked like it was covered in eggs, it was very strange. I also picked up some books for an upcoming 24 hour bus ride.

Eventually we ended up back at the internet café .

Pristina is very cheap (and uses the Euro) and we went out for a very nice dinner. This restaurant could have been in any major capital in the world and fit in. The food was amazing, especially because it was so cheap. After a few drinks we headed back to the hostel where we met our new roommate, I don’t remember her name but she was from Seoul.

I called it an early night because I had a bus the next morning.

On The Move, For Real

Day 557

I was up early and after showering and packing up I went downstairs and took full advantage of the free internet. I got a lot of pictures sorted and entries loaded. Eventually I had the receptionist call me a cab and soon I was at the bus station.

I had been assured that the 1 pm bus would be running today. I was lucky to meet German Hanka while boarding. He studied Balkan languages and proved to be really helpful over the next couple of days.

The scenery from the bus was just spectacular. I would have missed it all had I gotten the night bus, but I don’t think I would have complained. At the border I got a Kosovo stamp, which was pretty cool. Some of the towns we stopped in were so poor and in such disrepair that I was reminded of India. Livestock hung out all over the place and partially bombed buildings had been stripped of anything that didn’t support them. Well, I think that some of them were stripped to the point of collapse.

When the bus got to Pristina I was extremely happy that Hanka was there. The station was empty and the level of English was really low. I had been feeling kinda sick on all the mountain roads so when Hanka got some food at the bus station restaurant I just ordered tea. The people working there spoke a bit of German and Hanka’s Albanian helped us order.

We then got in a cab and had them take us to the one hostel in town. We asked for the dormitory and ended up with us being the only two there. The room was split into two, I think part of it was once a balcony that had been enclosed. This gave us both some privacy. The best part was that there was a tv in the room with a lot of channels. After such a long day all I wanted was a beer, but there wasn’t anywhere to go really, so we just picked up some beers and some snacks at a nearby grocery store.

On the way back to the room we passed the computers where a bunch of Poles from Torun were hanging out. Polish happens to be a language that Hanka understands. The group said hello to us and we both responded. When we got back in the room Hanka told me that one of the Poles had said “you can tell she’s American by the way she say’s hello” in a very condescending manner. I had to charge my ipod on the computer and I went down to do that. When the Poles started chatting to me I apologized for offending them with the way in which I said hello. They looked at each other all thinking that I could speak Polish. They stuck to English and had nothing negative to say around me after that.

Even though the day had just been on a bus I was pretty tired. The only thing on tv was Animal Planet so I watched that until I fell asleep.