11/6/22
I arrived in Kosovo in the small hours and someone had stayed up at my hostel to let me in. My taxi driver had asked why I was in Kosovo and when I asked him if he liked it, he said he did not because the people were bad. He then clarified that the people without money were bad! A strange ewelcome into a country but hey!! I hit the sack immediately when I arrived. In the morning, I chilled a bit before heading to a cafe for breakfast along side a longggg and much overdue catch up call with my parents! We stayed on the phone two and a half hours since it’d been quite a while since we had last spoken! I tried to pay my way in the cafe but even after buying breakfast, two coffees and cake, I had somehow still only spent €7! Madness!
Afterwards, I went for a mooch about the town, down the main pedestrianised street named Mother Teresa Boulevard. I wandered down the road which had streams of bunting in the form of line of Kosovan and (bizarrely) Albanian flags! The street seemed very European with all the cafes flooding the street and I walked down the full street, stopping in a lovely bookshop, with bookshelves floor to ceiling with the propped ladder before reaching a square at the end with a fancy hotel with ‘brutalist’ architecture. I had a mooch in a secondhand shop, which was huiiige and mainly sold used Nikes and handbags.
Afterwards, I walked to a nearby church, which was apparently the cathedral and then up a hill, past a road called Bill Clinton Boulevard (why?!), past a music venue like St David’s Hall, where kids were all coming out of, having finished piano recitals in cute outfits. They stopped to pose while their parents took photos of them with the banners advertising the day and I walked up towards the university. The chemistry block had a great mural on the side!! I bought snacks and a drink from the shop and then sat in a park on campus and read my book. Then I walked back to the hostel to chill.
Amanda arrived late, around 9pm. It was lovely to see her again, although strange for it to be in a place where we could talk and dress freely! Who knew we had legs and hair?! We chatted and chilled before going to bed.
12/6/22
Today we went back to my cafe from the day before for another Kosovan breakfast – it looked a bit liked Israeli shashuka except instead of tomato with eggs, it was eggs with cheese and peppers. It was yummy! Then we headed back to the main boulevard to do a walking tour. There were many different nationalities attending the tour: US, UK, Australians that Amanda had met on a previous tour, three separate Brazilians, a Croatian with a Taiwanese and German.
The guide began the tour with a little history before saying that most of Kosovo’s beautiful old buildings were destroyed by Kosovans just so they could build new ones – how bizarre! He also explained a bit about the civil war and how most Kosovans thought of themselves as Albanian but that it was too complicated to join Albania as a country because it would upset the Serb/Montenegro minorities that lived there. Therefore, while most people would say they were Albanian, they were also Kosovan. We walked through the new and the old town, past a few mosques, one of which was 600 years old, through a market and to see an old traditional house that looked and smelt like St. Fagans!
After the tour, we headed for lunch on the main boulevard – I ate mushroom risotto and we watched the world go by. We got the local bus to a park and meandered along and people watched before going to the hostel for a bit. There was an awesome pool which sadly wasn’t on
We headed back out for drinks and then a late night dinner at the same place as lunch. This time I got pasta! (Nice to be able to get Italian food when you have only been eating Georgian food for a whole month!). We sat at a table under a tree and nearly got hit by a falling pinecone! The waiter apologised profusely and asked if we wanted to move. Later when we has gotten a little to much into people watching causing us to stand up to nose, he came over again and asked if he could do anything for us!
13/6/22
We left the hostel early to reach the bus station in time to get the first bus to Shkoder, Albania. Our taxi driver was very sweet – he helped carry our bags, was friendly and wished us safe travels before he left!
wanderingwelshie travels 