Turkey on Turkey Day!

Monday, December 05, 2011

So it’s been about 2 weeks since I last blogged. Not much has happened in the meantime, except for last weekend, when a group of 10 of us went to Istanbul, Turkey. It originally started out with Joe always saying how fun it would be to go to “Turkey on Turkey Day,” but then we all thought that that might be a good idea, and it’s a pretty nice city. Plus, we found tickets for less than $200, round trip. So we went for it.

The characters in this story will be me, Joe and his wife Courtney, Ben (no Allison—she went to England to see her sister), Danny and Janelle, their friend Chris, Natalie, Kristen, and Krista (all 3 teachers at ASK). We arrived on Thanksgiving afternoon around 4 pm—it was a direct flight from Prishtina to Istanbul. After getting stuff taken care of at the airport, we finally got to our hostel around 6:30 pm. The hostel was a typical hostel. We stayed in an 8-person room with bunk beds, while Natalie and Kristen staying in a different room. We didn’t do much this night, since it was getting kind of late. We were staying in a really good location in the city—just a few minute walk from the big mosques and REALLY close to the light-rail that they have.

Now, I know I talk about mosques a lot, mainly because they’re such a new and different thing for me. I think I’m safe in saying that most Americans have not been in a mosque, or let alone have even seen one. They are all over Kosova, even though no one really is Muslim. However, 99% of Turkey is considered Muslim. Granted, this is not the type of Muslim that you typically think of. Not many women were covered. There are bars all over the place (alcohol is a no-no if you’re Muslim). Istanbul is quite the “international” city though. There were McDonalds, Burger Kings, Pizza Huts, Kohls, Starbucks, etc. everywhere! It felt nice to be around these stores again. Granted, I didn’t eat at any of them, but it was still neat to see them. I’m going to try not to eat at a McDonalds until I come back home next summer. Just a personal goal I made—just to see if I can do it. Obviously it’s not healthy, but maybe when I come home I won’t want to eat McDonalds anymore. We’ll see…

Anyway, back to Turkey. Istanbul is pretty much located between 3 continents—Africa, Europe, and Asia. It’s almost the midway point from Western Europe to India, so historically this has been an important trade center. Plus, it’s located right on the water, the Bosphorus Straight, which is between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea. Anyway, it was the first time in a long time I felt like I was in a real international city. There were many ethnicities of people there, and the stores/restaurants were very diverse too.

So anyway, our first night we just walked around by the mosques, did some shopping, exchanged some money (the Turkish Lira is roughly 2:1 to the US dollar), and went out to eat. The next day we got up and most people wanted to go shopping, since we were in a “real” city finally, which meant they would have real shopping centers and you can buy a variety of items. So that day (Friday) we went to a mall or 2, a few other small stores, then on our way back we stopped by the Grand Bazaar. Let me tell you a little bit about this bazaar…

First off, a bazaar is a shopping area. I’ve been to a few of them so far, but none this big. Pretty sure I read that this one is the largest in the world. There are over 30,000 people that work here, in over 4,000 different stores/shops. It used to be just a bunch of streets and stores, but they since have covered the streets so it was all indoors. There are an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 people that visit this bazaar—everyday! None of you can complain about lines and crowds on Black Friday—I was at a place with possibly ½ million people at it! : - )

I really liked this place. I didn’t buy much—most of it was just touristy souvenirs, but I did buy a Turkish soccer jersey, something I’ve been trying to do for every country I visit. After this, we walked back to the hostel, went out to eat, and pretty much just chilled out for the rest of the night. The next day we got up early and decided to hit up the mosques. The first one, called the Blue Mosque, was built about 500 years ago. It’s really pretty from the outside, but the inside… meh, not that exciting. That’s probably why it was free to visit.  These mosques, and some of you will see from my facebook pictures, make the mosques in Kosova seem like nothing. These are some of the biggest mosques in the world.

The next mosque we went to was called the Hagia Sophia (pronounced “ay-ah so-fee-ah”). This was was very dull looking from the outside, but of course, since the Turks like to pretend it’s opposite day every day, the inside was beautiful! Hagia Sophia originally was built as a Christian church, sometime in the 300s. For over 1000 years it was like this, until about 500 years ago, when it was converted into a mosque. They had to add the minarets, or tall pointy towers you see on all mosques, which is the reason why it’s not so pleasing on the eyes from the outside. The inside was very colorful and had signs of both Islam and Christianity. In the 1920s, it was turned into a museum, so that’s what it’s still like today.

After this, we decided to go check out the big spice market they have in Istanbul. Right away, we saw tons of animals being sold—dogs, cats, birds, leeches, etc. It was kind of strange, but I guess that’s the kind of stuff you expect to see at a spice market. Some of the other people bought some spices and stuff, but I just mainly walked around. It was late afternoon now, so we decided we were going to go to Asia for the rest of the evening. “Asia,” you’re thinking? Yes, Asia. Turkey is one of the few countries that claims to be part of 2 continents—Europe and Asia. The small part where most of the city of Istanbul is located, and that’s located in Europe, while most of the country is located in Asia.

So we took a $1 ferry ride across the straight. That only took like 10 minutes. We really had no plans for Asia—basically we went just to say we’ve been to Asia. I was looking for my brother, Matt, since he lives in Asia, but I never found him. We were looking really hard too. We walked around a bit, grabbed a beer, then we decided we were going to walk back to Europe across the big bridge that connected to 2 continents. Well, after riding around aimlessly on 2 free buses (we didn’t have bus passes so the guy just let us on for free), we found out that you couldn’t walk across it. So we went back to the ferry and headed back to Europe. By this time it was dark, so we just headed back to the hostel for the rest of the evening.

The next day, Sunday, was our last full day in the city. We got up early again, and visited this huge palace, called Topkapi Palace. It’s palace where all the Ottoman Sultans, or kings, used to live, until 1923 when the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist and it became Turkey. I think they had Sultans for like 500 years or something like that. Anyway, there were a lot of really cool artifacts here—crowns, thrones, rings, jewelry, clothes, etc. But you couldn’t take any pictures, so that made me mad. Also, they had a religious relics room. Quick history lesson: Muhammad was the founder/prophet of the religion of Islam. He was around in the late 500s/early 600s. In other words, he was like the “Jesus” of Islam. Anyway, they had things that belonged to him at this museum—his cane, clothes, swords/knives, beard hair, and even his tooth.

Now, call me skeptical, but I have a hard time believing that people saved Muhammad’s beard hair, let alone his tooth. The story of the tooth is that his mouth and cheek were injured in a battle, and that’s how his tooth broke off. Not sure why someone would have had the foresight  to save this thing. But even so, you couldn’t actually see the tooth—it was in a small container. They also had things there like the sword of David (from David vs. Goliath) and the walking cane of Moses (which by the way was over 3,200 years old and looked like it was in perfect condition). Both of these guys are apparently important to the Islamic religion, which is why their stuff was there. I don’t doubt that all these people existed—I just have a hard time believing that these things are still around. I think the museum is not being completely honest here, just to make a few extra bucks… but that’s just my opinion (along with many of the other teachers we were with).

After the Topkapi Palace, we went across town to Taksim Square. Apparently this is where the night life in Istanbul is. Well, we were there on a Sunday afternoon, so we weren’t planning on it being too lively. However, it was NUTS! They had this one walking street completely decked out in winter decorations, something that reminded me of the US. We walked around a bunch here, did some shopping, grabbed some food and drinks. There was a tower here too, called Galata Tower. No one else wanted to go to the top of it for 5 euro, so I did. There were some really awesome views of the city, especially since it was night. I think that it was totally worth it.

We then began walking back towards the light rail to go back to the hostel. I was getting hungry, so we stopped at a restaurant underneath a bridge. We negotiated beer prices (like we did everywhere) and I ordered my food. Well, the food never came. After like 30 minutes, we asked the waiter. He said I didn’t order it. Whatever. There was obviously a miscommunication, so we asked for our bill. Now, we went to a few other places in Istanbul that offered us nuts to eat while having beers, and we were not charged anywhere for them. This place was the same—they offered us nuts and we ate them. However, when we got our bill back, it was like $6 higher than we expected. We asked why and the waiter said it was for the nuts. We all INSTANTLY just EXPLODED in fury at this guy. We had a feeling he was going to do that. It was partially our fault, since we didn’t ask how much they were. I could feel myself getting more angry as the argument continued. Fortunately, Ben took over and saved me a lot of yelling. He was very calm, yet very strict. He first asked to see where the nuts were listed on the menu. Of course, the waiter said they weren’t, which was the first suspicious thing. Second, Ben demanded to talk to his boss. At first he wouldn’t respond to this, but then eventually he said that he was the manager and he didn’t have a boss. At this point, we just gave up. The waiter tried to tell us that he was giving us a good deal—that normally these tiny bowls of nuts are $5 each. Baloney! So we stopped arguing and paid the bill—just the drinks that we ordered. We started to walk away, and sure enough the waiter started yelling at us, that we didn’t pay enough. Ben told us all just to walk ahead of him and get away. So we did. I didn’t see it, but apparently the guy tried to grab and hold Ben by the hand, but Ben shook him off and just kept walking. Eventually we got to the other side of the bridge, partially nervous that a mob of Turkish waiters were going to attack us, but partially excited because we just “stuck it to the man.” We think that maybe this guy was trying to make some extra money on his own, hence the reason why the nuts were not on the menu and hence the reason why he didn’t want to get his manager involved. The nuts were probably free, but once again, we were in a touristy town, and I read a lot of stories while in Istanbul about the locals trying to rip off foreigners.

We ended up settling for some fresh fish sandwiches, right off the boat—literally, we walked up to the dock where a boat had a grill on it and bought them. They were excellent. The rest of this night we just went back to the hostel and chilled again. Then next day, Monday, we got up, hopped on a shuttle, and got to the airport. Our flight was delayed like an hour, but I didn’t mind. We ended up getting back into Prishtina around 3 pm rather than 2 pm, but this was a national holiday, Albanian Flag Day, so we didn’t have school. I didn’t get a chance to go walk around the city, but apparently everyone dresses up in red and black (the Albanian flag’s colors) and walks around. I did see a fair amount of flags flying however, on our ride back from the airport.

So that’s the Istanbul trip. It was pretty awesome. Got to see a lot of really old, neat, historical things. Plus, our group was really fun to travel with. Sometimes traveling with 10 people sucks, but we had a good balance of people that didn’t seem to mind what we did, so we were never arguing about where to go or what to see. Last weekend we had a Christmas party at Natalie’s house. We played the most ghetto-version of Twister every, but it was pretty fun regardless. We just cut out circles from construction paper. But of course, we didn’t have the 4 normal colors—we had to settle on pink, white, orange, and red. We spun a bottle for which body part to move and drew from a bowl on which color to put it on. I got 2^nd cuz Natalie cheated, but it was still fun. The party ended around 2 am, so I came home and watched the Big Ten Championship between Wisconsin and Michigan State. I ended up staying up until almost 7 am, but Wisconsin won, so it was totally worth it. Yesterday I just went to school, did some work. Today I woke up and (as Winnie the Pooh would say) “There was a rumbly in my tumbly.” I tried to see how long I could go, but I decided to leave during first period. I made my sub plans pretty simple. I must’ve ate something bad yesterday. I slept pretty much all day, and haven’t eaten anything, which is where I am at right now. 7:16 pm on Monday night. I’m going to go make some food since I’m getting a little big hungry. This weekend we’re having a white elephant gift party at Joe and Courtney’s. Other than that, I’ve gotta start planning my Germany/France trip with Andrea and Blake. Andrea and I have been doing most of the planning, so we should be good to go in a week and a half when I meet them in Germany. Getting really excited for that. Anyway, talk to you all later, and if I don’t talk to any of you before Christmas, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Albania

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

One and a half weeks ago, we had a 3-day weekend for a Muslim holiday (basically it was their Thanksgiving). So 10 of us decided to take a trip to Albania. We rented 2 cars and drove the 4 hour trek on Saturday morning, and came back on Monday evening. Here are the details of that trip.

Like I said, we left on Saturday morning, the 10 of us. There was Joe and Courtney, Ben and Allison, and me of course. But we had a few new people. Danny and Janelle came with us. Not sure how we met them; Ben met them somewhere. Anyway, they’re both from Ohio I believe, and Danny is over here working for some law project. He just passed the BAR recently, so he’s really excited about that. Janelle just got a job at ASK, my school, as a teaching assistant. Anyway, they’re both in their mid-20s. Both really fun and nice people. Fellanza, our school’s ESL teacher came along as well. David, a middle-aged middle school Social Studies teacher came. Then Joe and Courtney had a friend who was in the area, Chris, so he came too.

We arrived in Tirana, the capital city, in the afternoon, around 3 or 4 pm. It’s been getting dark early, now that we just set our clocks back an hour. So we didn’t have much time to see the city. So we walked to this gondola/cable car thing that takes you up the mountain. It was only like $5, and it was an amazing view of the city. So we did that, and when we got to the top we ate dinner. There was a revolving bar on top of the hotel up there, but it wasn’t open. Yeah, Saturday night’s are pretty slow nights—better not open the revolving bar… jeez.

Anyway, that night we took it easy, walked around the city, went to the square in the middle of downtown (pictures will be up on facebook, hopefully later tonight, if the power ever turns back on…). Then we went to this really awesome bar/dance club at the top of a hotel or something like that. It was circular, and had a revolving/moveable dance floor. It didn’t move much, but still, it was pretty neat. They only played Albanian stuff—the old stuff, that none of us except Fellanza knew, so that was kinda a bummer. But we got out and danced a little bit.

The next day we walked around the city some more, and then headed for Durres, a city on the coast. It’s on the Adriatic Sea, and when we got there the water was pretty cold, but being from the Midwest, most of us weren’t going to turn down this opportunity. Since I had my Frisbee along, we just threw that thing around in the water. It was a blast! All the locals were looking at us funny, and one guy was even taking pictures of us. The air temp was like low 70s, which was nice enough for me to wear shorts that day, but the water temp was probably way colder than is comfortable. Either way, it was really fun.

We hung out along the beach the rest of the day and eveing. We saw a beautiful sunset too! So colorful! The pictures will be on facebook for that as well. That night we ate dinner there in Durres, then headed back to Tirana. It was only like a 30 minute drive, so it wasn’t far at all. It was Joe’s birthday on that Monday, and since Tuesday was a school day again, we decided to party it up on Sunday night. So we bought a bunch of beer. Allison and his wife Courtney made him a cake from his favorite snack cakes, called Pop-Keks. Someone even brought party blowers and hats! Since our hostel didn’t have anyone else staying at it, we owned that place this night! Someone got the wild idea to start playing some Flip Cup. If you don’t know what Flip Cup is, ask someone to explain it. To put it simply, you fill up a cup with some beer in it, when it’s your turn you chug it, then you have to flip your cup over. So you let a little bit of it hang over the edge of the table, and flip it with your finger. If the cup lands perfectly upside down, you move on to the next person. Sounds really simple and primitive, but I like it for 2 reasons: it gets you really drunk really fast, and also because it can get VERY competitive! I LOVE trash talking and chanting and yelling at the other team. It’s pretty much encouraged. Anyway, we found ourselves later on that night in a boys vs. girls situation. Most of us had played before, but Danny, Janelle, David, and Fellanza hadn’t. But they all did really really well! Well, except the time Danny got skunked. And we definitely let him know he got skunked, by starting a “Danny got skunked” chant on our own teammate. Someone even started a “Yohnk, Yohnk, Yohnk-a-delphia” chant (obviously one of the people that watches “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” If you don’t know it, you gotta watch that show). That kind of became our official chant for the rest of the night. Everytime we won we’d start yelling something obnoxious and crazy. In all honesty, I think the girls won more games than us, but we definitely would’ve won the “Team Spirit” award. Later on, the hostel turned into a dance party, of course (what kind of party would it be without one?). Then the night wrapped up around 2 am, since we all had to get up and leave the next day. This night was probably the best night I’ve had since I’ve moved to Kosova.

The next day we got up, went to a mall (some people wanted to buy some things that you can’t buy in Prishtina), then we decided to go to this city up along the mountains with some museum in it. The museum was for this man named Skanderbeg or Skanderbeau or something like that. If you don’t know much about him, let me give the quick story. He was an Albanian that successfully defended Europe from the Ottoman Empire. If not for him and his armies, the Turks would have easily moved on to Italy and would’ve been fighting the Roman Empire for control of Europe. Who knows… without Skanderwhateverhisnameis, Europe’s main religion might be Islam. Anyway, the museum for him was closed, but either way, this small city was really neat to walk around and check out. We left around 4 or 5 pm, much later than I wanted to. We were still about 4 hours from home, AND it was a school night. But we ended up making it back around 9 pm, just enough time to unpack and fall asleep.

So there you have it. That was my Albania trip. There were many differences between these 2 countries. First of all, the roads. Once we crossed the border, the roads were AWESOME. 2 lanes wide, up-to-date guard rails. We even rode through a 6-km long tunnel. I can’t believe that Albania is the 2^nd poorest country in Europe (obviously Kosova being the poorest). There is a WORLD of difference between these 2 countries. I really like Albania, and I’d like to go back again sometime, hopefully when it’s greener and nicer.

Speaking of nicer… the weather here has been COLD! Today, November 15, was the day where they finally turned on the city-wide heat. I have an electric heater in my apartment, but our school has been SOOOOO cold lately! Most students and teachers wear their winter jackets while teaching and learning (another joke at our school…). I’m pretty cold-blooded, so I usually don’t, but somedays I have to. Today when I woke up it was 25’ F, which is one of the coldest days we’ve had so far. Usually it’s in the 30’s, sometimes upper 20s, but I think they finally realized it’s damn cold out, and people need their heat. Some other teacher’s apartments only have the city-provided heat, so they have been freezing their butts of so far. The days are pretty chilly—usually in the 40’s. Sometimes in the 50s, sometimes in the 30s. Either way, this place is going to be pretty similar to Wisconsin, which kinda sucks, but at the same time, I haven’t really experienced a full winter in over 2 years. I don’t wanna get too “soft” so it’s probably for the better, right? : - )

Anyway, that’s about all I have for now. This weekend we’re having a Thanksgiving feast at our school, for all teachers and their families. Then for Thanksgiving, a bunch of us (mainly the same people that went to Albania) are going to Istanbul, Turkey! Nothing like going to Turkey for Turkey-day… ahahahahaha!

Oh, and my friends Andrea and Blake, from my Guatemala school, have decided to come to Europe over Christmas Break! So we’re planning out our trip right now. Pretty sure it’s going to be a German-heavy trip, but we’re also planning on going to Paris (for New Years) and hopefully Prague, Czech Republic, and Vienna, Austria (if time). I’ll keep you guys posted on that though. We have off from December 17^th until January 4^th, so that should be plenty of time to see a lot of cool stuff. Well, it’s been one hour and no power on yet. Hopefully it turns on in the next 30 minutes so I can eat. Otherwise I might just go to a restaurant with a generator. Oh well… talk to you all soon!

Mitrovica

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Before I say anything, Mom, just be clear that even though the place I went to today is considered one of the most dangerous place in Kosova, it’s not NEARLY as dangerous as walking down the street on an average day in Guatemala City. So don’t freak out when I say all this stuff. Some of it may not be all that true, but I’ll just tell you all what I know about it.

This week, one of the 10^th grade students, Muhammad, invited a bunch of us teachers up to visit him in this city in the North near Serbia called Mitrovica. Muhammad lives there with his family and travels about 45 minutes every day to come to school. Now, US citizens are warned not to go there, but heck, they’re warned not to go anywhere it seems nowadays. So we weren’t too worried (more about this in a minute...).

We arrived in town by bus (only 1.30 euros) and met Muhammad and had a coffee. He showed us around town for a bit. Took us to some shops, showed us some statues, and then brought us to the bridge. Everyone in Kosova knows about “the bridge” in Mitrovica. Let me give you a short history lesson here on Mitrovica:

Since it’s close to Serbia, there are many Serbs in this region. Somehow, over time, and I don’t know how, the Serbs have all moved to the north side of the river, and the Albanians/Kosovars moved to the south. We, obviously, were on the south side. Now, a few years ago, you used to be able to cross from one side to the other just by showing your passport. Not sure if Kosovars could cross, mainly because I don’t think they would want to. Anyway, since earlier this summer there were some conflicts near Serbia, they have added more soldiers to the bridge to guard it. On the north side of the bridge there is a 10-15 foot high barrier of rock and dirt, created to stop anyone from crossing. I believe it was the Serbs that built it to stop the Kosovars from “invading,” but I could be wrong.

Back to my story… so Muhammad had talked to his dad about visiting the bridge, and he made it sound like his dad said it was safe and we could go out on it. Still, we were a little nervous. Muhammad had told me that if he were to go across the bridge, he would have been shot by someone on the other side. Now, I don’t know if that’s just a biased, Kosovar belief, or if it’s true, but I wasn’t going to risk anything. We approached the bridge and could see tons of Serbian flags flying in the background—they obviously wanted to show their “best face” to the Albanian side, the side we were on. At first we were very cautious and didn’t really know how far to go. We walked up to the first set of guards—these guys were from Italy. Well, Ben, being the worldly guy he is, wanted to practice his Italian, so he talked to the guards. They said that it was a quiet day, nothing bad happening. Not sure if the guy told Ben this or not, but Ben came back and said we could go forward on the bridge more, but he told us to speak English quietly, since we’re not on the best of terms with Serbia, since we bombed them and saved the Kosovars ‘n all back in 1999.

We got closer to the next set of guards and spoke to them for a minute. They were very nice and one even posed for a picture with us. Muhammad and I posed for a picture, and then Muhammad asked if we could go back. He didn’t say this, but Ben and I think he was a little bit nervous being out on the bridge. I don’t blame him. No point of endangering himself just to go stand on a bridge.  So we walked back to where the girls were standing (they didn’t want to go out on the bridge I guess). It was a unique feeling being out on that bridge—I can’t really describe it. Part of me was nervous, part of me was excited, part of me felt bad that this bridge even had to be like this. That one group of people can hate the other ones so much. And I’m not just talking about the Serbs—the Albanians do NOT like the Serbs either. The animosity is shared, no doubt. I’ve read a story that a Serb was killed while on the south side (the Albanian side) many years ago, just for speaking Serbian. Obviously there was probably more to it than that, but either way, it’s too bad that such a beautiful place has to be a war zone with such high tensions. I don’t think this area will ever change—these people have such a strong passion and desire for their own kind. I don’t know where/how it started, but I don’t anticipate Serbia and Kosova coming to any sort of peace agreement anytime soon. But who knows… I can be kind of pessimistic sometimes… :-)

I’d like to go back to Mitrovica someday, maybe in the spring, when it’s more green and nicer out. Or maybe if they were to ever open up the other side, I’d like to go check out some things on the Serbian side. I heard that their side of the city is in much nicer shape, but who knows. There also is a huge castle up on a nearby hill, but that’s on the Serb side, so I can’t go there. The rest of the day we walked around a little more, Muhammad and his dad (who later met up with us) took us to this really nice restaurant. Muhammad’s dad paid for it all, which was so nice of him. I guess that’s the Albanian thing to do. Muhammad earlier in the day bought our coffees/drinks at a café, and he told us “this is how we do it here---you are my guests, you came to visit me at my home, so I will take care of you and pay for you.” In the US we definitely have some people like that, but I don’t think most people would do that in the US. We went to a small mall, did some shopping, then were going to go to the bus station to get a ride home, but Muhammad’s dad decided he’d drive us all back to Prishtina. Once again, what a great family! The drive back took about 45 minutes. And that’s where my story ends. Probably one of the more exciting days I’ve had here in Kosova, mainly because of the “fear” factor that went into it, but like I said right away, I was probably much safer on this bridge than I was told. There’s no way these guards would’ve let us go out there if it wasn’t safe. We even saw a few people go from one side to the other, so I was kind of confused as to whether we can cross it or not.

I think next weekend we’re planning on renting a car or 2 for like 30 or 40 euro/day, and driving to Tirana, the capital of Albania. We have a 3-day weekend because of some Muslim holiday, so we’re going to find somewhere fun to go. I’ll probably update you all on that trip after it takes place. Until then, go Pack go, and hopefully Bucky can pull out the win tonight (well, 2 am here in Prishtina) vs. Ohio State. I’ll probably stay up and watch it, just cuz I’ve got nothing else to do tomorrow. Ta ta for now!

October 27, 2011

Alright, well, it’s been over 2 weeks, so I should probably update you on a few things. The biggest thing I did in the last 2 weeks was I went to Macedonia. Here’s the story of that trip…

A group of about 12 of us teachers decided to take a trip to this really beautiful lake, Lake Ohrid, in Macedonia. The lake is very deep—the deepest lake in the Balkan region, and one of the deepest in Europe. It was a very beautiful place, and reminded me a lot of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.

Anyway, we had Monday off for Columbus Day. We really think we had it off for Canadian Thanksgiving, since our principal, Charlie, is Canadian, but either way, we didn’t care. We had a 3-day weekend! So we left Saturday morning around 7 am. It was about a 4-5 hour drive, which wasn’t too bad really. We took 2 vehicles—there were about 8 of us in the van, and then 4 in a car. Some of the notables in the group were Scott, Joe, Courtney, Mark, Fellanza, Charlie, and about 4 or 5 others that most of you don’t know cuz I’ve never mentioned them.

We arrived in the early afternoon, but it was raining. It pretty much rained all day that Saturday. It kind of sucked actually. Plus it was cold. Like, 40’s for temperatures. Ugh. Anyway, we made the most of our time there. The first day we went around the city, did some shopping, grabbed a coffee (like always—getting a coffee is a VERY popular thing to do here. I do it sometimes, but usually only on vacation), and visited a few museums. The first museum was a paper museum. Yes, it may sound boring, but I thought it was really neat seeing how old paper was made. First, they grind up wood into teeny tiny little pieces. Then, they mix it in water. They take a rectangular screen and collect the tree/water mix from a tub, then place it onto a drying rack. Initially, the “piece of paper” just looks like a really thin piece of some sort of slimy yellow snotty mix, but after it dries for 21 days, it’s a pretty solid piece of paper. Much thicker than today’s paper, but nonetheless, it’s amazing to think that someone ever thought of this idea on how to make paper. They also had an original printing press there, from like the 1700s or something, which I found really interested.

The next museum was full of old Roman and Greek artifacts. There were stones, knives, coins, trinkets, and many other types of artifacts. Some of these things were from B.C. times! Wowza! Growing up in the US, you don’t usually see something over 500 years old, let alone 2000 years old. My favorite part of this museum, though, was when the tour was over, another teacher, David, and I hung around and talked to our local tour guide for awhile. First, we were asking him history questions, about the Balkan region. All I have to say is WOW. I never realized how complicated a region’s history can be. Everyone claims that every part of this region used to be theirs. It’s madness. And a lot of them still hold a grudge today over this—examples: Serbia/Kosova, Macedonia/Greece, Macedonia/Kosova and Albania. Then he started telling David and me about his personal feelings on all the local issues. I won’t go too in-depth on them, but basically it opened my eyes and made me realize that all the stuff I hear from local Albanians about the rest of the region is definitely their opinion, because this guy made it sound like a lot of people don’t really care for some of the Kosovars and Albanians… I like to hear both sides of the story, and there’s really no way of ever hearing someone’s opinion unless you talk with them one-on-one, so I was really glad I talked to this guy for awhile. He was very polite and respectful to us—I have a feeling he wouldn’t have been as open or nice if an Albanian would’ve been along with us…

Anyway, we all went out for dinner together that night, then had a few beers at a few bars, and then called it a night. I think it was about midnight when we went to bed. The next day we got up and decided to travel about an hour down the lakeside to the Monastary of St. Naum. St. Naum was an Orthodox Saint and built the monastery himself in the year 905. Yes, that’s right—905, not 1905. Like I said, it’s so cool here cuz everything is so old! Anyway, Sunday wasn’t very rainy, but it was WINDY! And being on the edge of lake, when it’s cold and windy out, it’s not a very fun experience. We tried to make our visit here quick. The scenery was cool, but you had to pay to go into the church, and I can’t remember what it was, but it was more than I wanted to pay, so I didn’t go. We just walked around for a little while, had a coffee, then left.

That evening, once we got back, Joe, Courtney and I decided to hike up this huge hill in the middle of town where there is a castle. As we walked up, we passed a really old amphitheater. Once we got to the top, the sun FINALLY peaked out from the clouds, which was the perfect time to see it. The castle was really cool! It had towers and long walkways, going from tower to tower. Not sure how old it was, but I’m sure it was like 1,000 years or so, since everything is that old over here. After we got done exploring the castle, we went for pizza, Joe, Courtney, and I, then met back up with everyone else. The Brewer game was on this Sunday night, and since Joe had his computer with him and our hotel had Wi-Fi, we just sat the rest of the night and watched the game in Joe and Courtney’s room. The game was played in Milwaukee, so we won of course. Looking back, I think it was game 1 of the Cardinal’s series… we won’t talk anymore about that series.

The next day (Monday) we got up, got some breakfast, and I went and bought a Macedonian soccer jersey, since that’s kind of my thing to do when I visit new countries. Then we left around noon, and started heading back to Prishtina. It was a really nice trip overall, even though the weather was kinda crappy. I will definitely go back to Ohrid again, hopefully in the summer when it’s warm and you can actually swim in the lake.

Since that weekend, nothing too crazy has been going on. We decided for Thanksgiving break we’re going to go to Turkey (how fitting, eh?). We’ll be going there for 4 nights, 5 days, a group of about 10 of us. Should be a blast, although I don’t think it’ll be very warm, and I recently read that Istanbul gets more rain per year than London, and November is the 2^nd rainiest month in Istanbul, so yeah, we’ll see how that goes. Last week we went to trivia—we only got 4^th though… grrrr! But we got the most right in the music round, so we got free shots… yay!

The weather's been getting a little chillier lately--nights are in the 20's and 30's, and some of the days have only been in the low 50's or upper 40's. However, this week the weather was nicer--only 40's at night and 60's during the day. So I wear a jacket in the morning, but when I go outside later in the day, I really don't need it. I don't think this weather is going to last for much longer though--it'll start getting very cold. And apparently some people said there were little flakes of snow falling last Sunday morning. I didn't see it, but it was cold enough where they could've been there...

Last weekend I didn’t do too much. Friday night I felt sick, so I just stayed home and relaxed. Saturday night we went to a fundraiser event, drank some beer, then at 2 am I went to my friend Drew’s house to watch the Badger game. I didn’t get home until 6 am on Sunday morning, since the game went really late. That’s all I’m going to say about the game. I’m still heartbroken over it…

But at least the Packer’s are doing awesome! My Badgers and Brewer’s have been faltering or are done, but the Pack is kicking butt! I’ve been watching almost every game this year so far. I think the only one I missed was the first one, vs. the Saints, but that was at like 3 am on a Friday  morning so that wasn’t an easy one to watch. This week they have a bye, so no biggie. This weekend (tomorrow night, Friday) we have a party at our principal’s house. Saturday night I heard the US Embassy is having a costume party, so I might have to go out on the town and find something creative to whip up. Anyway, that’s all I have for now. Oh, about school—once again, I love my students, but the rest of the school has been quite unorganized, and there are a lot of teachers, including myself, that are getting quite frustrating with some things, including our class load. We signed a contract for 5 out of 7 periods to teach, then we get here and they’re making us teach 6 out of 7. 45 minutes a day for planning is pretty short—I find myself staying at school most nights from 2:30 (when school is done) until 5 or 6 pm. It sucks. But anyway, I hope it will only get easier. Oh, and I finally got my x-box live account working, so now I can play x-box with my cousin Andy back in WI. Granted, the time difference is difficult to deal with, and it’s a little laggy sometimes, but we still have fun, and it’s nice to talk to him for a few hours here and there. Ok, seriously, that’s all for now!

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

Ok, let me pick up where I left off last time. If I would’ve just caught you all back up to the last 3-4 weeks in one post, it would’ve been too much for you all to read. So here’s my life story for the past 2 weeks:

Saturday, September 24^th, we took a trip to Pejë (pronounced Pay-ah). It’s one of the bigger cities in Kosova, towards the west, right on the edge of the mountains. We went through this city once already, but didn’t stop. It’s famous for making the national beer, also with the same name, Pejë.

This trip was for free, which was cool, AND it was on a train, which was even cooler! Ben found it online somewhere, so we all signed up for it. I think it was some sort of way of expanding tourism in Kosova. Either way, we couldn’t turn down a free train ride. The train was only 2 cars long, but it was still fun. It took us about 2 hours to get there. Ben and Allison decided we should drink mimosas on the ride over, so that was fun. I only had 2, so I didn’t get drunk at all. We also had a kick-ass acordian player on the ride over. Apparently he was hired by the company to play and entertain people for the train rides. I didn’t know any of the songs, but it was still fun to watch him play.

We got there to Pejë, and we mainly just walked around for awhile. We went into another mosque, which was cool again to see, but it wasn’t nearly as nice as the one in Prizren. We then visited a bathhouse, or hamman and it’s called locally. Once again, just like the one in Prizren, it was neat, but not THAT exciting. Once you’ve seen one hamman, I think you’ve seen them all. Sure, they’re all old and neat to be in, but I’m just not that into them.

So then we went for lunch at a restaurant right on the river. Lunches here take over an hour, and it’s definitely not like the US. We met a few other people that were on our tour—a couple from England, and a judge from Minnesota. They had various jobs over here—mainly working for the government or some big business. Anyway, after lunch we visited an old Serbian Eastern Orthodox church. Uh oh…. Wait a minute—is that right? Did I really say “Serbian?” I thought you said the Serbs HATE Kosovars and vice-versa. Well, yes, that’s mainly true. I’ll tell you why that church is here, but first, a quick history lesson:

Hundreds of years ago, Kosova and Albania were settled by Illyrians. Essentially, that’s what Albanians are—descendants of these people. Anyway, first the Turks took control of this region, and so it was part of the Ottoman Empire. Then Serbia took control of it. Then it was Yugoslavia (basically still Serbia). Now it’s independent. Anyway, while the Turks had control of this region, they made it Islamic. When the Serbs had it, they tried to make it Eastern Orthodox. However, once Yugoslavia fell, the wars in the 90s took place, and most of the Serbian churches were destroyed by the Kosovars. So any that are left are either left in ruins, or are heavily guarded. This one was heavily guarded. Check facebook for my pictures, but you can see there are KFOR guards surrounding it, with big, bad, assault rifles.

This particular church was in very good shape still. It’s considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which is something only certain places can get. I’m not really sure what that means, but I know it has something to do with that it is a site rich in culture and history. Anyway, this church normally doesn’t allow Kosovars or Albanians in. At least, that’s what a few of the local teachers told me. I read that you have to bring your passport to get in, so we all did. Fellanza was the only local in our small group that went—it was me, Julie, Ben, Allison, Natalie, and Fellanza. Ben made the point that if one of our friends isn’t allowed in, then he’s not going in. And I agreed. As much as I wanted to see this church, if they’re going to still discriminate by race, that’s just not cool. So I was prepared not to go in. But when our tour bus went in, they didn’t check anything. Normally, like I said, they check everyone that goes in, probably to make sure they don’t have bombs or guns or anything of that sort, but apparently because we had a legitimate, organized tour, with guides, and translators, we didn’t have to get checked. So that was cool.

We got in, and saw the inside of the church. It’s similar to a Catholic Church, except the art at these churches seem so… different. I don’t know, I can’t describe the word. Almost scary. They looked very old, and there wasn’t a lot of color. Anyway, if you’re really interested, look up Eastern Orthodox Art on google images and see what I’m talking about.

Our tour guide there was an old lady of Serbian descent. She could speak English, Serbian, and Albanian. Now, we had translators with us that could translate Albanian into English, so it made a lot of sense just for the lady to speak Albanian, while the 8 or 9 of us English speakers would listen to the translator, and the other 20 or so people could just listen in their native language. Well, once again, because of this feud between Serbia and Kosova, the lady refused to give the tour in Albanian. She said she would only talk English or Serbian. So the lady spoke in like the worst English I’ve ever heard, while our translator translated into Albanian for almost the entire group.

At first I got yelled at for taking pictures, but then everyone else started doing it, so I snapped a few of my own. It was very dark, musty, and damp inside. I can’t remember how old the church was. I wanna say it was like 800 or 1000 years old. A lot of times these buildings are old, but only because they used to keep rebuilding the foundations. If a building was destroyed, they’d use whatever was left on the ground and rebuild, so technically, the building is still the same, hence it’s very old.

The tour was going ok, but then one of our tour members started questioning our tour guide about God’s message according to the Eastern Orthodox Church. You could tell already tensions were high. Our translator even warned the guy that asked the question, and told him just to shut up. The lady got very defensive and started arguing with this man. It was pretty stupid actually. Yes, I love talking religion and asking questions, but as an Albanian, that was welcomed into a church that you’re normally not welcomed into, you should probably shut up and just behave. Don’t start a religious debate, cuz we all know how those debates end up—going nowhere.

Anyway, that pissed a few people off, including Ben and Allison, so they just left and went outside. Fellanza had left from the start, since she’s totally anti-Serbian, and doesn’t want anything to do with them at all, ever. Then a very honest question was asked by an Albanian woman that spoke English. She asked why some of the paintings on the wall were not completed. It appeared as if they had been damaged. The tour guide lady became VERY defensive, and all she would say is “I’m not here to talk about the violence and bad things, I only want to talk about peace and happiness.” Yes, I get it, we don’t want to cause another Serbia vs. Kosova debate. But I felt this was an honest question. I was curious myself. The reaction by our tour guide pretty much told me the answer—at some point this church was bombed or attacked, most likely by Albanians, and that is what caused the damage. At this point, I decided I had enough of this. I could hardly understand this woman as it was, so I just went outside and took more pictures.

Eventually, the tour of the church ended, so we all go on the bus and left. We then went to a neat overlook spot along the road in the nearby mountains. Then we headed back to the train, and left to go back home to Prishtina. The ride back was fun. Ben and I were enjoying a few beers, while the accordion guy was partying it up in the front train car. Eventually, when we got near the city, our tour guide asked us if we wanted to come join the fun. The music around here is interesting. Sure, there’s the Rihanna, 50 Cent, Eminem, and Beyonce (PS—those are probably the 4 most popular singers/rappers here). But then there’s the local, folk-like music. Some of these songs have been around for 100’s of years, and everyone knows them and all the words. Most of them are pretty catchy, and easy to clap your hands to. So that’s what everyone does—just claps their hands. The entire time. Just claps. Frankly, I don’t get it. It’s fun to clap your hands for a song or two. But EVERY song? It got kind of strange after awhile. I haven’t experienced much of the local dances yet, but I’ve heard they’re kind of “Greek-like.” I’ll let you know what those look like when I see them/learn them…

That Sunday the Packers were playing the Bears at 10:15 pm. Since Sunday afternoon’s no longer consist of non-stop football, I usually go into school and get some work done. This Sunday was no different. I went to school for like 5 hours, got tons of planning and grading done. Then my buddy Drew, from WI, was having a Packer party at his place. So Ben, Allison, and I all went. There were like 15-20 people there, mainly KFOR, UN, or US military, but it felt like being home at a real football party. We had to wait around until 10:15 for the Packer game, and when it came on, most people had left. It was a great game, obviously, since GB won. So I ended up getting home and going to bed around 2 am. Kinda late for a school night, but totally worth it to see the Packers kick the Bear’s ass.

Then that weekend there was this thing called “Beerfest.” We had seen signs around town for it, and were wondering what it was. It said there would be like 17 different beers there, along with live music, and “beer games,” which we all assumed meant beer pong, since there was a picture of beer pong on the poster. Anyway, we went to this thing on Friday night, and it was pretty neat actually. All the local beers were there, along with pretty much every beer from Eastern Europe. Kosova, Albania, Macedonia, Greece, Slovakia, Montenegro, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, and Czech Republic all had beer there—along with WI (they had Miller Genuine Draft there, but that was one of the more expensive beers since it’s an “import.” Speaking of MGD, that’s like the only US beer you can find around here. It’s one of the ones I like, so I’m not going to complain.)

The beer they had there was very cheap—most of it like 50 cents or 1 € (that’s the symbol for the euro—if you want to know how to make it, just hold down the ALT key, type 0128, then let go of the ALT key. Pretty neat, eh?). Then for “happy hour,” from 7 pm to 8 pm, they had free beer. But don’t get too excited—it was only a few of the local beers (including Peja). Ah well. It was still a good ole drunken time with friends.

The next day I went and played ultimate Frisbee—if you want to call it that. First of all, I found someone on facebook, a guy from New Jersey, that wanted to get something going, so I responded, told all my teacher friends, and about 9 of us showed up to Germia Park on Saturday afternoon. The biggest problem was finding a place to play. We finally agreed upon a somewhat flat area that was about 75 yards long. The only problem here is that there is no grass right now, the ground is as hard as a rock, and the ground is very uneven and “lumpy.” I almost turned my ankle about 2 or 3 times because of the ground. Nevertheless, we had a great time. And I just have to add, my team, consisting of Joe, the NJ guy, and Allison, beat the other team of Andy, Zach (2 new USA guys that came along), Ben, Courtney, and Fëllanza. 5 vs 4 and WE won! J We all were pretty “green,” but everyone learned very quickly and it was a pretty competitive game. Well, except Joe kept dropping my 75 yard bombs (is that what you call them in ultimate Frisbee?). No worries-team USA pulled through, once again, like always. The worst part was that, since most of the people there were pretty new at the game, there were a lot of turnovers, meaning a lot of running. It was a great workout though, and we’re planning on playing again soon, before it gets too cold.

Saturday night was the Brewer’s first playoff game, so I went to the Irish pub to watch it with Drew. Of course, we won, so that was pretty awesome. Sunday was another work at school day, then Sunday night the Packer’s played the Broncos, and the Brewers were on again. I was watching both games online, so I didn’t really miss much at all.

And I guess that does it. I’m caught up now with my blogging. Well, not exactly. Just last weekend I went on a trip with a bunch of teachers to Lake Ohrid in Macedonia, about a 4.5 hour drive. I will fill you all in on those details another time. Until then, good night everyone!