FIELD TRIP.
Last Saturday, friends from our office gathered and we went for a field-trip to Kosova's busiest towns. I rarely get to see other towns, even though they're at max. 2hours away by car. The towns were decent, some bustling with people on unpaved roads and others that resembled one of the western ghost towns, but with more light and concrete. The part that I really enjoyed was the road from to Prizren, because we went thru another route (for Prevalle) which I can't remember I have ever taken. The scenery was breathtaking, but breathgiving as well, with all of its pure oxygenated air lying around, being picked up by scattered cattle. The other fascinating thing were the three wind-turbines being constructed on top of Golesh hill. I read it a couple of days ago, but when I saw them it was amazing. Of course, a hefty in-van moving debate with some of my friends followed: nuclear vs. wind/other.



This trip made me want to visit such places even more, because there really are nice places to go and see. But those wind-turbines, so nice to see them appear here as well.

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Stolen.
Tonight, someone broke into my uncle's vehicle and stole his laptop, amongst other things. I was depressed all day when I heard the news. All of his lectures, work, and other valuable documents are gone. Hope he can get at least some of them back.

eh.

Recently

Skopje: Here you go, officer.
Saturday is always busy for custom's slackers/officials at the kosovo-fyrom border, but this one was exceptionally long (1.2hours). Once we were in Skopje, we decided to take another road to the city center, and we accidentally missed getting in this huge row of cars waiting on the traffic lights - we simply passed them all, and eluise was the first car in that awful row. Not to be bothered by this, we simply went ahead and only after 10min we found out that we've been chased for 2.5km by the police _ that's what they told us when the orderd us to pull over. "300 euros for illegal passing and not waiting in line, I'll hold your passport and you go pay the fine" - the cop said. I must admit that I was scared and felt that the day was ruined. Being desperate, I reverted what I've heard people do: invite the nice police officers for coffee (one of them told me in macedonian: "Put the it in the passport, go to your car, come back, and hand us the passport" - by it, he meant "money"). I complied, and felt weird at the same time, but felt relieved and hungry after that. It tought me a lesson or two.

The city was wonderful, and we walked around the city center. 02:39am, and still the crazy mix of michael jackson was super-loud from the cafe a couple of flats below our room, but it was fine i guess.



On sunday we saw members of the Kosovo Philharmonic Orchestra, and was sure that they were here to practice, but I asked Visar - a good friend of ours - why did they to Skopje. "We do not have specific insturments or players for those, so we come here isntead of asking them to come back to us" - was his reply. Fair enough. Just driving around Skopje, we found ourselves in the City Park, walked around, saw lots of people, old people and baby people.

Summer's come early.
Bardhi came for an unexpectedly-good surprise visit. If Joe comes as well, it will be an unexpectedly-good surprise visit too.

dam festival prishtina. 4

Last night was horrible. I thought he was dead.
Waiting in my car to make a left turn, I saw these two cars just past me at incredible speed.I've never thought that the human body would take such incredible shapes, almost animated. Sadly, this was the case when one of the speeding cars hit an old man and then spun to take down a street light. The old woman was screaming and throwing her hands in disbelief. The elderly couple were crossing the street when one of the cars hit the old man. They could have been returning from a simple walk out on the neighborhood, or from some friends. The driver of the car was visibly young, sporting a orange stripped t-shirt, and now was walking around in shock as to what he did in that split-second. Shocked and in disbelief at what happened, I called the police and they seemed to have responded timely. This was on my way to pick Nita and go see a play. I did not know that the play was an actual adaptation of Stephen King's "Misery". Blood, gore, screams, and violent movements made it even worse, and could not stop thinking about the disfigured old man lying on the street, and then being put in a car and driven to the hospital. He's reported to be in critical-condition, along with the driver of the car.

Probably the most shocking moment of my life.

It sure is.

78days. 10 years today.
The skies were our friends. Hope none witness it.
Seems like yesterday. Honest thank you to all boys and girls who flew.

London is wonderful and frightening for me.
*excertps from a 2-day stay (+2day involuntary hotel stay due to missed/delayed flights)

So strange to have thought that good times were happening next door. Yet, so much admiration and fantasies were knitted for such good times that never existed.
*thank you Visare for sharing them.

recent theater visit.

"we would like to move towards a state of being human and authentic, to drop cultural barriers and to encounter each other naked - as humans"
Inspired from the "Männliche und weibliche Kraft in der Gemeinschaft der Generationen" symposium



man(n) wird mensch
Prozess-Theater/Performance von deliaschn (Philipp und Stefan Lirsch)

kebaps/qebaps have teeth and claws

According to the BBC, "Research by the UK's Food Standards Agency in 2006 found that 18.5% of doner takeaways posed a "significant" threat to public health, and 0.8% posed an "imminent" threat."

one of those midnight medieval questions you can't remember

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The original conversation was about names people give to their children but we ended up trying to figure out what were the names of Skanderbeg's siblings! - especially the name of his sister. Yes. None of us could remember them or her and we could not find it on google (Nita eventually did find the name of Skenderbeg's sister).
Milot even called three friends of his to ask them "Who were Skenderbeg's siblings/sister?" - two of them did not answer (possibly asleep), but one did. She told him that "Mamica" was Skanderbeg's sister's name - she even said that she was going to name her child Mamica. It was so funny because she must have thought that we were joking, but we weren't at all. But we laughed.

Here's what we found:
Pal Kastrioti. grandfather / Gjon Kastrioti. father / Gjergj Kastrioti (Skenderbeu). the name that started it all / Vojsava. mother / Mamica. sister / Stanisha. brother (i think)

Here's what I just found to complement the writing at such late hour:

The web-admin of Prishtina's ABC Cinema site speaks a language I do not understand.

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YO. CHECK US OUT. ONE OF MANY FOUND IN THE CITY. AREN'T WE IT OR NOT? IT'S A NICE SURPRISE, BUT A STRANGE ONE.

it could have.

out to Mavrovo until Monday.
wanted to post these, but could not find the time.

Snow fell during the most of today and yesterday and just before the new year settled, with temperatures down to -20degrees Celsius. On New Year's eve, we were riding with minii down town, and surprisingly ran out of gas and had to make an emergency parking maneuver. A fire-cracker, not the standard size but a large one, exploded under the car's chassis. The pipe that links the fuel tank and the engine was torn open, and leaked fuel.

We were lucky enough that the exhaust pipe did not heat too much, because it might have lead to a fire.

last night at ODA theatre. for this year.

After a rough day handing out presents and some last minute late present shopping for our friends, we barely made it to the last show at ODA theater. It was my favorite pianist and saxophonist playing, while Berat painted a picture on a huge canvas and a guy recording him do that on another canvas screen. Liburn, the regular pianist, is also getting better at tweaking the synth output and playing with the tones like crazy (he did a freakish interpretation of the EU's - our adopted - anthem). But the focus was more on the painting, and Berat was good, despite the fact that he looked like he had a clock ticking somewhere - the final piece that he made looked like he was in a super hurry. It was a first for me, so it was good, although it could have (might) been better if he was not in such a rush. All credit to him and the guys that created such a wonderful atmoshere in a rather chilling place (-8degrees celsuis). My Coke did not freeze, but it stayed at the same temperature, which was pleasant to drink.

Starving, we went to this new pizza place - which is all finished in white color, and almost ate our fingers off. Such a nice place. Such a great place, that we will visit soon-soon.

I guess this is the last post for this season of goodness.
Happy New Year people. Warmth all around.

ivan moudov: wine for openings. at Stacion

Tonight we went to an exhibit at "Stacion" Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina, and it was all about wine. It was -286degrees outside, so it was good to take a break from folding presents and checking this exhibit from a young Bulgarian artist, Ivan Moudov: Wine for openings. The guy prepared the wine for this occassion himself, in Bulgaria, and then labeled the bottles and brought it here for us to taste. Thank you Ivan, kind of you. The wine was okay, you could feel the freshness in your mouth, and it did make me feel awfully weird after 2hours. Nita gave the curator of the event a gift, and he gave her a bottle of the artist's wine, which she held it in her hand all the time.

The funniest thing happened when Alban, a friend, came and told Nita to put the wine in her bag, since people started asking if they could take a bottle, like Nita did. Of course, the bottles were part of the exhibition and had to be returned, and were worth a lot of money (so we were told). Anyways, Nita kept the bottle, we drank the rest and went back to her office to join the rest in wrapping the last of the gifts for this year.

I would have to agree with Valon, a friend, that the exhibit was flat and it was not new (his words were more harsh and he did not like it at all), and it would have been nice if he could tell us stories for those bottles. Fisi was even shouting how stupid the whole idea/labeling was, and why it was so super expensive in the first place. I was told that a couple of our friends had and performed such ideas earlier on, much earlier. I felt sad for the wine, since they were served and waited to be gullped in our throats, without anything being said about them. It was not that good wine, but we drank it, a glass of it.

We then ended up talking about the lack of theatre plays in the city and how the majority of the acting scene are snobs that are good at asking the government for money.