Pristina: a surprisingly lovely city

So who would have thought that Kosovo would be such an enjoyable place. I'm not sure what I was expecting or what I had imagined after all the books and articles I had read, but regardless, I was pleasantly surprised. We drove into Kosovo on a bus which allowed me the chance to see some of the beautiful country. Heading through the mountains reminded me of home. I will say that right before this part of the trip I had a horrible realization: I forgot my headphones in the states. Now you wouldn't think this would be such a horrible horrible thing until you're on a bus for three+ hours with all of the most annoying boys sitting behind you. Now, not to say they aren't great guys, but seriously having to listen to their conversations for that long was awful. Especially when I didn't sleep the night before, had a killer headache and just wanted them to shut up. So needless to say I was thrilled when we got to the monastery we were staying for the night.

This monastery was beautiful. So high up in the mountains, surrounded my beautiful trees and ancient architecture. It really was a sight. I was also pleasantly surprised with the accommodations. It was very much a comfortable hostel, clean beds, a balcony, some crappy food and wifi that didn't work. But really, who needs wifi in the middle of the mountains? No surprise there. Anyways we were only there for a night and it was a pretty awesome place to stop in my opinion. 

We woke up early the next morning to drive to North Mitrovica, which is the divided city in the North of Kosovo. Here we got to meet with a lawyer and analyst as well as the mayor who dropped in on our lunch. Interesting lunch of fries and sausage in this small restaurant that apparently the mafia hangs out in...? I don't know. We kept getting told to not speak because we would be identified as American... Un duh.. There was no way to hide that fact and I thought it was silly to all the sudden act silent inside this restaurant where people clearly knew we were American. Now I get not bringing attention to ourselves while walking around but in the restaurant... I just kept thinking if this is a sketchy place why are we here in the first place? Anyways, small rant over. The conversation was interesting enough before we got back on the bus and headed to Pristina.

A quick summary of Pristina is to simply say I loved the city. It wasn't anything special but the people were so nice, excited that we were American in contrast to where we just were, and just overall a quaint, small/managable, kind city. The food was good, everything was cheap and a lot of people spoke English which was nice. I enjoyed almost all the meetings we had here which included some MPs , the Swiss ambassador, a journalist, a mayor, and a couple more political figures. We were there days before their elections so many of our meetings were brief and we were lucky people made time for us. 

Once everyone else left, kelli and I had one more night at Hotel Afa on our own. It was glorious. We woke up when we wanted, napped in the middle of the day, ate lunch at the hotel and just chilled out. After the ten days we had just had, I can tell you it was a much needed day of rest. Our flight didn't leave until around eight pm the next day so we stayed in our room until checkout at noon. Then we worked on our final papers, ate at the hotel one last time, and then took a cab professor Grigorev had arranged for us to the airport. 

Of course we were so nervous about the airport we got there wayyy too early. And of course since we were flying eastjet there weren't even people at the counter for a good 45 minutes while we waited. They always make it seem so crucial to be ontime and then they wait until the last minute to open the counter. Dumb. Anyways, we got there with plenty of time, went through security with no problem and no line, and off we were to Geneva!