Pristina, Kosovo

So our first stint in Kosovo was the capital, Pristina and unfortunately seemed to be a continuation of the capital syndrome first observed in Podgorica (e.g. not a lot going on here). There was one thing we wanted to do here since it was just a stop over on the way to Prizren, but during the trip we decided to try and find a hostel for the night. The one thing we knew we had to see here was Bill Clinton Street. Yes, thanks to our former former President's actions with regards to Kosovo, he got a street named after him here and it was a must that we find it. Well let us start with Pristina was a little hard to navigate. And on top of that, for all the pomp and talk about it, there was not a lot of english or german being spoken around here and communication was dicey. There was also no map of the city available at the bus station. So we picked a direction and started walking. This isn't exactly a travel blog so if some traveler is reading this just comment that you'd like more info and we can email.

It was a nice enough day in that it wasn't freezing and there wasn't a strong cold wind. We walked for a spell heading towards what appeared to be Lady Liberty on top of a squat cube shaped building. On the way we passed many US flags. It was quite interesting. Liberty was sitting on top of an international hotel that looked too expensive for our meagre budgets, so we pressed on and found another hotel that looked shoddy on the outside but the inside turned out to be lovely...and expensive. Discussion ensued and it was decided we should find Bill Clinton Street and then proceed to Prizren that day. Recall please we have no map. And we're looking for a street and we hesitate to try and talk with anyone. Errrr. Let's keep walking this way! (Have I mentioned yet that eastern Europe enjoys not putting up street name signs?)

Down the street, some interesting graffiti leads us to the University of Pristina's library...which when I walked inside had an "American Section!" Rae and I stay outside and elect Jeff to go in an try to find a map. He is gone so long that Rae and I begin planning what the rest of the trip would be like without him. Little did we know he would come back in sparkling triumph. Ok, so he wasn't sparkling for real, but he was triumphant at getting a map, information about the possibility of student housing...and the location of Bill Clinton Street! The student housing thing sounded iffy from the beginning so we only gave it a half-assed attempt because we were already in the mindset to get to Prizren that day (which turned out to be good, but that's told later). We looped up and around the block and came down to Bill Clinton Boulevard (yeah, not a street). Jeff really wanted a picture next to it but when we passed the first sign, which was tiny and in the middle of the road, we kept walking past and didn't see another street sign again. We did however find the statue of Clinton which was backed by a ginormous poster of him on his street. Then we saw (finally) another street sign and now have photographic proof there is a street named after him in Kosovo.

We headed back to the bus station via a neighborhood and more of downtown and that's really all I have to say on Pristina. We hopped on a bus in the early afternoon and headed for Prizren and hopefully a place to sleep. I admit that with the first city in Kosovo down and all that I'd heard from Rae about this place, I was thinking that I wasn't going to like it here. Let's get to the next blog to find out why I was mistaken.