Prizren, Kosovo

So I was pretty nervous about Prizren after Pristina. It wasn't that I disliked Kosovo, it just didn't seem to be ready for 'tourists' (I hate that word) just yet. Prizren was very different from Pristina. Imagine something like a turkish quarter or two to three story buildings with many alleys and narrow streets with markets and meat vendors dotting the storefront along with open markets at central locations. That was what the whole city was like. Quite a difference from the city we came from of skyscrapers, large streets, and a university. Upon arriving in the bus station and not finding any hint or tell of hostels or even hotels in the area, I reached a breaking point in my shyness and began asking anybody for information because I didn't want to wander what appeared from the bus to be an even more confusing town. Hostel? Hotel? That's how it went and finally one guy in a travel agency spoke English well and advised us to try the Hotel T*****. He said it was about 20€ a night which was better than nothing and as I said before, it seems Kosovo wasn't ready for travelers yet so they might not have hostels at all. We headed for city center and every 500 meters or so I would ask a person for the hotel and we would receive additional directions...that weren't working. Jeff noticed a lot of people delivering tea, just like we would see mailmen or pizza delivery people on foot. Having come from a background like that, he suggested we snag the next delivery guy we see and sure enough, the directions from him were impecable. Kudos to Jeff the Idea Man.

We see the hotel sign and walk hesitantly up the steps and into a room that has tellers sitting at stalls with a few people talking to them and a man in a suit at the door. "This is a hotel," I say haltingly as we look around and the man at the door says, "no, this is a bank." Seriously, the dialogue and rhythm of speech was right out of a movie. We chuckled, apologized and the man told us it was the next door over. To be fair, the hotel sign was directly above the room we were in but also over the bank sign. We get to the hotel, speak with the gentleman, who we believe in retrospect spoke better German than English, nail down a price and get 3 beds for one night, later to be two nights. It was raining now outside so we took a late siesta and hoped the rain would stop. It didn't really but we went out later anyway and found ourselves at a little café run by a very nice gentleman. We settled on machiatto's with Bailey's regardless of price because we were tired and wanted some alcohol and caffeine at the same time. Friends, right now, a large coffee with alcohol is 1€ I kid you not. We got another one and then headed to a pizza place for dinner which had an amazing calzone and the Kosovak beer for 1€ (I mean the beer was 1€). Thus ended the first day in Kosovo (don't forget Pristina). This day was also my birthday and I turned 27 while drinking and eating in Kosovo. Cheers!

The second day, it was snowing. I prefer snow actually over rain only because it is easier to deal with. Your shoes stay perhaps drier than stepping in puddles and you can dust yourself off when it accumlates too much on your jacket. As such, we braved the weather and climbed the hill to the fortress ruins above Prizren. It was a nice hike and quite peaceful in the snow. There weren't a lot of people about and the visibility was not too hampered by the snow. Afterwards, local lunch and a dessert followed by more coffee. Since traveling always involves a budget, I was pleased with how cheap things were. We wanted to try some brandy but they said they only had whiskey. Whiskey all around then while watching dubbed Discovery channel! We splurged and ate out again at the pizza place and had the same waiter. After eating, paying and tipping him, he came back less than a minute (seriously that fast) to ask if we would like anything on the house, espresso...whatever. A little confused at first, we politely replied that we could go for an espresso. So again we were blessed by the generosity of the people here. We shook hands with him on the way out and thanked him heartily.

Saturday morning comes around and there is now ice on the ground. Our hotel host advises that it is better to take a taxi to the bus station for our 0845 bus to Skopje. It was only 2€ but the problem was the taxi driver didn't seem to know what a bus station was. I guess I thought that was a universal phrase like coffee (kafé, kaffee) or beer (bier, bire). We tried "bus, skopje" and another taxi driver tried interpreting and eventually they figured out where we wanted to be going. A little later and we're on a comfortably warm bus, heading out of Kosovo and into Macedonia. Pictures to follow.