We woke up early again, and Justin left around 06:00 to walk around Skopje.  It was raining, so almost all of the photos were with his telephoto lens, with the hood on.  He also tried to find spots under cover to shoot photos from, such as bridges and awnings, especially around the opera house.  He mostly walked along the river, and mostly the south bank.  He went past the football stadium and then circled around, coming back through a park.  In the park he saw two squirrels fighting on a tree, and remembered Joyce had said something about wanting photos of squirrels, so he got some photos and video.  He got back to the hotel a little after 08:00, and we both got ready for our excursion to Kosovo.  We remembered to bring our passports.

In the van, Bill was ecstatic to see the squirrel photo, literally jumping out of his seat.  He asked multiple questions asking how to get to the park tomorrow morning.  When Martin asked if everyone had their passport, Bill said he forgot – not a joke – so Joyce ran upstairs to retrieve it.  Justin told Bill now he couldn’t have the squirrel photo.  While we waited, Martin gave us a heads up about today’s plan.  He said Kosovo is a lot like Albania – the language, religion, etc.  Someone asked about whether Albania would want to incorporate Kosovo, and the answer was not really, as they didn’t and don’t want to get involved.

While Skopje is very close to the Kosovo border, the mountain range that separates Macedonia from Kosovo is very difficult to pass.  The border crossing is one of the only decently passable locations along the mountain range.  We got to the border in about 40 minutes from our hotel.  At the border, we had to clear Macedonia and then stop again at the Kosovo office.  That process took about 30 minutes.  Martin told us that most Kosovans speak Albanian and Serbo-Croat, but younger ones may not speak Serbo-Croat, just Albanian (and English). 

Once firmly on the Kosovo side of the border, we were on a raised highway passing through lush green valleys.  It reminded us a bit of the H3 highway in Hawaii heading out to Kailua, really well done.  Once in Pristina, we met our local guide, Ilir, right by the Statue of Liberty.  He gave us some background on Kosovo and his family’s history.  He told us that during the war in Kosovo, 16,000 ethnic Albanians were killed or disappeared by Serbians, and that more or less everything we were seeing today had been rebuilt.  The Kosovo government has built new highways to everywhere- to Tirana, Skopje, and even Serbia.

Ilir told us that there was a large global diaspora of Albanians.  He said ethnic Albanians are everywhere, including large populations in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.  Unlike the rest of the former Yugoslav republics, Kosovo has a very young population - more than half the country is aged under 25.  Along the same lines, the birth rate is higher than elsewhere in the Balkans.  Kosovo has no trains, just cars.  90% of those are imported from Germany.  Our first stop was in a small neighborhood near the Pristina airport, to meet Ilir’s father.  He told us that his dad gets 95 euros a month for social security, which is not enough to live on, so Ilir lives next door.  The heating in the home is with wood because electricity is expensive.  Ilir told Martin that things are actually more expensive in Kosovo than Czechia.  The majority of the money in Kosovo comes in from the Albanian diaspora around the globe.  Kosovo was a part of “Greater Albania,” which incorporates Albania, Kosovo, and parts of Greece, North Macedonia, and Serbia.  Kosovo uses the Euro as its currency, despite not being a part of the EU (the same was true in Montenegro).  As of January 2024, citizens of Kosovo can travel around Europe without a visa, which was welcome news for many.

When the war with Serbia started, things changed in the neighborhood in short order.  From 1989-1997 things got progressively worse, but when war broke out, it changed for the worse instantaneously.  Ilir was 15 and his brother was 18, and someone came to the house and gave them 10 minutes to decide whether they wanted to live or die – they chose life, and were taken to Albania.  Ilir’s father went to Pristina on the bus to look for his sons, not knowing they’d already been deported.  In Pristina, people in town and arriving in town were being killed by the Serbian Army.  The Serbian bus driver, who had known Ilir’s father, almost certainly saved his life, as he convinced the Serbian Army not to kill him, and instead let him go back to his village.  There was a formerly friendly Serbian neighbor who became head of the red berets, a paramilitary group, and committed atrocities in the neighborhood. 

There was no humanitarian aid that reached the village during the conflict.  Ilir, who spent the conflict in Albania, had no access to any information regarding what was going on at home.  About 50 out of 500 in Ilir’s village died or disappeared.  When things did end, and the Serbs were expelled, Ilir’s Uncle drove he and his brother back home.  It took over a year to repair and rebuild the neighborhood.  Before the war, Kosovo was 15% Serbian; now it is 5%.  Ilir mentioned that even now, it is basically impossible to make friends with ethnic Serbians.  We asked Ilir’s father if he ever thought of moving to somewhere without the dark memories – “I was born here, I will die here.”

As we were hearing all of this, Ilir and his father had prepared cookies and Turkish coffee for us.  Even Justin had some coffee.  After our chat, we got a tour of the garden - fruit trees, peppers, onions, garlic, spinach, and more.  Ilir’s father was very proud of his garden, and posed for a photo with some of his fruit trees.  We left the house around noon, and headed for Gazimestan, a Serbian memorial to the 1389 Battle of Kosovo.  The Serbs were attempting to fight off the Ottomans, and lost, and the Ottomans made it all the way to Vienna before being repelled.  [When the Austrians repelled the Ottomans, they invented croissants as a food to commemorate the event.  FYI.] 

Gazimestan sounded roughly comparable to the Alamo – not really celebrating the defeat, but wanting to remember the event.  On the 600th anniversary, Serbian President Slobodan Milošević gave a speech at Gazimestan that some consider the beginning of the disintegration of Yugoslavia, as Milošević referred to the possibility of “armed battles” in Serbia’s future.  Gazimestan is extremely important to Serbian heritage, but now it resides in Kosovo, which is problematic to say the least.  Martin was surprised we were able to visit the monument, as the last couple of times it wasn’t possible.  Ilir told us that the ethnic Serbs within Kosovo don’t really live amongst the rest of society, but rather in small bubbles.  For example, the Serbian children don’t attend the same schools as the Albanians; the Serbs in Kosovo worry about repercussions from Serbia if they participate in Kosovo institutions. 

We spent about 15 minutes at the tower.  Justin and Peter climbed to the top.  Peter went up first, and scared a pigeon in the stairwell right near the top.  Justin realized there were two chicks there in addition to the mother.  After leaving we drove back towards Pristina and went past the US embassy, which is enormous.  There was lots of traffic entering the city.  We saw statues of Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, and Madeleine Albright.  Martin mentioned he’d actually met Madeleine Albright once, and had a lengthy conversation with her in fluent Czech (she immigrated to the US when she was 11).  It was nice to see someplace where the US was appreciated, and we hoped we’d be able to see something similar in Ukraine and/or Palestine a decade from now.  [But we tend to doubt it.]

We took a short walk through town to eat lunch at Pishat.  We were at the end of the table, sitting by Martin and Ilir.  We had some really good local food, including a meat and cheese plate, bread with spreads including cheese/pepper spread (maybe ajvar?), meat and potatoes (beef, chicken, and cevapi).  The two of us got wine, as did a couple of other people.  When the bill came at the end and we looked at the bill and everyone trying to determine how to pay, we just paid for everyone’s €2.70 wines just to get the eff out of Dodge and save us all 10-15 minutes.

After lunch we walked around downtown for a bit, stopping at the University Library that has contended in “ugly building” competitions.  We don’t quite know how to describe it – a bunch white icosahedrons (well, half icosahedrons) on top of concrete blocks wrapped in hexagonal bars.  Just look at the photos.  As we walked around, Crystal heard an amazing story from Cheryl.  Many years ago Alan won two cars in a local promotion.  He lasted the longest in a rocking chair of many contestants, roughly 2.5 days.  Apparently there were 3 hour shifts in the chair with 15 minute breaks.  But if you dozed off or needed to use the restroom during the 3 hour shifts, you were out.  Alan used his Army training to sleep the entirety of the 15 minutes, and he drank just enough water to avoid getting dehydrated but not enough to need to pee for 3 hours at a time.  After winning the two cars, he immediately sold them back to the dealership, and used the proceeds to pay for their daughter’s education at Columbia.  They still have the rocking chair.  Alan should try out for the Lazy Olympics that are held in Montenegro.

In addition to the ugly building, we also saw an art installation honoring women harmed during war, a Mother Teresa statue, and a Skanderbeg statue.  Quite the opposite of Nikola Tesla, where Croatia and Serbia seem to fight over which country he belongs to, Mother Teresa seems to be happily shared by Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia.  [She was born to Kosovar Albanian parents in North Macedonia.]  We said our goodbyes to Ilir after our walk, and then got in the van to head back to Skopje.  We had horrible traffic trying to get out of Pristina.  We at least could use our phones, as for whatever reason our Spanish cell phone plan had free roaming in Kosovo.  We saw that the Slovak Prime Minister had been shot, so maybe it would’ve been better to leave our phones off.  We made a short stop for gasoline, since it was cheaper in Kosovo than Macedonia.  We crossed the borders around 18:00, and got back to Skopje a little after 18:30.

We didn’t stay at the hotel long, basically just dropping off some stuff and then walking over to Cuban Cocktail Bar, which we’d seen the night before and separately identified in pre-trip research.  We were the only two patrons.  Justin ordered a Mai Tai, and Crystal ordered a Pinky Love (Campari, Aperol, Pink Gin, Lime, Pink Tonic).  The server ignored us, despite being her only table (indeed the only one in the restaurant), so we left.  It was pretty memorably awful.  We went down the street to Owl Mixology Bar, and found that it was directly above the Irish Pub from last night.  Crystal got a purple aviation, and Justin got a SSEN (sugar spice and everything nice) - orange infused gin, honey chili syrup, and lemon juice.  Both were quite good, and although we had to run for a group dinner, we told the owner we’d be back.

We got to the hotel right at 20:00, right at the meeting time for dinner.  Martin told the group that the chef was being a hard-ass, apparently still irked about the mushroom soup from last night, and we’d be getting pork chops despite some people having clamored for chicken.  About half the group was unhappy about this, and Martin said he’d continue trying to make everything work.  We wondered why no one had (seemingly) mentioned they don’t eat pork prior to the trip.  Maybe they had, we really don’t know, and we didn’t want to bring it up and rub anyone the wrong way.

We sat with Peter, Alan, and Cheryl.  We talked about the most romantic things our partner had ever done, the most dangerous thing any of us had done, the most exotic thing any of us had ever eaten, and the Istanbul airport lounge.  We also discussed rap music, and Alan said he wasn’t a fan of it since everyone seemed so angry.  We posited that if Ilir or Samra wrote music when they were 20, it probably wouldn’t be that happy either.  Alan appreciated the sentiment, but we don’t think we converted him either.  Peter asked if anyone’s parents liked their kids' music – everyone said no.  As it turned out, the pork chops were quite good, and we’re not sure why the others didn’t want them, as it seemingly wasn’t for religious reasons.  There were a man and woman singing in the restaurant, and they were so good we wondered if it was pre-recorded.  [Ana Petanovska and Goran Naumovski are their names.]

After dinner we went out with Peter for cocktails.  Right after walking out the front door we saw Martin, and we asked him if he wanted to join us, which he did.  So the 4 of us walked back over to Owl Mixology Bar.  The place had really filled up, and we got the last two seats at the bar, with two people standing.  There was a group of Germans having a very good time at the bar next to us, and we hoped they weren’t driving anywhere.  Both Martin and Peter ordered gin and tonics (although Peter asked for a double after first swig), Crystal got a Purple Aviation, and Justin got a Palomita.  For the second round Peter got another (double) G&T, Martin got a Skopsko (the local beer in Macedonia), Crystal got a Heart Beet (something with Beet and Mango syrup), and Justin got a drink with a name like Passion Fever, which had Rum, Passion Fruit, and Lemon (it was with whisky drink, but he asked to swap out whisky for rum). 

Martin left after round two, but we had one more (Cuba Libre for Justin, Prosecco for Crystal).  Before Martin left, we had a discussion with him about not often going to cocktail bars (usually clients get one at the hotel and go to bed).  We also had a discussion led by Martin and Peter about the most serious health issues/scares they’ve seen on trips (both happened in Azerbaijan, by coincidence).  We discussed the idea of client blacklists for mean/outrageous tourists that shouldn’t be allowed on group trips because they ruin it for everyone else.  Peter mentioned a guy in Iran who would just yell at anyone and everyone and made all of the other guests uncomfortable.  We left just after midnight, and went straight back to the hotel to crash.