Pictures Part 1

Here is the image post that I promised:

These are two images of the flight in, this was over the Irish coast.  The airplane finally smoothed out and then the clouds departed as well.  Ireland is a cool place.

    This is the view from my dorm, I face away from the city into the mountains!  (It's a beautiful set of 5 flights of stairs)                                                                      

As you can see, the city is slightly smoggy.  But hey, it makes for great sunsets.  Smog really knows how to bring out the fiery red of the sun.

While I mainly just explored the grocery store on Saturday, I was able to get out and see a good portion of Pristina today.  It's not a very big city, but man it is seriously uphill both ways (and soon to be in the snow) to see anything and everything.



I ate at my first restaurant/cafe/pizzeria - Ambienti

 I, of course, ordered their Ambienti Sandwich. It was Prosciutto, cheese, and Bosnian sausage all stuff in a homemade pita bread Calzone thingy.  Needless to say, I ate all of it.  It was absolutely phenomenal, and the entire meal with a gassed water (I've learned to like it) was 3.30 Euros.  Not a bad lunch at all.   

 After lunch, I found my way over to Martyr Hill.  It is the graveyard of UCK fighters and Ibrahim Rugova.  (First President of Kosovo, huge Kosovo Albanian politician, pacifist, big big big deal)  This of course created some problems cause the UCK didn't think that Rugova did much by being a pacifist, etc.  Below are the UCK fighters' graves, they are in the lower part of the park while Rugova is in the upper section.

  

 Here is a shot from Martyr Hill, it has a great overlook of the city.  And yes in the background is the power station, coal, not very far from the city, and helping to fight the smog.  That's why when asked about their smoking habits, (everyone does it) they'll reference the power station.

 The downtown area of this city is reallllllly small, but it does tend to sprawl.  It's nice to see all the Spanish-style roofs, rather than the grey Communist-esque buildings that I halfway expected to see.

  It was a nice sight of Old Glory flowing on one of their major roads.  I am still hot on the hunt for the statue of Bill Clinton, but he has remained elusive.  

  

This town is definitely an interesting place.  It being tucked in right by the mountains is really cool and their are some great shots of them in the distance.  It's weird though that there is really absolutely no wild grass, there really is no rain during this time period, but plenty of green trees.  It has a sort of painting-esque effect.  It'll be interesting to contrast these pictures with the ones I take in the rainy season.  People do have grass though, they've meticulously watered it and kept it alive.  So it's cool to walk among the streets of dead, brown grass and vibrant green grass.  People from Kosovo take care of their stuff, they are fighting an endless fight against dust.  Cars/restaurants/shoes are the frontlines of the war on dust.



This interesting statue is where the Communist government decided that the old Turkish bazaar did not fit the bill of a modern Communist city and was hence broken down and this replaced it. The Yugoslavia Brotherhood and Unity Statue.  Ironically enough, it is going to be torn down (well moved but they don't know where) to be replaced by a 3 story parking garage.  Take that Communism, Capitalism kicks you while you are dowwwwwwn.










And last but not least, a cool Cathedral they are building/rebuilding (it's actually really difficult to tell the difference) on the main road.  It's not open, I don't believe.   But I'll look into that sometime in the near future.  It has a cool picture of Mother Teresa on it.  (Nënë Tereza in Albanian, she is after all Albanian)