After the Rain

It rained and rained and rained this morning. It stopped and cleared nicely around 2:30 so I went out for a walk. This is what I saw:

Plastic bottle trash in the river

Newly arrived KFOR troops from the Czech Republic on a sight-seeing expedition up at the castle (it was quite nice to see them armed with cameras and not guns)

There's a monastery on the little hill with the Sharr Mountains in the background (the monastery is currently occupied by KFOR)

A nice lizard, the first one I've seen here

Two jars of honey I did not buy...I bought a jar more amber in color (I was quite happy to see jars of honey for sale...usually this apairy is closed off by barbed wire and there's no one around. My landlord said that this man makes the best honey...for 7 euros a jar, it had better be good!)

The apiary which produced the honey

Practising #2

Practising Making Slideshows

After futzing around with this widget, I've come to realize that in order to progress through the photos, you have to click on the large photo. I thought it would be easier than it seems to be to upload slideshows from my Flickr account. Hmmm....I need to investigate more fully. However, this slide show is of signs around Prizren.

Being Cautious

The threat of rain lifted and I took the camera out for a walk. I wasn't sure where to go at first, so I was a bit aimless. Elections are coming up soon, sometime in mid-November, and a lot of posters are being put up everywhere. The only problem with that is no one takes these posters down and quite often they are just left as trash, as in the second pic.




I ambled a bit more and saw some flowers...




And then I came across this bronze head...(I'm not sure who it is)

And I saw some signs...

And some trash...

Then I realized where my legs were taking me. They were taking me to this destroyed building that I often pass when I'm out running.








I explored it a bit. When the weather is nicer, the structure is crawling with children. I then continued the path I was walking on, stopping briefly to notice all the rubbish on the ground here:




And then I just kept walking. I chose a path following the river I hadn't been on before. I passed this home, but didn't see any people. There were a few other things on my way I snapped photos of...






It was at this point in my walk I came to two cars that were waiting to pass through some kind of check point. In the middle of this dirt road I was on there was a man in fatigues with a rather large gun. Behind him was a line of KFOR military vehicles. I took a few more steps and eyed the vehicles up ahead. I couldn't see much because the road curved into the hillside. I looked back down towards where I had walked up and just stood still for a moment. Another car was coming up the road and I decided to head back down. I hadn't gone 100 yards when two military vehicles passed me. One of the jeeps turned around and stopped just in front of me. Two German soldiers got out.

"Hi."
"Hi," I replied.
"Come here, please."

I approached the men and tried to look relaxed and friendly.

The two soldiers looked at each other and the one on the right said, "He can speak English. He will talk to you."

I glanced at the man on the left. He took a deep breath and started with, "Why are you here?"

"I'm walking. And I'm taking pictures." I twisted around so they could see my camera bag.

Silence.

"Do you want to see my camera?" I asked.

"Yes."

So I showed them all 61 photographs I had taken during my walk.

"Did you walk from Prizren?" the man on the left inquired.

"I did. It's very close," I replied as I put my camera back in its case.

"Okay. Ciao."

And that was that. I'm glad I didn't have photographs of any of the military vehicles. Perhaps they would only have made me delete them, but I'm glad nonetheless.

My Inside Morning

It's raining. I really, really, really hope it stops. I'd like to do some exploring today. While I do have a rain coat, rain pants, and umbrella....it'd be so much nicer to roam around without worrying about getting the camera wet (although if it's really raining, that won't be such a worry because the camera will be tucked away on its shelf). Although I prefer taking photos outside over taking them inside, I'm posting a few I snapped this morning aorund my living room in a fit of boredom.

Exacty how does Kirsten spend rainy Saturday mornings in Kosovo?


She listens to NPR through her TV. I'm soooo glad I figured out that I have this service. German MTV still gets a little bit of time, but I like having radio on that I don't have to watch.

Often I have my curtains open during the day, but Iusually keep the sheers drawn. Even with the sheers, you can see pretty easily into my second floor.

The wet view from my living room window. Even at 8am, there are usually people out walking. But I don't see anyone today. Aren't all those power lines ugly? There are cables everywhere you look up.

It's too cold and too wet to be putting my laundry out on my balcony to dry (even though the balcony is well covered). I have my rack set up in my living room. It takes up quite a bit of space, but I can work around that.

My heater knob. Even when the power is out, the heater itself holds heat. I may not be able to get the fan to blow, but I figure that if it gets really cold and the power cuts out, I can just sit with my heater and a blanket to keep warm.

I have a tea table in my living room. I don't have enough room in the kitchen to keep the six or seven types of tea I like, so they stay in the living room. Plus, near my tea table, there is an outlet for my kettle. The kitchen is severly lacking in plug-ins. There is one outlet for the mini fridge and one outlet that the water heater is plugged into. There is another outlet on the wall opposite the stove, but the plug-in part of it comes out of the wall quite easily (trailing wires) so I don't like to use it.

Next to my tea table is my water stash. I use tap water for dish washing and cooking, but when it comes to drinking the stuff, I just buy bottled. I go through a lot of plastic bottles and I haven't yet figured out how I can cut back on bottle trash without reducing my water consumption. There's been some concern about nasties in the water like lead, which I don't think a filter can get rid of (this is moot anyways because I didn't bring my filter).

I brush my teeth in the kitchen. The sink in the bathroom is in the shower stall. As a result, I find it far easier to brush and floss at the kitchen sink.

Palmolive dish soap does the same job in Kosovo that it does in the US. This particular item is imported from Turkey.

My coffee set up doesn't take up as much room as all of my tea does, so it gets to hang out on top of my mini fridge.

My bookshelf contains mostly teaching-related books. However, on a whim, I bought "This I Believe" in the San Francisco airport on my way out. I'm glad I did because I may use it as the base of a writing project for my students.


This is the view from my couch. You can see the heater, my hanging laundry, my pantry cart, and the kitchen.


I hope it stops raining.

Burek: A Balkan Croissant, Only Better

I haven't eaten out very much since I've been here. This is partly because I like to cook, partly because I don't much relish eating in a smoke-filled restaurant, and partly because eating out has always been a social activity for me. However, yesterday I wanted burek (I like to think of it as a croissant-type of pastry filled with meat or cheese or spinach). After my class of high school students I turned to one of my colleagues and said, "Where is the best burek shop in Prizren?"

He started to describe to me where it was (assuming I meant a restaurant and not his wife's kitchen). I asked him if it was close by and he said that it was. "Well, then," I retorted, "Take me there." And he did. I bought each kind on offer: meat for him, spinach for me, and cheese for another coworker. They came wrapped up in brown paper and he bought liquid yogurt for us to drink with our burek. Sigh...flaky layers and spinachy goodness in the middle. Quite delicious. Do check the Wikipedia article on burek for the pictures if you're interested. The style we ate was like the Bosnian style, but it wasn't all rolled up like a cinnamon roll. We had long, thin logs of the stuff. Mmm-mmm.

Today I walked down to the green market for another pumpkin to bake, which I did. I also just made another batch of applesauce. This time I'm going to take a bit over to my landlord's house. My landlady dropped off a plate of beans with a small hunk of meat in it for my lunch earlier. That also was very tasty. I'm trying out a new low-fat buttermilk biscuit recipe to have with dinner (probably spaghetti sauce I took out of the freezer poured over polenta and baked). I'm trying to empty out my fridge and freezer so I can stuff a new batch of goodies inside.

Hopefully the power won't cut out until at least after 7pm. If it does, though, at least I'll have buttermilk biscuits and pumpkin to nosh on.

When the Lights Went Out in Prizren

Power outtages today: None.

Power outtages yesterday: Four. There was one sometime in the wee hours until 6am; another from 8am until sometime later (I left for work); yet another started sometime earlier and lasted until 4pm (maybe it was just that the power was still off after flicking out at 8am); and finally from 6-10pm (luckily I had leftovers that required no heating).

Power outtages tomorrow: Probable.

I need to find a hobby that I can do by candle light.

No Lights

Around 5:15pm, the power cut out, it was getting dark, what did I do? For a while I read, then I did some sudoku, then I felt like a cup of tea. So I went upstairs to my balcony, replaced the fuel canister on my portable gas stove, and heated up a bit of water (on my balcony because I get better air circulation than in my mini-kitchen and the last thing I need is carbon monoxide poisoning). Then I looked at the fading light and the mosque and the generator-powered lights of a shop across the small square and I thought to myself Hmmm....maybe I should grab my camera. I went back downstairs and went back upstairs and took a few photos:

And now that I've put the photos up, I see that they really aren't that exciting. That rather reflects my evening although the power, after being out for two hours, is back on and I'm hoping that it'll stay on for the rest of the evening. It went out three times yesterday and was out additionally at some point during the night (I woke up to darkness and no green light from my clock radio).

Those Crazy Japanese

Who knew that disguising oneself as a vending machine was a crime deterrent? Why didn't I think of this? Ken sent me this article from the New York Times:

Fearing Crime, Japanese Wear the Hiding Place

On the Kosovo side of things, I have yet to run across a vending maching. However, with all the power outtages that's not such a surprise.

Sunday Morning

Once again, I woke up too late to join my walking acquaintances. Waking up at 6:30 am on the weekend is no longer feasible for me. It's too dark and too cold. When I did get up, around 8:30, which is still early by some standards for the weekend, I decided to walk up to the castle to take pictures. As I rounded the corner by my apartment, I looked up at the hill and saw snow! You can barely make out a light dusting....but snow is snow.

On my way up to the castle, I ran into Mr. Tomato Face. He invited me in for coffee, which I declined. He again gave me his phone number and told me he'd love to have me in for dinner. Now, although I appreciate his gesture, I don't feel all that comfortable having dinner with this guy. Maybe if I had someone else I could bring with me, I would. But to go on my own is probably not something I will do at this point.

This is the view from out front of his house. I had to wait a moment while he ran inside to grab a pencil and a piece of paper he could write his phone number on.

The following are shots I took up on the castle grounds. Some are vegetation, some are of the walls, each is of something that caught my eye.

As I was walking back down from the castle heading towards home, I passed a few things to photograph:

This is overlooking the bombed-out Serbian area of Prizren. No one lives here anymore. Most of the Serbians have left and, according to my sources, nobody want to buy this land to rebuild. It's a shame, I think, because the views over Prizren are lovely. Although because it's up on the hill, I have to wonder how difficult it is to walk or drive up & down snow-covered cobblestone streets.

I think I might do a whole series of photos on entryway doors. All of the houses are numbered (that's what the blue and white numbers are for), and all of the streets are named (I think). However, there's confusion over which street names people know: the Serbian names? the Albanian names? Generally, directions are given in relation to landmarks. For example, if I need to take a taxi home, I tell the driver to take me to Photo Star,which is a photo printing shop close to my home, and I walk from there.

This is the only first generation 4Runner I've come across. Well...that's not true. I was up at the US Office in Pristina a while back and I saw a grey one (just like mine) that had a Marine's sticker on the back window and diplomatic plates. That one doesn't really count because it was brought over by one of the American mission staff. Two things I miss: Superdog Skeena and GT, my 4Runner (yes...I name my vehicles: GT= grey truck, even though it's not a truck per se).


In food news: I stayed home yesterday and cooked. I baked a chicken, which I did the usual stuffing with of oranges and onion. I've done this with my chickens quite a few times before and it's just so good I keep on doing it.

I also whipped up a batch of homemade applesauce. This is soooo incredibly easy, although my right hand is a bit sore from using a too-big knife to skin the apples. I cored, peeled, and cut up 7 apples, put them in a pot, added about a cup of unsweetened apple juice, brought the whole thing to a boil, then simmered the apples until I could mash them with a potato masher. Voila. Homemade applesauce is so much tastier than the store bought variety. I wish I had figured this out sooner!

I did go out yesterday, not just to take pictures, but to go to the store. On the way home, I took a cruise through the "green market" looking for squash. The green market is an empty parking lot that's been outfitted with stands for farmers to come in and set up their veggies for sale. Usually available items include peppers, tomatoes, grapes, carrots, onions, garlic, and other root-looking vegetables. It depends on the season. Yesterday I really, really, really wanted a pumpkin. And I found one! 4 kilos for 1,40 Euros. That's, what, 9 pounds of pumpkin for $2.20 or something like that. I roasted it and now I have pumpkin coming out of my ears. If I had room in my notebook-sized freezer, I'd freeze it. I don't have room, so I'm eating it. In fact, I added both pumpkin and applesauce to my oatmeal this morning and sprinkled it with cinnamon....divine.

For the first time ever, I saved and cleaned the pumpkin seeds and roasted them. Those turned out really good, too. I coated the seeds with egg white, pepper, garlic powder, and a bit of salt and cooked them at 375 F for 15 minutes. Very good. I would do this again.

I also made a batch of buttermilk biscuits. I faltered a bit when I realized I had two types of baking soda but no baking powder. I just omitted the baking powder and added a little more baking soda (yeah, yeah...I know...baking soda in no way substitutes for baking powder, although you can substitute baking powder for baking soda...don't know why one works and the other doesn't). Since I can't get buttermilk, I used liquid yogurt instead and the biscuits turned out beautifully.

Now I have my lunches made for the week. Sigh. I wish I had more time to spend cooking.