Merry Christmas !

This is the last post of the year, I'm flying home on Wednesday (weather permitting).
Thanks for reading the blog it's been really enjoyable doing it - I hope I can continue to find things to post that you enjoy reading. I'm back in Pristina on the 9th of January.
1,300 views and counting !
Have a great Christmas.
Orra best !
G.

Popping out for something to eat

If you are trying to work out what's in this photo, you may need to double click on it to see more clearly.
All the cafe/kebab shops here have the grill sticking out of the window!
No protection to stop curious kids touching the metal outside or banging their heads on the way past, but hey they should watch where they are going shouldn't they?

Uniform Top Trumps Update

Morocco & Slovenia added !

A trip to the station.

Stumbled across Pristina Railway Station yesterday, so thought I would pop back and take a few photos.
As you can see they even lag behind the UK in railway investment. This is a working railway station!

It was 3 o'clock.

Needs Must.

As you can see from the photo below the snow has finally arrived here ( I can hear you all now 'that's not a real snow fall').

The sub-zero temperatures have caught out the University where we are currently doing our training, the room we use is really cold and only has one socket the wall heater cum AC unit is at one side of the room (right) and the laptop and projector on the left. So it may not be pretty (or up to UK H&S standards) but as the title says needs must !

Election Fever

Things are hotting up on the general election front here. It's voting day tomorrow and as you can see from the photo everything is plastered with banners, stickers and flags. Yesterday saw thousands of people attend a rally in the building next to our training room in the university, all day and early evening people were parading up and down chanting and shouting in support of the different parties.

Kids nipping your head about Christmas presents?

A typical scene at any road junction with traffic lights, the Roma kids wash car windows and beg instead of going to school, their mothers and grandmothers show them how it's done.

I doubt these kids will get much for Crimbo.........

Looking for a different view?

Thought I would share the link to my colleague David's blog, His experiences make for interesting reading
Predictably or co-incidently (depending on your view) his blog is called 'David goes to Kosovo!'

David's Blog

It's a funny old town..

Went for a walk today, took a few photos, went to the most bizarre shop.
I'll start with the shop, it's basically a department store full of designer clothes at ridiculous prices that are a mix of counterfeit and the real thing. Anyway as it's at the entrance to the NATO base it's full of soldiers from a real mix of countries I saw soldiers from Estonia, Poland, Turkey, Greece, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and the US, All armed with rifles strapped to their backs - shopping! One French guy trying on jeans propped his rifle up in the corner of the changing room to go and get the next size up! It did make me wonder just how dangerous it was to shop in Pristina and whether I should ask for an armed guard when I walk back from the pub in the wee small hours.


So the photos,

The big modern looking building is the main government office and where I do the training. The low concrete building in front of it houses the gym I go to. As you can see, the snow isn't far away, in fact it's laying about 50m behind me.

Its General Election time here and the above is a poster on a billboard by the side of the road which tells you how to go about voting. Is it just me or is there rather a lot of information to take in when driving?

 So, you might be thinking this is an ad for the Kosovar version of Richard & Judy on Channel 31, it is in fact an election poster for party number 31 - saves confusion - I think.

More posters this time thanking the US (again) and wishing them Happy Thanksgiving - as you do. But rather cheekily Party 31 have plastered one of their posters over the top.

Aspirational Marketing

Saw this and wondered if it would catch on in the UK;

Nice to know wifey knows her place over here......   ;-)

I bet Sir Bob Geldof wished he could do this....

Picture the scene, it's Friday afternoon, you need to gain some popularity for next weeks general election and you don't like Mondays....
'What to do.....what to do......I know let's have a Public Holiday on Monday to celebrate Albanian National Day!!!!'
'It doesn't matter that we are a different country and there are zero working days between now and the new Public Holiday - Let's just do it'!!!
So today is a Public Holiday and it was announced on TV on Friday night !
Great, I hear you cry, well contractors don't get paid on Public Holidays :-(
Fortunately due to the 'exceptional circumstances' we will - phew.
Here's a photo of a junction decked out in Albanian flags for last nights party, the flags are every where in the town.

Pristina restaurant announces their new mascot !

Mickey D's have Ronald McDonald now Fati's have unveiled their new mascot..............

Pete from Liverpool !!

Poppies - the post script

My brother Derek, who is the secretary of the Armed Forces Veterans Association was reading the blog and pointed it out to a couple of his members. They were so pleased that the message the poppy sends was being recognised in a corner of the Balkans that they wanted the photo on the wall !
My brother Derek on the left and Jim Hume the chairman on the right.

EU Citizen? Sleep well sir.

Not much action on the blog front due to my 'surprise' visit home at the weekend. However my cunning plan to get back in time for a new course to start today were left in tatters with the blanket of fog over Heathrow. We left 4 hours late and missed our connection in Vienna by 3 hours. So I had to spend the night in Vienna - well I say Vienna - a very nice hotel at the airport. So I didn't get back until lunchtime not great when the course starts at 1000.
So anyway, the title. A young guy from Kosovo was also on the same flight to Pristina via Vienna, he went to the airline counter just before me and I wondered why his complimentary overnight pack included a blanket and pillow, turns out he needed a visa to leave the terminal building and walk over to the 4 star hotel. So he had to sleep in the airport. Another good reason to be in the EU!

Rememberance & Poppies - The Last Post

Hope you don't mind the pun. We had a touching 2 minute silence today. Having told our Kosovar friends last week about poppies and their meaning we mentioned the 2 minute silence - just once as part of the explanation. So today at 1055 we said we were having a coffee break as Pete and I were observing the 2 minute silence. The group said that they had set reminders on their phones to ensure they were ready for it also! So on the stroke of 11 they all stood up, bowed their heads and stood in silence.
I did well to say 'thank you very much' without my voice breaking.
Here we are the week before.

Comedy Shop Signs Pristina Style

Something for the weekend sir?

I didn't think their phones were that bad.........
(You might have to look a bit closer)

An honest estate agent?

You thought the weather was unpredictable in the UK?

Here we are, 6th of November and everyone is sitting outside still. One week after snow we get day after day of blue skies and 20c. Just a pity I have got too much work to do to enjoy it. Cafe on the left is one of our new favourite haunts, sitting in the sun watching the world go by at lunchtime.....

Why do you wear that flower? part 2

Our students were asking where we got our poppies so we decided to buy them one, they were delighted and honoured (their words) to wear them!

Why do you wear that flower?

Our translators and students were asking why were Pete and I wearing poppies. So we told them.
A little later one of our translators was telling us what it was like here in Pristina during the war when the Serbs were attempting genocide.
'It was terrible' she said 'we were so frightened, many killings had happened we really thought the Serbs were going to kill us next, we hoped we would get a bullet, we were terrified we would get raped and left to die slowly, we had no hope for the future. The Russians came and we thought oh no this is no better. Shortly after that the British Army came and we were unbelievably happy, we were safe, we couldn't believe a country like the UK & the US would come to save us. It was the most amazing feeling, to think that the UK would send an army to save us - I thank you'
This was 11 years ago in Europe, this is why Clinton & Blair are heroes here and another reason we should be proud of our armed forces. 

Woooo It's halloween in Pristina!

Well as we know British and US culture invades all parts of the globe and All Hallows Eve is celebrated here too. Went to a charity halloween party last night for the orphans of the war. The pub was full of kids so after we had a quick bit of grub we scarpered to the Irish Bar. - We had paid our ticket/donation in advance in case you were thinking 'how tight is he?'. Anyway tonight the Kosovans have followed the traditional Balkan ways of celebrating - they have got their handguns out and been firing rounds into the night sky - a great reason to stay in and catch up with some work.
So here's my contribution to the tradition of scaring people on Halloween

A 50 foot photo of Bill Clinton !

Still could be worse I could be a Sunderland fan! ;-)

'Sno fair !

Well followers of this blog, from Dumbarton to Pompey via the ground floor east in Russell St,  (Yvonne & Malcolm, I know youve been keeping an eye ) I can report it's been snowing here, just a little of the cold wet sleety stuff but never the less snow.
Took this on the way into the office on Friday when it was a nice day, this is the palace of sports which was used in Tito's time to brainwash the kids via sport, it's huge but basically unused since the fall of communism. Ironically I walk past it every time I go to the gym. Plans to refurb it for sports and the inevitable hotel.......looks like a rack of lamb to me.

Kosovo Kountry File

What a beautiful day it's been today, time for a (long) walk out of the city to the countryside. You can probably see the city in the distance.

A herd of goats wanders by,

Not many places you see an old man taking a cow for a walk!

Hole in the ground issue..

Apologies if you have been checking for new posts recently only to find nothing new but I have been really really busy - never worked so hard in my life! We are now at the point where we are delivering training this week and writing the training for 2 weeks time.
Power cuts make for interesting situations, like when the power goes off when you are in a lift 12 floors up, fortunately the generators are pretty quick to cut in in the main government building

Anyway on to the job in hand, Pristina is not the place to walk round with your eyes shut, as you can see from the photos below the first is a street where cars are still going up and down, although I did manage to capture it 'sans voiture' (what a cunning linguist I am ). where the heavy metal is at a reasonable level the cars just park on it or use\it as a ramp to park at the bottom !

The next is a collapsed manhole cover in the middle of the main pedestrianised street in town - Boulevard Mother Theresa - no one seems bothered about replacing it or cone-ing it off !

Hillary goes for a ride on Bill Clinton and finds him rather 'rigid'.

A bit of excitement in Bill Clinton Bv today, Hillary paid us a visit. She stopped to have a look at Bill's statue and picture about a 100 yards down the street

Caption competition anyone?

Then her motorcade came swooshing past us on the street corner by the office.

I know what your thinking, did she wave at me, well readers she did! 

(not that you can tell from this photo!)

Another eating house in Pristina gets done by the Trades Description Act

This place is another of our favourite lunchtime haunts, great cheap home cooked food but can you guess what they don't sell...................?    You might have to double click the photo to see.

Yup, you guessed it, they don't sell burgers. Mind you Boots don't sell footwear so we shouldn't hold that against them.
Photo is also notable as showing the only hole in the ground in Pristina with some form of warning round it !

A sunny day in Pristina

 How do you make a post war communist library building look even uglier?  Cover it in chicken wire of course!

Next door to the library is the Serb Orthodox cathederal which was being built when the war kicked off, the UN won't let the locals knock it down and the locals wont let the Serbs finish it.

 
This is the 'Photos of the Missing' some of the people from Pristina who disappeared during the war.

Something a bit lighter to finish, not something you would expect to see in Pristina but there are fleets of traditional London cabs here!

Honesty is not always the best policy

I'm guessing McDs would be out of business if this was their name........

We had a cracking lunch in here - a huge mixed grill of kebabs, chicken, beef, sausage & liver

Picture this, a day in October

This piece of public art is the symbol of Kosovo, they don't seem to mind it being vandalised.

Storage space is at a premium and Health & Safety further down the priorities in this neck of the woods;

Finally tonight, Bill Clinton & Bush.
This is the view from my office which is situated on Boulevard Bill Clinton and as you can see is partly obscured by a..........tree!

Power to all our friends.........well those in credit.

Experienced more of what it was like to live in Kosovo in the last 24 hours. We have had 3 powercuts, 2 last night, leaving us in darkness for an hour each time and once today for 2 hours. Apparently when a certain number of people in each district don't pay the 'leccy then the power company turn the power off in that area to remind people to pay up !! Certain parts of Glasgow and Middlesbrough would be in permanent darkness....

Let's talk about ...towels baby

Great conversation in a local shop;
Me- Have you got any towels?
Girl in shop - yes, these....only 2 Euros each - they're Versace !!!!
Hmmm........I bought 2.

It's raining again....

Don't know how long I can keep these song references up.

Here's the street I am living in, entrance to my apartment is between the 2 columns at the end of the pavement or should I say 'car park'.

Please feel free to leave a comment, that way I know someone is actually reading it!

The road is long.......

0615hrs Manchester Airport;

I wasn't expecting the journey to be bad enough to have to stop at level 2 on the way to departures........

1615hrs
This is the main terminal building in Pristina, makes Teesside Airport look like Schiphol.

Got to my flat an hour later - it's very nice.
If you are interested here's the link to the video of  My flat

Hello!

Here's my first post on my new blog. Never done this before. Hopefully it will record my thoughts and any 'stuff' that happens to me on my 5 month trip to Kosovo.
Can I say funny and insightful stuff for 5 months....we shall see!
G.