Ha, I couldn’t help it. There were power problems (fuse kept blowing out) last night in a restaurant we were visiting and a friend piped up with “Someone needs a KEK in the butt”
Classic!!! Actually, the power hasn’t been this bad this winter (reportedly production is up 30% compared to other years) so there have not been long power outages in Pristina. Some of the smaller villages have been worse off but the power situation does appear to be improving slowly.
Kosovo has some wonderful nature such as Rugova Valley and Brezovica. I have been trekking up to Mount Sara (Brezovica is actually the name of the village, not the mountain) on the weekends and taking snowboarding lessons. Compared to back home in the US, learning and renting equipment here is next to nothing. A ski rental will cost you 10€ a day and lessons are somewhere in the range of 10-15€ per hour. A day pass on the ski-lift (you do have to pay again if you switch lifts) is 10€ or a single trip is only 3€ which is nice if you just want to ride up to the top to take some pictures and come back down again. There aren’t really beginner slopes at Brezovica, the main slope is actually a black run, but it’s all good. During your breaks from skiing/snowboarding, I can recommend stopping at Cakson for some hot spiced wine or Pizzaria Tina which has fantastic pizzas albeit in an extremely smoky environment.
On the downside of Brezovica, it is just absolutely jam-packed on Sundays and there is little to no crowd control at the ski-lifts. The line is basically a push-and-shove fest to see who can come in from the side or push their way to the front. I actually got my arm stuck between two people trying to hold onto the jacket of my instructor as they pushed in from the side and trapped me. Another time I saw an interesting argument between a Albanian youth and a Polish KFOR soldier. The youth attempted to cut in line in front of everyone and the soldier told him to get to the back of the line. The youth then proceeded to start threatening the soldier who was backed up by three other Polish soldiers (all in uniform). The next thing you know everyone in line is yelling at the youth about cutting in line but he didn’t care and just kept pushing forward.
The last thing that I saw really made me wonder about people in Kosovo and what people can get away with…a black Jeep Grand Cherokee with tinted windows was trying to push its way through a crowd of people waiting for the ski-lift. People were moving out of the way the best they could with skis strapped to their feet and its possible that one person accidentally or intentionally hit the back of the vehicle with his ski pole. The next thing you know two guys got out of the Jeep and attacked the skier, throwing him to the ground punching and kicking him in front of all the people at the ski lift. The worst thing about it was that people were just “Hey, Hey” and didn’t move to help the guy that was being beaten-up and then the two guys just got back into the vehicle and drove off. Ummm, hello!!!
MTCowgirl’s Kosovo News
