Another massive picture posting

I'm killing some time here at the internet joint again. I've realized that one of the main reasons this blog has stayed so up to date is simply the fact that there are always times during the day where I have nothing to do except seek out a little contact with all of you back at home. If I was traveling with a friend, we'd probably be out at a cafe drinking coffee or beers (probably beers) right now!

When we last left off with the photos, I had put up some images of Budva. Well, from there I traveled to Novi Pazar, which was (so far) the worst day of the trip. I don't have any photos of that day that I want to post, but when I woke up and had an unexpected chance to explore Novi Pazar during the day, I actually had some fun. Here's a couple of examples of the crazy Yugoslav architecture found there:



After a bit of wandering, I met Adis and his less-fluent-in-English friend whose name I've forgotten. Here we are posing in front of the cafe they were 'running'.


On my way to the bus station I passed these guys 'chopping' wood. Storing wood for the winter is the major occupation for most of the men around here these days. Can't say I'd want to be this guy. I can't believe he still has all his fingers. It made me nervous just passing behind him on the sidewalk!


This one's a shot of the scenery often encountered in this part of the world. Red clay tile roofs predominate, and the lightly forested rocky hills are everywhere.


As I think I mentioned earlier, this bus trip represented a bit of watershed point for me. Well, actually, the day before and then this one bundled together are the watershed point. Anyway, I was feeling absolutely euphoric on this trip from Novi Pazar to Pristina. It's impossible to really explain: I think only those of you who've traveled like this will really understand. Suffice it to say that it's a heady mix of the thrill of the unknown, pride of accomplishment and excitement to explore. Here I am trying to capture the feeling as best I could in a picture.


Shortly the "excitement to explore" was stoked up by this stark realization that I was now in Kosovo.



Shortly after that pic I thought we were close to Pristina, but the road just kept going and going and going through this long valley of houses and factories and nuclear reactors (ok, only one nuke). Finally we made it to Pristina bus station, which is to the southwest of town. It's actually off the page of my map, but I knew roughly where I was. Enter the trusty compass again! Here's a shot of the massive communist apartment blocks that I walked through on my way into town.


Once I made it up into the houses in the Valenia area, I came across this 'new' subdivision. I love this stuff!


Today I took a taxi out to the Gracanica monastery. This is one of the oldest and most important of the Serbian Orthodox monasteries. It's presence 13km from Pristina in Albanian Kosovo goes a long way to explaining why the Serbs are so against any kind of Kosovan independence. Here's the monastery, followed by one of the shots I snuck while inside. (I wasn't going to take any, but then I ended up totally alone inside for about 10 minutes, so I thought "what the hell". -pun intended)



After visiting the monastery I had about an hour and a half to kill before my taxi driver was going to come back to pick me up. I had arranged for that before I realized that the monastery was smack in the middle of an urban area, where finding a cab would've been easy. Oh well, it worked well, because I had a chance (and a reason) to wander a bit and check this area out. I liked this picture, taken from a bridge over a small creek.


Back in Pristina, I had a sunny afternoon to kill. I decided to wander around the city and check out some of the parts I hadn't seen yet. Here's a big statue that was pretty cool. It's set in a sunken white concrete circle, and illuminated by lights mounted on crazy pincer-like piers. Cool.



While wandering around I decided to enjoy some macchiatos on nice looking outdoor patios (god I love both those things). How content do I look in this picture?


OK, that's it for this photo exposition. Hope you've enjoyed the show!

cheers,
bms