Last weekend, we had a morning/afternoon gathering at the Peace Corps Offices. We got together and watched a movie (The Grand Budapest Hotel) in the volunteer lounge. After that, a group of us headed north to Mitrovice. Mitrovice is an interesting, divided city in northern Kosovo -- Mitrovice and North Mitrovice. In Mitrovice, the population is primarily ethnically Albanian, however, cross the River Ibar to North Mitrovice and the population is Serbian. As Peace Corps volunteers, North Mitrovice is off limits. We can't cross the pedestrian bridge that connects the divided city. The link above gives more details.
Mitrovice was pretty nice with a nice shesh (city center) and a great walkway along the river. Saturday night, we went out for pizza and then went to a bar for drinks. There was a qualifying match for the World Cup going on between Albania and Serbia. Albania won, and Albanian Kosovars celebrated. As soon as the game was over, people started pouring out of the bars and restaurants. They started walking toward the bridge to North Mitrovice and stopped at the bridge. They were cheering, singing, and shooting off fireworks. Celebrating Albania's win and Serbia's loss. Sunday morning, we meet up with the group for brunch at a restaurant called Sinia. The food was really good. I had a tartine (open-face sandwich). It had hummus, poached egg, arugula, and a fermented carrot salad.
Sunday was also election day in Kosovo (local elections). While we were eating breakfast, we found out that the buses from Mitrovice weren't running because of the elections. Some of the other volunteers decided to stay another night, but Joe, Nadia, Thom, and I decided that we wanted to return home. With four of us, we could split the cost of a taxi to Prishtina (25 euros). The buses from Prishtina were running to Ferizaj and Gjakova (which were the two places our group needed to get to). While we went back to our hotel to get our backpacks, Joe found out that there was a khombi (passenger van) going to Prishtina around 2 pm. The cost per person was 1.80 euros. This was only thirty cents more than the buses and much cheaper than the taxi. The best part was that it didn't make stops along the way as the buses do. We got to the bus station in Prishtina in good time.
Buses to and from Kaçanik never run on Sundays. Thom texted our trusted taxi driver, Bedri, while we were on the bus to Ferizaj. Bedri was waiting at the Ferizaj bus station when we got there. It was a good weekend, and we checked off another city in Kosovo.
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