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Showing posts from July, 2018

Country #109: Kosovo

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I know what you are saying, dear fictional nitpicking reader. Is Kosovo actually a country? Like, for real? Well, they did declare their independence on 2/17/08. Out of the 193 UN member states, 111 recognize this declaration. The other 82, namely Russia and China, still see it is as a province of Serbia. The fact of the matter is that while crossing the border from Macedonia, it is a Kosovo stamp that I got in my passport. I did not actually want this stamp, as it may cause problems if I ever want to enter into actual Serbia in the future, but I had taken a crowded jitney-type bus from Skopje and the customs official had us all pass up our passports and off he went. I had no chance to make my "no stamp" plea.  While this stamp business may cause me some headaches in the future, I was glad that the customs process was relatively speedy since it was getting late and I had to be at the National Theater at 11am for a free walking tour of Prishtina . As it was, I kept sending

Country #108: Hanging in Skopje 2.0

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Have you ever been so pleasantly surprised by something that it made you angry? Or maybe just slightly annoyed? I know this sounds weird but hear me out. As part of my quest to hit all the countries, I'd booked a flight to Skopje, Macedonia. This in itself was a kind of consolation prize because I actually wanted to go to Ohrid for some sunning and funning. Those flights, in the middle of July were way too expensive so I'd settled on the larger, less water-adjacent city. After checking into the wonderful  Lounge Hostel , I'd realized that I had left my European power-adaptor plugged into the wall of the Belgrade airport and had to rush out to replace it before the stores closed. It's possible that this situation had put me into a disgruntled state of mind. How else explain my reaction when I first saw a massive Alexander the Great presiding over this very imposing square.  As I gaped at all the perfectly restored neo-classical architecture around me, my first thou