--Saturday, 26 February 00--
Departure
By the time I left, Chicago had had three incredibly warm days with the temperature soaring into the 70s (F). Quite a delightful experience and to take advantage of it, that morning, I took a good walk in the warm, windy air. While out on my preprandial peregrinations, I decided to have breakfast at McDonald's. Since I would be leaving in a few hours on another trip I decided to treat myself to one of my favorites: a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit without the egg (too healthful), with EXTRA bacon, one hash brown (my preferred two hash browns I regard as fattening and I have to limit myself somewhere) and a small Coke. Yum, yum. A delicious way to begin any day.

The rest of the day was spent counting out clothing (five of this, seven of that, eleven of the other), packing two suitcases and a backpack. I backed up various files from my computer and was ready to go. Another adventure. Once again back to the Balkans but this time to Prishtina, the capital of that calm and pleasant place that the evening news refers to as Kosovo. I knew that everything would be uneventful.

I got my bags to the front of the building and hailed a cab. From experience I have learned that when a cabby sees your baggage on the curb they immediately pop the trunk and then take their good time hoping YOU will lift the bags into the trunk. No way, Jose! They standardly charge you fifty cents for every item that is put in the trunk (by anyone) and I regard bag handling as the controlling factor in the size of the tip. I always wait on the curb until the driver is at the trunk. I can tell they don't like this but they never say anything. They know about the tip, too.

At O'Hare I suffered only the usual delays. I checked my bags through to Skopje, Macedonia and went to wait for the departure. I was able to fortify myself with a plain double cheese with bacon from McDonalds and this turned out to be wise because on the flight the food was so loathsome I couldn't stand to look it, much less consume it. Airline travel will only tolerable when the food concession is given to McDonalds and you can order plain double cheeseburgers with bacon from the in flight menu.

The United code-shared Lufthansa stewardess was a little flaky and rather snotty. She told me that I didn't have to order two Becks at once because she would be back when I finished my first one. I wondered what drugs she was taking. Later when I went to the galley to get another beer, she opened a Becks for me and the foam rolled over her hand. She started barking out something I didn't understand to another attendant but I did catch the "S" word in German. She clearly assumed that no American could possibly know the swear words she used so loosely.

When you travel Business Class, United gives you what I call a Travel Refreshment Pack with various goodies that help make your trip more pleasant. I save mine and use them in Economy where refreshment is much more desperately needed. I now make up my own and, in addition to the useful toothbrush and toothpaste, nighty-sox, etc., I include some moist towelettes, Glide dental floss, a comb, toothpicks, and packets of salt. It really does help, especially the salt which the airlines have decided is bad for you and so they only give you minute portions, if any at all. (Because I truly believe in recycling, I save the extra salt packets I get on every trip to McDonalds and bring them on my airline flights. What you have to do to travel tolerably these days!)


--Sunday, 27 February 00--
First Arrival
We arrived on time at 9 am in Munich (2 am Chicago time). Two and a half hours later I was airborne again, headed southeast to Skopje, Macedonia. We passed over the Bavarian Alps and the vista of mountain peaks and snaking valleys was breathtaking. It wasn't snow-covered at the lower altitudes so there was a lot to see: roads here, rivers there, ski slopes here and there. It was as if someone had thrown a soft, dark carpet on a floor and then reached over to it and pulled up mountains at various points thus forming valleys in between peaks. The snow below looked like flour cast on the rug's peaks and valleys. Spectacularly beautiful.

We landed in Skopje on time and I was soon being hustled by the inevitable crowd of hopeful, wannabe cab drivers. They tried hard but weren't perturbed when I said, "No." English is so International! I went outside and met Susan with whom I had worked in Romania, nearly two years ago. She looked great and told me how much she liked her assignment in Slopje. I gave her my collection of magazines (The Economist, Time) and newspapers (the Sunday New York Times, the Sunday Chicago Tribune, the Friday-Saturday Herald Tribune, and the Friday-Saturday-Sunday USA Today). She was very pleased and I am sure that she never noticed that I had read them all, so careful was I when I turned the pages.

Susan introduced me to a young man who was with her. She called him a friend and went on to say something about the difficulty of parking at the airport and something else that I didn't quite get, so I decided to get the impression she may have hired him to help her park her car.

Just after I met Susan I saw Sejdi Erols, my driver to Prishtina. He held up a sign with the most unique spelling of my name I have ever seen, "J. Keli", so I knew he was the right person immediately. My conversation with Susan was limited to walking over to Erols' car which wasn't all that close either. The meeting with Susan was very brief, altogether too brief. We agreed to try to figure out how we can get together again.

On the two and a half hour trip to Prishtina, Sejdi pointed out where 50,000 refugees had pitched camp near the Kosovo border; this was just a part of the more than 200,000 refugees who fled to Macedonia and the more than 500,000 who fled to Albania (not to mention Montenegro). Overhead, black helicopters of different makes and models moved past us. (Black helicopters. Where have I heard of that before?) At an intersection unemployed men tried to squeegee windshields but people set their window blades rotating and Gypsy women carrying children begged along the lanes of cars. It felt like New York City.

Further on, police pulled us over for no ostensible reason and sent us on a dirt side road toward a large lot that fronted the road further on. Sejdi got upset, said things I didn't understand and gesticulated strongly. He did a U-turn on the dirt road, pulled a signed out of the glove compartment that said we were on Word Bank business and turned around. Arriving back at the police, there was much animated discussion and Sejdi gave a cop two cans of Coca Cola. Then we were allowed to proceed. He pointed at where the other cars (without World Bank signs) were going and said, "Two hours delay. Crazy! Madness!"

Shortly thereafter we arrived at the border between Makedonia (that's how they pronounce it) and Kosovo. It is a complicated place with many different strands of authority present: Macedonian Customs and Immigrations, KFOR, UN units, Kosovo border police, etc. There were long lines of trucks waiting to cross the border; the wait can extend to days. It became so bad that KFOR built a special road around the check point to avoid the traffic.

During one of our stops, Sejdi struck up a conversation with a border guard. I got the impression that he was deliberately making friends. Very quickly he presented the guy with a can of Fanta. Later we saw the guard again and this time presented him with two more cans. What diplomacy and Coke products will buy!

Some of the traffic on the road to Prishtina.

We went on with S. Erols (as his business card describes him) driving as fast as he could along the two lane road, passing three and four cars at a time and making phone calls with his spare hand. Definitely a driving experience. I put my seat belt on, not wanting to die until I had seen Prishtina, but Sejdi didn't bother to buckle up. I took it as a statement of his self confidence. My nerves must be improving, I only closed my eyes twice.

There was much private reconstruction evident along this most significant economic corridor. I learned later that the poorer areas of the countryside have not faired as well.

The row of houses without roofs to the right of the red roof used to be Gypsy homes.

In addition there were occasional bleak signs of despair: Sejdi pointed out a Serbian Orthodox church gutted by fire and a row of Roma homes destroyed by returning Kosovar Albanians for revenge. A very mixed bag this Kosovo.

Up ahead was Prishtina, the city of my dreams.

Joe