Adventure Part 2

May 19 - My last full day with Linda. We drove to Lucerne in the morning and met her friend Valon, who had tickets for us to visit Mount Pilatus. Visting it was quite an ordeal, though. First, we took a 90 minute boat ride on Lake Lucerne to Alpnachstad, a village at the base of the mountain. Next we spent 40 minutes on the steepest cog railway in the world (seriously) to make it to the top of the mountain. On the way up my train stopped beside another train that was on its way down, and in the other train I spotted a guy from my home town with his mom. I wasn't completely surprised to see him because I knew he had been participating in a foreign exchange program in Lucerne for almost a year. They didn't see my obnoxious waving, and after a few minutes we continued up the mountain. At the top, a man approached us upon seeing our Westminster gear and asked if we were students at Westminster College in Salt Lake City. I said no, and it turned out that he was from Kansas City and hadn't heard of our Westminster. Poor guy. Anyway, once we reached the almost top of Mount Pilatus we walked up a couple short trails to different peaks for better views. The views were absolutely amazing, and I hope my pictures made it look at  least half as beautiful as it really was. We opted to take a 30 minute gondola car ride down the other side of the mountain. Good thing I'm not afraid of heights, huh?

At night we drove to Zurich so I could experience a popular Albanian hangout. It was a lot of fun and a great way to end the first part of my trip!

May 20 - Linda and I went our separate ways (A big thank you to the Osmanajs and all their relatives for being such wonderful hosts!). Our adventure came to an end because she has a job that starts soon, but I'm only halfway done with Switzerland! How's that, you ask? Well, two years ago my parents hosted a Swiss foreign exchange student named Meret Keller, and now I'm staying with her for a couple more weeks in her hometown of Kerns.

My little Swisster's house is a hotel (Hotel Burgfluh) turned apartment complex, and it's, for lack of smarter-sounding words, freaking awesome. After arriving at her apartment we visited Lake Sarnen and played a round of mini golf with her boyfriend and younger sister Senta. Later in the evening Meret (18), Senta (16), and their oldest sister Eliane (20) drove me around the lake and through neighboring villages. All of us were exhausted at the end of the day, and I think everyone was in bed by 10:00.

May 21 - Slept in. Surfed the web. Ate chocolate. Awesome.

May 22 - I think I'll go on a walk.

Below: The view from Mount Pilatus

Goodbye, Graubünden!

May 18 - Our last day in Chur and the canton of Graubünden in a nutshell:

Linda took me around the old city and new city while she ran errands for her dad whom arrived this morning. For lunch we stopped at a Turkish eatery for döner taschenbrot, which is like a big sandwich of...döner. After showing me around some more, we drove to a trail that would lead us to the ruin of Haldenstein Castle. We took pictures of the castle from the trail, walked a little further, and saw another castle from afar. We found a small dirt trail and followed it over a hill, under a cut fence, and straight to Haldenstein. Steep bluffs were braved, nerves were shot, and pictures were taken from dangerous rocky ledges. No word yet if such shenanigans are legal. We walked back down the mountain and drove back to her house to rest before visiting the Rhine River. I got my chocolate ice cream fix and we made the whole 5 minute walk to the water. I'm officially jealous that the Rhine River and Swiss Alps are in her backyard! After the river, we saw the sports center where Linda used to play and walked through a carnival. We haven't done much since then, but that's all right because the hike up the mountain got the best of us.

Below: Winston on the mountain near Haldenstein Castle, probably singing "The Sound of Music".

Country Hopping

May 14- To wrap up our stay in Kosovo, Linda spent the whole day showing me around Pristina. First we went to the school where she finished high school, The American School of Kosovo, where her brother now goes. The school holds only about 300 students spanning kindergarten through 12th grade.

Next I had my first visit to a mosque. We had to move quickly and quietly because people were praying inside, but I was able to watch for a couple of minutes before I started feeling like a sinner.

After running through the rain (It's rained every place we've been so far) we went to a museum, and even though it was being remodeled, Linda's mom, who from now on will be referred to as "Teze" (Albanian for "auntie"), convinced them to let us in because there was an American in the group (They really like Americans, specifically Bill Clinton, for their help during the Kosovo war) We saw some artifacts, but not surprisingly, most of the exhibits were about the war.

After running through the rain some more we made it to a souvenir shop so I could buy something distinctively Kosovo-Albanian. The name of it escapes me now, but I ended up with a traditional instrument that looks like small guitar with two strings that has the flag of Kosovo on it.

Parliament was next on our hit list. Teze's cousin works at the Parliament building and was nice enough to let us in to the assembly floor. We felt really special sitting in the seats of the leaders of Kosovo and snapped a few pictures of our mini Winston Blue Jay in the "hot seat."

The last stop of the day was Juridica, the school Teze attends. Serbians prevented her from finishing her degree in the years leading up to the war, so now that Kosovo is independent she has returned to take business and English classes.

May 15 - Back to Switzerland!  At night we made it to Linda's home of Chur, the oldest town in Switzerland. There I met another aunt and her kids and Linda's best friend (By the way, today we counted that Linda has 51 first cousins. I have a whopping 0.).

May 16 - Linda drove me around part of Chur, through the small town of Zizers, and then to Igis, where her aunt from the night before prepared fondue. After lunch we took 3 of the aunt's daughters to Bad Ragaz, a town with a really nice tourist area. It had several hotels and lots of interesting sculptures throughout the park. In the afternoon Linda, teze, and I left for Geneva/Genève/Genf with the first aunt I met, Melos, and Elijona, and two of the cousins I had met the night before : Laura and Florina. We arrived in Geneva late at night and crossed the border into Annemasse, France where Linda's uncle lives.

May 17 - After lunch the whole crew (8 of us plus the uncle and his wife and two kids) went for a walk along Lake Geneva and took a break in a park. Sadly, we had only a few hours to enjoy Geneva and started heading back to Chur in the afternoon. On the way back we stopped near Lausanne to visit the last of Teze's brothers and his wife and three kids. We arrived in Chur just a couple hours ago. I've officially met all of Linda's uncles and all but one of her aunts....on her mom's side.

Below: The three amigos in the Kosovo Parliament

Skopje, Pristina, and Istog, Oh My!

First of all: Sorry I haven't been able to post for a couple days.

To recap: For our last night in Thessa we went to a restaurant for coffee. We had a really good time and probably looked super cool when we danced in our seats to the American songs. 

The next day we walked around, bought some souvenirs, and hung out in the courtyard of a church. We think the church was underground, which sounds like an easy thing to figure out, but I'm still not sure. To go to Kosovo we had to take a bus from Thessa to Skopje, Macedonia so Linda's mom could bring us to Pristina, Kosovo. We met an older American couple on an eastern European adventure from Dallas at the bus stop, and even though they were harmless, the border patrol gave them trouble and cost us nearly an hour. Luckily, everyone made it back on the bus and we continued on our way. Linda's mom and her mom's cousin picked us up, and late at night we made it to Pristina and met Linda's brother Durim and his friend Adrian.

The next day (May 11th) we drove around the capital city, walked around a mountain, and took pictures of some bears and a monkey that we ran into. Calm down -- they were in cages. After lunch we left for Istog, a town of about 15,000 people nestled at the bottom of a mountain where Linda's mom grew up. Once we were there we went for coffee and walked around a waterfall with Durim and two of his very friendly friends. From dinner until 11:00 we visited the homes of 3 of Linda's relatives, and I met more people than I can count. But hey, they were all really nice!

Today we went to the mountain in Istog. It was a long, bumpy ride to the top in a van full of people, but it wasn't that different from the rides on my farm at home to check the cows. Our destination was the home of another of Linda's relatives. They live in a two-room portable (yeah, portable!) house that somehow fit all 15 or so of us. After a few hours of eating and exploring the area we had to go back to Pristina, where I've spent the last several hours meeting some of Linda's friends. I don't know what I expected Kosovo to be like, but it's been lots of fun so far!

Below: Winston on top of a mountain in Istog

Thessaloniki Day 2

Last night we returned to the White Tower area to experience Thessaloniki at night. It had a carnival-like atmosphere, complete with popcorn and cotton candy stands and "carnies" selling baubles and hovering around women's purses. It wasn't long before we were ready for bed, but before we "hit the hay" we drank Albanian coffee. I'd had it before at Linda's uncle's house, but this time Edo used my used cup to read my fortune. According to her, everything I'm wishing for will probably turn out how I want it to (sweet!), someone is jealous of me (ha!), and I'll have two children (uhhh...). Nifty, huh? 

This morning we met Edo and her friend Donjeta and headed out into the busy streets of Thessloniki. We wanted to see how Greek people live and behave, and by going through shops and restaurants we gained a better understanding. They seem to be pretty independent and mind their own business unless they're trying to sell you something (They like to break the ice by calling you Beyonce or Shakira). We toured the University of Sheffield and saw its versions of Champ, Hazel, and JCI, and even though the school has more students than Westminster, all of the rooms were very small. In fact, everything was in three levels of one building, which was sandwiched between other buildings along a street. Apparently the school is split into two buildings though, one for freshmen and sophomores and one for juniors and seniors. Linda and I walked around the city some more while Edo and Donjeta took an exam, and on the way back to the apartment we were caught suddenly by heavy rain. (see below). My fortune tells me that we'll be going out for coffee later.

And.....we're off!

Our journey began on May 7th at 4:00am, and after traveling through St. Louis, Chicago, and New York, Linda and I finally made it to Zurich, Switzerland at 10:00am on May 8th. We were picked up by her aunt, who took us to her home outside of the city. There I met two young cousins, Melos and Elijona, who enjoyed practicing their English, and I taught them all sorts of useful English words like goat, raccoon, and donkey. Linda and I broke our strict schedule of eating and sleeping to take a walk around the neighborhood, where I got a glimpse of the mountains. After a dinner of chicken, potatoes, and pite me djath, we headed out again to spend the night with one of Linda's uncles and the rest of his family in Waldshut-Tiengen, Germany. I couldn't understand most of the conversations, but they made sure to include me by asking about Barack Obama and George Bush. The uncle and a cousin took us to the airport in Basel at 3:30am today to catch our flight to Thessaloniki, Greece, where we're staying with Linda's sister, Edonjeta, a student at Sheffield Unviersity. We went to McDonalds, toured the White Tower of Thessaloniki, and took a short boat ride around the bay. We slept and ate some more, and now we're preparing for a night out.

Below is a picture of Linda, Edo, and me in the White Tower.