Wu Wei

Back in Oxford

Rushed home on Friday without losing any luggage (first out of 4 trips), meeting Sco at the airport and after a detour the wrong way round the M25, (too tired to notice at first) arrived home to find Lithuanian S arrived from her visit to London. So a Lithuanian reunion was in full swing (Sco also lives there). Hadn’t seen them for two years so lots to catch up with.

Saturday was spent frantically shopping for food, assembling bookshelves delivered from IKEA (or rather Sco did) so we could get in the door. Then T arrived so we could have our meeting about the guide to Sakhalin. A bit bizarre deciding to do a guide to a place none of us have ever been to, but how else will we get there?

It turned into an impromptu housewarming party as everyone stayed to dinner with a takeaway Indian to compensate for the lack of Indian restaurants in Lithuania, though it seems Sue’s Indian Rajah has made its 3rd or maybe 4th comeback again.

In the night we were all woken up by the sounds of a riot going on in the street. Lithuanian S was very shocked to find this sort of thing going on in England!! Only some locals from the DSS home at the end of the road had decided to shout drunkenly and fight, plus their women tried to separate them. The next door house had their door battered with our garden chair and my yucca, at which point I called the police, having heard the sound of breaking glass.

In the morning, the neighbours apologised saying it wasn’t normally like this. Talking to Bee later about what to do if it happened when I was away, she asked “is it OK to call the police like you did?” It seemed she had never absorbed the culture that the British bobby is your friend (unless you are black or an Arab, and especially not if you are running). It seemed life in Greece and Lithuania had taught her not to expect any help from the local police.

Kosovo Corrections

Apologies for the lack of postings while I have been back and forth.

On the last trip we managed to find a classical music concert to go to in Pristina as part of the October Kosovo Kamer Fest. Quite by chance I was walking down Mother Teresa St and saw a load of billboards advertising them on several days in the Red Hall. No directions, no ticket prices or sales point, vague notes about piano and cello.

So I rounded up my fellow energy specialists and we found our way to the Red Hall, (next to the British Council, which I also had never found). Tickets were 3 Euros and 1 Euro for students, so you can guess that the audience was mainly young people. Very few expats at all, on which more later.

It was a very good concert. Not the standard of London or Berlin but as something unexpected, a very pleasant evening.

I missed the rest of the concerts but R managed to catch the last one and said that was good as well.

In the process of walking back I saw the bright lights of Pristina: lots of bars and cafes. I realised that I don't really hang out much in the centre of Pristina as both my house and the Ministry are out of the centre.

Lest this blog is making Pristina out to be too backward I should point out that the centre is like every other town with concrete office blocks and shops and supermarkets (I found another by the Red Hall). Just there is no Old Town though I guess the mosques and churches comprise some parts of it. In the last week I have had lunch in one of the two Japanese restaurants (as many as in Oxford says Sloph). There are Indian, Chinese and Italian restaurants as well as an Irish pub.

What there is not is any expat guide to Kosovo, (though that is now on its way) or an expat newspaper or website saying what's on. Not much in the way of international newspapers either. Eventually I found the Economist in the only good bookshop. It seems the lack of culture is blamed on the lack of wives. Families stay in Skopje where there is a life, and husbands go home at the weekend. And then the biggest presence is the military, not known for culture or reading if the stereotypes are to be believed.

On the drive in from the airport this time N decided he needed a detour to shop in the new French supermarket which has spring up. A big hanger of a place with shelves piled high and exotic fruit and vegetables where I forgot to buy an avocado when I saw it. Shopping tends to be like foraging, if it's there you have to take it then and there, not come back later.

So we cannot complain about supermarkets, as it seems there are other big ones on the airport road which I didn't know about.

And while I am correcting mistaken impressions, it seems it was not the Serbs fault that there was a power cut, and KEK had to apologise. There was no press release to say whose fault it was, but it seems that power could have been sent via Macedonia if needed, but wasn't.

Be that as it may, the power cuts are not so bad at the moment, only 15 mins on workday evenings. Just hit one now so typing by candlelight. It seems that the internet still works!

Back to blogging

For those of you who are worried about birdflu here is the local news courtesy of random reality.

Sorry about the lack of blogging. Hope to catch up now I'm back in Kosovo after a week of frantic unpacking, organising internet, impromptu housewarming party and half term holiday at home.