A Hero's Welcome

"You should love your country the way Kosovars love America" - some professor in France.

Our guide at Pristina's Ethnographic Museum relayed this quote to us and laughed at the exuberance with which his fellow countrymen adore the United States.  We just arrived a day earlier and were taken aback by the welcome we'd received.  Every answer to "where are you from?" visibly shook people, roused them to their feet for a handshake.  It was strange, surprising, slightly uncomfortable - like a celebrity we hadn't earned, nor asked for.  This is why we mentioned it to our guide at the museum.  While he joked about it with us, he was also sure to make us realize the root.  "Without America, there would be no Kosovo."  We fell silent at that even more powerful quote, said casually and in earnest.

"Europe turned its back, but America came.  America! To this little country" - guy in Rahovec.

It was one of the many history lessons we were given in casual, two or three minute conversation.  Sometimes people really just put things so perfectly, convey exactly what they mean even with a language barrier.  The idea that America, in all of its late 20th century infallible glory, even knew what was happening in this corner of former Yugoslavia felt magical to Kosovars.  The fact that the USA swooped in to protect it felt miraculous.  At the helm was Commander-in-Chief Bill Clinton.  A national hero so revered people have begun to name their children after him. Not just 'Bill' but 'Bill Clinton.'  Hi, my name is Bill Clinton Bajrami.

We'd laughed when coming across a big, bronze statue of Clinton.  It's just so strange to see a modern figure - especially one that would never be described as "statuesque" -  rendered in bronze, two stories tall.  But there he was on Bill Clinton Boulevard in all of his pre-heart surgery pro-McDonalds glory, classic open-mouthed grin and round nose.   He stood holding a tablet with 24 March 1999 etched into it, the date NATO began its bombing of Serbian posts in Kosovo.   In America, there was some criticism of Clinton for exaggerating the number of Kosovar Albanian casualties when defining the situation as genocide - but, hey, he always bent the truth a little bit, right?  Here, he is an almost mythic figure - and we, as a result, were greeted as heroes.  Saying we were American gave us carte blanche, handshakes and hugs.  Lengthy conversations that were thoughtful, insightful and cherished by both parties. 

During our time in Eastern Europe, a number of countries have shown a particular interest in/infatuation with American culture, music, movies, television, style, personalities.  This was different.  Instead of Lakers jerseys, Yankee caps or t-shirts with Tommy Hilfiger and Abercrombie & Fitch emblazoned across them, red, white and blue patterned hats and our flag covered the clothing of Kosovars wherever we went.  There was no sense that anyone wanted to be American, that our nationality held the allure of a status symbol.  Instead, there was an overwhelming sense of gratitude to America for letting them be themselves.  In those other countries, there's the element of American being a refuge, an oasis.  Move there and everything will be perfect!  Unlike in a number of those other countries, Kosovar citizens have been able to emigrate to the states.

Directly following the war of '99, as many as 20,000 Albanian Kosovars refugees arrived in Fort Dix, NJ.  Over and over, we'd be told that someone's father, husband, brother was in the Bronx, which has the largest ethnic Albanian community in the US.  An exact number of how many of those Albanians are Kosovar hasn't been figured out, but it is sizable.  If our conversations are any barometer, there's a mini Kosovo in the Bronx.  They say that about 15% of Kosovo's GNP comes from its diaspora, most of which live and work in Germany and Switzerland (Kosovars actually take the third place slot as largest immigrant population in Switzerland).  So, America isn't the holy grail here. It's not even the best place you can leave to go work!  But it is their liberator, their hero, the first people to recognize them as their own state, which is vastly more important to the citizens of this young nation.  Throughout the country, our flag flew right there next to the the blue Kosovar and red Albanian.

We were here during 4th of July, which you sort of forget isn't the name of the holiday until you say it to a foreigner and they look at you as if you've just proclaimed it Monday!  People kept telling us that the American Independence Day was celebrated in Kosovo and we were looking forward to seeing what that actually meant.  We wound up being up in Rekë e Allagës on the 4th, where fireworks (and the talk of grilling hamburgers) would have spooked the cows.  Still, this July 4th felt like the most patriotic of my life.   America is only 232 years older than the Republic of Kosovo - which is a blip in the history of other European countries.  (We always joke that our nation is younger than a lot of houses we've been in here in Europe).  I couldn't help but marvel at how our little clump of colonies' declaration of independence went on to affect the world.  It's hard not to feel the whole 'proud to be an American' thing while in Kosovo. 

Euro Cup Runneth Over

We don't often whittle an explanation down to our nationality.  Especially having spent about seven times as much time in Europe than home in the last two years, it has gotten harder and harder to think of things - and people, really - in such certain and separate terms.  However, whenever anyone asks us why we don't watch football, we always respond, "we're American." Sometimes, Merlin can't help himself from working the word "soccer" into his answer.  We both grew up playing soccer, as most Americans do. But watching it? A live televised event with little to no opportunity for commercial breaks? Not our country's style.   So, we actually didn't know Euro 2012 was even happening until we read a news article about violence between Polish and Russian fans.  Once we knew, we made a concerted effort take part in the experience. 

Our viewership began during the last quarter-final match, shown on the ginormous screen at Beer Fest in Pristina.  It was between England and Italy and went into overtime, then double overtime.  Excuse me if these are not the correct terms.  The scheduled 11pm musical performance began to play over the broadcast and we assumed it would end as a draw.  The fact that that can happen is one of the few things I do know about soccer, having been in New York during the 2012 World Cup, when the Post famously printed the headline: "USA Wins 1-1."  As we walked past 91, an English pub just down the street, a television screen alerted us to the much more exciting outcome.  Penalty kicks!  The crowd inside was much less mellow - a group of British expats at the ends of their bar stools (and the ends of their wits).  The mood alternated so extremely between tension and jubilation that beer actually went temporarily untouched.  Eventually, Italy won.

The best thing about watching soccer in Europe, especially in the summer, is that it's an outdoor activity.  Unlike American football, which shuts people into living rooms and neon sportsbars midday no matter how beautiful the weather, soccer brings people out onto the streets.  This is especially true in places like Kosovo, where there aren't too many businesses that can afford a big screen television or ten.  Instead, projection screens are set up where they can be. When all else fails, the side of a building becomes a big screen.  You can walk around all day long and not have any idea where sports theaters will magically pop up after dark. There's usually a bit of finicking with the system.  Getting the picture to line up, synching the sound, a few switches to a blank screen and the words "Lost Feed," "Data Unavailable" or something "Interrupted" and then you're ready to go! 

Then, once it's up and ready, you get to enjoy the summer air while taking in the game.  Sure, there may be competing DJs or call-to-prayers through the broadcast, but it's a little like a drive through movie.  Something special. I can't imagine how well this would work other places.  In Pristina, Rahovec and Prizren, there was never a backlash against waiters or a loss of patience if the sound cut out or a play was missed due to technical difficulties.  The crowds were as far from rowdy as you get. People are laid back here, understanding, mostly sober.  Plus, it's not their own team's pride on the line.   Kosovo cannot take part in the Euro Championship, as they have not been allowed to join the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). 

I'm sure if Albania or even Turkey had been one of the 16 teams who qualified for Euro 2012, they would have been the clear choice for default favorite.  Without them, it was interesting to wonder who people favored to win.  In the case of the final - it was clearly Italy.  The fact that Spain (like UEFA) doesn't recognize Kosovo as an independent country, may have had something to do with it.  For that Sunday night final in Prizren, cars clamored for parking spaces and high-heeled young women searched for a seat (or just a sliver standing room) at a cafe.  There was definitely an atmosphere of festivity, of a big event, but it just doesn't pack the same punch when you don't have a team in the running.  We were just like everyone else, watching a championship our nation had no stake in - but enjoying the heck out of it.

It also doesn't pack the same punch when the match is a blow out.  By the end of the 4-0 final, the bars were almost completely cleared out.  Places kicked up their stereos a little more, people began to make their way back to their cars.  Spain was victorious once again, for the second time in a row.  It will be another four years before anyone gets to strip them of their crown and we will most likely be back in America with more knowledge about the relatively inconsequential NFL summer off-season than this large-scale competition.  Way before then, though, is the London Olympics and I plan on watching the soccer events a little more closely.  I've got some history under my belt now, I know some names and faces.  Super Mario and such.

Why Don't They Have This in America?

At the Košice Technicke Muzeum we spotted this sink. Okay, normal sink, but look above it! The soap was hung up in a plastic net, so that you could rub your hands on it, but it wouldn't have to sit in a wet pool of residue. Brilliant.

Why Don't They Have This in America?

In Switzerland, instead of parking meters that necessitate shoving your hand down car seat cushions or begging a local convenient store worker for change of a twenty in nickels, they use these. You simply turn the wheel at the top to signal your arrival time and observe whatever maximum time limit is allowed for your parking space.
Police officers are consistently prowling the streets, checking on times. So, there's definitely no way you can get away with setting your clock ahead or not returning before your time limit is up. It's brilliant, really. Parking is free if you follow the posted rules and you get a big fat ticket if you don't. Sounds pretty logical to me.
Since locals have a version of the clock that sticks to their windshield, these dashboard ones come with some helpful traffic tips for visitors. Ours includes a moving model which shows that you should use your blinker when exiting a roundabout. It was purchased at a chewing gum and lotto shop for 1 swiss franc.

Why Don't They Have This In America?

Sometimes, something seems so simple that you wonder why it isn't commonplace. Take, for example, the Moldovan beer cap (or beer top?). It has a very functional pull-ring attached, for easy popping.
It really is simple, and it makes bottle openers seem clumsy. Why not have this in America? A patent issue? A matter of taste?

Why Don't They Have This in America?

Admittedly, I haven't spent a lot of time in churches - so they very well may have this in America, but neither Rebecca or I could recall seeing it. These cathedral pews had movable backs that allowed them to face either forward, towards the altar, or backwards, towards the organ. They were pretty cool, and very easy to move.

Why Don't They Have This in America?

Or if they do, how have I never seen one? This is a restaurant check-book that includes a working calculator. This way, you can calculate gratuity, splitting, currency exchange rates, etc. Yes, you can use your cell phone but I neither have a cell phone right now nor do I like to take out a phone at the table of a restaurant. Besides, this is way cuter.

Excuses, Excuses

So - we haven't posted in a few days. Most of you probably think we've been under a pile of snow. Luckily, we are both safe and sound, back home for the holidays. You see, I left a few days early to attend the wedding of these two amazing people. (Seriously, check out the link. It's great.) Merlin was left to hold down the fort in Tallinn, Estonia. The problem is, Merlin's shoes have no traction and I was no longer around for him to hold on to. Many slips and falls ensued and he decided that the best course of action would be not to take his camera out with him. Luckily, we will be back in Tallinn for New Year's Eve, so there should be some great Estonian capital coverage coming soon!

In the meantime - we've uploaded some of our favorite photos that we never used from our first few countries and will be posting them throughout our Christmas break.

Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving Abroad

Merlin: This was our Thanksgiving morning - a few inches of snow on the ground and more in the air. We are in Riga, the beautiful capital of Latvia, and this picture was taken at eight thirty a.m. We are at 56° 57' north, so it takes a while for the sun to come up.

Rebecca: For all those who have no idea what that means (which included myself until Merlin explained it), New York City is at 40° 47' north and from the equator to the North Pole is 90 degrees. So, yeah. We're quite a bit higher up here than at home. It's funny, because just ten days ago, on a particularly hot day in Lithuania, I remember saying "You know, Thanksgiving has been this early some years and I remember it snowing when I was a kid." And then it did.
Merlin: We went to the central market to gather ingredients. It's a very big place - acres and acres of stalls, some inside, some out in the snow. I felt bad for the people who were standing in the cold with running noses, trying to keep the flakes from piling up on their apples and persimmons.

Rebecca: We were going to get some cranberries, but opted instead for currants, which we had been seeing around markets since Poland. We figured it would be a good regional play on tradition - and that they would take less time to cook.
Merlin: We were able to get everything that we needed before lunchtime. We could even have bought a turkey, but that seemed a little excessive for one person (Rebecca doesn't eat meat). One of the more difficult things about shopping at these markets is that its hard to tell which of the dozens of identical stalls sells the best meat, dairy, produce, etc. I chose between the six or eight chicken-specializing places (as opposed to the pork or beef butchers, or the stalls with smoked ducks and turkey legs) based on the size of the birds that they offered. When I picked a chicken that looked right the woman held it up for me to inspect and urged me to smell it. It smelled perfectly fine, so I took it.

Rebecca: That's our lunch above, from a little shop in the market. They had a few shelves behind a window with bowls and plates showing what they offered, which was helpful on our second day in Latvia, not yet knowing what the words for anything are. I chose a soup that I suspected had a little meat, (which, thankfully, wound up being bits of mushroom) and Merlin chose a sausage plate with mashed potatoes and some strips of raw squash. Any American knows that calculating when and what to eat before Thanksgiving dinner is tricky but important. We felt good about our early afternoon plates of food. Not too much. Not too little. Definitely Latvian.
Rebecca: We picked up the brown bread on Wednesday night, seeing it in a bakery and not wanting to pass up its wonderful seed-and-nuttiness. Merlin correctly reasoned that it may be too dense for a stuffing, so we bought this light wheat country bread at the market. Our stuffing was mostly that bread with accents of the darker variety. This is our very first Thanksgiving where we were solely responsible for our own meal. So, we wanted the stuffing to be awesome (and vaguely European).

Merlin: Another thing about shopping for food: it was so nice to be able to go shopping on Thanksgiving morning and not feel like we were entering some kind of war zone.
Merlin: I made a sauce with the red currants, but we also put some in the stuffing. I mixed them in with the sauteing onions and celery so that they would soften up a little. The sauce was made by cooking the currants in a little water with honey for half and hour, until they had begun to break down. I mixed in half a shredded, cooked beet (I know, I know... shredded beet again!) and a little salt. The mixture was so powerfully red that I had visions of the pink bathtub ring in "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back," which stains everything in the house.

Rebecca: It was our "cranberry sauce" sans cranberry.

Rebecca: And here is our table! Please ignore the plates. They were really ugly, but being as they came with the apartment we rented (for the specific purpose of having an oven on Thanksgiving) we didn't care too much. There's the sauce, the stuffing (which also had a good amount of mushroom and was delicious), Merlin's chicken, the potato, carrot and onion roasted with the chicken mushed up into a brighter play on mashed potatoes and a big bowl of sauteed veggies (shredded brussels sprouts, spinach, onion, apple and pumpkin seeds).

Merlin: Also, about a quarter cup of gravy. Everything was good, and we had great leftovers too. As a consequence, we really haven't eaten much outside our home.Merlin: Here's Rebecca's first plate of food. She took a little bit of chicken, which was a generous gesture.

Rebecca: Every year, I wind up sneaking into my mom's kitchen for some turkey skin. So, Merlin repaid my nugget-of-flesh generosity by allowing me to take any and all the bird skin I wanted. It was a wonderful Thanksgiving. We both got to call our parents (Skype), hole up, cook, tell each other over and over again just how thankful we are and then...

Merlin: ...we watched football, illegally, over the internet. It was almost like we were home in America, except that we were drinking Lāčplēsis Dižalus beer.

Putting together a kitchen

It’s tough to decide what to bring, what we’ll need, what seems necessary and what seems extravagant (but maybe necessary?). I don’t typically think of weight when I buy things for the kitchen. Now, though, I think about it a lot. Why am I bringing two very heavy pans instead of one lighter one?

(The Le Creuset pot works for searing things that I’d rather not put in the cast iron… my all clad skillet isn’t as versatile as the cast iron, and it takes up more space.)

The spices were culled down to a few that I can’t live without, and that travel well. The knives weren’t difficult – mine, Rebecca’s, a serrated one and a paring knife.

Rebecca made the roll-up case out of her old trench coat.

A grater, can opener, peeler, colander, measuring spoons, knife sharpener, spatulas, etc…

The nice thing about traveling by car is that you can bring a lot of stuff that you would never carry on your back. It’s tempting to bring too much.

There's a nice feeling that comes with simplicity and self-limitation. I was going to bring my immersion blender until Rebecca reminded me that there aren't usually power outlets at campground tables.

Moving Day

We moved out! Well, not entirely, but the big stuff is out of the apartment and into storage in Vermont: the couch, the chairs, the bookshelves, our books, all the martini glasses save two (we think ahead), etc. There's still a lot more to pack and move, which will most likely necessitate a second trip to Vermont and a few more runs to my father's place, but any day you parallel park a Uhaul truck in Manhattan and fill it with furniture carried down from your fourth floor walk-up has got to earn the title "Moving Day."

Merlin's brother Luke and his girlfriend Sarah were around to help, which was great.

Luke helped Merlin lift...

While Sarah guarded the Uhaul for hours...

And hours...

And hours...


It was a hot two days, and many Diet Dr. Peppers were had, but finally we were ready to get on the road up to the storage unit. Merlin and I were in the Uhaul with Sarah and Luke following in our Subaru.

By the time we arrived at the storage unit we were a little delirious from the heat and the magnitude of the job ahead of us.


Inspired by Luke's tanned shirtlessness (and heat stroke), Merlin began a storage unit photoshoot


which resulted in the best faux hipster rock band album cover ever:

(Again- it was hot. My dress was discarded. I'm not ashamed and, yes, I wear bloomers).

Amazingly, everything we brought fit , with some room to spare. It may have been tighter had we brought our bed, but when the boys couldn't figure out how to take it apart, they decided to just chop it to pieces and leave it behind. Of course, on around the third hammer whack, they saw exactly how it could have been dismantled... but, hey, one less thing to put in storage. We never liked that bed anyway...