In my next few blog posts, I’m going to pull entries from my personal journal. It’s interesting to look back and see the evolution of our stay. Here are the entries from our first 2 days back in Prishtina following our tour of the Balkans. Throughout the course of our 5 weeks here, there was never a shortage of dirty laundry… and “clean clothes” became those that we considered to be the least dirty. I’m unsure of whether I should boast about this or not… but I managed to make it through 6-weeks of travel, having only done laundry once. Looking forward to being reunited with my washing machine.
June 25th
We’ve been living out of a van for what feels like a week, and it feels like a week because it has, in fact, been a week.
I haven’t done laundry in just over 9 days, which has been accentuated by the fact that the heat has been unbearable. Everything smells, which has made the bus ride that much more unpleasant.
It’s been a fantastic trip, but I won’t be disappointed to arrive back in Prishtina and settle into my work.
We pull into the parking lot just before 9 p.m., and I’m more relieved than I should have to be, that we made it back in one piece, having avoided multiple “close ones” while overtaking other drivers along the side of a cliff.
When I travel to places that surpass the comfortable barriers of the west, people often ask me if I’m nervous.
Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey – you name it.
“Are you nervous? Is it safe?”
If only people realized that the true danger lies not in the geography or political construct of a region, but in the precarious attitude of one’s driver.
June 26th
It’s Sunday. And the Laundromat is closed.