Memories come rushing back, and new memories are made

I am certain that all of you reading this blog have traveled somewhere in your life, and upon returning home told amazing stories about, well, how amazing it all was.  Somewhere between telling about the scuba diving, great hotel, welcoming locals, and perfect weather that was your entire trip, you forget about the other details.  Like the mosquitoes, the sunburn that could be classified as 3^rd degree, and the fact that TSA took all of your souvenirs because they deemed them, “weapons”.  This past week has been filled with happenings of the second sort, and truth be told, I didn’t hate it.  My past few days have been comedic, and it made me realize, once again, the things in life that make me happy are all that is really important; and that comforts are just that.

            The weather here in Pristina has changed quite dramatically in the past week.  When I arrived it was hot, so hot that ice coffees were the drink of the day, and I was debating wearing my work out shorts around the city.  However, it got cold pretty fast, and in Shley’s apartment it became quite cold.  As we both quickly realized one particular morning, Shley’s apartment has no heat.  It’s not that there aren’t heaters, in fact there are 4 heaters, but try as I might to channel my dad, I could not manage to turn them on.  I twisted knobs, turned valves, desperately put my hand to the heaters every five minutes only to finally decide – there was no heat.  Solution?  Talk to Shley’s landlord.  Now though I am sure he is a very nice man, he speaks no English, none at all, and in fact Shley has only seen him twice her entire three months here.  So, maybe no solution….?

            Solution!  Drink MASSIVE amounts of English breakfast and wintertime tea, and purchase a lovely new blanket from the super market.  English tea was our go to, that was until the power decided to go out.  Now, Shley told me before I got to Kosova, that sometimes the power went out in the whole city.  I told her I could handle it, I mean, when I visited Honduras three years back with my parents the island we were on rotated who had power half-way through each day.  We managed, and even had a very nice family dinner that was candle-lit on the beach.  However, let me tell you Honduras is a far cry from Kosova with 40 degree weather, no heat, and no English breakfast tea to warm your insides.

            Solution?  Channel the Russians and drink MASSIVE amounts of vodka?  It was an option, but vodka at 4pm… So we decided to go out for a walk and dinner and hope that it was back on when we returned.  It, unfortunately, was not.  AND we realized that it wasn’t the entire city - just Shley’s apartment building that had no electricity!  The neon signs across the street taunting us from her living room windows.  We watched the end of a movie, and then went to sleep we awoke hoping for, well, light.  But, it was not to happen, and when the electricity went down it fried our computer chargers, (thankfully nothing else), the contents of our fridge had spoiled, and our hot water heater no longer worked.  When I woke up I felt like an icicle and proceeded to put on almost all of my clothes and two scarves.  Of course, everything I had wanted to wear had been washed was still drying on the rack, (flash back to Russia, I’d forgotten not everyone gets their clothes downy fresh and hot from a dryer) the question was, what could I do to warm up?

            Enter my i-pod, which I realized had about 20 minutes before it died.  Technology was slowly failing me!  I turned on my running mix, which blared Blame It on the Alcohol into my ears, and danced.  I had one of the best dance parties in Shley’s living room.  Blame it was followed by some Beyonce, Foo Fighters and then finally MGMT before dying on me in the middle of, I kid you not, she wants to move by Pharell.  Hell yea I wanted to move, to get my body temperature past freezing!  After that I continued to sing to myself and doing some kind of dance / cardio kick boxing moves.  Gets the blood moving!

            After passing the rest of the day by going for a walk around the city (to continue moving), and writing in my journal I met Shley after work.  I regretfully informed her our electricity still wasn’t on and the look she gave me was not a good one.  To be honest, by this point I thought that it was warmer outside the apartment then inside.  We walked back home and went to the stove to try the electric burner.  IT WORKED!!!!! I have never been so happy to see a little red light next to the stove in my life.  We boiled some water for tea and now were in tea heaven.  I think we drank about five cups in the next three hours.  It was amazing.

            Well, it’s been a few days since then, Shley’s apartment still has no heat, and it’s still really cold, but we have the electricity, English breakfast tea, and you-tube installments of Jane Austen BBC movies.  I couldn’t be happier.  Tomorrow we’re going on a day trip to Prizren, about two hours south of Pristina, but if for some reason the electricity goes off, I’ll put on all my clothes, have a dance party with Shley and try to remember to enjoy all these new experiences.  They already make me smile thinking about them. 

P.S. Shley and I have decided we’re going to tap into the market of making cashmere jumpsuits – we are sure they will solve all warmth problems, and will make the world a better place.