Travel with Kevin and Ruth: Kosovo's love of the USA

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Kosovo's love of the USA

We did quite a few kilometres of walking around Pristina yesterday. It was a nice warm day, with a high of about 25C (77F). But really hazy.

The city of Pristina is not a tourist hot spot, that's for sure. However, there are some interesting things that are worth seeing, one of which is the obvious infatuation with the United States.

First stop was a walk by the Palace of Youth and Sports which is pretty much across the street from our apartment...

The Palace of Youth and Sports.

Palace of Youth and Sports is a multi-purpose hall located in Pristina, Kosovo. It includes two indoor arenas, the larger of which has a capacity of 8,000 spectators, and the smaller a capacity of 3,000 spectators. It also includes a shopping mall, indoor parking, two convention halls and a library. It was built in 1977.

The Newborn Monument.

The Newborn Monument was unveiled on 17 February 2008, the day that Kosovo formally declared its independence from Serbia. It was bright yellow when it was revealed, however it is painted differently on the anniversary of Kosovo's independence movement day every year.

The Route 66 Diner.

There is a lot of construction going on in Pristina.

Bill Clinton Blvd.

And there he is!

A larger than life statue of Bill himself!

Kosovar Albanians love Bill Clinton. He initiated the NATO response that ended the Kosovo war in 1999. To thank him, they put up an 11' high larger than life statue of President Clinton, and named a street after him.

Here's an interesting BBC News article from 2016...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37761383

We popped into the relatively new Mother Teresa Roman Catholic Cathedral.

You can take an elevator up the tower, but they wanted €3.50 ($4.75 CAD, $3.45 USD) each, so we didn't go. Free to go inside though...

Then we continued over to the National Library.

Mural on a university building along the way.

The National Library of Kosovo was built in 1982.

It's definitely a different building.

The American Corner.

Once again you see the American connection. This room had books only in English.

There was a small photographic display of some of the damage from the war.

The National Library of Kosovo.

Next stop was a gluten free restaurant. Seems strange to find such a thing in Pristina, Kosovo. We actually went there to see if they sold any products, although we had found some gluten free bread at a Conad grocery store earlier on.

Since we were there, we decided to have a snack...

We shared a small pizza.

And we shared a piece of cake.

Back at the apartment, we had done about 8 kms (5 miles).

We relaxed for a couple of hours, then headed out again. This time, to meet up with Han and Michelle, a couple from Singapore who we had met back in May of 2019. Hard to believe that meeting was more than three years ago!

They've done a lot of traveling, however there are some countries that they've missed along the way. So they did this trip specifically to do a short quick visit to a few countries that they hadn't been to yet. They arrived in Zurich September 30th, and have been to Liechtenstein, Slovakia, Austria, Lithuania, Spain, Andorra, Monaco, France, Italy, San Marino, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Slovenia, Serbia, Albania, and Kosovo. They are off to North Macedonia next, then to Romania and Moldova.

Yikes. 20 countries in about 30 days! No wonder they're tired!