The Journey Begins

Our holiday in Montenegro and Croatia started in Macedonia because we had to go to Skopje to pick up our rental car. Our friends Marcia and Erika drove us to the Kosovo/Macedonia border. That's always an interesting border crossing. It's kind of dilapidated and trashy and I get to take it all in while we walk through "no man's land". I can't help but think about the story that Tom's language assistant told us about when NATO was bombing Kosovo.
She said that Serb soldiers were going house to house in Pristina and forcing people out of their homes. She said that since it was in the Spring, it was still rather cold, but they weren't allowed time to get coats and most people didn't have on shoes, because it is the custom here to leave your shoes outside the door. She said that she just remembers being numb, not even able to think. She was afraid they were going to be taken somewhere and be shot. They were loaded into trucks and transported to this same "no man's land" and for several days were held there with no food, water, protective clothing or anything. Macedonian Albanians heard about this and gathered at the border to try to give them bread but they were threatened. In a few days the International Red Cross intervened and took care of them. I digress here, but I always think about this incident whenever we cross the border there.
Anyway, here is a photo of the house across the street from our hotel. I thought it was some kind of embassy or something but a staff member at our hotel said that no, it was just someone's private residence. That's Skopje in the background. The other photo is of our Peugot that we rented. After we picked it up we drove back to our flat in Prishtina to get the rest of our luggage and travel on through Kosovo to the Montenegran border. By the way, you know how we pronounce Peugot in America....."pooh-zhoe". Our European friends here find it hilarious when they hear us pronounce it that way. We have been informed that it is "peh-zhoe". Whatever.