Expanding to Hotels and Restaurants

If anyone wants to come visit Kosovo here is the perfect hotel and it has a restaurant, too. This is at General Jankovic near the Macedonia border. No, I don't know exactly who General Jankovic was (obviously from the name he was Serbian)but I like to think that he was related to either Frankie Jankovic or Weird Al Jankovic. You know Franky Jankovic! He was America's Polka King and immortalized the "Too Fat Polka" and "In Heaven There is No Beer Polka". What? You thought I was too cool to know that?
Maybe I'll redecorate the interior of the hotel with accordions to give it a theme.

Back in Prishtina ....

Opportunity knocked so I decided to invest in a couple of businesses when we got back to Prishtina. One provision I insisted upon was that my name go on the business. One of these places sells gold jewelry and the other sells clothing. There are a few other places I'm looking at, too.

My Boat

This is a far cry from the luxurious yachts that were moored at Budva but I kind of like it, anyway.

Budva Montenegro

After another frustrating week of very little electricity I'm going to attempt to update the blog. Here are a couple of photographs of Budva where we stayed for a week earlier in the month. The first photo was taken from the top of the wall surrounding Old Town Budva and looks toward the mountains that we had to travel over to get to the coast. The other photo was taken of a garden inside Old Town. There are not only lots of little shops, coffee houses, bakeries, and restaurants inside Old Town, but a few people actually live there, too. This garden amazed me. It had figs, grapes, lemons, pomegranetes and avocados growing in it. You just about can't ask for much more, can you? Oh, it had flowers, too.
I would strongly urge anyone looking for a new place to explore to tour the Dalmatian Coast from Montenegro up through Croatia. The people here are very friendly and welcoming. The accomodations are comfortable and more than reasonably priced. Food is excellent and the scenery is breathtaking. If you've never traveled to the Balkans, though, I would advise you to just keep an open mind and don't expect to find the full blown "tourist" experience you find in most of the famous European destinations. This area is very laid back in most respects, although in some places such as Budva, you do get a very lively beach scene complete with lots of discos right on the beach, amusement park rides, and they even have an internet cafe in a big tent. The internet cafe was always completely packed and I could never get in while I was there. That was okay, though...there was too much other stuff to see and do.

Kotor Montenegro

Tom and I visited Old Town in Kotor when we were in Montenegro the end of June but it was so hot that day, we decided to head to Dubrovnik and enjoy the scenery along the coast from the comfort of our air conditioned car. We are really glad we got the opportunity to go back because it is spectacular.

It is the famous part of Kotor where Kotor history, culture and tradition thrive. Old town has a large number of monuments of medieval architecture: churches, cathedrals, palaces and museums. Its beauty is enhanced with a number of narrow streets, squares and pjacetas. Old town Kotor distinguishes itself also by the number of stylish gates, palaces of wealthy families and a large number of staircases. The heart of Kotor is among the best preserved medieval urbane centers at Mediterranean. At least that's what they claim.

City walls are 5km long,up to 20m high and 10m wide. Because they are completely preserved they are a unique sample of fortification architecture in Europe. Their building started in the 9th century and they were rebuilt and fortified for the next 10 centuries. The walls have three gates that were the entrances and exits through the centuries. No matter which gate you enter the town street will lead you to the most famous building - cathedral of St. Tripun dating back to 12th century, dedicated to the protector of the town Saint Tripun.

Old town of Kotor has been listed on the UNESCO world cultural heritage since 1979.

Paralia Greece

Tom and I like Paralia so much we are going back in about three weeks for a quick 3 day trip. The first plan was just for me to go down with a bunch of girls to get our hair done in Katerini at this great salon that some of them found the last time we were there. I didn't know about it in enough time to make an appointment and my hair desperately needs to be cut. My wonderful hair stylist in Los Gatos, Lisa, sold me enough tint and developer for me to take care of coloring it myself, but I wouldn't dare cut it myself. So it is pretty ragged on the ends. Tom decided he couldn't stand it to not go, too, so he is taking off his last three days of CTO that he has accumulated. Then we're going to have to stay home for awhile!
Anyway, here are a couple of photos taken from the Panorama Hotel where we stayed. This hotel caters to Americans and they completely understand how we like things and they take really good care of us. This is the same hotel Tom and I stayed at when we were there three years ago and I can't imagine going anywhere else in Paralia.
The first photo was taken right behind our hotel and it looks toward Mt. Olympus. We drove up there in our rented car three years ago and well, it's just a mountain. It's no more grand than any other mountain we have ever been on and we didn't see any Greek gods or goddesses so it was kind of a disappointment. But it does have a fantastic view from up there! I have to say, the water of the Aegean is about as blue as you can imagine.
The other photo was taken from our hotel room and looks down on the street in front of the hotel. The town really goes into full throttle about 10:00 at night...that's when people are out eating dinner, shopping and so on. Notice the temperature on the digital thermometer....28 degrees Celsius and this was taken at about midnight. It was hot there! Because it takes on the appearance of Bourbon Street in New Orleans you would probably think it is really noisy, but it's not. It's very much family oriented and people are out just having a good time, relaxing, walking, eating, having a drink and so on. I have to say, one thing I am taking back home with me from this part of the world is "how to relax". I have a lot of catching up to do in that area so you may not be able to get me to do any meaningful "activities" henceforth.

Beware Greeks Wearing Speedos

As you might imagine, Europe is fertile ground for Speedo sightings and Greece was no exception, by far. Once upon a time if I heard the word "Speedo" I immediately thought of Mark Spitz with six Olympic gold medals splayed across his chest. Mmmm.
I saw exactly one guy wearing a Speedo that even approached the physical splendor that Mark Spitz possessed. The rest....well, see for yourself. Whew!