First weekend

 18/01/2025

Today was my first Saturday back in Prishtina, I took a stroll down to the local bakery and had a delicious breakfast. In the afternoon I walked to the sports centre, which is next to the football stadium. When I arrived, there were two handball teams warming up for a game, it was Georgia vs Great Britain! So, I wasn't going to miss that. I went for some food nearby in a local cafe to kill the time before the game, I got back just in time for the game. There weren't many people watching but I could go in for free, which was great. It was a good game but Georgia kept slowly pulling ahead and the game finished 34-27 to Georgia. I only found out after that it was a 4 day international tournament that finished today, so I managed to catch the last game which was lucky. My first full handball game was a good experience despite GB losing. 

It is a Saturday and the Premier League continues, despite me leaving the country. I am an Arsenal fan and they were playing at 6:30pm local time (as Kosovo is an hour ahead of the UK) against Aston Villa. I went to the local bar to watch it, the owner was also a football fan so put on the game for me. It was all going well, Arsenal went 2-0 up but then bottled it for the game to finish 2-2. A disappointing result but I had a good chat with the owner of the bar, he is a big fan of British music, especially heavy metal, so I got to know another local which is always nice. 

Sunday was a quiet day, it was very cold so I did not venture far. I went out for lunch on Caffe de Rakkis, which is the 'trendy' street where people drink coffee and eat. After I stopped off at the National University Library. This is quite an iconic building with a 'brutalist' style architecture, large square concrete shapes with a cage of geometric steel around the outside of the walls make it look quite intimidating. The domes covering the top light up and night and you can go into the different rooms and look up into them. It is next to a large derelict church, known as the 'Christ the Saviour', it is an old Serbian Orthodox church. Its construction began in 1995 but was left unfinished during 1998 because of the Kosovo conflict, it is a stark reminder of the ongoing cultural conflict and the complex history of this new country's ethnic composition. 


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