Identity

I´ve written before of the sense of belonging. Its weird, Iceland´s national identity is being re-written as we speak, and I am not there to participate in it or experience it. I´ve complained for years of our political in-activism but now that people are actually marching the streets and protesting, I am sitting in a cozy job abroad. Building up other people´s countries while my own is burning. I am actually afraid that when I go back, I wont even belong there anymore. I´ll be a foreigner without a country.

Tag!

Four jobs I have worked in my life:
-gimp at Dominos Pizza
-bartender / waitress in Costa del Sol (Spain)
-Guide and manager at a Viking farm in rural Iceland
-Public Relations Advisor (Kosovo)

Four favorite movies:
-Stella i orlofi (best movie ever)
-Mulain Ruge. Love the wibe, the costumes, the songs, the drama. Love it
-Casablanca. Beautiful. Sad. Charmismatic. Its a classic!
-Lion King. Best cartoon ever. Saw it 3 times in the cinema. Go Simba!

Four places I have lived:
-Fossvogi. Stomping grounds of young me. Very grand in memory (Iceland)
-Grabbanum. Best neighbourhood in Iceland
-A Modern Moroccan slum, complete with gay bondage pub and switch bar (Spain)
-Heidelberg, in an old manor, serving as a dorm. Saw my first and only ghost there Germany)

Four TV shows I like:
-America´s next top model. What is not to like?
-Dr. Phil. I know he is sleazy but I just cant stop watching…
-House. He is just to cool. And Billy from Neighbours is in it.
-Neighbours. Best TV show ever. Period

Last four places I have holidayed in:
-Dubai. Strangest place in the world. Skying in the desert. Underwater restaurants. Shoppingmalls decorated with gold and jewles. A must see. But only if you have money
-India. Delhi (skip it). Jaipur (great). Agra (a must-Taj Mahal). Goa (paradise on earth)
-Iran. Coolest place ever. Extremely nice people, rich culture. Cant wait to go again
-Brussels. Working trip -with a little pleasure. Cute city and cheap beer

Four webpages I look at everyday (excluding blogsites):
-google. Naturally!
-mbl.is. Mostly for the horoscopes.
-facebook. Im hooked
-gmail.

Four kinds of food I like:
-Avocado. Yummmmmmmmm
-Mosarella. Yummmmmmmmmm
-pop corn. Yuummmmmmmmmmm
-Ferrerro Rocher chocolates. Yuuummmmmmmmmm

Four books/magazines I read often:
-Ísfólkið (the “Ice-people”… nordic book series about witches and cursed people. very tacky, but good…)
-1001 Night. classic. needs no explination
-Gone with the wind. at least once every summer… it recides in our cabin
-The Ecconomist. for when Im trying (and usually failing)to be intellectual

Four places I would love to be at right now:
-Swiming. In a propper Reykjavik pool
-Salamanca. Because its still my vida, mi corazon
-Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan ect. On a road-trip on a motorcicle (not that I know how to use one)
-Kabul. Because Im retarded

Four places blogger I challange!:
Aubba
Erla
Ása
Ásta (byrjadu nu aftur ad blogga kerli min :))

Stupid Monday

Im missing Kabul at the moment. So so much.  And Im missing Iceland even more. Constantly going to new places, meeting new people and gaining new experiences sound like a cool thing, and it is, but also really hard. You dont belong anywhere, you have no family. The friends you make disappear, and the groups you belong  to scatter and melt away. They all just go home on move on to the next place.  The feeling will pass I know, but this Monday everything just sucks.

Belgrade

Serbia is a remarkable place. It gave an interesting start to the journey waking up in a 50 year old (surprisingly comfortable) sleeping carriage in the night train from Skopje to Belgrade, just in time to drink in the sight of yawning Serbs, enjoying their morning cigarettes and beer in the train corridor.

Roadtrip

I’m going out of town this weekend and will be visiting the old Yugoslavian capital of Belgrade. I’ve not seen anything here in the Balkans except now Pristina, so every opportunity to travel and explore will be taken!  Supposedly Belgrade is beautiful,  has a lot of interesting sights, good shops and great nightlife. At least I was sold! And also, it is obviously interesting to visit the Serb side. A friend of mine suggested an interesting science project while in Serbia, to send a postcard to Pristina and see if it will arrive. I’ll keep you posted on the results.

Daze

Afternoons are a killer. Why? I sit by a great big window that constitutes a whole wall and is on the receiving end of the afternoon sun. To further help myself sleep I’ve come into the habit of going out for lunch with my collegues in one of Pristina’s lovely restaurants. Very pleasurable but after eating I always get really really tired. So I spend every afternoon trying desperately to stay awake. I’ve tried coffee but its counterproductive since it’s hot and because its already hot in this stubit office, coffee just makes me even hotter and even more sleepy. Why cant NATO just issue a regulatory siesta for everyone??? Or a little nap room like they did in the first grades of elementary school.  A big meeting room fylled with mattresses, pillows and blankets… When I am ruler of the world, this will be my first decree.

A victorious day!

Firstly, I would like to say congrats to my Viking handball heroes, winning silver at the Olympics! For a nation of just over 300.000 people this is phenomenal! Nothing short of this athletic feat would encurage me to wake up at nine o’clock on a Sunday morning and although we lost the gold, Im terrably proud of our guys!

Secondly, I have found and confirmed an apartment! A great litle place -with a guestroom- in the hills overlooking Pristina. After having romed neighbourhood after neighbourhood looking at countless flats, I am quite happy with mine. Its renovated, new, the furniture is nice and everything works! None of this is a given here in lovely Pristina (at least unless for an unreasonable fee) so I’m  quite happy! This means I’ll be abandoning the mansion in the hills and into my own modest little accomodation. Hurrah! Victory!

Congratulations, I have arrived!

So I am here! In Pristina that is. And so far so good! My new job seems to be both exceptionally challenging and immensely fun. I feel like a bit of an idiot some days but being the new girl that should be quite normal. The Kosovars are great -very very welcoming, friendly and seem to go out of their way to be nice to you. I have never once gotten the oh-so familiar feeling that somehow the locals are trying to cheat you.

Before I came, I got many warnings on the supposed ugliness of Pristina but now having seen it, I don’t think the city is that bad at all! Granted, the centre is very Soviet-Union, i.e. tall ugly box-style buildings and lots of traffic, but the hills surrounding it are pretty and littered with small red-roofed houses and tall trees. And even in its ugliness, the centre is interesting and the community is delightful. The city is very old school with vegetable stalls (all organic and DELICIOUS) on every corner and you buy your meet in a special store. Some internationals find it annoying, but I find it quite charming. I promise to post pictures as soon as I can get my internet up!

Ironic

Am I the only one that finds the name Kosovo. a short history, kind of ironic for a book that is about 500 pages of size 6 -no spacing- fonts? The book seems kind of good though. And I recommend Michael Ignatieff´s Empire lite: nation building in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan. The book is old and obviously not perfect but he does pose some very interesting theories on world politics. Love MI as a journalist also so perhaps I´m biased. Tried to insert pretty much all his articles into pretty much all of my Uni papers.

Self amusing musings

I am aware that no one in the world reads this blog. Reason being, I haven´t actually told anyone that I have it. So I am really writing these exceptionally exciting and entertaining posts just for me and myself. Hurrah me.