Getting Lost
“We’re lost in the right direction.”
I said that to Ajinur, a fellow William & Mary law student and my current roommate, while we wandered aimlessly around Zurich, Switzerland on a 24-hour layover. I’m sure I originally saw that quote on some Pinterest photo, but it fit our situation perfectly. We had no game plan or sense of where we were, but we enjoyed the experience nonetheless.
It rained in Zurich for the entirety of our layover, but it was still incredibly beautiful. We visited the National History Museum, took a boat ride around Lake Zurich, and found our way to a park overlooking the city. We stopped in a bakery for a snack, and I ended up eating a sandwich that consisted of pears and Swiss cheese on some kind of fruit-filled bread. It was just as strange (yet oddly delicious) as you can imagine.
When we finally arrived in Pristina, Kosovo, we continued to get lost. We spent our first day wandering around the city and tried to familiarize ourselves enough with Ajinur’s Albanian phrasebook to order dinner. One of the misconceptions I had about Kosovo was that there would be translations in both Albanian and Serbian in most public places, which isn’t the case in Pristina.
Luckily, we secured an incredible apartment on our first day and moved in the next morning. On our second day, the city started to become more familiar. We started recognizing landmarks and managed to meet up with Ajinur’s boss for coffee. We all talked about relations between Kosovo and the United States and how friendly most Kosovars are to Americans. If I can say anything about my time in Kosovo thus far, it’s that this country is full of some of the friendliest people I have ever met in my life.
I am incredibly excited and honored to be working with Democracy for Development this summer in such an intriguing and upcoming country. Here’s to getting lost and seeing how these next three months unfold!