Tuesday 11 September 2018

(March 29, 2018) Exploring Prishtina

After breakfast at our hotel, a small group of us did some exploring around town.  We walked down Mother Teresa Boulevard, a long pedestrian street, and peeked into a church with beautiful stained glass windows.  Another church, this one abandoned, sat nearby.  We tried to peek inside, but nothing was there except the sun pouring in through windowless openings.  We passed the library, which was also a very architecturally interesting structure.  The outside is made up of many small white domes, and what looks like an elaborate metallic grid.

Outside a church

Gorgeous stained glass

An older, abandoned church


Standing empty...


Near the library

Inside the library

Art on the wall

Exterior of the library

We found lunch nearby at a lovely little café.  The food here is delicious and inexpensive, though the only thing I'm not a fan of is the indoor smoking in cafés.  After an afternoon rehearsal, several of us found a little sweet shop, and some delicious coffee.  After another short walk around the bazaar near our hotel, we left for our last concert of the tour.

Enjoying lunch!

Posing in the plaza

Enjoying a sunny day!

(Later): We found out that our last concert of the tour was also going to be nationally televised-- it was part of the DAM Festival.  Despite limited rehearsal time on Aaron Copland's "Appalachian Spring" (our only performance of this piece on our tour), I think everything went quite well!  Paskal, my stand partner, pointed out many important people in the audience: the minister of culture, the festival organizer, a couple of composers and conductors...

Kosovo Radio

After our final concert, we went out to dinner (as a full orchestra) to celebrate.  It was a feast!  Back at our hotel, a smaller group of us got together to drink some raki-- there was still plenty of the fiery clear liquor to go around!

A well-earned party after the concert!

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