One night in Prizren

The title may be a bit misleading. It was only a half an hour adventure and we made it to the hotel before 21:30. Alcohol was not involved either.

I was in a coordinating team in SALTO SEE's study visit in Kosovo, in this case in Peja, Klina and Prizren. After Peja and Klina, we arrived in Prizren, accommodated in a hotel, went to the youth center to eat flia. After dinner, participants headed to the city center to continue evening but the coordinating team decided to have a meeting and join the others later (at 21:00, to be sharp).

The meeting took longer than we originally thought, as we started to have ridiculous problems with a really small practical matter. Discussion went further and further and at one point everyone was just laughing and laughing. At the end, we found a simple solution to our problem. It was time to join the others. Except... a couple of people decided to stay at the office, and as it was raining and we being tired, me and D. decided to go to the hotel.

As mentioned, it was raining. We didn't know where the hotel was located (except that it was quite far away) so a local guy promised to call a taxi for us. But then his friend Arijon was leaving to same direction and was supposed to take us.This guy left to meet the others and me and D. went outside to wait Arijon and his car. We stood under my umbrella, waiting. Waiting. Waiting. And at exactly same moment started laughing. It was clear that our driver had vanished.

We still standing outside and laughing, a boy who has been inside the building approaches us. We ask if he is Arijon. He doesn't speak English a lot, just a few words, but it's clear that he's not our driver. I'll try to explain the situation to him with my rusty Albanian, D. tries if he speaks Serbian. I put almost all my existing vocabulary there and yet he doesn't seem to get it. And of course he doesn't - he works for TV, not the organization we were visiting. They just happen to work in the same building.

The TV-boy leaves, and D. decides it's time for us to call a taxi. Of course we don't know any taxi company, so we go inside to search for the TV-boy. He seems to have vanished too. We split up and look for him everywhere. Finally he comes out from one room, next to the office we had our meeting. We ask him to call a taxi as he can explain where it should come. There's a lot of confusion when we don't have any strong common language, but finally it seems to be solved and taxi coming.

Both me and D. realize that we don't remember the name of the hotel. D. opens the door to the office to ask from our colleague who stayed there working. Immediately the same idea pops in our heads and we start laughing hysterically - all the time we tried to speak with the TV-boy there has been an Albanian speaker right behind the door! We can't stop laughing but manage to ask the hotel's name. We go out and the taxi comes. We hop in and tell our destination. The taxi driver is a young guy, he asks D. where we are from. D. tells his origin, I mention being from Finland. And the guy starts speaking Finnish! He tells that he lived in Espoo and worked in Helsinki for one year, in Eerikin Pippuri. I don't know the company but smile widely. He pronounces it perfectly. We arrive at the hotel. Kiitos. Hyvää yötä!