So here we are

We arrived safe and sound late Friday evening. Just as planned and hoped for. I couldn't have asked for a better trip - no delays, no lost luggage and D was excellent except for around midnight on Thursday when she had a nightmare and woke up rows 29 - 32 in coach with her crying and screaming. I only got one "shush" though, and the crew was getting ready to wake us up for breakfast anyway. So all's well that ends well, although I could go for the rest of my life without ever passing through Gatwick again. Smoky, smoky and omigosh are the bathroom stalls SMALL. Barely made for one person, let alone someone with 3 carryon bags, a stroller and a small child. We actually got stuck because I couldn't open the door wide enough to get the stroller out. I was trapped on the toilet side and D was at the door. I had to shove her out into the bathroom, toss the bags out to her (she valiantly tried to pull them aside), and then partially close the stroller before I tumbled out. I think airplane bathrooms are bigger.

Kosovo is totally unlike anyplace else I've ever been, yet elements of it remind me a lot of Jamaica, of all places. Maybe it is the concrete and stucco homes, or the piles of debris by the roads, the cows grazing in the fields. I cooked my first dinner last night: penne and tomato sauce. Then celebrated by waking up this morning with a raging migraine. Really very sick in every way possible. I slept it off while M took care of D. But it was a near thing and if I have any more mornings like that I'll be heading for home much sooner than expected. But so far that is the only sign either D or I have had of jet lag. D is already on her regular sleep schedule!

The food thing is going to be hard to figure out. No frozen foods, no mac n' cheese, no fast foods at all. We went to a local restaurant for lunch today. Had some types of schnitzel, mine was chicken and M's was a part of a cow. No English translation for the part but it was tasty anyhow. D got the "Florida Salad" - chicken nuggets with salad and fruit. We also got a delicious soup (looked and tasted like pea puree with pasta or rice in it), a very fresh, huge side salad and a little bowl of fruit with caramel and whipped cream all for free with our meal. The whole meal was only 12 euros. The food here is amazingly inexpensive. We did some basic grocery shopping and a loaf of fresh-baked bread is only 25 cents and eggs are 75 cents a dozen. Even the canned goods are just a few cents, however I couldn't always tell what was inside based on the pictures. Dairy is the same way - M had bought some yogurt and D had one for breakfast, but neither of them could decide on the flavor based on the pictures. D settled on "apple," eventually. But the fruits and veggies are cheap, fresh and delicious, so I think we'll at least be eating healthy. Dinner tonight was "Kosovo toast" - french toast without sugar, cinammon and syrup, but with fresh cherries and strawberries instead.

It's all good, just being together again.

Packin' it in

We are officially packed. Our checked luggage will consist of: one wheelie suitcase containing, for the adult: two pairs of pants, two skirts, assorted matching tops, a hairdryer and three pairs of adult shoes and for the child: 11 separate changes of clothes, three pairs of pjs, a fleece jacket and four pairs of shoes; and a large Barney-purple duffel bag with an inflatable air mattress (have I mentioned there's only one bedroom in our Kosovo apartment?), boxes of fruit snacks, assorted eye and hair care products and fresh towels. Not bad, I think, for two months in a foreign land with all kinds of activities - and weather conditions - awaiting us. Then I see the pile that I'm attempting to carry on: purse, overnight bag, diaper bag, D's backpack, umbrella stroller. I'm carrying a small electronics department in the overnight bag: iPod, PVD (for D), two cases of DVDs, adapters, batteries, headphones, and my new toy, Altec Lansing's inMotion Portable Speakers for the iPod. These babies ROCK. About the size and weight of a paperback, they pump out great sound, run on AC or DC, and trickle charge the 'Pod. Love it. I almost hope they make me turn them on during the security check - rest assured I'll have my Wang Chung ready to play!

Not that I wish to run afoul of the good folk at the TSA. Especially after my minor brush with the law at Target the other day. I was buying a couple types of medicine containing pseudophedrine, ignorant of a recently passed law limiting such purchases to two per customer per transaction. Seems some people cook the medicine with battery acid to create a drug. Now, I don't have a clue what drug this would create. But it probably didn't help my case that I was also buying several packs of AA batteries in preparation for our trip. I actually had to explain to a manager why I had so much medicine (D has a cold and we're traveling and some friends in Kosovo asked me to bring over some allergy medicine... really!) and the batteries were extras for the aforementioned electronic gear. Too bad I didn't have my overnight bag with me to actually show him the goods. Anyway, apparently they trusted me not to go home and mix my PediaCare with my double-As, because they let me purchase the surplus bottles in a separate cash transaction. Everything takes two tries these days.

So now I just have minor cleaning up to do around the house. Take out the trash. Panic at the last minute and stuff as many diapers as I can into the outer pockets of the suitcase. And of course watch Lost at 8:00. If you're thinking of calling, kindly wait until 9.

All for now!

Play-doh & gadgets

Time is just slip-sliding away. Exhausted and shopped-out, with D just a wee bit sniffly, we decided to take Sunday off and not go anywhere. No shopping, no errands, no activities. It was very relaxing, hibernating in the a/c. We played animal hospital, puppet show, got out the play-doh, and read almost every book in D's library. Also invented a new game called Mail Carrier. A nice way to recycle two common household nuisances: junk mail and empty shoeboxes. Hmm, why do I have more shoeboxes than shoes?

The following contains a brief, shameless commercial plug. M called in the afternoon using Skype, a really cool Internet telephony service. If you live a long-distance call away from loved ones, or just love technology, this is great stuff. Secure and totally free, over your regular Internet connection. And unlike a lot of other P2P applications, works on Macs! Yay! Try it today! Okay, back to the call... M finally had a chance to get out and about visiting some of the parks. I get the impression they were very nice, unlike most of Pristina which is de-forested, rubbly, dusty and under construction. Ah, the trials of rebuilding after a war. Since I consider it a major inconvenience when a lane on the interstate is blocked due to construction, I'm not sure how I'll react to a whole city undergoing the same.

Since Kosovo isn't an area of the world typically covered on the Weather Channel, here's a site that shows the local 5-day forecast, for anyone interested.

Today is our last playgroup until July. We're going to a local park to play and have a picnic. I'm taking pictures of D's little friends for an album I'm taking with us. Then later, we're going to buy some accessories for my iPod. I know I said no more shopping, but M said to get a set of portable speakers since we have no radio there and the Albanian version of MTV features hot tunes like the Macarena. Plus then we'll be fully mobilized for any occasion that may call for an iPod stocked with nostalgia-inducing 80s tunes (Madness, anyone?) -- wait a minute, maybe that Albanian MTV is right up my alley after all.

My packing list is now dominated by play-doh and electronic gadgets. Watch, I'll forget to pack my jeans.

Sleepless in St. Pete

Thwarted in my attempt to get more sleep. D woke up crying at 11:30 pm and I spent the next two hours trying to calm her down. It just wears me out. The crying started out as the "night terror" variety, then quickly progressed to demands for water, milk, mommy. It reminded me a bit of how she was when M first left for Kosovo, so I'm attributing it to the fact that M's parents picked up the Dog last night. She is going to live with them while we're away - she'll be a Mountain Dog! They love her and vice versa (can't say as much for their cats) so she'll be well taken care of, but D kept asking where she was and I guess she decided that the middle of the night is a good a time as any to get upset about it.

Anyhow, at 1:00 am I caved in and brought her into my bed -- after all one half is empty. If only she understood about halves. Instead she spent the next 30 minutes sobbing on and off, then about 45 minutes thrashing about trying to get comfortable. She ended up curled against my back in a sweaty heap, hair tangled everywhere, with her feet positioned in kick mode. It was a mighty uncomfortable night, and just one of many reasons the family bed doesn't appeal to us.

M called yesterday. He was just off work and passed a phone box and decided to call. All is well in Kosovo. He's discovered an egg shop near our apartment - stacks and stacks of eggs of all sorts, sizes and colors. The owner speaks English so that was a nice bonus and at least we'll know if we're getting chicken eggs or...not chicken. M's also found a grocery store that stocks a lot of Turkish products and - good news - pasta. So D won't starve after all. It sounds like the basics (milk, bread, veggies and fruit) are available, but M thinks we'll be eating out a lot anyway. My entries may end up sounding like a mini-restaurant review for Kosovo, although nothing like our friends the Pauleys who are on their way to producing a comprehensive guide to eating in Louisville. (Hi Tony & Kim!)

I imagine this week will go pretty quickly and next Saturday's post will be from Pristina, Kosovo.

One week to go...

It's official! We're off to Kosovo in just one short week. The planning process for the trip is going well, but I'm looking forward to actually getting there. M. & I have been apart far too long. As far as packing, I swing from wanting to bring everything with us, from sippy cups to fruit snacks, to deciding we will rough it. M. has met some of the other families living there and the community sounds very close-knit and inclined to helping each other out.

Since M. is already there working he has had time to meet people, get our apartment set up and get the lay of the land. Today he discovered a real grocery store that he says is comparable Giant Eagle (big shout out to Pittsburgh!) That went a long way to relieving my fears that we would have trouble finding fresh food. Actually, I shouldn't worry at all as M. says that the food, particularly the salads, are very fresh and there's an abundance of feta on everything. Yummy!

I've spent a lot of time daydreaming about all the sidetrips we will (hopefully) get to take. Greece for sure. Hopefully Hungary, Prague and parts of Poland too. Very exciting. I hope D. remembers some of the fun and exciting things we will experience.

All will be fine if I can just stop shopping. I keep thinking of one more thing that we might need, 75 lb. weight limit per bag be damned! I have two rules for the remaining week: 1) get to bed by 11:00 pm, even if there's a episode of Law & Order: SVU on that I haven't seen and 2) stop browsing the Web for crazy, esoteric travel gadgets and gear.