Home again, home again, scrubbidy scrub

I am back in Prishtina to find some rather pleasant changes have taken place in the past couple of months.

Electricity is at an all time high, it's only gone off once in the three days I've been back. Unfortunately, the one time that it did, I was just arriving at my new apartment building laden with a heavy backpack and a box of stuff... did I mention my new apartment is on the 11th floor? I guess I didn't really get the bad end of that deal. By the time I huffed my way up to the 7th floor, I found three people with their little faces pressed to the glass in the elevator that was stuck between floors. Oops. Thank goodness the cuts are relatively predictable - they always happen on the hour or on the half hour. Note to self: Don't get in if it's anywhere close to one of those two time.

Water is now on 24 hours a day for most neighborhoods. BONUS! I was able to clean until midnight last night without having to worry that I would be stuck covered in bleach (more on that to come!).

Parking is now regulated. Instead of being able to just drive up on any old sidewalk and park your car, they have placed signage up everywhere, put stripes on the streets, and hired parking attendants so that you now have to pay to park on the sidewalk. It has cut down drastically on the immenent danger of being run down while innocently walking down the street. BONUS #2!

Other than that, Prishtina is Prishtina - dusty, dirty, and full of life. We had a little birthday dinner the other night for several of us who have birthdays this month. Much fun, good food, good conversation and lots of happy faces that I haven't seen for a while. Good stuff!

Now to complain for a minute. I arrived at the apartment I was taking over from the Super Swede to find that he has not moved out. All of his things are boxed and in the living room (taking up most of it, mind you). Anything he didn't want to take, he just left in the cabinets for me to throw away. I don't know what he was paying his cleaning woman to do twice a week, but I have never seen such filth. Ever. I have spent the past three days (with another 2 to go) bleaching the entire apartment. GROSS. It took me 7 hours just to get the bedroom and bathroom in a condition to where I was willing to unpack my things. The kitchen was covered in a layer of grease and dirt so thick that the walls have changed colors now that they are clean. EEEEWWWWW! I have had some help, and today we're having a cleaning party. Captain Canadian, the Norweigian Goddess and Thorganizer are all coming over to scrub scrub scrub. So now I am off to the grocery store to stock the fridge and get a heavy duty scrub brush and more rubber gloves. (Don't ask.) This sh*t is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. (<---- That was just for you Duchess of Sconce!)