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So Kosovo declared independance yesterday afternoon. I was asleep, taking a nap when it happened. I woke up, I turned on the news to see a long angry statement condeming the United States, being given by Kustunica. It was on BHT1, which broke into regular programming to bring it, and it was live feed from Belgrade.

There was later film of a massive demonstration at the American embassy in Belgrade, and it got pretty ugly. Mostly it was young people. They threw burning objects at the embassy, broke some windows, threw trash at the embassy, journalists and equipment from four news outlets including B-92 were damaged. This is from what I saw on local news channels here.

As well the crowd attacked the Albanian embassy, and the Slovenian embassy. There was a more quiet demonstration in Baja Luka. I don't have a lot of info for you yet on it, except to say it was peaceful.

Reaction here in Sarajevo has been very little. Some Albanians who live here did get together and cruise Titova in their cars, they had Albanian flags.

Somehow in Serbia they managed to get hold of the new Kosovo flag in order to burn it in front of the U.S. embassy along with the American flag.

Oh funny aside on the Kosovo flag, they showed film on the news here of the new flag being brought into the Kosovo parliment, and at first I was all like 'WTF is the Bosnian flag doing in the Kosovo assembly very much please?' The colors are the same, and there's the six white stars, which looked like a few more. Basicaly though, it is a sad crib of the Petrich Hanky. I heard on the news it was the winning flag out of 1,000 entries in a contest to decide what the new Kosovo flag would be.

Now is the time for BiH to go back to it's original flag! Seriously, any country that copies the Petrich Hanky is in bad trouble already.

I totally understand moving away from the Albanian flag or anything remotely like it though, that was a good sign.

Still I would have chosen differently. I bet there's some likely flags on NationStates! :)

There has been snow here the last couple days, not a lot, but it has been very cold. My ankle has bothered me, it often does ahead of changes in weather. I can't say it always does, but it usually does, so I stayed in this weekend. The S.O. finally felt good enough to visit on Friday. I made some lovely fish and tomato salad, and rice, and got bread and some nice Plavac to drink. I teased him that he might have felt better if he'd come over sooner. He is now in Dubrovnik for his regular check up stuff. He isn't experiencing anything like the same level of dizzyness. Hopefully they can track down the problem while he is in Dubrovnik. I sure hope so.

I told him what we had to do to make up for Valentines Day and my birthday. I want us to go on an outing to Vrelo Bosna and ride in one of the fijakre this time! They have become a part of my plot to restore Bosnian traditional attire, as this in Spring is to be the required uniform for all fijakre drivers. There is also to be a fixed price. I think it will be very good for tourism here.

I also want to take pictures.

I have been glued to the tube following events to do with Kosovo. I hope things can remain calm here, but who knows.

At least the last demonstration against juvenile crime came off peacefully, it was like 1500 to 3000 people, according to police estimates and was noisy, but at least no ugly incidents. I think the people who did the stuff last time were provacateurs.

I take the advice of the State Department and stay the Hell away from mass demonstrations of any sort here. 1. much as I love this place, it ain't my sand-box. 2. I really hate getting hurt. 3. I hate the concept of being busted. Never been busted. Don't care to start here. 4. I was on the news too much back home. I don't want to be on the news here.

I found out the name of the Spanish Civil War Soap, it is 'Amor en tiempos vueltos'. It is really very good, one of the best telenovelas EVER. There is always Spanish language programming here. I don't know why it is so popular in the Balkans, but it is. Spain is a favorite vacation spot for people from BiH if they can afford the trip.

Anyway, I watch it nearly every weekday morning. I did get to see Northern Exposure last nigh, saw a few friends from the Rez on there. The Raven story is a Yakam astory but the costumes used were Tlingit or Haida, not sure which, very beautiful anyway.

Anytime there is a program in English, it has subtitles, and I use that to improve my language skills. I like detective shows and medical series the most, but I watch anything.
I watch telenovelas so I don't forget my Spanish.

Today is very cold, I am down at Club BIT because my ankle is bothering me and Club BIT is closer to home. They make pretty nice espresso here.