Can you travel to Kosovo with diabetes? Yeah, but don’t do it like I did! We caught Kosovo at a bad time and had to suddenly split for somewhere safer.
We arrived on a Sunday evening and left on a Wednesday morning, and there were only 12 blood sugar checks the entire time. They ranged from 42 to 389 and their average was 202.
When we arrived in the Kosovo capital, Prishtina, we were just dropped onto the side of the road outside of town. We had reservations at a hotel, but had no idea where we were or how to get there. A man and woman who had also gotten off the bus, and spoke English, said they were Serbian journalists and we could ride in their taxi with them. But all our bags wouldn’t fit, so they asked some guy loitering around if he’d drive us to our hotel. We thanked them and got into this stranger’s car. He took us right to the hotel, and even insisted on walking us up to the front door. The friendly ride was three euros. Strange, but good introduction to Kosovo.
We checked in and I noticed a TV with some urgent-sounding news on. But, not speaking Albanian, I couldn’t understand. After all this, in the room my BG was 151.
*** A VISIT WITH BILL CLINTON
Under the grey skies and along the poorly-maintained, haphazard streets of Prishtina, we walked past the Western Union, down George Bush Boulevard and turned right down Bill Clinton Boulevard. At the bottom of the hill is a statue of Clinton, holding the document to authorize military help for Kosovo. He smiles and waves to a row of dingy buildings on a dusty highway.
But my travel partner was feeling bad. The air was dirty. She was having trouble even standing. We made it back to the hotel, but I had to carry her the last couple of blocks. She collapsed into bed and slept fitfully, with labored breathing. She refused my offers to call a doctor, and was soon feeling a little better.
After some research, we found that two days earlier, there had been a demonstration around George Bush Boulevard where police had used tear gas. That must still be in the air. No wonder Prishtina seemed so grey and dirty.
I always think travelers should keep abreast of local political unrest, just in case. But I admit I wasn’t tuned in to the delicate issue of Serbia and mine nationalization in Kosovo. An error on my part. We didn’t know there had been any unrest that very weekend.
As for me, well at least the walk around town agreed with my blood sugar. The second meal of cereal — not so much.
It was a strange day and we obviously didn’t feel like going out for dinner. It was up to me — and when you leave me in charge of dinner this is what you get. Oddly, this junk food meal again agreed with diabetes, and I was 148 afterwards.
After a 4 am low of 42 and some cookies, I was 200 even when I woke up on Tuesday. We had the hotel breakfast again and, as she continued to take it easy in the room, I was getting antsy to go out. I’d read the news and wanted to see if I could get pictures of a building whose windows had been smashed during the protests Saturday.
*** TO THE SCENE OF A RIOT
The maze of streets led me towards the town center. There was a kind of buzz in the air. Police were standing around, as if waiting for something. Then I turned one corner and saw a big crowd. Obviously another protest. They were just standing around though, and I started to walk toward them. But suddenly they all started running the other way. That was my cue to leave — I turned around and tried to remember my way back through the winding streets to the hotel. After getting lost and ending up back at the demonstration, I tried again, and made it back home.
The rest of the afternoon I tended to the patient and watched the news on the fuzzy TV in our room. The situation had deteriorated rapidly since I was there. It was bizarre to watch all this, not understanding it but knowing that this was all happening just a few blocks away. I could see buildings and shops I recognized, like the Western Union on George Bush Boulevard.
In the midst of all this I was 293. Fair enough. I took some Humalog and before dinner was 86. The TV indicated that the protest was over, the tear gas and rubber bullets having done their job.
The events of the day weren’t done with my blood sugar yet: 389 after dinner.
The next morning, after a reading of 172 and our third filling hotel breakfast, we took a taxi to the Prishtina bus station and bought tickets out of Kosovo. Our plans of seeing monasteries and little towns around Kosovo were canceled. Not a good time to be here.
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See you on the road!
*** DAILY TRAVELOGUE: 4-MONTHS IN EUROPE WITH DIABETES