Oh Ohrid...

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well after listening to my mother scream in my ear about not calling/emailing/updating before we got cut off, i suppose its time for an update. i did try the other day, but the connection at this place sucked really bad so i just left...

basically i'm an adopted member of the family here in ohrid. we sit and sip coffee, smoke cigarettes, watch balkan music videos, eat home-cooked meals, etc. etc. life is pretty good, albeit slow compared to anything i'm used to. my second day here i awoke to coffee waiting for me at the breakfast table. 'mom' asked me if i was up for going to the beach with anamaria (16) and her friend maria (17). i figured what the hell, so basically for the rest of the day i chilled on the beach of incredibly gorgeous lake ohrid, getting decently sun-"kissed". one thing that i guess surprised me at first was that basically everyone here in macedonian, but then i realized that the world was ignorant and most people don't even know what macedonia is, let alone have any desire to come here.

for dinner we had fresh bread from the bakery with tomatoes, mashed potatos/polenta (not sure which) and then these balls of ground meat mixed with oregano and other spices. twas quite good. in the evening i ended up going into the center with that maria girl, since anamaria was like passed out and too tired. it was slightly awkward and reminded me of a junior high date when you don't really talk. at least here we had a language barrier. its been really interesting attempting to speak macedonian, which as far as i'm concerned IS a different language than bulgarian. between english, bulgarian, polish, and my attempt at macedonian (basically shifting around consonants and vowels from my bulgarian) we all understand eachother decently. anyway, yea we ended up getting coffee, which i paid for to be nice, and now apparently she has a crush on me. hah.

the next day the family was pretty much passed out the entire morning and afternoon, so i went down the street to buy myself a burek for breakfast, which is a greasy layered filo-type thing. mine was filled with cheese. i kind of sat around organizing things in my room, since we were supposed to go into the city all-together, but that ended up not being until way later. so regarding the family, we have the mom, who is a chain-smoking macedonian spiky bleach-blonde haired fran drescher. she's really cool, though a bit much at times. daughter #1, anamaria, is 16 and very nice, though a bit spacy sometimes. she's studied english for a couple of years so she's helpful from time to time. aleksandra, the youngest daughter, is a bit of a ham and pretty funny. she's maybe 13. last is the dad, a typical balkan man with a grumbly smoker's voice. he works at night and stuff as a cab driver, so he's around at awkward times. he's really nice but i'm always scared when i'm sitting and drinking coffee and smoking (all they do here is offer me cigarettes) because i feel like i'm not manly enough for him. haha.

but yea yesterday we eventually went out, me, the mom, aleksandra, anamaria, maria, and and then two other girlfriends. but first, for dinner, we had some soup and then chicken with rice, where the rice is really glutenous and the chicken is like baked in it. we always drink carbonated water with apple syrup, too, which is really good. but yea, we explored parts of the old town and stuff before taking a boat cruise along the lake, which was really nice. after getting ice cream i was pretty spent and so headed back home...

today i awoke to a breakfast of big slices of break dipped in egg batter and fried, kind of like my mom makes sometimes. again it was time for an afternoon at the beach, this time with mom, aleksandra, and maria (a different maria). back at home, after showering and applying this gel to the horrible like scarface insect bites i have on the right side of my face from bulgaria, we had dinner of chopped sausage in scrambled eggs along with bread and tomatoes. good stuff. then i scurried off to the internet!

tomorrow i'm gonna run around in the morning and take last minute pictures and whatnot. at 7 my bus leaves for sofia, and arrives sometime early in the morning. i'll chill in sofia for a few hours before my afternoon flight to warsaw!

p.s. i'm going to add some pictures to previous updates, so keep an eye out~

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Photos

@ the beach
me and my gal pals @ the beach on lake ohrid

Before the rain
this church's location earned it a place in Macedonia's 1994 oscar submission "Before The Rain" -phenomenal film

St. Clement of Ohrid
st. clement was one of cyril and methodius' students who later greated the cyrillic alphabet from his teachers' glagolitic. he's buried here, well, i think only his hand is, but whatever

Old Town
view of some of the city...

ampitheater
old ampitheater...pretty cool

pier
little pier with the old town in the background on the hill..

beach!
view from the beach we hung out at

another view
from the edge of the main strip, looking out over the lake. if you keep going back and to the right you reach albania.

me
me on the beach with my cigarette...

Comments

[jarek]

muchy..:/
to palenie na plazy sie za dobrze nie skonczylo....:) naszczescie juz wygladasz dobrze..:)