Our first Eastern Europe Experience

Sept 27th--After a long trainride to Thessaloniki in northern Greece, one night in a cheap and kind of dirty hostel, and another early morning train, we arrived in Macedonia. Our main reason for visiting this country was to visit two of Heidi's friends, Kelley and Laura**, who are in the Peace Corps here. Kelley had just arrived so we only had a few hours to see her during her training, but we spent the rest of the week with Laura, staying at her apartment in Prilep a few days, then down to Ohrid, a beautiful little town on a lake.

Macedonia was really our first experience of feeling completely out of our comfort zone. There were no other tourists around, no one spoke or understood English (well, a few could speak very broken words), and we had no maps or info on where we were going. Luckily we had a local man on our train who spoke English well enough to let us know our train stop or we would have completely missed it!

We had people point us in the direction of town, and we set off on what ended up being nearly an hour's walk to find the only hotel in the town of Veles. We had one night here on our own before meeting my friends. All eyes were on us with our big packs, suntans, and my blond hair. The town sits in a river valley so it was beautiful, but somewhat hilly. We kept trying to ask where the hotel was, and people would try to sign us directions. Eventually we came across an old man who could only understand "hotel" and walked with us the entire way, speaking Macedonian and laughing at us when we could only nod our heads and say "English" back to him. Quite entertaining, and just one example of the freindliness of Macedonians once you get past the stares and sober looks. Then a young kid followed us into the hotel reception and tried to convince the owner that he was staying with us as we kept saying no. Finally, the owner figured out that the kid was lying and shooed him out ;)

We met up with Laura the next day, saw Kelley in the evening, then headed to Prilep to stay a few days. Having spent one year there, Laura gave us a lot of insight into the culture and customs of the country, besides the fact that she could speak and understand the language which helped tremendously. Local foods, walking around, and just getting the feel of a country that still feels very communist was quite interesting.

We also spent a few days in Ohrid, a great little lakeside town on the western border with Laura and another PC volunteer, Josh, who was full of historical facts about the country. We also got to visit a nearby town, Vevchani, that has its own natural springs. Overall, beautiful place and a fun time!

**Laura, thanks again for a FABULOUS time, and Kel, hope you're enjoying yourself!!!

---

---