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Published: February 27th 2006
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Monestary
I forget much about this, but i'm pretty sure its a relativly recent structure built on a much older site. I know this area was where the crylic script was invinted This part was written by my traveling buddy Claire, i wish she wrote more cause shes does a much better job then me!
June 8th; Sofia-Skopje-Ohrid
I am dosing off as the dreary weather in Sofia welcomes Matt and I to the Balkans. We start our trip off in Sofia - everything is great so far - we have our tickets to Skopje in advance and a taxi is waiting for us downstairs. 15 minutes later I realize that we are actually driving towards the airport not the bus station. We have 15 minutes until the bus leaves by the time we finally arrive to the bus station and I am nearing a point of unbearable exhaustion because of the “horse” pill from Turkey that Matt gave me for my cold. It’s hitting strong. We make the bus in time though and everythings good to go
The bus stops in some village and we all get out for a break - this is when we meet the Albanian from Skopje. (Apparently my theory on short Macedonians was incorrect). “So how is Skopje?” Matt and I ask out of curiosity. “Eat ees a stuupieed city.” Hmm…never heard a city
lunch
Lunch if Skojpe after the pharmacy experiance described that way before…. The Albanian from Macedonia was eager to tell us all about the Balkans and when we asked him about Kosovo his response was “smoke weeeeeed.” Also, if one were so inclined it serves as a great place to set up a smuggling operation. We shall see. We arrive in Skopje, a city clouded by hopelessness and yet at the same time the people seem to be enchanted by enthusiasm and we were showed nothing but kindness. Matt and I go to an internet café where we meet Pastor Tennessee, Macedonian who learned English in Cleveland, Tennessee yes-sir-yee Tennessee NOT Ohio as that was clarified for us.
He told us where the pharmacy was (I needed some neccesaties)and we decided to go look for it in the Skopjanka shopping center since the internet wasn’t working in the internet café. But before we leave Pastor Tennessee calls out “ God bless you, I am a pastor by the way!” (hence the nickname.) ok….. Thanks dude God bless you too. We find the pharmacy and try to communicate through Bulgarian. I needed to buy pads and so I am trying to say “everyday pads” with a Macedonian accent
getting on the bus to Orhid
the last stage of our trip today but the woman behind the counter doesn’t understand so of course the eager Macedonian behind us who has been helping decides to help again, by this time the entire store is in tuned to our conversation about which pads to buy. Fucking humiliating ! In the meantime weirdo Pator Tennessee decides to “check up” on matt and I and walks into the pharmacy, telling us he just wanted to make sure that we found it oK. Yeah we did thanks be to God. We head over to the internet café and used it for a bit before it stopped working again, but it was all ok because the man didn’t make us pay, once again we were pleasantly suprised by the incredible kindness of the Macedonians.
We then decided to head to Ohrid, a beautiful town on one of the oldest lakes in the world which is almost 300 meters deep! On the bus a woman with an eye patch asks me if we want to stay with her. “private accomodation” which is fine by me but I couldn’t understand how much money she wanted us to pay. When we step off the bus at the final destination we
are attacked by a crowd of other people who want us to stay with them in their hostal. In the end we made a great choice by going with the woman - her and her husband are both very kind and thank god that I can understand some Macedonian and vice versa with the Bulgarian because I am not sure what we would have done for communication otherwise. Its amazing how much differance just knowing a little bit of the language can do. So that night matt had a bit of an embarrassing experience only it wouldn’t have been embarrassing if he hadn’t stood in front of the water that he spilled in the restaurant. I think he was nervous in front of the hot macedoninian waitress (matt hsa been impressed by the women here). Too bad the men dont do the same for me, with their bleached and highlighted hair, tight tops and jeans- oh yeah baby bring it on! Matt almost joined the club by wearing my jacket out. :-0
By the way we had the BEST pizza i have ever had for dinner, it was with regular tomoto sauce and four cheeses of some kinda (
Macedonian sunset
Sunset from the bus near Orhid i think bulgarian cheeses?) and then sour creme. I would never have thought to put sour creme on a pizza but it was amazing. Unfortunatly i completly forget the name of the place
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