Part 1: Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia- FYRM

I am still debating how I am ever going to file down the sheer amount of photos into a number that is acceptable for this blog!  I am going to try a new format for this post due to that, it'll be a good amount of reading with some scattered photos, followed up by a huge helping of photos that I think best capture the atmosphere that is West Macedonia.  But first, let's talk Kosovar BBQ!

Friday Night, 18:30, The Office.
     To set the mood, I was invited to a traditional Kosovar BBQ hosted by one of my coworkers (that I had not met) out of Ferizaj.  He lived out in the country, so it would be an outdoor affair.  This is especially exciting since the great weather we've been having is seemingly on its way out.  So myself, 4 Albanian coworkers (and a girlfriend), and one of my American coworkers (and her boyfriend, Jason, who will resurface later) all piled into the Universum bus to make the "20 minute" journey down to this colleagues house.  Though, first, we had to stop and pick up another one of our colleagues from her house out in Veternik.  (Out near the dorm that I was living, aka suburbia)
     This was going relatively painless until we decided to turn around in a construction area.  We ran into one of those infamous Kosovar manholes, complete with cover removed!  So as we now only have 3 tires on solid dirt, we quickly scamper out of the van to assess the damage.  1 tire completely in a manhole.  Things are looking bleak for this adventure, until we mixed brawn with brain.  I put my shoulder into the van, Visar (coincidentally my landlord) slammed the gas, and another used a 4x4 leveraged under the tire to push/power/lift our way out of our predicament.  That's what we call teamwork,  multilingual cursing at the truck might have been involved and been the key to success.
    After that, with the exception of pulling a K-turn in the middle of the highway, things ran pretty smoothly and really set up for a fun and adventurous evening out in the country.
~19:30-20:00 
     We finally made it to this farm-esque piece of property out in the Kosovar countryside and were welcomed by a long family style table, complete with fresh bread, pickles, olives, beets, and ajvar.  (Ajvar ((pronounced: aivar, because J's are a Y/I sound in Albanian)) is a pepper spread that is a Balkan delight, it is spicy and delicious.  Everyone owns their own vat/oven and produces their own brand)  So we all piled in around the table, there were probably around 30 or 40 people when the dinner was served, and started to relax and enjoy the evening.  The temperature was absolutely perfect; it's had a knack for getting chilly in the evening but this never reared its ugly head. The conversation was light and humorous, which fit the temperature perfectly.
     Beer and wine flowed pretty freely, though not to any sort of excess.  Meat, the main course, was next.  I am pretty sure there had to be 7 cows and 40 chickens used for the making of this meal.  They just kept rolling out, and it was glorious.  Cheese accompanied the meat.  Imagine this:  a spread of homemade ajvar on a piece of fresh bread that is similar to a pita wrap but fluffier, add some white cheddar-brined cheese, a generous heap of either chicken or beef, patties or sausages, and topped off with a healthy splash of paprika.  It was simply delicious.  And heavy, I think almost everyone nodded off for half a second due to the 67.342 lbs of meat that were consumed per person.  I didn't sleep like a baby that night, babies aspire to sleep like I had slept.
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     Some other notables were:  My coworker's boyfriend, Jason, is a Fulbright scholar here in Kosovo so I am hoping I can interact with some more Americans through that connection.  More importantly, he is super interested by ghost towns/villages like I am.  And although he chickened out visiting Agden (It's illegal) out in Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, I'll forgive him cause I now have someone to go cruising through places like that.  There are a couple around Kosovo (post-war) and after this weekend I found some that I want to visit in Macedonia (post-Tito)

Saturday. 5:30. My Bed
     So I originally had this grand plan to get up at 5 on Saturday and catch the first bus to Skopje.  It was a grand idea, though for a personal pride's sake, I woke up.  However, I had originally planned to do that under the auspices of only staying for the day in Ohrid.  I had made the decision to stay the night there, so I slept in and headed to the bus station around 10:15.  The issue with this was that I missed the 10:30 bus and had to wait an hour, which really set back my adventure.  C'est la vie.  Driving, it's about 1.5 hours to Skopje, so by bus it takes about 2 or so.  Not that bad, really.  Though seeing the countryside that you drive through, it makes me want to take the train when I have some extra time.

This picture below is my first shot of the Macedonian flag at the border crossing.

     Skopje is a great looking town, and I am looking forward to visiting it in the near future. It has a socialist side, but also a really cool downtown area that's really nice looking.  I discerned this all through the windows of a bus, so take it with a grain of salt for now.

      After about an hour of waiting, I secured a ticket and some Macedonian Denars (MKD, about 46 MKD per USD) and was the on the road to Ohrid.  Words can barely describe this part of the journey.  It was unfortunate being in the bus, as the windows added a certain glare to each and every picture I took.  But I think the beauty of the area still shows up occasionally through my amateur photography skills.  The highway is set between two mountains the entire way down there; for a good portion it weaves its way up, down, around, and through the mountains.  Ohrid is on the western side of Macedonia, on the border with Albania down towards Greece, and sits on the aptly named Lake Ohrid.  So after about 3.5 or so hours, I find myself in the bus station of Ohrid and I start to head downtown.  Needless to say, I was unimpressed to start.  It had a look that Prishtina also carries with it. It had a dusty air mixed with the Socialist leftovers, that was until I made it through to the main city center.

   



Some Macedonian Denars, rolling out on the town with hundreds and thousands all day, ever day.




 


  The downtown area of Ohrid leaves nothing to be desired.  I don't know how to describe what the pedestrian area becomes, it's like cobblestones but marble.  So I guess "marblestoned" pedestrian area?  Anyways, I meandered my way through to the hostel that I had "researched" and found it to be everything I had read about on the internet.  Hostel Di Antonio was a half hostel, half restaurant that was really well kept up and pleasant.  I only had a 8 bed room this time around (I had a 20 person room in London) complete with internet, ensuite bathroom, and lockers.  It was really the full around package, plus it only costed 9 EUR.  I met my two hostel-mates, Daria and Andzelika. They were Polish, I think they were studying the etymology of the Balkans and its languages, and spoke rather decent Macedonian/Bulgarian. We hit the town later and I definitely relied on them for some language back up.

Sunday. ~9:00. Ohrid, MK

     I left the touristy sight-seeing things for the next morning.  I decided to follow the road around as it outlined the lake, and I was not disappointed.   Besides the lake, Ohrid at one time had 365 churches and has been called the "Jerusalem of the Balkans".  But at 9:00, it was absolutely silent and the mist was still being burned off from the mountains that surround the lake.  One of the bigger (reputation, not size) churches that  I came across is the Church of St. Jovan Kaneo. It is perched on a cliff overlooking the Kaneo area.  Besides being well kept, its location and aura would have been the perfect spot for some meditation and prayer back in its heyday.

I had my first breakfast Rakija with this fine fellow right here, who I also believe lives on the property in a smaller chapel down closer to the water. (see below)  Being the proprietor of the Church, he gave me a tour around the 1 room building, though he didn't speak a lick of English nor do I speak any Macedonian.  So we compromised and hammered out the tour is French, I was so happy to remember/communicate/understand so much in French.  The fresco in the dome has been dated to around 1270-1280, though the rest had been drawn and redrawn through it's 742 year past. They had a candle lighting station, plus I knew how much Dad would have enjoyed this slice of the Earth.  So this was one of two places that I lit candles for him in the town, I'll get to the other little Chapel later.

     Honestly, Ohrid had some of the best collections of frescoes that I had seen in my time in Europe.  Even better than Padua (which is surprising since there were not nuclear power plant-esque decontamination units protecting these frescoes like the ones at Scrovegni Chapel) in my humble opinion.  Frescoes are mural paintings that are directly onto the plaster walls, so unfortunately they do have a tendency to be destroyed or ruined with age.  When they are well kept, like these were, they are a portal into a different age.  It really does help tell a story of a time when the Church was the last bastions of knowledge and education; almost all European frescoes from the pinnacle of this technique relate to Jesus, Mary, the Disciples, or various Saints. In this case, they were Orthodox holy figures- especially the 5 saints that created the Cyrillic language.

     I roamed around the grounds, sat on a cliff overlooking the water and reflecting on everything that had transpired over the past month to get me to this point, and plus there was an old fisherman fishing out from the walls trying his luck.  It was a very serene place, complete with benches for the pensive types.  (I preferred to sit out on the ledge overlooking the water)

This is the end of Tape 1.  I'll write the rest tomorrow and add the pictures that make the final cut.  Enjoy!