Invasion of Kosovo: Tape 2: Ohrid, MK

Well now that you have flipped over the tape; we can begin with the last little bit of my adventures, the bus rides, the exhaustion, and the pictures!

So after leaving Kaneo, I headed straight up the hill. It was a hike and it was starting to get warm. Also, shots of Rakija followed by strenuous walking is only slightly painful. But alas, I made it to see Plasonik and St. Clement's Church. St. Clement's could be considered the patron saint of Ohrid. He is a big deal here. Plasonik is an active archaeological and holy site in Ohrid that, when finished, will look just like it did when it was originally built. St. Clement's is buried here in a tomb that he built himself.

It had been converted to a mosque under the Ottomans but reverted when the Turks left Macedonia. St. Clements was said to build this in 893, however, they have found ruins of a basilica built between the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. On top of that, they found a huge sack of Venetian coins meaning that somehow Ohrid and Venice were commercially linked. It was a huge week in archaeology in Macedonia.

This was perfectly perched on the hill, so you could still see out over the lake. The site is well cordoned off so it's not easy to get in around the sites. Which is great for protecting them, since the Church itself is still open and ready to serve.

I stopped to have a listen to an English speaking tour guide and found out that St. Clements was one of the 5 saints that created the Cyrillic language and brought it to the Slavic people. Like I said, he's kind of a big deal in the area.

As I continued through the woods and up the hill, I found the epicenter of all the random medieval stone walls that are found throughout Ohrid. It's called Samuil's Fort. Samuil (Samuel for us Westerners) was a Czar of a Slavic Empire based out of Ohrid, and this fort was rather impenetrable. It was 3 km long and 16 m tall. It's an impressive site, especially considering it is at the apex of the hill in Ohrid ; it dominates the sky line. There is only the stone outline of the fort these days, but it still offers some of the best, albeit dizzying, sites of the surrounding areas. (and in this case countries)

I thought these pictures really give a good example of the dizzying heights that I had to overcome to take this picture. (Also I think they will freak Mom out a little bit too)

So after taking way too many pictures on the top of the fort, I decided to head down the mountain back into town. It was getting closer to my bus time, so I needed a final destination. Though, I made sure to stop by a few more places just to make sure I cut it as close as I possibly could. It was off to the Church of Icons and the Ancient theater, which of course includes a trip to another church or two on the way.

So as I am walking down the hill, I start finding my way over to the Ancient Theater which has been there since pre-Roman times. When the Romans took over, they actually expanded it to include an area for gladiator fights. I wasn't kidding when I said that Ohrid is old. However, on my way to the Theater I stumbled across a little chapel that just happened to be sitting on the side of the path. It was this little garden that had caught my eye, then I realized that it was a chapel.

There was no one home to give me too many details about it, but I suppose that comes with the territory of a city with ~350 churches! It was a quaint little thing, had this beautiful rose garden and fountain. After washing my hands and face, I entered the chapel. It was big enough for me to lay down in, both ways. So a 6x6 room. It was an alter with Mary on it, so I lit another candle for Dad since I knew that he would very much enjoy this sort of chapel as well. That's the thing about Ohrid, they just built around these ageless chapels. It's hard to say which came first, though I am sure they were all rebuilt a great handful of times.

I turned out of the chapel to head uptown to the Church of Icons, Gallery of Icons, or whatever its name ended up being. It was a huge collection of frescoes about the Virgin Mary in one single church. It was very nice and solemn. It was basically a church of frescoes, so there was a lot to see. It's almost a little overwhelming, though I want to go back and get the tour!

The lady in charge had written her dissertation on this specific church, so I was to come back again so she could teach me more and more! Not that I took her tour, but actually because I did not have enough cash to cover the admissions fee. I only had 60 dinar on me, and it cost 100. She did something that I did not expect from such a tourist town, she told me to give my money to this sickly, old man who had been wandering the town seeing the sights. I think he was a local who had wanted to see the wonders of Ohrid one last time before he died. So instead of admissions, I paid the money to charity and was allowed to explore the chapel. It was here that I realized that although this town is super touristy, there are some little things that make it truly unique and absolutely worth a visit. Though, I am sure it also helped that I arrived on the fringe of the tourist season and I was polite that things started working in my favor.

After that, I quickly raced down some back alleys that were nothing more than just elongated stair cases to get to the center so that I could make my way to some tourist shops and finally out to the bus stop. So in my rush, I decided that I didn't just need 2000 MKD to get home; I had to get 20,000 MKD out to just be sure that I would be able to make it safely home! Ack, I was sooooo frustrated with myself when this happened, but it ended up being okay. I traded them for Euros in the bus station in Skopje and netted a 3$ loss. If that's the worse thing that happened during the weekend/my time in Kosovo, I will be one happy man! I also grabbed the most touristy food I could, a delicious hamburger. The hamburger lady made it American-style without me even asking! It was lathered in mayonnaise (my first time in a month) and topped with french fries. It was absolutely glorious and unhealthy!

So after a elongated trip home, I finally made it back to Prishtina. But not until I had my stuff searched due to diabetes. It's the disease that keeps on giving! They didn't like the idea of me bring needles across the border to Kosovo, which makes it slightly funny that the Macedonians were the ones giving me grief. I entered their country no problem with my syringes, prescription medicines, and other nonsense, but no, when I leave with them that's when the problems start! I had a helpful driver's assistant (he basically rides along, delivers passports, collects money, deals with problems, etc so that the driver doesn't have too) who knew about diabetes and he helped me through it. It also helped when I showed them my pump and pump site. It was still slightly awkward cause everyone on the bus got to watch me being searched and had to wait on me to finish up before we could head out again.

Sunday night was the last day of the Prishtina film fest and the last night that my first expat friend was going to be in town, so we met up to watch Tree of Life. It's a Brad Pitt and Sean Penn movie. It was long, weird, and slightly boring. I do not suggest it to anyone, but if you do watch it, let's discuss it sometime. I only went to two movies at the FilmFest, a Slovakian movie The House, so that was a little disappointing. The House was very good, though slow. It was about a high school girl growing up in rural Slovakia, specifically her relationship with her father who is building her a house while she wants to go to London to Au Pair. According to the Slovak representative, this old school thinking of self sufficiency and being one's own master vs a new school ideal of trying to see everything in the world. It has a very documentary feel to it, but that stems from the Slovaks only recently graduating from documentaries into story telling. It was a very good story overall and if you can find a copy, I highly recommend it. Realize it is European so I would not suggest showing it to little kids.

Shout Out 1: Donnie James and Cars

It's a bunch of old Yugoslav Cars and 1 old Renault that I thought you would enjoy seeing. I hope you can tell the difference, cause there will be a quiz on "Which One of These is not like the Other" in the near future!

I have heard of these being in Macedonia, but I don't know their prevalence in other FYRs. I would assume they would be in Serbia since that's where the company is/was based. There are some well preserved ones down in Ohrid though!