Hotel Ani Skopje

... place. Plus it gave me the satisfaction of overcoming a strange new place and taming it.<br><br>I wandered down the pedestrian mall lined in its seven story concrete glory and shops just like anywhere else in Europe like Diesel, Levis, etc. are there for shopping pleasure. At the end of this mall area is the Stone Bridge dating all the way back to the 15th Century. That is old to us Americans but keep in mind this area has a history dating back ...

... little old houses). The Albanians make up 25% of the population of Macedonia and in 2001 there was a short civil war between the two races after years of tension regarding how much autonomy the Albanians should have. Macedonia is surrounded by countries that either want the country for themselves or just want them to change their name. Large portions of the republic feature in "Greater Albania", some of the more extreme ideas of "Greater Serbia" and ...

... wanted to say - lets go back home. But of course I no say in it and we took him anyways. At the vets, we watched Sinisha as he got his shot and we were proud of him. He was really brave, I guess after getting fixed.. the shot was nothing!!! Poor Sinisha! Friday we are going to Kratovo, where Marija's father was born. Only more adventures await.. I hope! Have a blessed day and remember not to do anything that I wouldn't do!!! Haha

... next day we left for Montenegro, stayed there a day with some Serbian Christians that had given us a lift over the border, before making tracks for Macedonia the following day. Four lifts in quick succession landed us in Podgorica - still in Montenegro, but at least aiming in the right direction - before a miraculous 9-hour lift by two Macedonian guys took us all the way across the Montenegran mountains, through Kosovo, and into Skopje at 1.30am the next morning.

... were somehow flushed out. Today: Albert and I woke up a few hours after going to sleep. He had a terribad hangover. I felt like I slept for 20 hours and wanted nothing more than to play some capoeira. It turned out there were re-elections for some reason today and it was pretty unsafe to shoot ( side story time: --(Albert and I were supposed to be registered when we got into town within 3 days. The guy that was ...

... Skopje is a small place where we spent our time like the locals having a late lunch at what seemed to be the only restaurant around, walked around old town then settled by the river at a cafe to people watch! Tomorrow we will head to Lake Ohrid and see the sights!

... i was missing. I missed the last bus from Gostivar, but maybe that was better. All these relatioship triangles in a place where you really cannot choose with whom you are, are a bit childish. Struga is quite an irritating place in that sense and only lately i have started to understand that Struga is not the reality in whole Macedonia. This country is actually so unbeliavable interesting. Yesterday, on the last day of the indian summer, we went with barbara, sasho and ...

... on the Macedonian side. We also knew we were heading into a new country because the alphabet changed from Greek to Cyrillic. Think Russian-looking. APPROX 10:50 AM - Since it was nice and cool that morning, we didn't necessarily think about the climate of our cabin. Once it began to warm, though, we realized we didn't have air conditioning. APPROX 11:15 AM - A few minutes later Chad began to get hungry and Alli needed a cup of coffee. Chad headed toward the front of the ...

... and forth in Macedonian, Albanian, Turkish, and German (usually directed at me in the form of "Gute Orangen, heir kaufen, beste hier!"). The snippets of conversations in Macedonian I heard were always amusing. An example: Merchant: Three Apples, 30 Denars Purchaser: That is terrible, I can't afford that! Second Merchant: (to first merchant) Branko, take it easy, he is just a villager (could mean 'hick' as the word 'Seljak' in ...

... noise became audible in the background.Ev**ybody paused to listen,wond**ing if it was an enemy chopp**.All around us,as we ate,w**e KLA troops positioned in trenches,their makeshift anti aircraft weapons pointed at the skies,hoping to shoot down some of these helicopt**s.Aft** a while,we decided the noise was only a tractor,and continued our breakfast.Apparently the Japanese guy had been able to visit the site of a downed chopp**,with the dead pilots ...