Circus

On my way to the shops a week and a half ago, I saw this poster on a lamp post.  It looked interesting but I was not sure I wanted to go by myself.  Then as the day of the circus neared, my room mate invited me to go with her and a friend who has a small son.  I agreed immediately.  Then I began to have second thoughts.  My most recent memories of elephants and some other animals was in the wild of a Kenyan wild life preserve.  I was not sure that I wanted to see them in a traveling circus.

In the end, I went.  The bigtop was just down the hill from my apartment, so we walked over at sunset. Once w got inside, I was able to fulfill another of m desires; I bought a cotton candy.  It tasted as good as any I have had, but it was not colored and the stick was not the the paper cone that I have become accustomed to, rather a real wooden stick.  A child could hurt himself. :-)

The big top was actually small.  The bleachers were a rickety wooden affair.  I saw two young children slip through the planks.  The bleachers only took up two thirds of the circle, but ithey were full.  Some people apparently were willing to pay more for ringside seats.  Later in the performance, children stood at ringside for a better view.  The cage that can be seen to the left enclosed three lions that were coaxed to get on and off various large stools.

In addition to the lions, the animals acts included elephants (this is a photo I took in Kenya), a bactrian (two hump) camel and ponies. I was impressed with the camel.  It seems so uncoordinated and of course it spit.  They had two elephants, which I was happy to see, since elephants are social animals.  They stepped onto the stools and created a sort of elephant pyramid.  They appeared to be well cared for, but they were obviously less wild than the ones I saw in Kenya.

The ponies were cute, but basically jumped through hoops and trotted around the ring.



After several scantily clad women performed on ropes hung from the top of the tent and a clown performed several audience participation acts we were bid farewell by the ring master and walked home.

My apartment

Thought it was time to show you where I live.  My apartment is on the second floor of a three story apartment building.  The landlord's parents live on the first floor and a quiet engineer lives above me.  A small flower garden occupies the available space, including this interesting tree outside my kitchen window.

It is a regular apartment with a living room.  The windows are actually doors that open onto the balcony.  To keep the sun out during the heat of the summer and for security, they have heavy blinds on the outside that can be rolled down.

                                                     a kitchen.  

                    and a bed room.  Notice that it is purple and messy.  Just my personality.          

The real appeal of the apartment though, is the balcony.  We live on the correct side of the street so we get sun all day. The neighbors across the street are great balcony gardeners, so we have beautiful view.                             

And when I ride my exercycle, I can watch the activities of the neighbors.  On this day, the wood pile you can see was being sawn into usable lengths so we were serenaded with the sound of a buzz saw all day.

A visit to Stip

My first impression of Stip was that it wasn't Klaipeda. It is land locked and though there are rivers that run through the city, they are not very big.  And the landscape is not flat which means that the streets are not straight.  The small curving lanes give a more Third World feel to the place.  I live on one of the highest hills in the city, but the main business district is on some flat ground by the river.  I was there yesterday to do have some documents notarized for my visa.

This is a general street view.  Beyond the fence across the street, they are working to build a parking lot over the river. There is a fair amount of new construction in this part of town as well as obviously old buildings.

I wandered around for a while and found a place to buy yarn and a couple of book stores.  Coming upon the square, a small concrete area, I found the statue of the local hero.

 Alexander the Great

I also came upon the official American Corner of Stip.  They offer English club, a small English library as well as educational programs.  I signed up to receive their emails and became a card carrying member.

Up stairs  from the corner, a book fair was in process.  Being the bibliophile that I am, I just had to go.  I bought a Bible in Macedonian, a couple of  English-Macedonian children's picture books, and a cookbook of  Macedonian recipes in English.  After looking through the last book last night, I do not think I will be using it much.  There are a lot of recipes for lamb intestines or stomach, eel and carp.  The desserts seem to take way too long to prepare.  If I do try any of the recipes, I'll let you know.

By this time I was rather thirsty.  The weather here has been unseasonably warm and the sun is still quite hot.  So I stopped at a local watering hole for some water.

Well, maybe not so local, but all the customers except me, were bona fide Macedonians.  Just down the block was the main building of Goce Delcev, the university where I teach.  I needed to go to the IT department to get hooked up to the internet.  This building is where the office of the Rector, chancellor, is located.  They also have a very nice faculty dining hall, as opposed to the building where the Law Faculty is located, which has a small coffee shop that also sells soft drinks and chips.

After I had my photo taken for my internet access card and connected my lap top to the internet, I was ready to head home.  I walked down the street to the taxi stand for a trip through the winding streets up the hills to my apartment.

Visit to Skopje

Last Thursday I took the one and a half hour bus ride to Skopje, the capital of Macedonia and it's largest city, perhaps only city as other municipalities are very small in comparison.  I went because my room mate, a Fulbright Scholar, needed to pick up an identification card from the US Embassy.


After arriving, we ate a very nice lunch at the restaurant next to the depot.  I had a sort of chicken kiev served with vinegar slaw, very Lithuanian, and fries.  The fries were very good.  I think it is because they use fresh potatoes and not frozen and perhaps olive oil.  I have had some since in another restaurant and they were as good, so it seems to be a national trend.

Our next stop was the US Embassy.  I would have a picture for you, but there was a sign saying to cameras and Tiffany suggested we might rather be safe than risk getting arrested.  The embassy seems to be fairly new, on the outer edge of town.  There is a circular drive, but the building is protected with concrete barriers and our taxi driver was shooed away when he waited in front too long for us to give him his fare.
Once on the grounds we had to pass our passport through a slot in the bullet proof glass to the receptionist.  I was afraid I would not be able to stay since only Tiffany had business there.  Even then  we were not allowed into the building.  Her contact came out and gave her the ID card.
As we were waiting, I noticed that the building was a slightly U shaped and one arm of the U had another door labeled "US Consulate."  It seemed strange to me to have a consulate in the same city let alone the same building as the Embassy, but I have decided that that is the section that the public is allowed into, during specified hours, American citizens from 2-4 in the afternoon Monday through Friday.  I suspect that there is no connection between the areas of the building from the inside.

From there we wanted to go shopping.  We mistakenly asked our taxi driver to take us the the city center, so we got a short tour of the town.  One of the most impressive sight was the fortress.  It is huge and the wall comes right down to the street at places.  I do want want to get back and explore it soon.  Another interesting sight was a bridge with four bronze statues of lion on the four corners.

We finally got to the shopping center, the City Mall.  In some ways it is like any other mall, shiny and new, full of people spending their money.  It was also different in that the food court was on the patio outside and over 90% of the shops were clothing, shoes or jewelry.  There were no book store or toy stores or nick-nack stores.   I saw only one grocery store and one bed bath and beyond type store in all of three levels of shops.  We wanted things from the latter and made our way into the narrow aisles of jam packs shelves.  The clerks were very helpful. They knew enough English to point us the the double bed duvet covers.

Once we had spent our money, we headed back to the bus station and then back to home.  It was a good day.

Kezhovica baths

Last week I ventured to the local hot springs facility.  Some would call it a spa, but I think that is a bit of stretch.  It is primarily used by the locals.  A physical therapy facility is also located on the premises.
The experience begins in the taxi ride which takes me through some beautiful mountains 2-3 kilometers outside of town.

You arrive at this pleasant but not ostentatious lobby where you pay your dollar to use the baths as long as you want.

Once you have paid your money, you go inside to the changing rooms.  Notice there are no lockers.  I was warned not to bring ANYTHING of value.  One woman told the story of her father having his clothes stolen.  And these are not really changing rooms, they are more like disrobing rooms.  No swim suits are allowed.

Then you enter the steamy baths.  You sit on the bench areas and dip VERY HOT water out of the basin to bathe with.  I found it very comfortable.  You could really get your feet clean for instance, though the hot water was a challenge when washing my hair.

From there you can go into the pool.  There was a person in there when I wanted to take a photo.  Perhaps I can add on later.  At any rate, it is about ten feet square and three feet deep, with an 18 inch ledge around the side for sitting.  The temperature is over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. I did a few of my water exercises, though shallow pool meant I could not do much and shortly the heat got to me.

So it was out and dress and a cab ride home. A good experience, made better by waking up the next morning to find that my back no longer hurt.  In fact, it did not hurt for an entire week, at which time I repeated the process.  The Romans really did know a good thing when they developed these springs as public bath 2000 years ago.