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.