Visit to Ohrid

A couple of of weeks ago, I traveled five hours to the other side of the country to visit some colleagues in the city of Ohrid (pronounced Ocrid.)  I arrive after dark, so did not see much of the city, but when I walked out of my host's apartment  the next morning, I was overwhelmed by the sight of of the lake.  Ohrid is known as a vacation town  and even in November it was  warm  and beautiful.  I had not know how much I missed seeing a large body of water.  

First day we took it easy.  Star, a long standing nickname, and I went to her office at St Paul the  Apostle University where she posted exam grades.  My office is not decorated nearly as nicely.

Then we went to the market.  This street obviously caters to tourist rather than the locals.  The pavement is marble, which looks nice, but is treacherous when it rains.  I bought some post cards in a shop that knows how to treat non-Macedonians.  They spoke English, asked if I would like stamps to go with the cards and indicated that I could mail them in a box right outside the shop. I was impressed.  I also bought a pair of purple slippers to ward off the chill of a drafty apartment. (Though I do have heat now.)

The next day we went around the lake to see St John the  Theologian church.  It was built in the 12th century.  The pamphlet I bought tells the tale of a miracle done by the church's namesake when he first visited the area. The interior has a number of very old icons painted on the walls.  The one below is on the ceiling and is the only one from the 12th century.  To see others, click here. (They are copyrighted so, I did not want to use them directly.  I was not allowed to take pictures inside the church.  This photo  is from a free image web site.)                                     

From there we climbed  and climbed and climbed to the top of the mountain or hill, depending on how in shape you are. (It wasn't that bad, but I haven't been riding the bike much lately.)  At the top we came upon an excavation site of an old monastery.  Here you can see the cells that the monks slept in.






This church was also on the site.  I think you had to pay to go in, so we decided to just look at the outside.

 On the way down to the city center, we visited a paper museum.  They made paper out of very finely shredded wood, adding herbs and such for color.  They also had a replica of the Gutenberg press that they used to print various things such as pages from the original Cyrillic Bible.  It was very interesting.

In town we saw this statue of St Naum.  I am not sure what he did, but the town is full of commemoration of religious figures.  I was told they have 365 churches.  Amazing for a town the size of Janesville, Wisconsin.  Then we found a restaurant by the side of the lake, ate local pizza (not very good) and watched the swans glide over the crystal clear water.

The next day I retraced my bus trip to Stip, ready for a week of classes.

More uses for that cord of wood

Several weeks ago, I wrote about the use of wood for heating the houses in Stip.  It is even used for rather large apartment blocks.  In fact I have seen that supplying this wood is quite a cottage industry at this time of year.  A load of logs are delivered and stacked.  A couple of days later, a car pulls up pulling a a portable radial saw and the men go to work cutting the logs into split-able lengths.

These are then split and stacked.  A man spend a day and a half splitting wood for the neighbor's apartment.  They will be quite cozy this winter.  I think we have enough for the winter as well, though none has been burnt for heat yet.  And it is quite cold in the apartment since it is in the 20's at night and only in the 50's during the day.

But I have discovered a couple of other uses for this wood. In the fall, cauldrons steamed as wood was added to keep them hot.  They contained red peppers that were cooked within an inch of their lives to make a local condiment, ivers. The process is a social activity.  The women takes turns stirring while others sit and chat.

The final results is a red paste that, because of the long cooking process, has very little nutrition value, but it tastes good on bread or as a sandwich spread.

                                                         I eat it on eggs.

The other day, I smelled wood burning and went to investigate.  The landlord's father was out back 

feeding wood into this contraption

:

Which is exactly what it looks like, a still.  He was making raki, moonshine from grapes.  I was told it was legal because it was for personal consumption, but if I understood my landlord properly, it was 50% alcohol.  The older gentleman drinks it when he goes hunting, according to his son.  I said that is what they do in Wisconsin as well.  They say they are going hunting and they play poker, drink beer and maybe get a deer.  But Goran's father only hunts rabbits and the season is a month or two.  I'm surprised he can hit anything as small as a rabbit after drinking this stuff.

So, I hope some of the wood is used to heat the apartment soon so I can take off some of the three or four  layers of clothes I have on.

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.

Energy Production in Stip

As I arrived at my apartment, the car stopped in front of a pile of wood being split by several muscular young men.  The next day, I asked my landlord about it and he said that many of buildings in the neighborhood and indeed throughout the city of Stip burned wood for het in the winter.  In fact the apartment I am in is heated in this manner.  This interesting fact is related to the geopolitical situation of the area and ultimately impacts the climate.

A couple of years ago Russia's monopoly on natural gas supply was brought to the attention of the world when the supply was shut off.  Macedonia will never have to deal with this possibility because the country is not on the pipeline.  Macedonia gets all of it's electrical power from the dams on rivers that run through the country.  Some people heat their homes with this electricity.  My lights, hat water and stove are powered this way.  But when it gets cold, the water in the radiators will be heated by the wood that I had seen when I arrived.

I have already experienced some of the results of this system.  Sitting in my living room with the window open, my eyes started to become irritated.  As I looked out the window, I saw that family across the street cooking over an open fire, with the smoke wafting toward my apartment.  Another result of burning so much wood is more extreme climate swings than in the past.  The claim is made that as the forests disappear from the mountains of Macedonia, the winters get colder and the summers hotter.  My landlord claims that burning wood is better and it does seem rather quaint, but the consequences are far ranging.

Arrival in Macedonia

I have not taken any photos yet, so this post will be all type. Sorry about that.

Flew Turkish Airlines.  Was a little concerned, but upon entering the plane, I met by a flight attendant and a chef.  This boded well.  Once I sat down, my delight continued.  The flight attendants immediately handed out earphones and a menu cards for the two FULL meals they would be serving on the ten hour flight in addition to a small zipper bag containing flight amenities like tooth brush, night shade and ear plugs.  And all this in economy class.  The meals were delicious.  

Flew into Istanbul over the Aegean, very beautiful.  When we landed, the passengers participated in a European custom by clapping for the crew, I presume for getting down the plane in one piece though the flight gave no indication of any lack of expertise.  As we taxied down the runway, I could see some of the city a mile away or so.  The buildings did not look too much different, though even at that distance I could see they were more colorful.  Then my eye moved over the landscape and I saw a couple of construction cranes and 6-8 missle-like strucures which I realized were minerets.  I am not in Northern Europe any more..

The plane stopped some distance from the terminal, but they opened the rear exit as well as the forward, so the plane emptied more quickly.  After a short bus ride to the terminal, I entered the throng, with instructions and announcements being given in multiple languages it was all rather overwhelming.  A passing young woman in a uniform pointed me in the right direction, but when I saw where she was pointing, my heart dropped.  The throng was 8-10 people deep just to get to the beginning of the serpentine line to get to what I came to realize was a security check point.  But the line moved rapidly.  I think one reason was that their metal detectors were set so low that they did not pick up my artificial knee.  That way no one had to be patted down.  But it makes you wonder. 

I stopped at an information desk and of course my gate, 225, was at the faaaar end of the corridor.  I stopped for some Turkish ice cream . Expensive, but good.  I walked all the way down to my gate only to be told that it was being used at that time for a flight to budpest and I would have to wait else where.  I decided to walk back to airport civilization and get  a bottle of water.  I picked up two for only $2 each.  Very realsonable.  Almost makes up for the ice cream.  Right now I am sitting in a small café, slightly off the beaten path, so the crowds are not too overwhelming, watching the activity of a busy international airport out the window.  

Turkish Air came through again. After a disconcerting gate change that meant trekking back to where I a had originally come from,  we were on our way to Skopje.  It was  an hour and a half flight, but we still got a really nice sandwich and salad lunch, with chocolate mousse, just what I needed for the end of a long day.  Could have even had wine again, but decided not to.

Arrived in Skopje to find a baggage area with mayby three luggage carts for a flight of at least 100.  I certainly needed one for my four 50 pound bags.  I caught the eye of the sole baggage handler in the area.  He kindly corralled a cart for me and as we went through customs, I was the recipient of the local  “it’s who you know” syndrome.  All luggage was being x-rayed.  He put one of my bags on the conveyor belt and then we went around to the other end of the machine with the other three bags not being scanned.  He told me the custom s officer was a friend of his.  

Some one from the university was there to meet me.  He was not the talkative type, so I absorbed what I could as we sped through the dark.  There are mountains right outside Skopje, high enough that the highway had two or three tunnels on that stretch of road.  There are no shoulders on the mountain road, so  periodic pull offs are provided.  As we passed one, I caught a glimsp of a small café with a couple of tables under a lanai.  Passing through a small town, I also saw other esablishments where men were sitting out enjoying a warm late summer evening.

Arrived in Stip.  more about that later