Originally Dated: October 28, 2006.

okay, so when i last left off, we were travelling from Kosovo to Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. Now that should usually just take a few hours, but since the road from Kosovo to Macedonia is closed, we had to go back into Serbia, and get to Macedonia from there. But... MACEDONIA!

Since we arrived late to Macedonia, our meeting that evening was cancelled. It left everyone catch up on some much needed showers and sleep, and let the sickies (a few people got a stomach thing during the trip) relax. We pretty much just had dinner, then crashed.

The next day, we decided to explore the city. I walked around with Tyler, past the pedestrian main street, into the main square, and over the stone bridge into the old city. (We also tried to go to a few things like the Mother Teresa museum, but we couldn't find it.) The old city was cool... the streets were cobblestone, everything was old, there were tons of shops. People could pick us out as tourists instantaneously though... people in Macedonia are darker, like the Greeks. Old women would be walking down the street, not talking to anyone... then they'd see us, and ask us for money. we'd say no, and they wouldn't ask anyone else. People would walk out of stores just to see the americans walking by. it was so weird.

We were going to go to the fortress, but tyler was sick and wanted to head back. On our way back, we ran into jen, lisa, and emily! So tyler went back, and I headed BACK into the old city with them. We walked around again, and found this cool market. The aisles were SO narrow, and there was a lot of porn and fruit (One guy had about 4 tables set up, and only sold bananas. TONS of bananas.). It was a really cool market. Then we went back, arriving at the hotel just as tyler was leaving to try to find some soup for lunch. so i had lunch with him, then we met up with the group to talk to an NGO.

The NGO was a group (or conglomeration of groups) that were trying to help the Roma in macedonia. They had scholarships, extra help, language courses, libraries, etc. It was interesting. But while that NGO was cool, afterwards they took us to a small children's center in a Roma settlement outside of Skopje. It was a weird experience... the whole walk from the cabs to the center was lined with TONS and TONS of garbage. it was sad to see people living like that. But we got to the center, and heard about what they did... which was awesome. They weren't a school, but they encouraged kids to go to school. They offered classes on Macedonian, German, and English. They offered books, and places for kids to do homework. They offered homework help, access to computers, sports games, and socialization. They really seemed to be doing a LOT for these kids, and they mentioned that overcrowding was a problem. It was all simple things, but things these kids would not have access to without this center.

Afterwards, we all got these little hockey stick things, and played a combination of soccer and field hockey with a group of Roma children. It was incredible. The kids were so much better than us and kept making fun of us, but it was hilarious. For a half hour or so, economic status, education, language, etc. didn't matter. We just had a good time playing with these kids. No one has respected the Roma or even treated them like real people, so I think it meant a lot that we would play with them and have fun.

One thing that bothered me though... right after the game, we were getting our stuff together, and I dropped a business card from one of the NGO's... and one of the kids picked it up and gave it back to me... and was like "money, money!" and i was like "uh no im not giving you money for that, you can keep the business card if you want". (i thought that, didnt actually say it). It was just sad that we had such a good time playing and no one cared about anything, then as soon as the game is over (we hadnt even walked off the field!) they're already back to being poor and im back to being the rich american. that bothered me.

The next day, we had free. While the old city of Skopje is kinda cool, the new city is pretty ugly. It's very grey, very cement, very angular. There's a lack of color, and the people look content, but not happy. Tyler described it as "Sovietastic"... even though Yugoslavia wasn't in the eastern bloc, it was definitely heavily influenced by the soviets. We had already checked out of the hotel, so we had nothing to do really... tyler and i went to the skopje museum (it was free and took maybe 15 mins to walk through, kinda stupid)... then wandered around... we wound up meeting up with some of the group at the fortress for a picnic. (We had like 108 macedonian money left, so we tried to buy snacks that would add up to EXACTLY 108... it was kinda awesome). We spent the rest of the afternoon in the park in the fortress, overlooking the city. it was beautiful out, and we had a good time.

At one point, we started hearing this music... apparently a service was going on in a mosque down the hill from the fortress, and it was getting broadcast through the city. it was just awesome to be in this fortress, under a clear blue sky, looking over the city and the mountains, hearing this muslim music loud and clear. it was surreal, and really made you feel like "holy crap... i cant believe this is real life." Tyler, Tracy and I just stood there looking towards the mosque in silence for a few minutes. it was great.

I was starting to feel sick at this point, due to lack of sleep, too many cookies, and probably a trace of that stomach bug that was going around. That, combined with everyone being really obnoxious, put me in a pretty bad mood the rest of the night. I was worried I was going to get sick on the night train to Belgrade, but when we got there, I was feeling better both physically and mentally.

BELGRADE!

We got to Belgrade on a sunday, which kinda sucked becuse everything (EVERYTHING!) is closed on sundays. But tyler and i walked around anyways... the city was cool, had a ton of stores and cool streets, markets, and murals on buildings. There was also a LOT of serb nationalist graffiti (A cross with a C in each section... with the open end of the c always facing away from the center of the cross)... which kinda bothered us. But whatever. There was also a really really cool pedestrian street... It runs from the castle, (surrounded by a huge park), over to right near where our hotel was.

Apparently people in Serbia don't react well to NGO's, so the ones there have a hard time making progress. But we met with one that worked on integrating youth of different cultures, to try to minimize ethnic prejudices. They send some Serbs to kosovo for a few days, and vice versa, to show that the two cultures aren't very different. They seemed to have a plan for the future, and seemed really well set up. I liked them.

Belgrade was awesome. The pedestrian street was so much fun, with tons of stores and outdoor coffeeshops and everything. There were little alleyways with random stuff in it (like posters for "FISH FAST FOOD AQUARIUM!", bands advertising "tokyo sex destruction" and other random stuff), and just random crap all over the city. in one of the squares, there was this scrolling LCD screen that just said "NO NEWS IN NEW YORK.... NO NEWS IN BERLIN... NO NEWS IN SHANGHAI..." etc. It was the most rediculous thing... it never said anything except where there was NO NEWS.

it was cool, because the whole time we were in the balkans, i was trying to read the cyrillic letters... i began to be able to do it a little bit... then we got lost in belgrade once, and were trying to find out where we were (the map was in latin letters, street signs in cyrillic) and i totally read the street sign and got us found! it made me happy to know i could do that. :)

also, i was on the internet in the hotel once, and i heard people speaking english... so i started talking to these two girls from the USA. One (alex, from boston) had lived in Pristina last summer, and the other (laura? from atlanta) had lived in skopje. Both were in law school at UVA, studying in Sarajevo for the semester. I spoke with them for like 45 mins...they were really cool. One lived in berlin for awhile, and told me things to do here! i was telling them about how i'm looking into disabilities for my independent study project, and she was telling me about this restaurant where the waiters are all blind, and you eat in the dark... it sounds awesome. So that was awesome too... random conversations with americans. :)

We also wandered around the city. There are some buildings that were never cleaned up or reconstructed after the NATO bombings in 1998/1999. The former police station was destroyed, and still looks like it was just bombed (see pictures). The former Yugoslav parliament building was cool, as was the bohemian quarter. we also spent a lot of time in the park in the fortress. It was a gorgeous view... of the Sava river meeting the Danube. It was just fun to sit and people watch and reflect, and be like "holy crap look where we are!!". There was a shirt that said "Where's this fuckin' belgrade?" then on the back it had the lattitude and longitude of belgrade. (but i dont think i'd wear shirts with curses out in public, so i got the 'belgrade- HOT STREETS' shirt instead).

The city was just so random. It was definitely the most western of the places we went, which is weird because serbia seems to be defying everything the west wants (not handing over war criminals for trial, trying to amend their constitution to include kosovo, etc).

From there, we went to KLAGENFURT, austria!

we were only in this town for an afternoon, which was MORE than enough time. It was very very pretty... beautiful buildings, fountains, views of mountains... but there wasn't much to do there. But the restaurant we went to was INCREDIBLE (oh man it was so good!!!), and the hotel was by FAR the nicest we stayed in (They had a mounted showerhead! and a shower curtain!!!).

Overall it was an incredible trip, but I'm glad to be back. Now on to the rest of europe! :)

-Greg