Lake Matka

Yesterday I went to Lake Matka, a lake about a half hour outside of Skopje, with some of my new colleagues/friends, J., B., and R. The lake is surrounded by mountains and there's a path that goes along the mountains. You can't really tell from the picture, but the sides of the mountain are pretty rocky and so is the path, so you have to be careful when you're walking.

There's a 14th century church at one side of the lake just before the path starts. Inside the walls are covered with frescoes, icons in the Byzantine style. It used to be part of a monastery.

Matka must be something of a tourist attraction because there seemed to be a higher concentration of non-Macedonians there than I've seen so far in Skopje. In fact, while we were walking, we met a Greek couple who asked me to take their picture. There was something wrong with their camera and I tried to help them, and I even managed to talk with them in Greek! I was surprised at how many words came back to me. Of course, the people I was with were suitably impressed, which was obviously the most important part of the exercise.

We kept walking along the path, but didn't go the whole way, since it's 14 km. Here is some more prettiness:

And here are some cute little kitties that were hanging around outside the church.

The most famous person from Macedonia

Macedonia is a small country. Lots of people have never heard of it. Other people may have heard of it at some point, but would be unable to locate it on a map. I admit, I wasn't sure exactly where it was either before I decided to come here. But Macedonia does have one claim to fame, and that is that Mother Teresa was born here. She was Albanian, but born in Skopje. There's even a statue of her on one of the streets in the center of the city.

The really important stuff

Food!

So far, I've been eating really well and have not been struck with "Balkan belly", as one of my new co-workers refers to it. Skopje has more of a variety of restaurants than you would think. There's an Indian restaurant that's pretty good and of course the ubiquitous Chinese and Italian places.

I'm still getting a feel for Macedonian food, but it seems to involve a lot of meat. There are also various dishes cooked in earthenware containers. I had some beans that were cooked that way, and also a stew. Here's a picture of the stew in its little pot. I meant to take a picture of the beans too, but I ate them before that was possible!

There's also a salad that's typical of Macedonia, called Shopska salad, and it's basically tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions covered with grated white cheese. The cheese is salty and tastes a lot like feta. I'll post a picture of one later.

Skopje old town

Skopje is made of concrete buildings, but it is also so much more! There is an old part of the city, with little streets and historical sites, and all those wonderful things you get to see when you go to Europe. There's a big fortress, Fortress Kale, which overlooks the rest of the city. It's basically ruins and, like a lot of other things I've seen here, there is a lot of potential which is not being lived up to. It has a great view of the city and wandering around the ruins is interesting, but it is full of litter and there is no way to find out any information about the place. Even so, it's a nice site and a good place to take pictures. The picture to the left here is one I took from the fortress of Mount Vodno, which is where the giant flaming cross lives.

There are some Turkish baths in the old town, too. I didn't go inside, but here they are from the outside.

The other fun parts of the old town are the little windy streets and the big covered market. I went there on a Sunday, so a lot of places were closed and at one point I realized that I was the only woman in sight. I think the old town is mostly inhabited by Albanians, who are Muslims, so maybe that explains the lack of women. I don't have any pictures of the market at the moment, but I will be sure to post them when I do. Going into the market is a pretty intense experience. There are rows and rows of tables and stalls, and different parts of the market sell different things. The fruit and vegetable area is my favorite part. The tables are heaped high with all different kinds of fresh fruit and vegetables, and you walk down the rows and sellers call out to you to try to get you to buy from them. At least, I think that is what they want, but since I don't speak Albanian or Macedonian, they could really be saying anything to me.

The river Vardar

My favorite part of Skopje so far is the river Vardar, which runs through the city. It has a nice path that runs alongside of it where people ride their bikes, rollerblade, and go running, although I get the impression that most of the runners are ex-pats. I've seen several goats grazing on the river banks and I've also seen locals fishing in the river, something which I personally would feel a bit leery about, since the river doesn't seem to be particularly clean. Parts of it are quite nice, but other parts have a lot of litter.

More impressions of Skopje

One thing that you really notice when you come to Skopje is the giant cross that stands on one of the mountains that looks down on the city. You can see it from anywhere in the city and it can be useful for orienting yourself. At night they light it up and it looks like a flaming cross, which was kind of unnerving at first, but I'm used to it now. I've tried to take a picture of it, but because it only lights up at night, it didn't turn out the way I would have liked. Anyway, hopefully you can get the general idea from this photo.

According to my guidebook, the cross was erected in 2002 and is "an overt sign of hostility towards the Albanian minority, who populate the opposite side of the valley." The Albanians feel discriminated against in Macedonia, especially since they haven't been allowed to erect their own monuments where they would like.

Arrival in Macedonia

So after weeks of planning and anxiety, I arrived in Skopje on September 4. I was met at the airiport by J., my contact at the university and G., a taxi driver. I was taken back to my hotel. My first impression of Skopje was that there seemed to be an inordinate amount of concrete buildings, and some of them were pretty strange looking. A particular favorite of mine is the main post office. Every time I see it I try to think of what would be an apt description of it. So far, I've come up with: upside-down spider, space age temple, concrete insect.

Another thing that I noticed right away was the number of stray dogs hanging around. They all seem pretty healthy and tame and they don't seem to bother anyone, although sometimes at night I hear them barking at each other. They tend to hang around outside butcher shops and at restaurants looking for spare scraps of meat and other food. Here's a particularly cute one that we saw at a restaurant. He laid under our table and was so sleepy that he couldn't even be bothered to eat the piece of food we dropped in front of him.

The day after I arrived, the other two new teachers got here. One is from California and the other is from Ireland. So we are all new together and are automatically friends. But aside from that, I do like them and think we're going to get along quite well this year.