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.