skopje

Skopje is a strange little city. It kind of reminds me of Disney world because everything has just been built within the past three years. They have these huge statues of Alexander the great and his father and women pregnant with future soldiers. Their "old town" looks like the set for a movie and all of the huge, new buildings are built to look like ancient Rome. Its all quite bizarre, but in twenty years I think it will be quite spectacular. Macedonia is just trying to rebuild their history, but every eastern European country claims that the history comes from their own country. Supposedly Alexander the great was born in Macedonia, but greece claims he belongs to them. Same with all food, spices, rakia - its this huge fight over history, and each country strongly believes everything comes from them. Poor Macedonia is barely seen as a country anymore. Greece won't accept them into the European union until they change their name to be part of Greece. Its all quite silly and a bit sad. But my host family is very cool. They picked us up in the middle of Skopje and announced they had free tickets to a concert. It was traditional Macedonian music (which sounds exactly the same as traditional Bulgarian music) and it was very good. Then they took us home and fed us delicious traditional Macedonian food. (guess what it tasted like..) They have a very loud little three year old girl and a nice little boy. They are both clay jewelry artists. I find it strange to be hosted so well and not do any work in return. Its an unsettling feeling, but vidhe says I will get used to it. He has a friend my age here in Macedonia and we met her for drinks last night. Tonight is Halloween!! ..Not that that means much here, but she said she would bring us to some sort of halloween gathering.

Front yard

Baba making bouquets for market tomorrow