From Macedonia to Macedonia

We got on the bus in Dubrovnik with Michael feeling sick from his day-long fasting experiment and not really knowing what to expect from our trip (15 hours we were told) or our destination of Skopje. We had done a bit of background reading on Macedonia (mainly from the US state department website and Bootsnall) where we learned that after some internal armed conflicts in 2001, it's now basically a safe place. We also read about the ongoing squabble they are having with Greece over their name and flag (Greece feels that it owns the rights to the name, because part of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia is now a province of the same name within Greek borders).

We were lucky that the bus wasn't full so we got to stretch out. Michael felt better after a short nap, and we were able enjoy the ride. It was exciting being the only tourists and foreigners on the bus and not knowing exactly where we were going or what was going on. We stopped at the border to Montenegro for a while and were disappointed that we were the only ones not to get stamps in our passports. Our next stop was maybe an hour later and at first we thought it was just a coffee/smoking/bathroom break but then figured out that we would be crossing the bay by ferry (this was close to Herceg Novi or something like that). After that we mostly slept (except for sliding out of the seats from sudden breaking by the driver). I think we passed through Pec, or at least I remember hearing the name in my half sleep. I woke up for the sunrise over the hills somewhere in Kosovo. We stopped again at the Kosovo-Macedonian border and then it was just a short ride into Skopje. We got there ahead of schedule (around 7:30 AM instead of 10AM) thanks to our speedy bus driver.

We arrived at the bus station (just a bunch of busses in a parking lot really) without a clue so we accepted the offer from a taxi driver to take us to the train station. When we told him we were headed to Greece he tried to convince us to get a ride with his friends to the border. We thought maybe the train station was a better idea. The station turned out to be a completely dismal introduction to Skopje--very dark, dirty and we couldn't even find where to buy tickets at first. But we did, and with the help of a very friendly lady behind the counter we got our tickets to Thessaloniki (Deutsche Bahn was right down to the minute) and also found a place to store our luggage for the day. No one could tell us where to get any information or maps of Skopje but they pointed us in the direction of the center and we set out. We found our way to the old part of the city, which felt very Eastern, with markets, a bazaar area and lots of Turkish people. We exchanged 10 Euros into denars which easily lasted us the whole day and bought us: 4 cappucinos, 40 minutes of internet, a little brush that we've been looking for to clean our Chacos, cheese bureks, spinach pies and sweet pastries, yummy chocolates that we bought from a Willy Wonka-ish candy store, bread and mineral water for our train ride, and luggage storage!

We crossed the footbridge over the river (Vardar I think) and it was like crossing into another world--big buildings, sidewalk cafes (and internet cafes), chic young people. The contrast was really interesting.

After roaming around both parts of the city, we found our way back to the dreary train station that afternoon. We had a nice chat with a Macedonian mechanical engineer who helped fill in some of the many large gaps in our knowledge of the area. We stopped for a long time at the Macedonia-Macedonia (Greek Macedonia!) border and this time they collected our passports and we had to get off the train to get them back from the police station. A bit of a pain, but it was worth it since we finally got ours stamped!

I never like to arrive in a new place late at night, but we both felt Thessaloniki's friendly vibe as soon as we stepped off the train and immediately felt at ease. We found a hotel from the ripped out pages of Lonely Planet's "Mediteranean Europe" book (thanks Mama and David--we found it at Henni's) and passed out for a good night's sleep.

We spent today exploring Thessaloniki--it's a great city, very lively and lots of students. The only thing that was a bit disappointing this morning was realizing how expensive most things are here compared to Croatia and Skopje. We wanted to get a cappucino but realized we'd be paying about 5 times what we paid there.

We're spending another night here and then tomorrow we'll figure out where to go next (we're still waiting to hear from Wwoofing people).