This post will be a little all over the place, so sorry about that and I hope I can effectively communicate all of the things I learned in Bitola.
All year when I met with the fellows there was a theme to all of our conversations. We would spend some time making a meal together, eating and talking about our projects and are conversations almost always ended up talking about a very idealistic lifestyle that we all wanted but never could figure out how to obtain. Less technology, even though we see the benefits of communicating with the world, not completely abusing the world and spending more time outside, taking to invest in relationships...that kind of thing. My time in Bitola was like that and it felt like a dream. Things would happen and I would just be completely mind blown that such a pure lifestyle exists in this crazy world.
Alexander the Great is a pretty important guy
I met my host, Ana, last summer when we were studying in Germany together. She was my best friend in the program even though we could never understand each other perfectly because, let's face it, my German isn't the best. But we were close and saying goodbye last summer was really sad because it was a friendship I didn't want to see end and I thought to myself "when the hell will I ever find a reason to go to Macedonia" and I could only imagine she was thinking the same about the US. So I am just so happy that she wanted to show me everything her beautiful town had to offer.
(me and Ana...we're so damn cute)
I stayed in Bitola (after flying into the capital, Skopje) which has about a million people in Ana's house with her parents. They were amazing, both accountants, I got to stop by their office on my last day, it was really cute. Ana's mom (she has a really long last name don't make me try to spell it please) spoke a little english but she mostly just told me I was pretty and that I had to keep eating and it was great.
dinner<<333
Why can't our money look this cute?! (about 60 of these thingys is equal to one euro)
So, I leave Macedonia just completely confused about this idea of unity. Everything was so wonderfully different and culturally vibrant and new to me. I don't know, I'm still trying to piece everything together in my head.
We stayed up, had a great time, got on the train and fell asleep. Four hours later I wake up and the train isn't moving. Yup, the train broke and I'm sitting there like, hmm, this is problematic. After an hour and a half of sittiing there with no real understanding of whats happening and just being very tired I pull out my emergency phone and call my parents because that seemed like the right thing to do. It was. They're the best. "Hey, so, I'm fine, but I'm going to miss my flight to Budapest, please advise, I have no internet and no real phone service here." The whole time I'm just sitting there like, mhmm, yup this is Mac's way of telling me not to leave.
#dramatic
After dinner my first night (hell yeah home cooked meals...you really can taste the love). Ana's mom told me to put on my trainers and come on...so after deciphering this and putting on some yoga pants and sneakers the three of us went on a walk through downtown, stopping a million times to quickly catch up with everyone on the street and walked into the mountains surrounding the city.
We ended at an outdoor theater that was one of Ana's favorite places (shes a diva) and she explained how her and her friends (and moms) cleaned up the whole theater because the city neglected it so that they could put on shows. It was the cutest thing ever.
The view of Bitola (well, you can't see it but the point is nature, okay?) from the end of our walk.
On the way back (this was like, a long walk by the way) I was struck by how many people were doing the same thing, just walking and being with people outside (and I could tell who was doing the same thing because everyone was wearing 'trainers' or like track suits, yeah, I was interested in how the whole city got the same memo on walking outfits).
Man, this is hard to write, I just keep getting really excited about everything.
Alright, here are some beautiful pictures of Ohrid while I pull myself together (about an hour away from Bitola, we spent a day there to visit new friends!)
I make the view
that's real, guys.
(btw i got some new pants in Greece because I'm assimilating)
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Alright so some of the conversations I had. These are in a different format because I was often in a conversation and people would just say things and also I talked to people for multiple days in a row so I'm going to just write down some of the biggest take aways and a few observations, sorry.
This is the first place where American culture was not uncomfortably looming in the not so distant background. All of the soaps that were on and reality shows were all Serbian. It was really refreshing. When we were hanging out with friends the songs were all traditional (yet, hip) and very uniquely Macedonian. I watched a room full of people root for the Macedonian singer on the Serbian (I think) X-factor. It was amazing, but I don't think he won :(. Everyone talks about their President and speaks in a very communitarian tone, also refreshing.
Ana talked about the fact that Macedonia is starting to feel a strain from migrants, but this wasn't in terms of the EU at all, or even acknowledge that the EU is currently working on it. It seems from the people I've talked to that they are glad that they're a part of the EU, but it really plays no role on them culturally or socially.
Which brings me to two of the most interesting take aways. One of the first people I was talking to asked me what I thought (I had been in Mac for about twenty minutes and awake for like 24 hours) and I said I really liked the mountains. He responded with: yeah, well, we're a really poor country, but we are good. ...I didn't think much of someone just telling me that I was in a poor country. Like, it doesn't look poor, but by the end of my time there I learned that Mac isn't poor, but the outside percieves it as being poor and therein lies the problem. Although, I'm not really in a positon to be the poor police. But I was struck by how the outside world, which really doesn't talk to or about Mac, like, ever, treats it.
Example (and Buffalo people will understand this better): if you have ever better to Niagara Falls there is a thing called "cave of the winds" where you can walk behind the falls and its cool and they give you special "cave of the winds" sandles so you don't fall/ruin your shoes. After they ask that you donate these shoes to help those who need shoes...
I was walking around a store and found an entire corner of these shoes...what? This is where they are choosing to send the sandels? So that was weird for me. Like, it just seemed like America decided one day, oh, hey, you guys really need these shoes, here!!!!!!!!
I also did not see any homeless people or any street peddlers. I did see some Roma riding by in a horse drawn carriage.
Fun fact: Macedonia applied to be in the EU in 2001 but has not been accepted yet...see Greece crisis (although I learned that Greece doesn't actually acknowledge Macedonia as its own country, but as former Yugoslavia, interesting). But everyone still had feelings on Europeanism and things so we are going to roll with it, okay?
The students I talked to were excited to travel, but they mostly traveled around Europe on scholarships, some even saying they would go to America but it would just be way too expensive. Ana was traveling to Turkey on vacation as soon as I left. So I wonder how much the free to move around the Europe really impacts people in Macedonia, because people don't seem to be traveling too much except for school (which is a good thing but on my travels I've met plenty of Brits, Spaniards, Germans and Italians traveling all over the place for leisure...maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, but I wish I met more Macedonians (as I generalize alll of the people of an entire country)-- I love them.
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Another conversation that just happened without any kind of prompting was about the environment. I was talking to one friend about how he thinks America is single handledly destroying the planet and uses wayyyy too many resources and needs to calm it down. Using Macedonia as an example of like, whyyyy can't you guys be more like us? All we do is waste (I agree...it was great, I think he was expecting me to disagree and I was like, no, just please keep talking this is great). I brought up how we can't even have our mountains because we keep blowing the tops off of the them to exploit them and then we just looked at the city that was surrounded by them and felt sad.
I remembered how some of the people I talked to in the west talked about the policies restricting green house gasses and how some of the newer countries will have to catch up...but it seemed to me like the west is really the ones who need to catch up. I think if the east wanted to invest in more infrastructureit would naturally be more environmentally conscious because the surrounding seems like such an accepted part of life here, its subtle, but strong.
(friends--the two guys were playing their violins on the street between sititng with us, they were really good)
the view from my host family's house
Although I guess I do need to say that leaving Macedonia was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do...
I had a plane at 9am to catch in Skopje, a three hour train ride from Bitola. So, seeing as this was Ana's last night in Bitola and with her friends until October? We decided to stay and catch the 3am train to Skopje and I would still have three hours before my plane would take off.
(see train ticket: don't even get me started on the language--like what are these letters? I've been told I have a great accent and I know some really important terms, practically fluent, it is a beautiful language to speak though, I honestly couldn't spell a single word though).
So after sitting on this train for like an extra three hours (there was even a time when the broken train started moving in the opposite direction -I don't know about you, but this seems like a step in the wrong direction) we made it to Skopje. Ana had to run because she had to catch her bus to Turkey, there was still hope for her.
I went to the airport and went up to the desk and they looked at me and said, wow you JUST missed it. ...yes nice airport people I am so aware of just how close I was to making this plane, when do I fly away from here. ...next plane is in ten hours, will take me to istanbul and be there at midnight, flight to budapest is seven the next morning. Oh and you can't buy a ticket here it has to be online or on the phone. -____________- "do you have wifi here?" "no" "okay" -__________________________________-
I'm going to call this place "rock bottom" because I was really really really tired. So parents coming in strong again got me the ticket for my plane...in ten hours. I cried and ate a muffin (sad muffin) and then I looked at the window and thought two things (1) the view from rock bottom really isn't that bad and (2) YOU WIN MACEDONIA I'LL COME BACK
this is what rock bottom looks like
so yes after new levels of "i don't care of what people think about me," washing down a muffin with tears, sleeping on a floor, reading a lot of my book I made it to Istanbul. Where I basically repeated myself. except I took an airport shower (like a real one, this is a nice airport guys).
Spoiler alert: I made it to Budapest. And I will go more in depth in another blog post but since I'm talking about Amanda's sleep deprivation I'll keep going. I land in Budapest, I accidentally take out 100000 HUF than i mean to out of the atm (only like 300 euros, which is still bad but we'll live) I figure out public transportation and I make it to my hostel and a nap is the only thing on my mind. I get to the hostel "hi you can't check in for three more hours" -eyes roll to the back of head to accept death gracefully-
I accidentally walked eight miles around Budapest and then at long last, I could check in and find my bed and I love it very much.
(there may be more edits to this because I'm sure I'll wake up in the middle of the night like I FORGOT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING!!!)
FAVORITE POST EVER!! All of it every word. Life is rad and I'm so happy you had each and every one of those experiences. Ahhhh just super excited!!!
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