Lost in the World

Здраво (zdravo)! My saga on my exchange year in the small southeastern European country of Macedonia continues. This post documents my adventures during the erratic and thrilling month of December.

At my pre-departure orientation for YES Abroad, I was told that December had the possibility of being one of the hardest months of my exchange due to the holidays, homesickness, and my life in my host country becoming less exotic and increasingly normal. Fortunately, December was the exact opposite. My exchange during December had to be one of the most unpredictable, exciting, and fun months of my life, and it all started with a simple trip to England.

On December 5, I flew to England for a short trip to interview at a university to which I had applied. I flew out on a Saturday afternoon, expecting my trip to be three days long. However, as with most international travel, the trip did not go to plan. I arrived in England late Saturday night at the London Luton Airport, which despite what its name would have

Seems Familiar

people believe, is an hour and a half outside of London. Thus, I was going to take a bus into London, which seems as if it would be a simple thing to do. However, when I was walking through the bus station, I found myself disoriented, as I could not find the door to any of the busses. Then I had an epiphany. I realized that Britain drives on the left-hand side of the road, so the door of the bus is on the opposite side as it would be in most other places in the world. After this realization, I was able to find the door to my bus and rode into east London. Once I arrived in London, I attempted to withdraw money from an ATM, but my bank froze my debit card, despite me notifying them that I would be traveling to England. Once I was able to call them, I was told that they were able to verify my card, but I could not withdraw cash for the next week because of a computer glitch. So, I was stuck in east London and needed to walk to my youth hostel, since I did not have money for the tube system.

 

According to Google Maps, my walk should have been an hour long, only I did not have access to a map. Of course, I became lost multiple times. Fortunately, I was in a country where everyone spoke English, so I asked for directions about ten times. After living in Macedonia, a country where most people who are older than thirty know little to no English, I now fully appreciate being able to ask for directions. Presently, I speak Macedonian well enough to ask for directions. However, at the beginning of my exchange, if I was lost, I was completely lost. One time this resulted in me biking around an industrial zone for an hour and a half, but I digress.

Back to London. The walk that was supposed to take one hour ended up taking two-and-a-half hours, and I arrived at my youth hostel at midnight. After I checked in, I was quite hungry, so I went out to find food. As one would expect, almost all of the grocery stores and restaurants in the London neighborhood of Southwark were closed a half hour past midnight. After a half-hour of searching, I found a Mongolian restaurant. It was as if I found a mirage after walking through the desert for a day. I have never had better Mongolian food in my life, although in truth that may have been the first time I had Mongolian food.

Additionally, it was refreshing to have a break from Macedonian food. Although I love Macedonian food, it can become boring at times, and the international food in Skopje is either non-existent or not so good. Therefore, eating Mongolian beef at one in the morning on the boardwalk of the River Thames in London was quite pleasing. After finishing my beef, I went to bed in my youth hostel that slightly resembled an above ground bunker; seriously, I have never seen a building with so many fire doors.

As my lovely tour guide showed me, there happens to be an ancient roman wall in the basement of a barber shop in central London.

 

The next day, I walked from my hostel in east London to central London, where my youth hostel for that night was. I decided to go on a public walking tour of central London, and with quite a bit of luck, no one besides me showed up, so I had a private tour of central London. What I did not realize about central London is that it is primarily office buildings with some important British historical and cultural sites sprinkled in; almost no one lives in central London, so when I went out for dinner that night, I was one of a handful of people in that part of the city.

The following day, December 7, I walked to east London to catch my bus to the college where I would interview at the following day. By chance, the bus was late, and I arrived in the town late at night. Again, I became lost multiple times. Eventually, I found the college dorm where I would sleep that night. As it turned out, the small town I was in had almost no public internet, so I went twenty-four hours without connection to the outside world – which was quite refreshing.

On December 8, I had my interview and caught a bus to the airport, where I would catch my flight back to Macedonia later that evening. At first, I saw that my flight, which was supposed to leave at 19:00, was delayed an hour. As I sat in the overcrowded airport waiting, the information board informed me that the flight was delayed two hours. Then, the flight was delayed four hours. Then, at 23:00 the flight was canceled. As it turns out, the air pollution in Skopje, or as I call it the “Skog” (See post my October post for explanation of terminology and description of severity of “Skog”) was so bad that the Skopje airport was shut down, and the plane that was supposed to be taking me back to Macedonia was stuck on the tarmac in Skopje. Fortunately, the lovely WizzAir told all the passengers that they would provide us with a hotel for the night and an opportunity to rebook on the earliest flight to Skopje. Then, the airline backed out and left all the passengers, including me, stranded at the airport.

They sell these British Spongebobs in the Nickelodeon store in London (I may have had too much time on my hands after my flight was canceled).

 

I then caught a bus back to London to go to the youth hostel I slept in a few nights before, hoping that they would have a bunk open and having no idea where I would sleep if they did not. Fortunately, the youth hostel had an open bunk. I then searched for when I could rebook my flight and found that the earliest flight I could catch was on Saturday, which meant I was stuck in England for four days. How awful.

Interestingly enough, this was not the first time I was stuck in a foreign country, albeit this was the first time I was stranded alone. You may remember six years ago when the Eyjafjallajökull volcano blew up in Iceland. Well, I was in Germany with my family when the volcano decided to erupt, and all the flights out of northern Europe were canceled due to the ash. My family and I had to escape Europe by taking a series of trains to Italy, where we caught a flight over the mid-Atlantic, stopping in the Azores.

Bath was beautiful.

 

I very much enjoyed my extended time in England. Some of the highlights of my unexpected excursion included seeing a few of Banksy’s works in Bristol, England, where the protest street artist is from, and visiting the city of Bath, a city famous for its architecture and ancient Roman baths. The architecture of Bath is beautiful. The buildings all have a similar looking gray facade, but this does not give off a dystopian impression like in some of the uniform neighborhoods of Skopje.

As with all good things, they come to an end, and I quickly found myself on a plane back to Skopje, which actually departed London and arrived in Skopje on time. There is a Balkan tradition that when a pilot lands a plane successfully, the passengers usually clap as a sign of thanks and a job well done. When my fellow YES Abroad students and I initially landed at the Skopje airport back in August, this took us by surprise. It was my first experience with Balkan culture.

With this cultural tradition in mind, I, along with the Kosovar girl I was sitting next to on the plane, decided that we would start the clapping after the plane landed, only we did not get the memo that people only clap during the day, and this was twelve-thirty at night. Additionally, the pilot was so good that a few people were not awakened by the landing, but they were by our clapping, which we were the only ones doing. In a stereotypical Macedonian teenage manner, the first thing I did after arriving in Skopje was go to a party; I did not even stop by my host home on the way.

After arriving back in Skopje on December 12, nothing much happened until my school let out for winter break the following week. Since my school is an American-style international school with a substantial number of Macedonian Orthodox students, our winter break covered both western Christmas and Orthodox Christmas. This meant that my winter break was twenty-three days long, which was a large step up from having a nine-day winter break in Connecticut.

I do not celebrate Christmas. Instead, I observe the winter solstice. As part of my observation of the winter solstice, I hand out winter solstice cards. These cards were a big thing at my American high school (I would print off hundreds of them and hand them out to everyone I saw). I tried this on a much smaller scale at my host high school, but not a lot of people understood the idea behind it. If you were wondering what happens for western Christmas in Macedonia, the answer is nothing, but our implementing organization for YES Abroad was kind enough to organize a Christmas party. I also had a Chinese exam on the day. Orthodox Christmas is in January; it is a big deal and a lot of fun. I will write about it in my next post.

You are probably wondering what I did with all of my time over break. Well, I put off a substantial amount of my college essays until winter break. So most of my days on break before New Year’s consisted of me waking up around eleven, writing essays until six, eating dinner, then going out, and arriving back home anytime between two and four in the morning. A few of my Macedonian friends taught me an important lesson about staying out in Skopje: not to look at the clock when coming home, for that would make one self-conscious about the number of hours of sleep he is having.

The fun part about going out in Skopje is that I am never certain where and whom to which the night will lead me. This is a good time to point out a particular Skopje phenomenon: commonly running into people I know. This happens all the time. Before I lived in Skopje, which is a city of around eight hundred thousand people, I lived in a small New England town of eight thousand people. In my small New England town, I almost never ran into someone I knew just by chance. In Skopje, if a day goes by without me meeting someone I know by random occurrence, I am stunned. This phenomenon has happened to me while riding the bus, while exploring an eight hundred year-old monastery in Matka, and while biking through one of the small villages of five hundred people on the outskirts of the city. As a result of this phenomenon, I can go out at night with one set of people going to one place, randomly meet another set of people at that place, and go with that set of people to another place once the first set of people goes home to sleep. This keeps my nights exciting, since I never know what will happen.

Of course, at the end of December is New Year’s. However, New Year’s is such a big celebration in Macedonia that I am going to leave it for the next post, so you will have to wait until next week to read about it. If you have any questions related to my exchange or Macedonia, please send them to theskinnyboyofskopje@gmail.com and I will answer them on the “Questions and Answers” page. If you enjoyed reading this post and would like to read future posts of mine, please follow my blog by email or WordPress at the bottom of this page and feel free to share my blog. Until next time, збогум (zbogym)!

 

Full Immersion

Hello! So, as promised, I will be updating you on my exchange month by month over the next few weeks. Here are the stories of my exchange for November. As people say in Macedonia: Poveli, which is a polite Macedonian word for what you say when you give a person something.

By the start of November, I felt as if I was becoming a well-oiled exchange student. By this claim, I do not mean that I was able to control all of the elements of my exchange as to restore my life to the level of calmness that was present before I left America for Macedonia; that would be boring. Rather, I mean that I am becoming used to the exotic and chaotic elements of being an exchange student in a little-known country and the constant pleasant surprises my host country gifts me. From this erratic environment, I have learned one of the most important lessons from exchange: the importance of finding the balance between attempting to control the environment I live in versus adapting to the circumstances I am presented with.

Thus, I begin my discussion of November with my host family’s Slava. Slava is a Macedonian celebration for when a Macedonian Orthodox family celebrates their family’s saint. My family celebrated their Slava on Sunday, November 8. On that Sunday, I woke up to wind howling against my window, or so I thought. As I was lying in my bed that morning, going in and out of consciousness as my alarm went off and I hit the snooze button, I came to a sudden realization: Skopje has little, if any, wind. Intrigued, I decided to wake up and discovered that the water was not running and the internet was not working, which happens from time to time. The internet, water, or power typically goes out once a week for anywhere from one to eighteen hours. The outages are not much of a burden. Rather, they are somewhat revitalizing. With no internet for my phone or water to wash my face, I went outside and saw a butchered pig hanging from the wall of my host family’s house. I put two and two together and realized that there was no wind that morning, but rather just a pig’s final moments.

Later in the morning, an Orthodox priest came to bless the house as part of preparation for the Slava. The blessing ceremony is not that extravagant and only lasts about three minutes. Nevertheless, it was interesting to have a priest come to my host home and watch him bless the house to a cadence and tone that resembles singing.

I spent the rest of the afternoon preparing for the Slava, which starts in the evening. I dedicated most of my preparation to making Ajvar. Ajvar is a Macedonian condiment made from peppers; think of it as the Macedonian version of ketchup. Most families make Ajvar themselves in the fall and preserve enough for the year, but people can also buy it in a grocery store. Ajvar tastes amazing. When I first discovered the condiment early in my exchange, I eat it on everything, as well as eating it by itself. Presently, my obsession has calmed down. Although, unfortunately, once I leave Macedonia, I will not be able to eat it, because is not sold very much outside of the Balkans. However, rumor has it that there is a website that sells it in America, so there is hope.

Me and my Slava-Eggplant friends.

 

Once the evening started, my host family’s friends and extended family started to come over and the celebration began. Almost everyone a family knows is invited to their Slava, so there were many people. In fact, quite a few people are invited to multiple Slavas on the same night, so they spend only a little time at each. The celebration itself is not religious at all and there is not any ceremony. People simply sit, eat, talk, and enjoy the time. The event is quite long, lasting from five in the evening until one in the morning, but the time passes by quite quickly.

The celebratory atmosphere of a Slava is not unique to only peoples’ homes in Skopje. Skopje is a communal and social city, so people often take their celebrations outside of the house. When they do, which is quite often, people often go to an idiosyncratic Balkan institution: the kafana. Kafanas are a type of restaurant in the Balkans, but they are not just another type of restaurant. The best comparison of a kafana is a tavern. Going to a kafana is quite a long experience, involving a lot of meat, Balkan music from a live band, and a plethora of drinks for the adults. Once in the kafana, the festive environment captures people for around three to five hours. However, people enjoy themselves so much that the time passes rather quickly.

Similar to time in a kafana, my time in November passed rather quickly. The Saturday following my host family’s Slava, November 14, I was to give a TEDx Talk. Since I have worked on multiple political campaigns in the United States, including presidential, gubernatorial, state senate, and municipal, the organizers of the Macedonian TEDx Youth conference thought it would be interesting if I spoke on a political topic. I chose the relationship between the will of communities and the actions of governments. Before the event, I had never given a TED talk or any sort of presentation like it. I realized after watching many TED talks that the talk is, in its simplest form, an entertaining lecture. Thus, over the course of the week, I crafted a talk that described the idea that to bring the of the actions of governments in line with the will of communities, people must focus on pragmatic political activities, not distracting political ideas, such as political correctness, over-sensitivity, trigger warnings, etc … The conference itself was interesting. All the other speakers were from the Balkans and spoke on topics from biomedical engineering to the evolution of music.

 

Let’s Talk about the Constitution

The week following the TEDx conference was International Education Week, where one of my fellow YES Abroad students and I gave a few presentations on American government, culture, and high school. Making a presentation on my own country was somewhat odd. Deciding what was important enough to include or to not include in a presentation to Macedonians was a surreal experience. To have the ability to positively influence a few people’s perceptions of the United States was an enjoyable opportunity. One of the elements of American government I decided to include was the Electoral College. Of course, during the presentations, I went on extensive rants about this moronic institution. Apparently, my rants were effective, since most of the people viewing my presentations were able to understand my explanation of the complex and archaic Electoral College System. When I described American high school life, many of the Macedonian high schoolers were surprised when I told them that Macedonian high school life (concerning all elements outside the classroom) is far better than American high school life. I am sorry

Typical Macedonian Teenage Weekend Activity

American high school friends, but the Macedonian high schoolers really have it going on. Macedonia may be one of the best places to be a teenager. Young people in Macedonia have far more liberties and freedoms than their counterparts in America. For example, it is perfectly normal and acceptable for a Macedonian teenager to stay out until three in the morning on the weekend, and sometimes even on school nights.

 

From the end of International Education Week, nothing much happened until Thanksgiving. Since I go to an American-style international school in Skopje, I was off from school for Thanksgiving and the part of the week it encompassed. No one celebrates

The “Cranberry Sauce”

Thanksgiving in Skopje, apart from the four American exchange students and the Americans who work at the embassy. Fortunately, out of great kindness, the organization that implements YES Abroad in Macedonia, American Councils, organized a Thanksgiving dinner for four American exchange students so we would not become homesick, even though I have not been homesick at all during my exchange. Before the dinner, I decided that my contribution to the dinner would be cranberry sauce. When I woke up on Thanksgiving and went to the store to buy cranberries, I found that there were not any. After visiting a few stores, I was only able to find dehydrated cranberries. I accepted the challenge that the Macedonian grocery store industry gave me and bought a few bags of cranberries, went home, and proceeded to go through the process of rehydrating the cranberries. My procedure for making the cranberry sauce came down to this. First, I let the dried cranberries sit in water. Second, once they were moist, I added honey. Voila! That was my Macedonian cranberry sauce, which did in fact slightly resemble cranberry sauce, according to me at least. However, my fellow exchange students did not agree, so quite a lot of “cranberry sauce” was left over.

 

The Thanksgiving dinner that my implementing organization hosted was nice. However, what was much more interesting was the Thanksgiving dinner I went to later in the evening. One of my American friends, whose mother works at the U.S. Embassy, invited me over for dinner at his house. The dinner was amazing. However, what was more amazing was simply his house. Since houses for embassy personnel are owned and built by the American government, they look like an American house on the inside. The manner in which Macedonians and Americans design, furnish, and decorate their homes is substantially different. Thus, stepping into his house felt like stepping into America for a short period of time; it was truly a surreal experience that I am incredibly thankful for.

The surreal experience continued into the day following Thanksgiving: Black Friday. Unfortunately, the culturally rich and historic American custom of Thanksgiving has not made its way over to Macedonia, but the obnoxious American tradition of Black Friday has. That is right, the onerous day of Black Friday has spread from America like an influenza pandemic to the tiny Balkan country of Macedonia, a place most Americans do not know

In case you were wondering what an abandoned Macedonian McDonald’s looks like.

exists. This fact that there are Black Friday sales here is quite astonishing, given that there is not even a McDonald’s in this country (there once were a few, but they shut down over a franchise contract dispute). The sales for Black Friday in Macedonia are not nearly as big as they are in America, but the obscenity is. People were taking every available parking spot for kilometers around the Skopje City Mall, which is the largest shopping center in Macedonia (about the size of the average American mall) for clothes that were 15% off.

 

This concludes my post for November. Thank you for reading all of it. In a short time, I will have my post for December up for viewing. If you enjoyed reading this post and would like to read future posts of mine, please follow my blog by email or WordPress at the bottom of this page, and feel free to share my blog.

The Blog Is Back, So Let Us Take It Back To October In Macedonia

I am back. Over the next few weeks, I will catch up with blogging. Here is what happened between October 10 and October 31.

When I last left you, I was coming home from White Night, a festival in Skopje where many businesses and cultural centers are open from when the sun sets on October third to when the sun rises on October fourth. From then, nothing much happened until I visited the Pastrmalija Food Festival in the Macedonian City of Veles with one of my fellow YES Abroaders on October 10.

In the simplest way that I can explain, Pastrmalija is the Macedonian version of pizza. Pastrmalija is made up of meat, typically chicken or pork, surrounded by a thick and soft dough crust topped with eggs or cheese. Easy to say, it is one of my favorite Macedonian dishes.

The ride from Skopje to Veles was almost as wonderful as the Pastrmalija itself. The road to Veles follows the Vardar River through the low depths of tall mountain ravines to the center of Macedonia, where the city of some forty thousand inhabitants lies between a few hills. The city was known for its heavy industries. However, in recent years, the industries have left, and replacing the city’s industrial base are artificially planted palm trees. Palm trees do not grow naturally in Macedonia, so someone has gone to quite an effort to make sure the sidewalks of downtown Veles are lined with them.

The Pastrmalija festival itself was quite quaint. Not many people were present to sample Pastrmalija from some twenty vendors who competed against each other for the award of best Pastrmalija. In typical Macedonian fashion, an eclectic variety of musical performers was present. While I was at the Pastrmalija festival, I was able to listen to an electro-violin duo, some Balkan rappers, and a few traditional Macedonian folk groups. The Pastrmalija was excellent, as were the non-alcoholic drinks that paired with it, namely Gazoza.

Gazoza is a pear-based soda that is only sold in Macedonia, or more specifically eastern and south-western Macedonia. Gazoza epitomizes the adage that you should not judge something by its cover. As you can see from the picture of a bottle of Gazoza, the soda’s

Gazoza

label resembles more of an engine lubricant fluid than a beverage you would pour into your mouth for enjoyment. Contrary to the way the soda presents itself, Gazoza tastes amazing. Imagine drinking Fanta. However, instead of tasting like overly strong fake orange juice, Gazoza tastes somewhat like an actual pear, freshly picked from the tree, pressed into juice, injected with CO2, and bottled.

 

Fortunately, not only was I able to visit Veles in October, but I was also able to visit the Macedonian city of Tetovo. On October 17, my three fellow YES Abroad Macedonia participants and I took a day trip to Tetovo, a neighboring city of Skopje. We all awoke in the early hours of the morning to take a bus from Skopje to the city; this bus ride took about forty-five minutes. However, once we arrived in Tetovo, it felt as if we had traveled to a different country. Unlike Skopje, which has a Macedonian ethnic majority, Tetovo has an Albanian ethnic majority. This difference manifests itself in several ways.

 

The Entrance of the Painted Mosque

First, Tetovo has a multitude of mosques, the most beautiful of which is Šarena Džamija, or the painted mosque. Appropriately named, the inside and outside of the painted mosque were painted by using an egg-based paint. Over thirty thousand eggs were needed to paint the mosque. The elaborate painting on the outside of the mosque makes it one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. The paintings on the building are so sublime that you would expect the building to be moved into a museum. However, one of the many amazing elements of Macedonia is that there are too many historical and cultural artifacts to place in museums. Astonishingly, even next to my host home lies a two thousand year old Roman village with a multitude of excavated Roman artifacts lying in the field that is only guarded by a shoulder high fence.

 

 

The Painted Mosque from the Side

 

 

Second, the ethnic Albanian majority also displays itself in the architecture of the city. Of course, while much of the city’s architecture is reminiscent of the Yugoslavian era, the city continues to hold elements of its traditional architecture. Many of these elements go past the untrained eye. One of the many architectural nuances that signify the Albanian majority is the height of walls that surround a person’s property. Long ago, when people in Macedonia, namely ethnic Albanians, practiced strict Islam, the walls surrounding their houses would be built high enough so that women would be able to walk around freely on the inside of the property without being seen from the outside. At present, this is not nearly as much of a concern as it was long ago. However, many ethnic Albanians hold onto the tradition of building high walls around their properties, even those properties within cities. This style of architecture that separates individuals from the outside world is also found in the restaurants in Tetovo. For example, look at the picture of the restaurant patio. This picture is actually of the inside of a restaurant that instead of having a terrace that is on the outside has a terrace that is on the inside, similar

 

The interior terrace of a Tetovo restaurant

to a courtyard. The reason for building restaurants with this design is the same reason for the tall walls. Standing on this interior facing patio felt somewhat outer worldly, since I felt as if I were on the inside of a restaurant, but I was looking up at the stars.

 

Third, the ethnic communities in Tetovo are much more integrated than in Skopje. In Skopje, people of different ethnicities primarily live in different neighborhoods. Conversely, in Tetovo, people of different ethnicities typically live on different streets in the same neighborhood.

Unfortunately, Tetovo has one negative element: the city is the most polluted urban area in the world. The air pollution is honestly the only element of Macedonia I loathe, mostly because it prevents me from running. The pollution is so bad in Tetovo, as well as in Skopje, that it sometimes forms a thick fog. On the worst days, the “Skog” as I call it (Skopje + Fog = “Skog”), prevents anyone from seeing what is one hundred meters in front of them. Fortunately, the pollution does not reach that level of intensity often. Although, on most days, I can smell and feel the pollution, neither of which are positive senses. The air was only mildly polluted when I visited Tetovo.

When visiting Tetovo, I visited a monastery on top of a hill surrounding the city. This hill is known for having some of the cleanest air in Macedonia, so there is a lung hospital beside the monastery. Ironically, this hill is not more than five kilometers from downtown Tetovo, yet the air is so clean I could feel its purity as I inhaled and exhaled.

After I left Tetovo, life was calm until Halloween, which Macedonians celebrate differently compared to Americans. My Halloween celebrations started on October 20, when I, along with my fellow YES Abraders, volunteered at an elementary school in the Roma neighborhood of Shutka, which is the largest Roma community in the world. At the elementary school, we made Halloween masks with first graders. The children enjoyed making the Halloween masks, but some of them were bored, so I showed them how to create stick figures by using pipe cleaners, which for some unusual reason they found fascinating. Thus, the Roma children left the class with Halloween masks and stick figures made from pipe cleaners, and that is how I accomplished my duty as a youth ambassador for Halloween.

In Macedonia, people do not go tick-or-treating; there is a separate holiday near orthodox Christmas when kids go door-to-door for candy, fruit, and other treats. To celebrate Halloween itself, I went to a Cosplay event as the Macedonian Youth Cultural Center. I went as Donald Trump and one of my fellow American exchange students went as Barrack Obama; the Macedonian teenagers found our duo to be very interesting and we definitely put on a performance. In fact, almost everyone in Macedonia who holds minimal knowledge on the United States knows who Donald Trump is and the more prominent remarks he has made during his campaign. Therefore, I find myself apologizing on behalf of the American people quite often.

Well, that wraps it up for October. I will post again soon for my antics during November. If you have a question on my exchange, please send it to <theskinnyboyofskopje@gmail.com>, and I will happily answer it on the “questions and answers” thread. If you enjoyed reading this post and would like to read future posts of mine, please follow my blog by email or WordPress at the bottom of this page and feel free to share my blog.

The First Two Months (Part II)

This blog post documents my adventures in Macedonia from September 12 to October 12. Eventually, I will publish a post on October 13 to November 13.

On Saturday, September 12, the other YES Abraders and I took a cultural
trip to Matka, a canyon outside of Skopje. The canyon is gorgeous, with cliffs covered with foliage jutting toward the sky from the sides of the artificial lake that fills the canyon. A variety of leisure activities occur in the park. In my time at the park, I saw people lounging in cafes, kayaking

Matka Canyon

on the lake, hiking in the woods, rock climbing on the cliffs, and even piloting drones. Unfortunately, in a somewhat comical fashion, one of the drones hit a tree and crashed. While at Matka, I also visited the Vrelo caves. Only one of the caves is open to visitors. In a stereotypical cavelike manner, the cave is dark, cold, damp, and serves as a habitat to a plethora of bats. Adjacent to this cave is another cave that lies under the

The Vrelo Caves

water of the lake. An Italian diver, Luigi Casati, explored that cave last year and could not find the bottom. Luigi reached a depth of 205 meters, which makes the cave the deepest underwater cave in the Balkans. He believes the cave is over five hundred meters deep, which would make it the deepest underwater cave in the world. Additionally, I visited St. Andrew’s Monastery, a small orthodox monastery on the side of the lake.

Fortunately, that same day I had the opportunity to attend my first Macedonian wedding. Macedonian weddings vary considerably from American weddings. The morning of the wedding, the groom’s close family and friends drive him from his house to the bride’s house in a cavalcade of honking cars that attempt to make as much noise as possible. At the bride’s house, there is a short celebration. From the bride’s house, the bride, the groom, and close family travel to a church where the ceremony occurs. In stark contrast to most American weddings, the ceremony typically lasts a grand total of fifteen minutes at most, and only closest family and friends accompany the couple in the church. The ceremony is so quick that those observing the ceremony do not sit. Following the ceremony, the procession goes to the reception, which is where other family and friends join the bride and groom. The reception usually commences around 7:00 in the evening and starts with a presentation of the bride and groom, which is accompanied by drinking champagne. Then there is traditional dancing with a live band, followed by the appetizer, then more traditional dancing followed by dinner. After dinner, there is again traditional dancing. Now, this may come as a shock to anyone who has ever seen me dance, but I have been told candidly my multiple individuals that I can put on a pretty good Macedonian traditional wedding dance. In fact, my Macedonian dancing skills may be just as good as my conga-line, or even my cha-cha slide, dancing skills. Around eleven, a very large piece of meat is presented. At midnight, the cake is brought out and is ceremonially cut by the bride and groom. Shortly after eating the cake is the bouquet toss. Coincidentally, my host sister caught the bouquet at the wedding: this is the fourth time she has caught a bouquet at a wedding, so maybe I will have a host brother-in-law soon. After this, there are no other major events and the wedding continues with traditional dancing into the wee hours of the morning.

 

A bad picture, but here are a few eccentric friends I met at Vino-Skop.

After the wedding, a few weeks passed by with no other major events, until Vino-Skop. Vino-Skop is a Macedonian wine festival from September 30 to October 3. You may imagine a typical wine festival as people sampling a variety of fine wine and cheeses during a quiet afternoon with some light, possibly classical, music accompanying the event. Conversely, Vino-Skop is nearly the opposite of this. Almost everyone attends the festival at night, from 11:00 PM to 3:00 AM. Of course, there is wine, of which I drank none. The music, instead of classical, ranged from rap to turbo-folk, which is a modern twist on traditional Balkan music. I strongly encourage you to check out turbo-folk; you will have a musical epiphany. Remember, it is not good, or bad, just different.

The weekend of Vino-Skop, I took the SAT. The testing experience in Macedonia was almost the same as it was in America. More importantly, after the SAT, I went with one of my fellow YES Abraders and his host family to the Skopje Aqueduct. At a length of over three hundred fifty

The Skopje Aqueduct

meters, the Skopje Aqueduct is an ancient aqueduct located on the outskirts of Skopje. No one knows exactly who constructed the aqueduct or when they constructed it. The theories range from the Romans building the structure in the first century to provide water to a military outpost, to the Ottomans building it in the sixteenth century to deliver water to Turkish Hammams. For an ancient structure so precious, you may expect that the aqueduct is displayed prominently, well-guarded, and surrounded by tourists. You would be wrong: The road to the aqueduct is not paved, the structure stands an empty field behind a military base, and I did not see another person outside of our party while there. The aqueduct’s aloofness gave rise to a unique opportunity: to walk on top of the aqueduct from one side to the other. Thus, my friend and I embarked on our journey to cross the structure that was most likely older than both of our family trees. Marveling at the views around us, we cleverly planned our steps as we placed each foot on the overgrown weeds that covered the top of the aqueduct. Eventually, our journey came to an end. We felt a

Looking out to an ancient Roman village from the private box of an ancient theater.

sense of accomplishment that we were probably the first, and will most likely be the only, Americans to cross the aqueduct. We then left the aqueduct to visit an ancient roman settlement and amphitheater. The archeologists at the amphitheater allowed us to roam inside the ancient theatrical hall, and I had the opportunity to sit in an ancient private theater box, reserved for Roman politicians, overlooking the city of Skopje.

 

That night, October 3, was White Night. White Night is a festival where many of the restaurants, clubs, theaters, and museums are open from when the last of the sun’s glimmer shines over the crests of the mountains in the evening until the first of the sun’s rays cast their presence on Skopje the following morning. I spent my White Night lounging at a café, relaxing to an electronic music group at the Macedonian Youth Cultural Center, and listening to live bands at Vino-Skop. I did not stay out very late for White Night, arriving home at four in the morning and sleeping until two in the afternoon, only to wake up and write a college application essay.

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The First Two Months (Part I)

Hello everyone,

First off, I apologize for not updating my blog for the last seven weeks. The ironic element of blogging on exchange is that the more exciting and busy the exchange is, the less time I have to blog about my experiences. As expected, my first two months in Macedonia have been amazing. In this blog post, I will document my first month in Macedonia. Next week, I will publish a post on the experiences during my second month here.

I left off with my first day in Skopje. My adventure continued on the evening of my second day here when the other YES Abroad participants and I climbed Vodno, a mountain that overlooks the city. On top of Vodno, we were able to view the expansive city of Skopje and watch the city light up as the sun set below the majestic mountains. Looking out at the city, I was overcome with the realization that this was where I was going to be spending my next ten months. We were also able to see up close the Millennium Cross, a sixty-six-meter high cross that stands atop the mountain. Built in 2002 to celebrate the two thousand year anniversary of Christianity, the cross is illuminated at night and can be seen from almost anywhere in Skopje.

After spending a long time gazing in awe at the sublime environment that surrounded us, we hiked down the mountain, and I was introduced to Macedonian nightlife. Skopje is almost as active at midnight as it is at noon. People pack restaurants, bars, and cafes from nine until the nightclubs open at midnight. This nocturnal culture is not particular to the summer. Throughout the entire year there are nighttime events, including on weekdays, when it socially acceptable for people to stay out until two in the morning and then wake up at seven to go to work; this social norm also applies to students. However, I seldom participate in this practice.

I ended this night by getting lost, or rather, thinking that I was lost, on the Skopje bus system. After I parted with my friends, I waited forty-five minutes at the bus station to catch what I had a hunch was the right bus. However, instead of taking a direct route to my neighborhood, this bus, unbeknownst to me, cut through a few other Skopje neighborhoods, which I had not seen before. Keep in mind this was at one in the morning in a country where the only thing I knew how to say to people was “hi” and “how are you.” I did not even know the name of my neighborhood at this time. After spending about forty-five minutes on the bus, I started to think I boarded on the wrong bus. However, I soon saw my lovely neighborhood, got off the bus, and walked home, where my host brother was waiting for me because he as well thought I was lost.

The following three weeks were fairly routine. I had Macedonian Language classes Monday through Friday for four hours a day, spent my weekends with my host family, and toured around Skopje. Though Macedonia is small, Skopje is big, so there is a lot to see and do. Luckily, on the 28 of August, I had the opportunity to observe Saint Joakim Osogovski Day with my host family. Saint Joakim Osogovski Day is a “non-working day” in Macedonia. This year, my host family decided to visit the monastery dedicated to the Orthodox saint in order to pay their respects to him, and they took me along. Visiting the monastery was a wonderful cultural experience.  The monastery is situated in the mountains of eastern Macedonia, near the Serbian border. The hour-long drive to the monastery itself was beautiful. The landscape of eastern Macedonia resembles savannah-like hills. The monastery, nestled in the mountains, looks out to the expansive Macedonian countryside. In addition to observing the countryside, I also was able to observe the ceremonies inside the monastery. The most predominant elements of the orthodox ceremony were that people do not sit – they stand – and the religious leaders follow an eclectic set of ceremonies, often moving inside and outside the monastery to bless people and objects. After visiting the monastery, I went to eat with my host family at a traditional Macedonian barbecue, where I had the best fried chicken of my life.

The Monastery of Saint Joakim Osogovski

On September first, I started school. I will have a post on my school later. For now, I will tell you that my school is an international private school and it has certainly kept me busy, along with college applications and standardized test preparation.

On the first weekend of September, there was “Pivo-Fest,” which is a Macedonian beer festival. I did not drink any beer, but the diverse mix of Balkan music groups at the festival was truly amazing. There were rappers from Macedonia, bands from Croatia, and singers from Serbia. My personal favorite was Esma Redzepova, who is known as the queen of Roma music. Her music appears as background music in the movie Borat. However, the producers used her music in the movie without her permission, so there was a large international lawsuit that she continues to be associated with.

The Pivo-Fest Concert

The following Tuesday, September 8, was Macedonian Independence Day, which in Macedonia is a simple non-working day. I was expecting large celebrations for this holiday. However, the way that Macedonia celebrates their Independence Day is similar to the way America celebrates Martian Luther King Jr. Day; people acknowledge the day, but there are not many communal celebrations.

Lastly, the program I am on, YES Abroad, is accepting applicants for the 2016-2017 program. YES Abroad is a full scholarship with the U.S. Department of State to study abroad in countries with high Muslim populations. By full scholarship, I mean that everything is paid for by the State Department. If spending a year in an exotic country, learning about another culture, and discovering yourself sounds interesting, I would strongly encourage you to apply. The application can be found at the following link: http://www.yes-abroad.org/

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The First Week: An Imaginable Reality

On Thursday, August thirteenth, 2015, I arrived in Skopje, Macedonia with four other American high school students and entered a land where dreams and reality merge. However, preceding my departure, my final days in America contained only dreams. The onset of exchange did not fill these days with excitement or dread, but only palpable normalcy. I was stuck in an emotional illusion that I would not be leaving the United States for ten months; that I would not be saying goodbye to my friends and family for ten months; and that I would not be embarking on a journey to a country where I spoke none of the language, knew none of the people, and understood little about the culture. This feeling of regularity carried over to my plane ride to Macedonia and my arrival in Skopje. Even now, ten days after my arrival, I have not emotionally realized that I will be spending the next ten months here in Macedonia, but I do know that I love this amazing country.

The first attribute I noticed about Macedonia is the ever-present duality of the society, scenery, and culture. Luxury Mercedes sedans speeding past delicate ox-pulled carts, formidable steel mills in the foreground rivaling with majestic mountains in the background, and ethnic tradition pulling back modern culture are only a few examples of the physical and cultural juxtaposition seen and experienced here in Skopje. This duality creates a setting that is ever changing and makes the city of Skopje the perfect place to uncover all the elements of Macedonian society during my exchange.

Now that my philosophical and emotional ramblings are over, I can describe my first week in Macedonia. Directly after I went through customs at the Skopje Airport, I was greeted by my host mother and host brother, who then took me to the police station to file for visiting papers. Walking to the doors of the police station, my host brother and I passed a group of police officers nonchalantly holding AK-47s. As we were about to open the door to the police station, a man wearing a gas mask opened the door from the inside. Yelling, in Macedonian, ensued from the cops holding the AK-47s behind us. Luckily, my jet leg prevented me from panicking, as the police were only fumigating the station. I then received my visiting papers with no further issue.

Following the police station episode, my host family took me home, which is in a multi-ethnic neighborhood. There are not many multiethnic neighborhoods in Skopje, as the Macedonian, Albanian, and Roma populations tend to form their own communities. At home, I was introduced to my host father and host grandfather. With my host family, I then ate lunch. Lunch, in Macedonia, is the biggest meal of the day and is served between 3:00 PM and 5:00 PM. It was only when eating lunch that I realized how much of a language barrier I have with my host parents, who speak no English. Thankfully, my host brother and host sister speak enough English to hold common conversations. This language barrier has developed into an intense game of charades over the past ten days, which is very fun. After lunch, I unpacked and quickly fell asleep. At 2:00 AM, a nightmare about bus rides awoke me. Before I arrived in Macedonia, I googled how long it would take for me to get from my Macedonian house to my Macedonian school by bus. This search rendered an hour and a half one-way trip, meaning I would have to spend over three hours a day on a bus. Before arriving in Macedonia, I was skeptical on how accurate this estimate could be. However, once I arrived in Macedonia, I was able to see firsthand how far my house is from downtown Skopje and thought that my trip to school may in fact be an hour and a half long. This thought instilled great fear in me. After I awoke from this nightmare, it took me another hour and a half to fall asleep again; I could just not stop thinking about spending three hours on a bus each day. Unbeknownst to me at the time, google was wrong, and my bus ride is only twenty minutes. However, these thoughts of dreading a long bus ride were my final thoughts on my first day in Macedonia.

Following the first day, my fellow YES Abroad Macedonia participants and I had an orientation that lasted three hours and then our coordinator walked us around the city center. The center of Skopje holds the perfect balance between old world charm from markets such as the Old Bazaar, which is the largest bazaar outside of Istanbul, and modern amenities from attractions such as the Vero Center, which has a movie theater in 7D. Since then, I have been spending my time in Macedonian language classes, which are twenty hours a week, and with my host family, who have been showing me around the many sights and neighborhoods of Skopje.

One of these neighborhoods, Shutka, has the largest Roma community in the world in addition to the largest collection of counterfeit clothing dealers in the world and will be the topic of a blog post later this week under “The Stories of Skopje” category of my blog.

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Why Am I Going to Macedonia?

 

My name is Brendan and I am spending my senior year of high school in Macedonia on a Kennedy-Lugar YES Abroad scholarship. Before going any further, I would like to thank my friends, parents, extended family, teachers, and mentors, who have helped me get to the position I am in today. I am incredibly excited to have this opportunity to integrate myself into another culture, establish intercultural connections, and work toward a more peaceful world. This blog will chronicle my adventure into the country of Macedonia and will be updated periodically.

The two most common questions I am asked about studying abroad have been “Why did you choose Macedonia” and “Why would you give up (insert something I would have if I stayed in the United States) to spend a year in (insert a negative stereotype about Southeast European countries).” To answer the first question, I did not choose Macedonia, Macedonia choose me. One year ago, I did not know that Macedonia existed. When applying to YES Abroad, all applicants rank their country preferences from least to greatest. Macedonia was originally fifth on my preference list and then I changed the country to third after becoming a semi-finalist. My only rationale behind my ranking was that I wanted to live in a city and attend a school where the language of instruction was English, and Macedonia was one of the only countries where I was guaranteed to have both of these elements. When I read the email stating I was selected as a finalist for Macedonia I was surprised, as I was expecting to be rejected (I was rejected from three other less-competitive exchange scholarships earlier in the year) and I knew nothing about the country. After hours of Google searching, I discovered that Macedonia was by far the best fit for me. Many people ask me if I would prefer to go to a more conventional country for exchange, and the answer is no. Few people have the opportunity to explore and immerse themselves in Macedonia, and I am truly grateful that I have been given the opportunity.

To answer the later question, “why would you give up (insert something I would have if I stayed in the United States) to spend a year in (insert a negative stereotype about southeast European countries)”, I will cite my experiences while in the United States. Living in America, I have had many amazing experiences. Serving as junior class president, pole vaulting on the track team, and volunteering on multiple political campaigns have all been very exciting and fun activities, which I am grateful to have had the opportunity to participate. However, I have already experienced these things. What I have not experienced is being an exchange student, or anything related to Macedonia. Participating in YES Abroad and going to Macedonia is pushing me out of my comfort zone and unleashing a vast array of possibilities and experiences that I would not be exposed to in the U.S.

I have been in Macedonia since August thirteenth and am enjoying my time here immensely. The next post on my first impressions of the country should be up in a few days.