Wow, what a crazy trip I've had since I wrote last. The morning after I left my last blog post, I got sick with the flu in Meteora, which caused all sorts of problems. The first day I was so sick that I couldn't keep any food or drink in my body, so I got pretty dehydrated and couldn't eat anything. I was about to go to the doctor when I finally threw up one more time in the evening and felt a lot better. After that I ate a whole pound cake and was surprised to find that I kept it down.
The most disappointing thing about being sick was that I didn't get to go see the most famous monastery at Meteora, but the day before I had visited one that was pretty close to the hostel and wandered around the grounds. I also saw some of the more famous ones from a distance.
Of course, being my adventurous self, I had also climbed up to some of the abandoned cliff dwellings that I saw and explored them with a flashlight. It looked like somebody had been keeping their farm animals in there because the floor was covered with hay and droppings.
Anyways, being sick also sucked because it meant that I had to stay in Metora for 1 more day to recover, as I didn't feel well enough to be on the train. Luckily, the family that owned the hotel I was staying at was extremely nice and brought me free food and helped me out with other stuff. I think I learned a lot about just how nice people can be in small towns because more goodwill came my way during the next few days too.
Staying in Meteora an extra day meant that I missed the bus I was planning on taking to Skopje from Thessoloniki, so I was forced to either take a night bus that was super expensive and dropped me off at a random gas station outside of Skopje at 2 AM, or hitchhike. I chose the latter.
I first took a train to Thessoloniki, and decided to go to the bus station to catch a bus to a town close to the Macedonian border where I could hitchhike into Macedonia. Luckily, I met an English-speaking Greek girl named Elizabeth at the bus station who was very helpful and asked the ticket sellers in Greek where I should head to. It turned out a town named Polykastro was the closest town to the border I could get a bus to, so I bought a ticket for there, crossing my fingers that I wouldn't get stranded.
Unfortunately the town was about 5 kilometers from the main highway, so I bought some groceries and prepared for the trek. I asked the teller if it was easy to hitchhike into Macedonia, and another very nice woman overheard our conversation. She basically came up to me and said she could take me to the border, which was a good 20 minute drive away even though she was driving around 90 mph. I really couldn't believe it. On the way she explained to me that the reason why Macedonia's official name was FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) was because the Greek region of Macedonia felt like the Slavic people from FYROM were stealing their history and they petitioned the UN to recognize the country only if the name was changed to FYROM. When I entered the country, I realized that the "history theft" was somewhat true, because everything was named after famous people from the Greek region of Macedonia who spoke Greek and were culturally Greek.
Anyways, after she dropped me off I walked across the border and out of Greece. I tried to hitchhike there for over an hour, but people just kept pointing forwards and driving off. I was really confused. Finally some guy picked me up and drove about another kilometer and I saw why nobody else had picked me up. Over the hill there was an additional border to actually enter into Macedonia. I slapped myself in the face and then laughed. The remainder of the trip after crossing the second border consisted of a very funny conversation since he did not speak one word of English. It went something like this, I never really found out his name so I will refer to him as "driver":
I say "Gevgelija?" (the name of the next village down the highway with a train connection to Skopje)
Driver nods.
Driver points at me and says "America!"
I point at myself and say "Seattle!"
Driver looks confused.
I say "Starbucks" and then "Nirvana"
Driver looks happy and says "Kurt Cobain!"
I nod.
Driver says "Lipton?" and hands me an unopened bottle of ice tea.
I look happy and drink it.
After a while...
We get to the train station in Gevgelija. We both get out and go inside. I say "train to Skopje?"
Driver asks the ticket people in Macedonian when the next train is and points out the time on the timetable to me. He waves and takes off.
The train to Skopje was the most run down i had been on the whole trip. The electricity in the train kept going on and off and one of the lights was flickering like something from a horror movie. The seats looked like they were from the 1950s and were more like benches than seats. I think I was the only non-Macedonian on board and most of the passengers were old men who were fishing in the river that the train line follows. Even so, I enjoyed the ride since the train was warm and thought about how a year before it would have never occured to me that I would be on a train on the other side of the world with a whole bunch of Macedonian fishermen.
In Skopje, I found my way to the hostel and slept after a very long day of traveling. The next morning I woke up, ate the free breakfast, and went off to explore the city.
The first thing I noticed was the damage from an earthquake in the 1960s. Sadly, all of the buildings were falling apart and there was no money to repair them. Half were probably unlivable. The only part that looked like it had been rebuilt was the central square, which had a huge statue of Alexander the Great. T-mobile was also doing some HUGE promotion there and ads were all over the city. I think they were bringing internet into people's homes for the first time, someone told me before you had to go to an internet cafe.
I only had 3 hours to explore before my flight, and then I took a taxi to the airport since there was no public transit to get there. The airport was brand new and really nice which surprised me. After throwing out my big bottles, I went through security and they made me throw out my fork as well. Sad day.
My time in the airport consisted of meeting a guy from Macedonia who was living in Italy and then also a world traveller from Hungary who had been a ridiculous amount of places. The flight itself was a party even though it had been delayed. When it landed, everyone clapped and there was a mad rush for the aisle and the exits (I guess both of these things are normal on low-cost European airlines). I took a bus onto the main island of Venice and thought I was going to be stuck outside for the night after I got to the hostel after the reception closed. Lucky for me, my friend Abbi was staying there and I called her on Skype when I found internet and she let me in. She was pretty relieved to see me too since she was the only one in the hostel and didn't feel good about staying there alone.
Over the next few days we spent most of our time walking around the streets of Venice and drinking hot drinks since it was unbelievably cold (around freezing) and foggy. Luckily we had bought water bus tickets (Venice's bus system is a bunch of huge boats that travel the canals) so we rode the lines back and forth and warmed up inside the cabins.
We also explored the Murano glass museum which told the story of glass making in Venice and had some really old pieces, and the Palazzo Ducale, which was the historical center of the government of Venice.
One night we went out to a random bar with a girl who stayed at our hostel and had a great time listening to music from the bartender's band. We all bought his CD and got it autographed at the end of the night.
Leaving Venice, I wanted to go somewhere warm, and I hadn't gone to Croatia, so I hopped on a bus for Villach, Austria, where I changed to a train for Zagreb and then a night train to Split on the Dalmatian coast. I got my own cabin on the night train since the train was almost empty. And now I'm here in Split. Another blog to come (hopefully) soon!
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