Having been to Europe on a couple other occasions, I was pretty anxious to get back for another go. Luckily some good friends were planning a trip to visit their family in Macedonia and asked if I’d be interested in heading out to see them and where their family lives.

The decision was a pretty easy one and a few weeks after the conversation I found myself buying the plane tickets – three weeks, June 17 – July 7, LAX to Athens, Greece.

Flying into the capital of Greece would be less expensive and give me the opportunity to visit the mainland of a country whose history I had been teaching to 6th graders for a couple years.

Though I was visiting friends for a portion of the trip, the majority of time was going to be spent by myself, an experience I hadn’t had while traveling before. While the Greek Islands were fairly alluring, I decided that those should wait until I had someone else to enjoy them with.

In the weeks leading up to my departure date I noticed that my credit card had never been charged for the airfare, but had been for the travel insurance. After several emails and calls with the ticketing company, they assured me that the ticket was issued and that I had been charged.

I never was charged.

So I have officially been in Greece for something like 3.5 days, and boy has it been a blast.

I suppose that I should start off this entry talking about the flight over, which was a lot of fun in and of itself. Actually no, that is a lie. US Airways is definitely not my first choice in carriers and would probably have rather flown with the Red Baron in his bi-plane. At least he would have given me some pizza and let me wear a stylish scarf.

Regardless, they got me here in one piece, and I was able to find my hostel fairly easy. While that did include plopping down along a street and using someones wifi, I was able to get the job done. The hostel was Hostel Aphrodite and was on a nice semi-quiet street with a delicious bakery nearby. So good!

Horse with Little Jockey

My first outing was to head over to the National Archeological Museum, which had some nice sculptures and whatnot. I think the most important/neat piece was the Mask of Agamemnon found at Mycenaean ruins. They also had a neat statue called Horse with Little Jockey which was pretty impressive. I then went back to the hostel and slept for a while, which didn’t help me get adjusted to the time difference (I was just really sleepy, what can I say?).

Day two began with a lengthy walk over to the Acropolis, which was such a great sight to see. I hadn’t really invested any time into finding good maps of the city, so I had to trial and error my way to the entrance, which wouldn’t be so bad except its a pretty tall hill to be walking up and down. The good thing about that adventure, was that I did get there okay, and also found where I was going to eat lunch.

The Acropolis and surrounding ruins were such fun for me. We studied Greece with both the 6th and 9th grades this year, so seeing the things we discussed really added a different element to it all instead of just having the knowledge. The Parthenon is not as big as I had imagined, but it is still impressive. The Temple of Athena Nike would have been better, though it had scaffolding all over it. After that, I headed down to ancient agora (marketplace, basically) and walked around in the blazing sun (it’s been like 95 degrees every day) wondering what it would have been like to have seen Socrates walking around there. Ruins are ruins though and you really need an imagination to have fun at them.

After leaving Athens, I was headed north by train to Kalambaka in central Greece. Kalambaka is the town nearest to the sandstone towers known as Meteora. While the geologic formations are worth seeing on their own, these are extra special in that they are home to six monasteries. The region and its many natural caves have been used as a religious retreat for ascetics and monks since around AD 1000. Many different monasteries have been built atop the peaks throughout the years, but only six remain. I was lucky enough to make it inside two, but was able to see all six throughout my time in the town.

Overall, I spent 3 nights in Kalambaka, but spent only one day exploring the monasteries as I arrived late one day and decided to take a day of rest and relaxation at the end. Naturally, the middle day was filled with plenty of walking and hiking. I think it was somewhere near eight miles, but really, who’s counting? Every cathedral was very impressive to see, and were probably extra impressive due to the hard work it took to get to them.

A few things made this town extra special. One was the delicious chicken kebap I was able to enjoy a couple times. Another was the fact that, besides myself and a few others, there were hardly any tourists staying there. Most people seemed to bus in directly to the monasteries and then leave, which worked out for me as I enjoyed having the town basically to myself.

One funny thing that happened was when I was strutting down the main street enjoying my gelato (strachiatella) with my tiny spoon. Given that the trip had gone so smoothly up to that point, I was thinking myself to be a very manly traveler when I came across a bar that seemed to have every elderly local man there sitting outside. As I passed they all watched me while they enjoyed their pints of Mythos with a long smoke. My manly gelato moment ended immediately. Pride cometh before the fall I suppose.

Also, my room was tiny. Enjoy the pictures below.

After hopping on the only direct train from Kalampaka to Thessaloniki, it took somewhere around three hours to arrive at my destination. Thessaloniki is a northern Greek coastal city, the second largest with nearly 1 million inhabitants, and it lies in the region of Macedonia. It is a pretty big issue here as to who is the real Macedonia, the country or the region. While it may seem like somewhat of a ‘who cares’ issue to us westerners, the people here care big time and hate each other over it. I don’t know when the disagreement/argument began, but identity is an important thing, so I can understand a little bit.

The city here is pretty big and sprawling, but my hotel is somewhat near the waterfront so I was able to walk along the Mediterannean yesterday. Sure, it was the junky part that was filled with garbage, but it was also home a a lot of jellyfish. I was pretty surprised as I was just walking around down there to see the White Tower, which is an old rampart that has been here for nearly 500 or so years. I was also able to check out the fantastic Byzantine History Museum.

On my way back to the hotel, I came across a park that had some older Greek men playing some sort of card game. I must’ve watched for a good half-hour and have no idea what it was. It made absolutely no sense. I snapped a few pictures after hovering around them for a while trying to not make them feel like a tourist attraction. One guy that showed up as I was finishing kept saying ‘Aghia’, which means church, as he was trying to explain that the thing to take pictures of wa not them, but instead the church behind me. I awkwardly put my camera away and left for a gyro place nearby. Mmmm.

I have been in Macedonia for about a week now and have been absolutely loving my time here. For those of you wondering where Macedonia is and why I would come here, it is north of Greece, and I have been visiting friends that are visiting family in Skopje. While I would have probably never thought of coming here if it weren’t for the invitation of Chris and Maja (who are expecting, wooo!), but my time here has been so wonderful. They are fantastic hosts and Macedonia is on my list of places to return to at some point.

As far as what I have been up to, my days have been much slower than my time in Greece, which has been a real blessing because this is my summer break and having some time to relax is a necessity.

Skopje is the capital of the country and is a very nice city with a lot of mixed history and culture here. While it is by no means ritzy or glamorous here, it has a nice feel and character about it. As with any city, there are some very nice parts, and also some fairly dodgy areas. The city is also very easily navigable with several main streets and a river flowing through it, making getting lost pretty difficult. Believe me, I tried.

Chris and Maja have taken me to several different places to eat and to try some Macedonian food, which have been really tasty. I am excited for a real Macedonian dinner tomorrow evening. I obviously love kebap, and have noticed that it is a bit different here, with sausage-style meat instead of the spinning chicken, pork, or lamb style doner or gyro. It is very good and I have eaten it a couple times. Chris also took me to a small fast food stand that had delicious chicken sandwiches that were probably VERY healthy on account of the fries, mayo, and greasy chicken. So good. I’ll probably go back there before I leave.

I have also had a nice time meeting a lot of their friends and family. We stopped by Maja’s parents house and enjoyed a nice glass of homemade juice. They have a large variety of fruit and vegetables growing in their yard, its awesome. We have spent a bit of time with members of their church here as well. Last week we took a day trip to Lake Ohrid and had a volleyball tournament followed by a nice day in town. I’ll actually be heading there again in a couple days before my time in Macedonia is over. Also, church was great even though I didn’t understand the sermon. Several of the songs were to a familiar some from home, so I was able to sing the English version. It was also great to have talked to Philip, the man that planted the church 15 years ago.

Chris and I hiked up Vodno (a small mountain next to town) to a large metalwork cross at the top. the view from the top was gorgeous. We enjoyed some tea and made our way back down and made it to the car right as it began to rain. So lucky!

I don’t really know what else to write currently, but I’ll be writing again about the next few days before I get home. Here are a few pictures from around. Oh and and the child is Benji, one of the children from the church whose parents work for Campus Crusade for Christ. He was hilarious until he spit on me.

This post would best be started off by mentioning that if you love animals and love seeing them in their natural habitats or in well maintained zoos, the Skopje Zoo is definitely not the place for you. The zoo was opened back in the 60′s and it doesn’t seem like much has changed or been updated since then. That being said, the lack of zoo modernization allows your to get fairly close to just about any animal. It was also only $1 to enter, which my wallet was happy to pay.

For being such a small zoo, it has a wide variety of animals; bears, reindeer, hippos, birds of prey, lions, leopards, a few snakes, several varieties of goats, ostriches, a camel, some wolves, monkeys…etc. Given that I don’t get an opportunity to see animals so closely, this zoo certainly proved to be quite an experience. There were even some goats that escaped their cages and were roaming around enjoying a nice day around the zoo.

Given a few years, the Skopje zoo will probably have some improvements coming as it seemed like a few areas had been cleaned up. The biggest shock to me was not so much the conditions themselves, but rather the contrast with places like the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Though the habitats were not the best for the animals, I was able to snap a few pictures that really show off the natural beauty of the animals. Below are a few of my favorites.

It is currently May 23rd, 2014 and I’m just now taking the time to write up a post about my time in Ohrid. Apparently, time really flies.

After taking a day trip to the Lake Ohrid with friends while I was staying in Skopje, I decided it might be fun to spend a couple nights there as well.

The lake and city of Ohrid are one of the top tourist destinations in the country and I can see why – big blue skies, gorgeous countryside views, and a lot of history to be found.

The Monestery of St. Naum was one of the more interesting sights as it featured a large quantity of peacocks and a church that is said to contain the sound of a mysterious beating heart. Unfortunately I only found out about the latter afterward and missed hearing it.

Another post about this trip from nearly 5 years after it originally happened.

My visit in Ohrid came and went quickly enough and it was time to begin making the trek back to Athens for my return flight home.

Wake up. Bus ride to Skopje. Train Ride to Thessaloniki. Stay the night. Train ride to…. nowhere. Oh great. A train strike.

With limited time to spare, I was able to track down the bus station with a direct route to Athens. The bus ride ended up being quite a bit faster, however it left me at the bus depot somewhere on the outskirts Athens.

Luckily the city in huge so finding my way to my hotel was easy. Actually, it was terrible, but oddly enough worked out…

I hopped on a city bus headed toward the city and was completely unsure of where to get off. While wondering what I was going to do, I literally looked out the window and spotted a sign for “Ilion Hotel” – the exact hotel I was staying at. The next stop was a couple blocks away an I was checked in within a few minutes.

One of my favorite memories from the trip came when I was seating the the hotel bar trying to leech wifi off the hotel next door. The man I took to be the bartender asked me whether I wanted a drink a couple times. I politely declined, but he insisted and said it was on the house.

Not wanting to pass up that opportunity I pulled up a chair at the counter. The ‘bartender’ ended up being the hotel owner. He introduced me to the Greek drink Ouzo and we talked for several hours and enjoyed a nice dinner together.

It has been a while since I was there and I have absolutely no idea what I did the last day. I assume I walked around a lot as that’s my go-to activity when traveling. And with the trip winding down, my budget likely dwinding, walking is an inexpensive way to see a city.