A Week Full of Celebrations

Now, I know what you are all thinking. Its only the 9th of May, and this is already the second post for the month. Astonishing, right? However, the past week has been full of holidays and fun adventures, so I feel that it is my sworn duty as a Peace Corps Volunteer, to report on all of the excitement.

May 1st is an important holiday in Macedonia, mainly because its the equivalent of Labor Day in the United States. Just like in the United States, nobody goes to work on this day and everyone takes the day off to hang out in the great outdoors, picnic with friends, and enjoy the nice spring day. This year, I joined some of my Macedonian friends for a roadtrip from Bitola to one of the most famous monasteries at Sv. Naum. The monastery was established in 905 by St. Naum of Ohrid, and he is buried in the church. I was told that if you listened closely, you can hear his heartbeat. I paid 50 denars to go inside and see if this was true, but sadly I couldn't hear anything.. Such an outrage! I am  glad I was able to 'sneak in' by only paying the Macedonian price, rather than the international tourist price. If there is anything I gained from my language training... its how to buy something, tell people my name is Darko, and pretend that I am from here until they realize how terribly my accent is and that I don't understand anything they are telling me.

Anywho! The monastery is by far one of the most beautiful places I have been thus far in Macedonia. Its literally situated on the bank of Lake Ohrid, and is only a few kilometers from the Albanian border. Actually, driving down the mountain from Lake Prespa, at the summit you can see both Lake Prespa, Lake Ohrid, Macedonia and Albania. Its quite an impressive view, and extremely high up. Even on our very warm day, about 80 degrees Farenheit, there was still plenty of snow at the peak. However, the coolest part to me was the current residents of the monastery, dozens of beautiful, brightly colored peacocks. They roam the grounds, eating bread from the tourists, and pecking at the children who try to touch them. In fact,there are signs posted all around that proclaim the dangers of leaving your kids unattended near the birds:

"Warning! The birds will fuck up your kids! Don't let them try to touch the peacocks"

I paraphrase, of course, yet, this is essentially what the signs say... in Macedonian and English! Here are some of my favorite shots from the monastery.

 The long road to Sveti Naum. We turned south at Resen, and headed for the hills in between the two lakes (Prespa and Ohrid). I was told very few people actually drive this road, and I was lucky that as a foreigner, I would get to see it. It was quite scenic. 

Here is the iconic monastery! This is one of the most beautiful monasteries in all of Macedonia. I argued with my friend Goran about which was more impressive, Sv. Naum (here) or Sv. Joakim Osogovski (Kriva Palanka). They're possibly the two fartherst apart in the country, and are so different in design and significance.  

Another shot of the towers, the building has had some additions, but its over 1000 years old. about 10 times older than the oldest buildings at Oklahoma State. Crazy. 

"Pretty bird... can you say, pretty bird!" 

"Peetie!? You sold my dead parakeet to a blind kid!?"
Here is the monastery's current residents, not parakeets, but gorgeous peacocks that eat children. This handsome guy posed for a picture.

After leaving the monastery, we drove from Sv. Naum, up the coast through Peshtani, and eventually to Ohrid. Ohrid is by far the most tourist-driven place I have been in the past 8 months. Everything there is designed for the throngs of people coming to admire the coast and soak up the culture. Ohrid is very interesting to me, because it seems to be much more culturally diverse than Bitola... and differences are more tolerated. I saw Albanian, Turkish, Macedonian and Greek people all in the same place.. and nobody was complaining about it. It was like an alternative universe.

Perhaps this is because the city is extremely accustomed to having many different people all of the time. In fact, much to the confusion and dismay of my friends, began to take a count of all the different countries license plates that I saw. Everytime I saw a new country, I would loudly proclaim how cool it was:

"Oh look! this car is from Geneva! WOW! How interesting!"

"Uh yeah man? That... is really awesome?"

This was the general trend of my conversations all day, however, over the course of the afternoon, I saw cars from 15 different countries:

Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and Poland

I was even crazy enough to create a nice map of Europe, with Macedonia in red, to illustrate how far each of these cars had to travel to get to Ohrid. 

Clearly I have way too much free time on my hands... and should probably find a hobby, like painting or chasing girls. Admittedly, I am good at neither of those, so I will just stay weird. Here's the map I made, showing all the countries that were visiting Ohrid and Peshtani on May 1. However, I also saw a new Chevy Camero, with New York license, but its not on the map.

Also, here are some more of the photos from Ohrid.

What idiot would wave their 300 Euro camera out the window to take pictures? This idiot! The chase is on, down the mountain, through Peshtani, and to Ohrid we go!

Welcome to Ohrid, the fortress town on the lake. Up on the hill is the fortress, and near there is a very awesome church.

Welcoem to yet another monastery  This one is accompanied by ancient ruins from many many centuries ago. The church is not nearly as old, but the ancient pillars make for a nice decoration. 

Our May 1 Crew. Hanging out near the lake, enjoying the beautiful weather and a day off work.

That about sums up the vacation day for May 1. Following was a very nice celebration for Orthodox Easter. Originally I had planned to travel back to my home in Kratovo to visit the host family, however, after traveling all through the west of Macedonia just two days before, I figured it would be best to wait until the summer to stop by. For Orthodox Easter weekend, some friends from out of town stopped in to Bitola, and hung out for a few days. I met some great new volunteers who live in Skopje, and hopefully will be able to stop up and visit them before they return to their own country.

Until then, I have only three more weeks left until leaving for the exchange in Estonia. Plus an extra day of traveling in Tallinn and in Italy. I am more than excited. It will be nice to see some new things and update all the hungry readers back in the US about a Europe that is more than just the Paris, Rome and London.