One of my friends here was lucky enough to obtain a family friend's car during his semester. So we decided it would be the perfect excuse for a little eastern european excursion.
We started our adventure north destination; Skopje, Macedonia. Macedonia is directly north of Greece, however god help you if you refer to it as Macedonia while you are in Greece. As a former slavic republic the Greeks refuse to recognize it by Macedonia, the name it took after gaining it's independence, claiming that Macedonia stole their name from the Greeks. So if you are in Greece it is called F.Y.R.O.M. The Former Yougoslavic Republic Of Macedonia. We arrived later than we expected ending up in what seemed like a sketchy part of the city. Being in a former communist country late at night in a car with license plates of a country that they hate is not somewhere you want to be. We got into what looked like a safer part of the city and paid a cab driver to lead us to our hostel. The next morning we had the free hostel break fast and the owners showed us the way to the bazaar and a good authentic place to eat. we exchanged our money into macedonian denar, which was like .01/american dollar. We walked through the main city square and the bazaar. We got hit up for money every step of the way especially in the gypsy village close to the bazaar. It was very odd to see modern buildings like our hostel sharing a backyard with a gypsy family living in a "house" made up of coregated metal and abandoned cement buildings. We had our authentic Macedonian lunch, a sweet bread almost like pizza but with egg and sausage on it, baked bread with a soft almost melted goat cheese on it, and they didn't think anything of it when we ordered beer at 11am.
We left the capital, for Matka. A famous canyon and monestary about 20 minutes outside the city. The landscape of eastern europe is gorgeous. The foliage is just starting to turn, like a Bona's autumn, and it is just mountains upon mountains upon mountains... The trail leading to the monestary was along the cliff of the canyon with only a small rope railing attached to the inside rock wall. We didn't have the right hikeing shoes on and were told by some German passers by that it was all under construction and not really worth the walk so we turned around. We were satisfied with our trip to Matka and ready to head to our next destination, Sofia Bularia, when we got to the car and were boxed in.
As it turns out we had unknowingly parked in employee parking and my firends took pictures of the cars and showed it around until we got someone to move for us.
We arrived to our hostel in Bulgaria around 11pm. After getting lost a few times and the first thing we saw was a transvestite hooker, Bulgaria didn't look too promising. It turned out to be a blast. We met people in our hostel from Portugal,Spain,Mexico,Brazil,Japan, Detroit, and England. Everyone had a different story, most were just passing through, some had been their for a while, some just begining and for some it was the end of their travels. The city of Sofia is a beautiful capital, a very young city. Considering you can by a liter of beer for less than a euro, the hostel owners don't seem to mind that you can't seem to locate your key the next morning.
Eastern Europe is definatley a place worth visiting, often forgotten by the rest of the world. It has been through much strife over the past century and is finally getting itself back together to show the world the beautiful culture and landscape it has to offer.
