Photo update!

To lazy for the whole writing thing so you will just have to settle with a photo update for now.

 The tree of great cones

 River side 1

 My neighbors, also a good picture to show the contrasts in this town.

 Street art 

 The Swedish pizza ;)

And some more graffiti.

Here are some pictures from our great trip to the Treskavec monastery in Prilep. I will probably write more about it later.

 The city of Prilep

 The first of many fresh mountain water stops. 

 Prilep again, from greater distance.

 Hiker's!

 It's the famous turtle kissing the dog's ass!

 The monastery

 Less than 2000 km from Stockholm I am.

 Some cows living at the monastery.

 Some people also staying at the monastery, a monk in the middle - but apparently not The monk living there (only one living there).

 Downhill walk starts here.

 Some flowers I found on the walk down.

 Just managed to get a photo of the moon!

And this is my waking up view by the way :)

Catchin' up!

10/3-11 - 17/3-11

So I think it is time to get up to date with the blogging, I've already written four posts but there are still stories to be told and I know if I don't write it now I will only have more to write for later. Therefor this post might be seen more of like an overview of the last couple of days.

10/3
Done with the boring bank stuff, got the money - yay! Getting really warm outside and its not even officially spring yet. Nothing to much happened this day, at least nothing you will know about.

11/3
Meet our soon to be Macedonian language teacher. Seems like a great teacher, has a degree in linguistic. His English was a bit rusty, but it was just because he hadn't spoken any in a long while. Ate some really sweet Turkish pastry after the quick hello with the teacher. Continuing the Turkish style Rafael & Jordan made me Turkish coffee, which was awesome! Strong with long aftertaste and a bit sweet also.

Later we went back to the office and had a some beer, which  we bought totally illegal! After 7pm no stores are allowed to sell any alcohol, but of course there are some that does - you just have to know which ones. Which I now do ^_^

Went to some bar close by which had a DJ at the night playing some house/disco music, decent enough so I could stay. Had a great time and meet a lot of friendly people, check 'em out!

 From left: Demitri, Milco & Nikola

On the left: Vlado & Dijana

A cab home after this and some well earned rest. 

12/3

Really early morning, like 8am. As usual when I'm having a hungover I tend to wake up as early as possible. So I went to the store near by and bought breakfast for me and Carl. Went into town later and got myself a new belt, Carl found some nice shoes. He walked home but I wanted to try my luck with the illegal taxi. Though I couldn't find it and my hungover was just getting worse, at which time I got surrounded by this gang of kids who wanted money yelling: money money money money money money. I felt kinda bad not helping them out, but it's not like I'm here as a tourist and got lots to spend anyway. Bought some beer on the way home and started drinking to get passed the already over spoken hungover. Later Milco contacts us and we go to this club close to our apartment, Portal. They had a live band playing cover songs at the evening, mixed English and Macedonian hits. Always nice with live music, only to small place so no real dancing.

 All by now well known faces

 Milco & his girlfriend, also Nikola and some girl.

Don't really remember the names of these guys, but they where good guys and the far left, almost out of the picture was Dijana's brother.

We got a rainbow ^_^

Was really tired so got home around 12pm. Later I woke up at 5am with something like 100 missed calls from Carl. He had got locked out and had been standing out there freezing for like 2 hours. Felt kinda bad for him, but he got in and lie down in front of the radiator :)

13/3

Learns that white beans do not have to cook for so long in the morning. Later this day I went over to Rafael and Jordan for beer and just random talking about random stuff. Also we watched some rap battles! Great times. 

14/3

Eden, dva, tri, cetiri, pet, shest, sedum, osum, devet, deset. I learned how to count to ten today if you wonder what that was. First lession in Macedonian language. Just basic stuff, getting to know their alphabet, Cyrillic, and learning some basic phrases. Like Zdravo (hello), Dobro utro (Good morning), Kake ste? (How are you?). Our teacher is really friendly and asks a lot about Swedish words and how to say things, so it is nice to learn each other. Also he explained some reason why countries in the north has more constants because of the cold weather, you close your moth to make them sounds. It makes totally sense.

After the lession I hook up with Rafael, Jordan and a really sweet girl in a park. We stayed as long as the sun was shining and then went and had pizza. It was great and not as much grease as they usually have in Sweden. Having a smoke on the balcony I spoke with some random guy who was really into climbing and told me Bitola was a freaking amazing place for such interest and that it would probably soon be well known around the world for this.

Me and Rafael headed over to the theater where he works and had some beers. It is a private place just for the people working there, and well, their friends :) Some random guy later bought us a couple of beers, turned out to be a police officer. Not on duty though. 

Had an awesome night out walking after this, in shorts so not really cold. Hooked up with Carl and Jordan again and went up on this hill where you could see the whole town of Bitola (sorry I'm still not used to having a camera but I am SURE to go there again). Also on top of the hill there was some old planes standing around, really cool place. 

At least Jordan did remember I had a camera and I got this one shot on him.

Jordan in the hole!

Tried to make of photo of the guys with the moon in the background, but I guess my camera ain't up for the job, still a pretty nice picture - show it is time to head for bed I guess.

15/3

Sleeps pretty late after a late night with lots of walking with a way to heavy bag. Just more relaxing this day on the balcony and on our neighbors balcony. After dinner me, Rafel and this guy named Alexander went out to play basketball. Had a really great time, but it sure has been long since I played, long since I moved to much at all I guess. Some random guy comes by and we play a game of street basket. After the game I pretty much thought I was done for and had to lie down a long while to find me breath again. Still, fucking awesome to playing I must say! Slept even better this night out of exhaustion.

16/3

Time for yet an other lesson. A bit confusing today. But e I will really try and also study a lot when ever I have free time. Went to the post office and sent a letter to my mother. Because I know she will be really great full for this, she really don't like computers. More basketball this evening, Alexander even let us borrow his ball! Great guy he is, Alexander the great. So from now on we don't have to wait for him (works 'til around 7pm) and can play while the sun is still up!

17/3

So here we are, today! When I got here this morning I didn't think I would manage to get up to this point already. But a couple of hours later and here I am. So pretty much just been writing all the posts today. Also I went to eat in the same building my office is. Funny story, turns out the owner was born in Sweden, Gothenburg and spoke some words in Swedish. He got so glad I also was from Sweden and brought me coffee for free. We are now kompisar (prijatel) and I will probably come by and eat pretty often. Besides the good location, the friendly attitude, it was a real nice toasted sandwich with mushroom and cheese on. So yeah, can't really write so much more now, also can't wait for the weekend. Headed for some place where this monk lives and you can stay for free if you want, suppose to be a real beautiful place!

Do gledanje! (think it is so long, but google translate doesn't seem to like Macedonian to much).

Mmm, melted cheese!

9/3-11

Good morning, today it is not cold at all in the bedroom. To be the complainer almost to hot, but at least that is easier to fix. Went over to meet up with the couch surfer and hit the town! Having had maybe a bit to much luck the last couple of days our boss calls us and we have to go to the office, so no day on town with the Estonian girl. But at least we got to share one of Bitola's infamous illegal taxi's. They are really cool, you just got to know the location and then you get into the cab and wait until it is full, at a cost of 15DEN each (60-70DEN is €1).

The couch surfin' girl and Rafael

So more boring bank stuff today, and some checking out the town with Carl. A lot of people and pretty load music going on from all the café bars, tried one out and had a double espresso. It was a great location, sadly I took no pictures from it. The espresso was good, the only thing to complain about was the music which was to loud for me.

After the coffee we hooked up with Rafael who showed us a bar really close to our office, still no pictures but it was a really great place so no worries about that. After a couple of Skopsko (local beer) we went out with Milco, Dijana, Nikola and one more girl for melted cheese. Which I had heard so much about from Carl, and as a cheese lover it was really great. This big bowl filled with melted cheese, smoked cheese I choice, and bread to dip in it.

After that we headed over to our new volunteer's place and had a chillout end of the evening.

The clock tower; every night at 9 it plays a meledoy for the Bitola people.

And like that I say good night!

A new life starts

8/3-11

Good morning world!

A bit cold in the bedroom, Carl even moved over to the living room, which has a radiator. So a mission for the day will be to get a radiator for the bedroom. We will just ask the owners downstairs about it later. But first we are headed for the police and then the bank. Some stuff for visa and setting up bank accounts so we can get our monthly pay!

Nothing to special about those visits, a guy named Demitri picked us up at our apartment. He didn’t speak any English but seemed like a nice and funny guy. At our first visit in the office we meet this French girl, Lena, who was working for one other organization in the same office. Sadly she told me she was leaving for volunteer work in Skopje the next day, but said we could come by some other volunteer’s place later.

Some time later…

After going around in circles we finally managed to find the location of Sesam, where Lena was waiting for us – it turned out that if we had taken the straight way it would had taken us less than 5 minutes instead of 15, but we got were we wanted so no harm done. So we went over to the other volunteer’s apartment, where currently three people are living. It was two guys and one girl, Rafael from Estonia, Jordan from France and a Hatice from Turkey, so a pretty mixed party. Beside the people living in the place me, Carl, Lena and also a couch surfer was in the apartment. I can’t remember the name of the couch surfer, but this cute and really friendly girl from Estonia – anyway I found it really cool since it was my first encounter with a surfer. I have heard about the concept and been meaning to try it out at some point, just never gotten around to actually do it. So we where drinking wine and some local pretty soft liquor, might have been called rake. Goes both cold and warm, think the warmer with a little sugar was the better. It was really nice to get to know some other volunteer’s from other countries, since I haven’t learned any Macedonian so far. Well besides maybe Zdravo (Hello), Dobra/Da (Good & Yes) and Ne (take a wild guess). After a pretty late night we decide to head home, but made plans with the couch surfer to go and see the town the day after. She had also only been in Bitola for one day and was leaving the next day for Ohrid, which from what I've heard is this huge awesome lake with crystal clear water, so a joint tour on town sounded like a brilliant idea!

Just the view from our new friends balcony.

Good night great world.

On arrival

7/3-11

After getting to the airport late I was really lucky to check in my luggage like ten minutes to late, thank you Malev Hungarian Airlines! Even luckier for me the plane was delayed so there was still time to get a beer or maybe two.  Because I was forming this new tradition for traveling, get a couple of beers and listen to The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio theatre. Which I can tell is a great way of starting a trip, just listening to someone going on an even greater trip (outer space). Getting on the plane I was feeling relaxed from the beer, so I just got seated and felt this was going to be a nice flight. Again many big ups to the airline company, which brought me the following things totally for free: 1 cup of coffee, 1 sandwich, 2 glasses of red whine and finally when the red ran out 1 of the white.

Since my plane was delayed I had to hurry for the next plane in Budapest – Where I also found the guy I am going to spend the next year living with. His name is Carl, and that is about how much I knew about him before the trip began. The second plane was not as much fun as the first, but I slept so it was okay. So now we had arrived in the capital city of Macedonia, Skopje, and got picked up by the President of the organization we where going to work for. I guy who I at first thought was a lot older, mainly based on the dressed up facebook photo, than his real age of 21. So now we just had to go by car from the northern top of the country to the southern end, maybe something like 200 km. It was a decent ride going by the mountains with great views. After some time we arrived in the town of Bitola, where we are going to live and do our volunteer work.

We are now living on the third floor of a big house with the owners one stair down, so we just got settled in and went down to say hello and got some pretty good cold coffee drink from them. After that we went to buy breakfast for the morning and pretty much said good night to the world! 

Ending with some photos of me, Carl and the place we are living in.

That would be me!

And this is Carl

P.S. I had nothing to do with the decorations in the apartment, it belonged to one of the owners daughter earlier.

Macedonia - The day before

6/3-11

So it has already been more than one week and this is the first thing I write, I guess it is first things first and I have been pretty busy just enjoying and getting used to the Macedonian kind of life. Of which you will learn more about in this blog, well my Macedonian kind of life.

Oh yeah, so this is a blog dedicated to my one year visit in Macedonia working as a volunteer with the EVS organization, more specifically at the SFERA young volunteer firefighters. Hopefully it will not be a problem to keep up the chronologic order, so far I at least have made small notes everyday – and now I am going to try and recap it all for you all!

So here we go:

The day before the trip starts:

Since my plane was leaving from Arlanda (Stockholm, Sweden) pretty early – and I was living kind of far away from the town - I went one day early and crashed on my great friend Sara’s couch. For starting it was a bit boring, seeing how she went out for training at the very time I arrived. But one can always choice if one wants to be bored or not, so I headed out to see what the capital city of Sweden had to offer a Sunday evening. Her apartment was pretty close to one of Sweden’s biggest and probably most ugly buildings, which is called Globen. I mean imagine this huge ball, I don’t mean huge like some ball you might be playing some games with, I mean freaking gigantic (it plays as host for big sports events and concerts), all in white, just big and ugly sums it up pretty good. I have never been in the location so I went to check it out from the inside, which with all stores and bars was a better view. Pretty soon I found this really nice sign outside a small bar saying something like: We have a great selection of beers at a human price, come on in! I was hooked at that and so I went in. Started zippin’ on a Staropramen and was feeling that this was really my kind place, old style with nice background music, right now I can only recall some random Bob Marley song, but that is always good. Anyway the girl sitting next to me was also heading out for a journey the next day – and has also never been at this amazing little bar before our encounter. She was going to Thailand for 3 months, sadly she was leaving even earlier in the morning than me, otherwise we could have hooked up for the airport! The last person I spoke to before I left was one of the regulars, think he had been there for 20 years or more. The bar had this really cool thing for the regulars, they had their own beer mugs with name tags – the guy I spoke with was called Tillberg if I remember correctly. He told me that the director of the famous movie Jack used to be a regular at the place, sadly he passed away the other year and was nowhere but on a photo to be seen. I don’t remember his name right now but he sort of looked like Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings. 

The Gandalf guy, real name: Jan Halldoff

After this I grabbed something to eat and went back to Sara’s place, where we just relaxed and had pretty nice nostalgic evening.