Skopje

Having driven all the way through Skopje, and out the other side, we finally got out of the truck at an intersection, and the driver pointed up back towards the center. We found a bus, sweet talked the driver into letting up on with only one ticket between us (we hadn't yet managed to change money in Macedonia, so we only had the last of the change from the border insurance) and we managed to get into the center of town. The next challenge was to find some money and then some wifi so i could use skype to phone Erin. Eventually we found both, Erin told up where to meet her, and told up to jump in a taxi. This would have been a find idea, if we hadn't been carrying our backpacks and therefore had 'stupid tourist' written all over us. Not having a clue what sort of price taxis were, we asked first, and were told by several different drivers that it would be 5euro. Prices in euro instead of the local currency always annoy me and make me very suspicious. So we asked a waiter, and discovered it was only a 10minute stroll along the river. Which is what we did. And then, despite mispronouncing the name of the street, we found the place miraculously easily.
That evening was spent going to a jackson Pollock lecture and having dinner at a place called 'Macadonian Kitchen' with erin and a couple of her American friends, which was a great introduction to the city. I spent the next 4 nights at Erin's, even though she had other friends staying as well (Peace Corps volunteers in the capital get a lot of visitors!), and spent most of the time doing not very much, which was lovely, and felt like a bit of a holiday. And while i liked Skopje, it is not the world's prettiest city (most of the older bits were destroyed in an earthquake in the 70s or something - just at the height of the communist concrete era) and i worked out that my path is likely to bring me back through Macedonia, so i can see more later. Really!