The Many Monuments of Macedonia

"I saw a sign in the German airport advertising 'Three White Sausages" for three Euro. I keep forgetting to write about it. I didn't eat them, but they just seemed like ingredients for a meal in a fairy tale or something that would come in handy in a fairy tale or the stars of their own fairy tale."

Chapter 7 - A Macedonian Crash, Monuments for Days, A Secret Canyon, Back to Bulgaria

Nothing happened when Gordon pushed the coffee button, so we just settled in. Folks of many different colors, shapes and genders got on in little towns. Women in head scarves, men with huge domes of curly black hair. Wild Greeks.

The younger men all wear track suits, the older men all wear sport coats  with frayed sleeves. It's like they're in costume. The older ones who wear track suits are the ones to watch out for. Those are the dangerous ones.

Gordon and I parted at the Skopje bus station, which lies (perilously?) underneath the Skopje train station. We traded information and pledged desperately to meet again later that evening at The Macedonian Gate.

Skopje has gone over a recent overhaul. Whoever's in charge (The Mayor? The Reverse Pope?) is treating the place like it's a SimCity. He drags his cursor over the main square and fills the selected area with monuments. He's renamed all the city streets. The maps are all different from one another because of this. Even google maps has many of the street names wrong.

Even google maps!!

So, you have to tell the cab driver the new address but also the old address just in case. Then he takes you somewhere else, but it ends up being right.  Mostly, everyone just heads for landmarks.

"Hello, English? Ok, I'm staying on The 13th of July Street."
This is not in Skopje
"Umm... it used to be called.... Mother Theresa Street?"
Mazza Terrace?
"Errr... Can you take me to Universal Hall?
"Oh, oh, Old Mother Theresa Street. Yesyes."

All countries have their wacky origin stories. In Krakow, it was like, a dragon showed up and made this place his own, you can get that, but Macedonia (which they pronounce with a hard C, like macadamia nut) has the nuttiest of them all.

One day, someone found a giant stone head? And he stabbed it in all the face holes with a trident? And roads came out of the holes? And it was a country. You crazy for this one, mythology. 

The hostel was nice, but it was a shared room. An Aussie (there is always an Aussie) and a German were also in the room. They were pretty loud. I figured out how the curtain in my bunk worked and curled up. Outside, the lobby was playing Michael Jackson pretty loudly. 

I wrote Gordon and told him I couldn't make the Gate. Will we ever meet again? I made a fort out of my bags, buried my head in pillows and slept. It had been a long time. It was 20:00.

Woke up around 3 AM when my roommates came back in roaring. Dozed a little more, then came out to the common room to do some writing. The night shift guy was blasting the Simpsons. Not a lot of peace in these places, but I let it wash over me, and I wrote.

Then I took a long, hot shower and had breakfast. Such a marvelous breakfast! Greek olives and feta cheese. Bread and honey. Hard-boiled eggs. 

Men from another part of the hostel were up by now, and we sat together in silence and ate. By appearances, one of them was either on a hiking trip or working road construction. He knuckled his egg open. It was amazing to see. He probably watched his uncles do it as a boy, and now he does it, It's how you peel an egg here. You tap it with the backs of your first two fingers and it gives way.

I tried it. It hurt. I have small, soft hands. They're good for pushing camera buttons, holding B-cup breasts, and turning book pages, but that's about it. Oh, I'm good at putting cheese puffs in my mouth with them, but only one at a time.

Very filling, interesting breakfast. The salty cheese and sweet honey all went together very pleasingly. Then I got revenge on my roommates by packing up my day bags and putting on my boots while they groaned in their bunks and rubbed their temples. Reap the whirlwind, motherdrinkers!

Out into the Skopje day. Little cats poked around in the marble. Littler cats sniffed in the clover. Made my way to the busy main street (is its name the same?) and headed for the center. Citizens were going to work, taking trams and big, red London-style double-decker buses. Men ate hilarious bread hula hoops while they walked.

Churches and statues. Apartments and laundry. I was using the minaret of a distant mosque to guide myself, but I could never quite reach it. I laughed for several blocks calling it "The Elusive Fievel Mosquewitz."

There was a charming stone bridge. Old and beautiful. There was an enormous column with a rider on horseback above a pillar with spear-wielding warriors. I figured it was Alexander the Great, since he's from here, but a sign near it read: Man on Horse.

You understated for this one, Skopje. This thing was huge and right in the middle of everything. It has to be Alexander.

There were a godzillion stone lions and iron musclemen and bronze shoeshine boys. It was like one of those roadside statuary and fountain salesyards. Fountains depicted horses leaping and fish galloping. Everything you could want. If you wanted everything.

There's a shit ton of construction going on. It's like they're getting ready for the World Cup or something. I'm sure they want to make themselves attractive to some search committee for one of those things. Just you wait. I bet the 2020 Euro Cup has a round in Skopje.

Haha! I just looked it up, and sure enough, they have a bid out to be a host city. Heee! You a good guesser for this one, Simon. So does Sofia, but they're being less obvious about it, I guess. Look, this is who I am. I'm Sofia. Come play here or don't. You'll like it if you do, but I'm not going to draw my eyebrows on and make a big deal out of it.

Short of paying a few bucks to enter some dumbass fortress, I pretty much saw everything I wanted to see. I was full of hard-boiled eggs too, so I didn't really need any food, so... I took a cab to Matka.

Matka is a canyon outside the city, popular for its great beauty. I kept hearing about it. Gordon had been there. I wasn't sure if I'd have time, so I didn't plan for it, but now I wanted to go. Since I got a taxi instead of taking the bus, and since I didn't have any Euro, it ended up being quite expensive. There and back was $40.

Which, you know, really isn't very much at all. I've spent nothing on this trip. It sort of felt good to spend too much on something in a weird way. Maybe I'm homesick for Seattle where you have to spend $40 every couple of hours or you go to jail. 

The trains and buses are all, like $8 a ride. The food is nothing. The rooms are under $20. Before this absurdly-priced cab ride the most I've spent was $30 for an electric kettle I bought online and had shipped home. These things are amazing. Every room has had them, and I'm addicted.

The driver wanted to talk on the way out there, but the only other language he spoke was French, so no dice. He chatted in Macedonian (probably) anyway and sang along to high-treble folk songs on the radio. At one point he stopped for bread and yogurt. 

We got to the canyon and he said he'd wait for me for one hour. I walked into the hills.

The air was clear and cool. It felt so nice to be in the still and the quiet. I think I got a sense of what people do this for. I've never been an outdoors person. I like cities. I like movies. I like a big mess. But after so many days of go go go, this was perfect. I was the only one out there.

I passed an enormous dam, and a sign told me to look out for vultures. Mist clung to the sublime mountain peaks. Still, clear water reflected the sky. I didn't take too many pictures. I just let my thoughts go. I had many revelations. I understand now the cliche of people getting away to clear their heads. I cleared my head in a Macedonian canyon. 

I better call Oprah and tell her. 

I loved being cold up there and being quiet. There was a railing but not much of one. You had to be careful. I liked being careful and cold and quiet. I did make a small video of me singing, though.

Walked back. There was a little hotel built into the rock and I bought a coffee. I met back up with the cab driver and we were off again.

He was super into talking now. He kept stopping and suggesting pictures. His word for this was: "Too!" We would see a mosque, and he would pull over and shout "TOO! TOO!" I took the picture to satisfy him. At a cafe we raced by I saw an old man in a skullcap laughing with a cigarette in his mouth. His friend across the table was laughing as well and they had a silver coffee service between them. We sped by them. No picture. No too. 

The driver really wanted to talk. He tried all the English he knew. 

It went like this: 

You America? America? Yes? Good. America no problem. Good America. Thank you, Clinton. Thank you Tony Blair. Haha, Yes, good good. America. Mike Tyson. Haha. Where you from America? New York? Las Vegas? Washington. Oh! Washington, very good very good. Obama, yes? Obama Clinton thank you. Michael Jordan. Las Vegas. America no problem. Good good in America.

Then he named Drazen Petrovic, a basketball player I remember from the 90s. I was like, "Drazen Petrovic!" and it was ON. It was like we were actually speaking:

Vlade Divac!

Tony Kukoc!!

Peja Stojakovic!!!

I was laughing and so happy. He was swerving all over the road with joy. We'd made a connection. I lost him with the Lithuanian players. He didn't know Sarunas Marciulionis. I used to love that guy,

Then he made a phone call, spoke for a moment and asked me to take the phone. 

It was his son. His son spoke English.

"My father wants to know if you want to go to Neverheardofit Church. He will take you."

Oh, thank you. Your father is very nice. Is it near the city center? Is that where he wants to drop me off?

"No, it is in the mountains. Very far, Very old. The price is $100 American Dollars."

Oh, oh. please tell him I have to go back to Sofia very soon. I cannot go.

"Ok. Ok."

While he told his father no for me, I wondered what $100 would buy. He'd already gotten a year's pay out of me for this cab ride, he was probably dreaming about a boat. America good good!

We said goodbye at a mosque near the fortress and will be in one another's dreams forever. 

Then I walked back to the hostel, packed up, slipped some honey into my pockets and took a cab to the bus station. I was looking to buy some postcards and wandered into the giant hall where they process all the mail. It took a long time to explain why I was there. Nobody spoke English and mentioning Vlade Divac was no help. Eventually, a man with an enormous mustache took me around the corner.

Then I got on the bus and out of Macedonia. Fare thee well, stone head. Fare thee well, canyon of dreams.  I read some simple and devastating short stories by Arthur Schnitzler. I imagined adapting them into plays. As I read, I saw the scenes on stage. I saw people I know playing the parts. I saw the lights and the shadows.

Then I read more Middlemarch (loving it), bought some breadsticks and fed some stray dogs at a road stop and then I was back in Bulgaria.

My host was cooking mushrooms. I shook his hand, went to my room and slept. This morning, there were three little pots of mushrooms cooling on the porch.