here we come a wassailing (refugee camp and a uterus)

so i had a couple of friends come and stay with me while they were on their vacation. they had spent a few days in greece and then came my way.
they had quite an adventure getting here. it turns out border crossing wasn't as smooth a process as you might think. and then there is the whole rioting and demolishing things that is going on... but they made it. my little refugees.
we had a great time. it was my first time to have guests and i definitely am re inspired to continue in studying hard for language learning.... hah. we took a cab at one point, but i couldn't remember the name of my street, so i just told him something i knew and then we he got there i just kept saying further... straight... further... (i didn't know if he knew the 'warmer. getting warmer... warmer... hot' game). but we ended up in the right place. so no harm done. then we had a pushy rug salesman that i got all confused by. i was speaking a battered version of macedonian and he was speaking serbian and i almost got pressured into taking a way-overpriced rug off of his hands. but it ddiffused and we escaped with the same amount of money we started with.




my precious friends read my mind and wanted to go Christmas decoration shopping to fix up my flat. so we went to a store and got all we needed then decided that cider (wassail) was a good idea. i wanted to introduce them to this amazing pomegranate cider that some friends back home had taught me to make. so we gathered up the supplies and went home.

as i poured the pomegranate juice in with the apple juice... i paused. (fortunately). smelled the bottle...

"IS THIS BEET JUICE?!?!?!"

so it turns out, the bottle of juice that had a picture of what looked like a pomegranate was in fact filled with beet juice.

however, the ratio of apple to beet was still at a point where the apple was the dominant flavor. so we just went with it.
cinnamon
cloves
orange slices
boiling
delicious
nothing like a good hot mug of beet juice cider.

hah.
gross.
but good.
so so good.

we decorated, listened to christmas music and drank wassail.

the next day we went to a place called MATKA. it is this awesome dam where the river vardar cuts in between 2 mountains. read psalm 104 if you get the chance... He did that.
it is beautiful.
later my tutor told me that matka means uterus.
interesting. so i took my friends to see uterus.

then we ate and walked and walked and ate.

played dominoes and although robin may have 'won' it wasn't really a win.. hah. just kidding robin. you won.
(eye roll)


anyways.
today i was dragging my self around. totally beat. (tired, not beet as in you are what you eat)

oh yeah, and my fuse for all the lights blew this morning and i didn't have time to get it taken care of, so i got to meet my neighbor and she let borrow a lamp.

so it's just me and the lamp.
and the christmas tree ('elka' in macedonian)


robin all tuckered out. it's was a long day of seeking refuge, decorating christmas trees and drinking beet wassail.






MATKA