home again?

so i won't lie. it was a little weird to go 'home' after my first real time away from the city and it not be the place i have usually called home. hm. thoughts of where HOME is were spurred on. but at any rate it was nice to come back to the dwelling where all my junk is... well, some of my junk... okay my shampoo and hair dryer.

the week trip through the mountains of macedonia was delightful, though.

first stop was Ohrid. the beautiful lake there was breath taking, even in the cold weather.
then we took a taxi for an hour and a half to bitola. we got in the cab and then had to wait for two more people. hah. my traveling buddy - karen - knew one of the ladies. which was good, because it was close quarters.
Bitola was beautiful.
we stumbled upon the 'american corner' of the library and the lady there gave us a tip on where a cheap place to stay was. so we wandered around these crazy bend-y streets with numbers not going in order. seriously. it was like 51, 52, 67, 43....
but we found it and it was amazing.
i recommend the chola guest house if you are ever in the area. very awesome. and only like 16 dollars a night.
anyhoo.
we sang in the town center that night.
i'll go ahead and confess to you that we did a cover of beyonce - irreplaceable. it turned heads. that song is uber popular here. i saw people singing along. a lot of people stopped to talk to us. we handed out a lot of candy canes with the 'candy cane story' and a lot of tracts.
afterwards we drank salep - this delicious hot drink, i think it's turkish...

the next day we hung around the city and ice skated until our 'bus' (which was really a van) showed up to take us to krushevo. krushevo is the birthplace of the macedonian salena. a young pop star the was 'taken before his time' in a car wreck. he is worshiped there. there are posters, alters and graffiti all over proclaiming his greatness. it is a little sad and eerie. but the town is really cool and old and on a hill so all the streets are way steep and curvy.
then we took a bus to prilep. there we stayed two nights. the highlight was climbing to the top of 'marko's towers' a small little mountain-ish hill at the edge of the city. we stopped at the monastery and talked with a nun.
the hike was beautiful. we took the goat/cow trails up. and then the road down.
that's where we spent christmas. oh and the other highlight of that town was the thai food restaurant. who would have thought.

then the next day we headed back to my city. today we went lamp shopping. i came home with socks, a hot water thermos, an umbrella, and some things to send home. no lamp.


oh well.



tomorrow i am planning on studying. studying to make up for the whole week of not studying. yikes.

so that was the week in a nut shell.
it was really good.