The summer madness is catching up with us. Our couchsurfing schedule has been more than hectic and here we are, behind on documenting our experiences. I didn't get the chance to finish reading and writing about Sweden and Malmo and we already welcomed 2 other guests this past weekend - Wojtek and Anna from the south and north Poland (more on them and their country coming up this week)...
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As I am writing this, Thess is probably on a train to Malmö from Copenhagen, where she arrived on a plane from Skopje via Zagreb. We had the pleasure to host her twice over the past week - her first two days in Skopje and then (after a weekend in Ohrid) she came back for one more short day before catching her flight at dawn this morning. It's really nice to be able to do this; have people arrive at the beginning of their stay in Macedonia and then back again right before they leave (Abi did the same last week). It's also nice to see the change in them and how this region slowly leaves its mark on them; with Thess this was in her sunburnt skin, her self-declared love for local cheese and the stories she had from her weekend in Ohrid. Much to our surprise and delight, Thess found a way to get to Galichnik on Sunday and catch a glimps of the annual Galichnik wedding one of the most famous Macedonian traditions that must be a very special experience for foreigners.
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Some twenty years ago, one of my third grade (or second, can't be too sure) mandatory reading was Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren, a Swedish writer and the world's 25th most translated author. I loved Pippi's red hair, her mischievous nature and her friends Tommy and Annika. I'm even thinking about picking it up again.

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During her afternoon in Shutka, Abi wandered into a local sweets shop and saw a big pitcher of icy cold chocolate-colored liquid, that she initially thought was Ice Coffee. When she asked the person that worked there if it is indeed coffee, he said "No, no, no! Not coffee!". So she left the shop in somewhat of a shock and went on wandering around Shutka. Few hours later, she comes back home and in her stories about what she saw, she mentions this mysterious looking "Not Coffee!!" liquid. I laugh and in between laughing a funny thought goes through my mind: it's been almost a year of hosting couchsurfers and not one of them has ran into this before? How strange.
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9:15 am on a Sunday morning. I am staring at the sleepy and hostile face of the guy working at the information desk at the Skopje train station, who, for the 3rd time tells me "5 more minutes, it is coming, I told you." I overdo it really;  the Thessaloniki-Skopje train is barely half a hour late which is not that uncommon and not even that late. Just as I head to the nearby newspaper stand to kill some more time looking at magazines, I hear the unmistakable earth-shattering noise of the arriving train overhead. As I head to the foot of the staircase which all arriving passengers descend from, a pack of local taxi drivers rush up the stairs and prepare themselves to pounce on tired and confused foreigners, offering taxi rides at dizzying rates and choosing their prey by the size of their backpacks and the fairness of their hair.
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I may owe some people an apology. There's probably not many of them, but still. The thing is, I distinctly remember using the word Holland for the country with Amsterdam as its capital. But in reading stuff after Stephanie and Sarah left, I ran into this. So apparently, "Holland" and "the Netherlands" are not interchangeable terms. Holland is merely a province (nowadays 2 provinces, South and North) of the Netherlands. Oh and to think that here in the Balkans we just about kill each other over names... [Shudder]. 
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