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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Guess what? Our couch finally did move a little:) Well not our couch per se, but we did. These past 5 days we've been at our 100yr old house in the mountains just up from Bitola, in the village called Magarevo which is just at the edge of one of Macedonia's (if not the) most beautiful national parks - Pelister. We come here once in a while in the wintertime and quite more often in the summertime, always with visions of absolute laziness, sun-soaking and long uphill hikes. In practice, our stays here are a mix of really hardcore garden work, the occasional home improvement project and (really towards the end of our days) a couple of lazy morning hours, book gulping and rakija-induced afternoon naps. Despite the blisters on our hands and the really embarrassing tan lines that reek of fieldwork, and no matter how short our stay in this little getaway, we openly daydream about moving to the countryside where we'll blend in with the local folks that live beyond 90, wake up to the sound of birds, eat from our vegetable garden, and perhaps even get used to the idea of sketchy TV reception, no neighbors to steal wireless from and the ever-present village gossip.
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On their second day in Skopje, Elena and Maja successfully navigated the complicated public transport system towards Matka alone (which makes me go into another nail-biting frenzy when I think about the possibility that they get lost somewhere along the way) and we then meet downtown after work. My day is hectic; I have tons to do at work, I still haven't shaken off my sinus thing from last week AND my brother and dad are leaving for the World Cup in South Africa (which is a terribly exciting thing that leaves me quite envious too). But Skopje is hectic in June as well, and when we meet downtown and after a quick bite in the Old Bazaar (ќебапи at Destan) we visit Kale (the Skopje fortress) where the girls take note of the gazillion Macedonian flags waving in the city (no, we're not celebrating anything, we just seem to have a thing for flags).
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Yes, in almost a year of hosting couchsurfers, and close to 30 guests from over 12 countries, this week and for the first time ever we hosted guests from another ex Yugoslav republic. You'd think we'd get more of them - after all, we're all in the neighborhood, the culture is familiar, the region is not that expensive to travel around but no, so far, we hadn't had anyone from any of the other 5 (or 6, depending on how you look at it) ex republics of old Yugoslavia.

All that changed Tuesday with the arrival of Maja and Elena from Croatia (Istria and Rijeka region respectively, both stuyding in Rijeka). We got excited from the moment we received their CS request and in the excitement at some point I exclaimed "That's the closest destination we've ever had guests from!!!" But silly me, I didn't think that Istanbul (yes, the city at the edge of the continent) is, by a straight air line at least, closer than Rijeka. Oh well,
closest Balkan destination then! And oh, did I mention, first ex-Yugoslav:)!!!
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Yes, it's been a while, but we were CS-less for 2 weeks! During this time, we traveled a bit ourselves (not too far, just to our house in the mountains and for a weekend visiting old friends and colleagues in Thessaloniki). While in Thessaloniki, I managed to catch up with Linn and Daan, a Dutch couchsurfing couple spending a student exchange year in Thessaloniki. When they stayed with us in Skopje during the winter, they came on the absolutely most disgusting day of all winter - there was muddy slush all over the city and they were wearing very summery shoes. The sight still gives me shivers dispite them saying that they're used to that kind of weather.
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Unfortunately, no update on the Mallorca flag story. Alberto and Nuria hadn't realized that their flag features that angel-like figure until I pointed it out to them:) They've promised to research into the matter once they're back in Palma and I'll hopefully update you on it when I get the information. Of course, that is if you are still interested.

But our Mallorca story and the time spent with our lovely guests goes on. On their second day in Skopje, Nuria and Alberto explore the city's downtown area on their own while we're at work. Understandably, they like the old part of the city more than the new side and they are particularly fond of the price of strawberries here (in Palma they cost about 3 times more). However, Mallorcans can't complain as the two most typical local products are olives and almonds, which are an important part of their diet. There are nowadays over 4 million almond and olive trees on this Spanish island. The almond trees must make for a incredibly pretty scenery...especially when they bloom between January and March.
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Andrea left yesterday morning but we are still working through our impressions of her and digesting (yes, I haven't deviated from the food theme) all our discussions. On her second day in Skopje (and wearing an awesome Couchsurfing Toronto shirt), she went solo to see Matka. Now, I'll talk about something that is really frustrating to us. Sometimes, we get couchsurfers during the week and due to work we can't shadow them the whole time (and god forbid if we did, that would be freaky) even to places we really like in our city. Matka Canyon is one of those as it is a gorgeous place.  But...
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The day after we saw Nellie off, we welcomed Fine (pronounced "Feenai") in the middle of an unusual Skopje spring heat, and amidst the ever-present taxi drivers swarming the bus station. Fine, as I mentioned earlier, is German by origin but has been living outside of Germany for the last 8 years. She has moved quite a lot and actually she did try to briefly outline the countries she's stayed in, which made us a bit dizzy. Fine is married to a Brazilian guy and together they are (sort of) currently based in a place called Angra Dos Reis, near Rio de Janeiro (and very close to the Ilha Grande island - which we think looks gorgeous and  a photo of which is shown below). They spend quite a bit of time on boats and did the Canto Mediterraneo project last year, sailing from Venice to Istanbul and documenting the music of the Mediterranean lands they visited on the way.
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Did you know that the import and sale of chewing gum is forbidden in Singapore? I'm dead serious.
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Photo by conarcist (via Flickr)
My expression must have been extremely confused when Nellie was telling me about it last night. Not that I didn't believe her, but I just had to look it up. And yes, there's an actual ban of chewing gum in Singapore, the reason being that people used to stick it on things like chairs and tables and in places like elevators and mailboxes. Having experienced the absolute thrill of having someone's disposed gum stick on to my jeans at school (and other places) I got to say the ban does make (some remote) sense. It is still completely weird to me though. As is traveling from Singapore to Malaysia to get some gum.

With approximately 707km2 in area (and a highest point of barely 164 meters!!!), Singapore, independent since 1965, is one of the smallest countries in the world, and is actually an island city-state. It consists of one main island and many tiny (largely) uninhabited ones. Nellie, Chinese by origin but second generation Singaporean, tells me that because of its history of being a British colony, British English is the official language and the British edu system is being used. Oh, and obviously, they drive on the left.
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