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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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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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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Sunday evening and once again, I'm at the train station. I swear, the people working at the Skopje train station must  think that I am involved in some sort of human trafficking as they repeatedly  see me collect strange foreign people and wizz them away and to our home.

Alberto and Nuria walk down the train station stairs with their huge backpacks and even bigger smiles. They've travelled for the last 8+ months, mostly through India and Nepal but have also visited other regional places including Singapore, Malaysia and the UAE. They are now making the trip back home to Mallorca, and actually have a plane to catch from Bratislava to Palma in about 10 days. During these 10 days they are planning to see Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia, Serbia, Hungary and Slovakia. That sounds like a very ambitious plan and one that does no justice to many countries in the region...but it is what it is...so, fingers crossed for Alberto and Nuria:)
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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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My friend Vesna and I met Nellie by the Stonebridge on Wednesday afternoon. Joining us at our meeting place was also Joanna - another (local) couchsurfer we've recently met. Joanna is actually Polish but is doing a student exchange program in Skopje. So there we were - 4 girls from 3 different countries, with a common current coordinate - Skopje. Our girlgang was supposed to be richer by one but Fine (our CS guest scheduled to arrive that day) - had a change in schedule and actually arrived on Thursday.

Our path (and thirst and hunger) took us back to the same place we went to with Mirjam and Hanna - Nadjak restaurant in Debar Maalo. It was soon after we sat down and decided on whether we'll kick off the night with beer or rakija (the latter) that another 4 friends joined us over drinks, salads and a pile of skara meat (Nellie was kicking herself for not bringing a camera - and I was equally forgetful so our feast remains undocumented). The night took another unexpected turn when, after we stuffed our faces, we went to Vesna's place to watch (or rather, talk over the background noise of) the Champions' League Barcelona-Inter match, where we were joined by another temporary Skopje-local: Cornelia from Austria, also doing an exchange program in Skopje.
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Did you know that the import and sale of chewing gum is forbidden in Singapore? I'm dead serious.
Picture
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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No, no THAT story...our CouchSurfing virginity!

The reason I got to thinking about it is because today I was sort of interviewed for a couchsurfing related writing assignment by Ellie, a young journalism student. One of Ellie's questions was about how we started couchsurfing.

If you look at our profile you'll notice we've been members since 2008. However, our first CS experience was in August 2009. You see, we lived in Greece for maaaany many years
and joined couchsurfing just as we were making the decision to pack up and come back home. Initially, we thought that we can handle hosting people even with all the craziness going on in our lives during the endless ordeal of leaving a country you've spent a third of your life in. And we also thought, how bad can it get? We'll get, what, one surf request a month?
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