But I had to share a few more things so that I can get some closure on Sweden and all things Swedish. The last night Thess was here, we talked a bit about Swedish music and I can proudly say that I did quite good as I even pointed out some bands to Thess that she didn't know were Swedish (ok, I'm exaggerating - there was only 1 such band and the artists she shared with us were a lot more than 1:)). I'm not talking ABBA here (or Europe's Final Countdown), but bands and songs that a lot of us (in our weird - or not so weird - days) grew up with or listened to at some point, often not knowing their origin was Swedish. So as closure to the Swedish chapter here are 5 songs that you most likely know but perhaps didn't know they were "Made in Sweden". Enjoy and let us know what's your favorite!

This was my late parrot's favorite tune, he'd go crazy every time it was on, and that was a lot (ok, I was 10!). Here's a 2001 live version of Joyride, by Roxette.

From the same (obviously very creative) year of 1991, here is probably one of the weirdest bands/songs I listened to at the ripe age of 10. I think this video of Crucified had a very hypnotizing effect on me as did the whole Army of Lovers setup.

You gotta love this guy. Although originally from Nigeria, he moved to Sweden when he was 23 to study dentistry  - music was just a way to support himself. Fresh from 1992, this is It's my Life, Dr. Alban's biggest hit.

Ok, this is actually physically painful and I have no comments whatsoever. I dread hitting the play button but if you are brave, go ahead. Cotton Eye Joe by Rednex.

Fast forward a year and it's 1995, we're on the way to high school and this very summery hit is all the rage. Here's I Saw You Dancing by Yaki-Da (by the way, anyone knows what Yaki Da means???)

Ok, humiliation over. And to make up for all this early 90ies noise, here are 2 Swedish bands I still truly love.

I'm a sucker for the Cardigans - always have been. Here's Lovefool but any other of their songs does it for me.

The Wannadies. Love them. Here's You and Me Song from the Romeo+Juliet OST, but I love almost everything they've done.

Back in Skopje, Thess and I are chilling at home while the sun attempts to melt the asphalt outside. Thess has just come back from Ohrid and over plates of improvised rice salad with zucchini and Swiss chard, our conversation floats from one food topic to another, starting from lingonberries and their use in jams as a frequent companion to meat in Sweden and all the way to Smörgåstårta. Huh? I know. Smörgåstårta basically means "sandwich cake" (Smörgås=sandwich), something Thess is not very fond of - mostly due to its mayonnaise-loaded nature - but as a concept which one can tweak a bit, I quite like the idea of a giant sandwich cake (basically anything that is even remotely related to a sandwich - I like).

,For anyone who has grown up in this part of the world, the phrase "Swedish table" means a lot. I don't know if this is the case outside of our region, but "Swedish table" here actually means buffet. When I was young, I know my parents chose family vacation hotels based on the criteria of whether the breakfast and dinner were "Swedish table" -- I will not go into details of how much we Balkan people love making sandwiches out of buffet breakfast ingredients and stuffing them in mom's bulging purses "just in case..." (I hope it wasn't just me that grew up that weirdly). Dear friends, the reason this is called Swedish table is actually the Smörgåsbord, a Swedish way of serving a meal with many dishes on the table (literally meaning "sandwich table"). Interested in what a typical Swedish Smörgåsbord features? Head here to learn.

A few days ago, we asked Thess if there is something she finds repulisive/disgusting in the Swedish cousine and the words "Sour Herring!" flew out of her like small cannonballs. The Swedish word is Surstromming and I gotta say - the fact that the herring keeps on fermenting even after it has been canned really sounds like no fun, and from what Thess told us, it couldn't really smell any better. I loved reading about this tidbit later: some airlines have banned canned sour herring from their food menus because the cans were found to be explosive, which clearly provoked a protest by the fish producers. I have to say, this is not something I would hurry to try, but I'm not a fish person to begin with...I'll stick to sandwich cakes.

And just as you started thinking that the Swedish eating/drinking culture is so different from your/our own, here's something we found quite refreshingly common. There is something called fika in Sweden (a back slang word derived from kaffi which used to mean coffee), which is basically a sort of a coffee break (like "coffee" here...which can mean anything from actual coffee to...just about anything). According to Wikipedia, much like here, going for "fika" can also mean "going out on a date". But I like the Swedes because, date or no date, it seems that fika almost always features some sort of sweet pastry like cinnamon rolls or cookies. What? Hungry? Who? Me? What..? Ok, switching gears.

You know, if you wanted to say "from A to Z" (as in, from beginning to end) and refer to the Swedish alphabet, you'd have to say "from A to Ö" or rather "från A till Ö". There are three letters in the Swedish alphabet, all three neatly tucked together after the Z, that have diacritical/umlaut signs floating on top of them. They're the holy trinity of Å, Ä and Ö. I'm sure Thess had a lot of fun watching me try to make and remember what each vowel sounds like, my vowel-simplistic universe falling apart. But if you're as persistant as I am, here's a good (I think) guide along with mp3 of what they should sound like pronounced. Something funny: the letter Ö by itself - it means "island". I want to own one of those letters.

Fast forward to few days ago and Thess from Sweden, sitting on our couch, is a bit surprised that this Swedish book has been a part of the literature curriculum in Macedonian schools. But so many Swedish things have become part of life all over the world. The couch and armchairs we are sitting on have been bought at IKEA, my jeans are H&M, I (somewhere, hidden very very deeply into a box) own a Roxette cassette and if we had to have a car and could afford any model, Ivica would likely choose a Volvo. Oh and he'd gladly be sent into an IKEA meatball heaven. And ok, I'll admit it: I have sung the Final Countdown (originally by Swedish band Europe) more than once on Play Station's Singstar karaoke game...Enough humiliation though, back to our new friend.

Thess has arrived via Bulgaria from a few week's stay in Turkey where she traveled with her boyfriend, Sven. He had to go back home but Thess had some more free time and could travel the region a bit so she headed our way. Thess is a very experienced couchsurfer with a huge number of great references and it's always nice to meet a true couchsurfer, someone who has been involved in the concept for as long as Thess has. She is also special because she is our first guest from Scandinavia. And while she currently lives in Malmö, she grew up in Söderhamn, which - wow! - just became the northernmost flag on our CS friends map (the record previously held by Tallinn, where Mirjam and Hanna came from some months ago).

Sweden (and this is something I didn't know before) is the third biggest (by area) country in the EU, after Spain and France and Swedes have the longest life expectancy in the EU, a whooping 80.5 years! On the downside though, Thess tells us that - at least in winter - there's a lot of depression among Swedes; a lot of parts of Sweden get only a few hours of light a day in the wintertime. Thess and Sven own a sun lamp which simulates sunlight and they use it extensively during those dark days. I'd probably go crazy. Then on the other hand, I'd probably also go crazy during the summertime when it's hardly ever dark.

Every June and always on a Friday, Sweden celebrates Midsummer, an official holiday dedicated to the summer season. A maypole, a frequently used concept in Germanic cultures' traditions and rituals, is a part of Swedish Midsummer celebrations as is dancing around it. Read more interesting facts about Midsummer (such as the fact that, on this day, girls are encouraged to pick 7 different flowers and put them under their pillows so that they can see their future husbands in their sleep) here.

And to add to this collection of random Sweden facts, let me tell you a bit more about the Icehotel. This hotel in Jukkasjarvi is built from scratch every single year for the last 20 years, and snow and ice is used from the Torne river. The hotel features a number of amenities, including a sauna (hmmm), and (if my math was right), a three night stay for 2 in January 2011 would set us back around EUR 1,500. Right. If this is your kind of travel budget, head here and make sure you send us an ice postcard!

To those of you from foreign lands beyond the Balkans, the Not-Coffee drink is called Boza. When I try to explain to Abi what it is, I realize that I am failing miserably to even come close to explaining both the ingredients, the method of preparation or even the taste of it. I mean, it's Boza! (For some reason, in this part of the world, we have a saying that goes "Easy as Boza", but I really find nothing easy about it, least of all trying to explain its taste). The sterile and clinical explanation of it is that it's a fermented drink made typically from one or another type of flour/fermented wheat (depending on the country -it's a regional popular drink - in some countries millet or maize enters the equation as well). Due to the fermented ingredients, it has about 1% alcohol content. But beyond this boring explanation, I find the color and the taste of Boze the most intriguing aspects of it.

In Skopje, the most famous Boza place is Apche (literal translation: the Pill, because the guy who founded the store claimed that his Boza cures everything). We didn't feel like walking all the way to Apche to get Abi a cold glass of Boza, but we crossed the street in front of our building and went to a local sweets shop. Abi was all nerves; we had talked so much about it, trying to explain to her what it will taste like (me telling her that it will be bitter and acidic and Ivica claiming that it is very sweet) and when the 3 glasses of Boza finally appeared on the table, it was a very emotional moment.

Abi takes a sip of Boza. And then she takes another one. For about a few minutes the verdict is not out, and we're shaking with the anticipation of whether she'll like it or not (my guess is "No."). And finally, the decision is made: "It tastes like eating a cake, drinking a beer and having a lemon on the side." Hallelujah, I don't think anyone has ever managed to describe the Boza taste this accurately!

Of course, Abi fails to finish her glass ("It's just too weird") but we're happy to have discovered one more weird thing we can introduce our future adventurous guests to. Oh and for those of you that this weirdness is not enough for: read this - I have no idea if it's true but it's one more weird thing to add to the Boza folder.

After about 5 minutes of watching backpack after backpack disappear into the unknown of the Skopje streets, I see Abi coming down the stairs. I've only seen one photo of her on her couchsurfing profile, but its easy to recognize her even though she's crumbling under the weight of her backpack (that, she later tells me, holds all of her possessions). It's Sunday and buses are few and their schedule redefines randomness so we load into a taxi (not the kind that charges 5x the regular rate) and head home. Abi's exhausted; she has been traveling for 2 days, her original schedule collapsing due to the general strikes in Greece. Right off, she tells me she has been dreaming of coming to Macedonia for so long and that she's in love with the Balkan music and culture. In addition to Skopje she'll also be seeing Ohrid and then heading to Kosovo to then go to Montenegro where she's meeting a friend who makes puppets.

Abi was born in Israel, in a small town near Tel Aviv. When she was 14, her parents decided to move to London, where she's been living for the last 8 years (with the exception of a year spent doing Erasmus in Rotterdam). She finished her Fine Art studies last year and has decided that she's now looking for a new home - London won't cut it and her recent 2 month stay in Israel made her wonder if even that could again be home. She thinks Spain may be a potential home but her options are still open.

At our home, we talk about the Balkans and the Middle East. Abi had a great childhood in Israel but her parents left the country in search of a better life, something her grandparents have never quite forgiven them for. Abi's mom was born and grew up in a kibbutz but left it as soon as she could, while her grandparents still live in similar community setups. "My grandfather had never seen the inside of a bank until recently, he asked me to come in with him to show him what to do", Abi says.

Abi is a storyteller; she naturally weaves stories into every discussion. Somehow, our conversation touches on the topic of Gypsies (the politically correct term is Roma people, but I will use the name they use for themselves) and we hit jackpot. The Gypsies are part of the reason Abi has traveled to the Balkans - this is a land they've highly impacted and that has (regardless of occasional rough patches) embraced them more than most regions
in the world. We talk about their position in Macedonian society, the often-failed efforts to integrate them into what our society considers a "normal way of life", their perspectives of the world, and the good, the bad and the ugly about their presence on the street and in our daily life. Seeing the spark in her eyes when we talk about this issue, we suggest that she visits Shutka and even though we can't keep her company due to family Sunday lunches, she happily plans her afternoon visit.

Shutka, for those of you from other places, is one of the largest (if not the largest) Gypsy settlements in the world, with various sources quoting anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 inhabitants of which around 80% (if not more) are Gypsies. Shutka is one of Skopje's 10 municipalities, with its own mayor and a cultural/social life like no other municipality in the country. It's a magical place: from corrugated cardboard shacks to royal palaces, from horses to multiple BMW's - Shutka has it all and in every color.

On our short way from home to the bus stop (10 minute walk) we see several scenes that further illustrate the Gypsies' presence in everyday life in Skopje: we see a young Gypsy mother with her roughly one-year old baby, sitting down picnic style under a tree shade, mom has filled the baby's bottle with Coke; further down, a father and a son rummaging through garbage bins, looking for plastic bottles that they collect and sell; and finally an older guy with a cart full of, well, just random stuff - stuff that people have left behind, stuff that would make a great rug, or a nice toy for the kids or will be converted into something else that will be useful. We arrive at the bus stop, where a privately owned (and if that sounds better than public, don't be fooled) bus number 19 is waiting for Abi along with its inch-thick layer of window dust and grime and a "20 Den" price tag scribbled on a torn out notebook page.

After mine and Ivica's lunch with our parents, the three of us meet again at home. Abi has had a great time just walking around Shutka, although she had no luck to run into one of the famous Gypsy weddings that often go on for days at a time. But to complete her Shutka experience we watch a movie about it - The Shutka Book of Records (locally knowns as Шампионите од Шутка) - an amazing (award winning actually) window into Shutka's inhabitants, their stranger-than-fiction beliefs and daily life. And because I think it may be interesting to people like Abi that are fascinated with that culture, here's a link where you can watch the full movie and transport yourself into this incredible place of champions if only for a bit.

So Holland (the province) used to be the most developed province and the name just caught on. It seems as if a number of important cities (Rotterdam and Amsterdam included) do fall into the South/North Holland province. I would imagine though how someone from a city in another province (say, someone from Utrecht, Maastricht or Groningen) would be less than happy with me calling their country Holland. Or maybe not so much? Maybe it is only here, in this crazyland called the Balkans that we take things this seriously? Oh perhaps not, because the ministry's website says: "This website used to use ‘Holland’ instead of ‘the Netherlands’ to make page and menu titles shorter, but we received emails from Dutch visitors who objected." Oddly, this makes me feel a bit better, in a weird way. Of course, it bothers me that in Macedonian the only way I can refer to this country is Холандија (Hollandia)...as I am sure in other languages as well.

To make up for past mistakes (and against my original urge to talk about Rotterdam and Amsterdam), I'm dedicating this post to the other 10 provinces of the Netherlands and sharing with you photos found on Flickr from non-Holland places in the Netherlands. Enjoy!

Oh and also, in case you missed the news, the CouchLog is now also on Facebook. Come and join our family! 

We've never brought couchsurfers here, although the opportunity has presented itself a couple of times, only to be cancelled last moment because of changing plans. If I am sometimes embarrased and frustrated by various things that travelers have to face in our capital Skopje, I really can't imagine having the same feeling of inadequacy should a foreigner visit Pelister. True, roads are not their best, the local entertainment is limited to the one shop/bar (trust me, none of these words come close to describing it) and the locals routinely stare you down if you look even remotely non-local but...But, you become quite forgiving when you smell the pine trees (autochthonous really, called Molika), have a close encounter with one of the village's cows or try the local cheese or the cranberries from our garden. Add to this the never-ending presence of my currently favorite animal - the snail - and the fact that seeing them all the time acts as a constant reminder to slow down and enjoy life...We're in heaven.

I really feel we didn't do justice to our previous guests, Sarah and Stephanie, in terms of coverage of their homelands in this blog. In Magarevo, I've been reading a bit about Vannes, the home city of Sarah in France, located in Brittany (I much prefer the sound of the French "Bretagne"). But I find myself pretty ignorant about Bretagne and the Breton language so my knowledge-quest first directs me there. Apparently, about 200,000 people in Bretagne speak Breton - called Brezhoneg by speakers - (down from roughtly 1.3 million some 80 years ago). Breton is currently an endangered language and is of Celtic origin, brought from Great Britain by immigrant Britons in the Early Middle Ages.  Breton is now the only living Celtic language that is not reconized as an official language in a country where it's spoken. .

Vannes was actually founded in the 1st century BC by the Romans but in the more recent history it was the former seat of the Dukes of Bretagne and is located right in the heart of the Gulf of Morbihan (Morbihan Department) in South Bretagne. The word Morbihan is derived from the Breton Ar Mor Bihan, meaning Little Sea and this French Republic's department is in fact the only one without a French name. The Gulf is considered an inland sea and supposedly has some gorgeous bays. And here's something funny: whenever we have couchsurfers around, and the topic of the city of Ohrid comes up, we always mention the fact that legend has it that Ohrid has 365 churches, one for each day of the year. Reading about Morbihan I find out that according to their own legend there are as many islands in the Gulf as there are days of the year. Wikipedia is quick to dispell this myth and it seems as if the Gulf actually only has about 40 islands. I don't think the Ohrid churches have been actually counted but 365 seems like too big a number, even for Ohrid (forgive me Ohrid-locals, I have a mathematical brain, and need actual list of churches that sequentially progresses from number 1 to number 365).

Very close to Vannes is a curious place called Carnac, best know as a site of over 3000 prehistoric standing stones, erected by the pre-Celtic people of the region, during Neolithic times. Legend says that the reason they are placed in such straight lines is that the stones are in fact a Roman legion turned to stone by Merlin. Hmmmm.... Eh, I'm not much into stones anyway.

Apparently Vannes is quite gorgeous and has quite a bit to see, including the battlements (the "castrum" that protected the town at one point in history and later became the center of the medieval town), a number of churches and cathedrals (St.Pierre seems to be the most popular one) and a port.

But the thing that most catches my eye (ok, virtually) are the timber-frame houses. They date back to the 15th and 16th century and look very cute to me.

There you have it, a little taste of Vannes. I've also been reading a bit on Syria (Sarah's other homeland) as well as on Rotterdam (Stephanie's college life home), Amsterdam (her future home) and Rio (where her mum's family is from) and will probably share a few other snippets with you in the coming days. And to think that the month ahead will be jam-packed with couchsurfers again - oh the joy of learning and fantasizing about places! But excuse me now as I go and cut up my birthday cake - it's the last time I turn an age that starts with the number 2 and I need a big piece in order to swallow the fact.

Fortunately, the driver in the bus No. 22 that Sarah and Stephanie took from the central bus station only told them to get off the bus 1 bus stop earlier (as opposed to my greatest fear of them getting all the way to the end of the line and in a neighborhood I can't even point on a city map). So they call me slightly panicked explaining their surroundings and luckily they were only about half a km away from our house.

I should at this point explain the first sentence of this post. You see, Sarah is French Syrian, born in France (Vannes) but half her family is still in Syria and she visits frequently (speaks the language and all). Stephanie (or Steph) on the other hand, is Dutch Brazilian (mom is Brazilian), was born in Switzerland and grew up all over the world. Between them they speak a gazillion languages, one of which is Turkish, and that's because these two actually met in Istanbul where they were both doing their college exchange program (both in Politics/International Relations).

Our typical CS guest comes marching into our house with a humongous backpack that looks as if half of the person's worldly possessions are lurking inside. Not Sarah and Steph though - they come in with their trolley suitcases - which is the first sign they are not our typical guests. And they're not. I think it actually takes the least amount of time (from all of our guest experiences so far) from the second we are in the door until our first round of beers is downed. Sarah and Steph are both incredibly animated and have an amazing sense of humor; I wish I could share with you some of their stories but to also be able to use their words and expressions, especially this one story about Steph lugging a 60kg suitcase into an airplane. (If you're wondering how she did it, let me remind you - she's half Brazilian:))

This CS experience was one of the shortest ones we've had so far (just 24hrs) but also probably one of the most intense ones. Most of the guests we have want to do at least some of the touristic stuff in and around Skopje and they often do it alone, but S&S are so amazingly flexible that in their 24 hrs in the city they didn't see any of the typical stuff, much to our delight. Why? I mean, we love Skopje obviously, but at 40C and if you've traveled the world over, I am not sure if sight-hopping is the right strategy to feel what Skopje is about. Instead Sarah and Steph did something incredible - they spent all of their 24hrs in the city with us. We did not get to the downtown at all. Instead, we watched World Cup games together, drank a double digit number of liters of beer and laughed like we hadn't in a while. Both girls are avid football fans, and with their mixed origins they can cheer for a number of countries. Come to think of it, at the moment I type this, the only 2 teams that have firmly secured their qualification into the next World Cup round - the best 16 - are the two countries that Steph holds a passport from! I wonder how that feels...
 

Anyway, more stuff on France, Syria, Holland and Brazil is coming right up...give us some credit, we've got games to watch and cheering to do!

It is then time to head back down to the main square which is the home of the annual Buskerfest, a street performance festival. Elena and Maja posess what we consider a very vital trait in any good couchsurfer - they are excellent drinkers. So after the beers with our dinner, we proceed to participate in a wine tasting, then sample some of the rakija sold at one of the festival's stands, only to finally decide to stick with Skopsko beer as we settle down to listen to the open air concert of Monica Coronado, right by the Stone Bridge.

Ivica and some of our friends join us a little later, and we decide to head to the city park to play something which in this part of the world is called Boćanje and which Wikipedia tells me is called Bocce in English and is similar to the French Pétanque . The sport is very popular along the Croatian coast (opinons on its origin - either Basque or Italian - abound), but some of our friends recently bought the equipment for it and we've been dabbling into it in the last few weeks. Elena's dad is actually a member of some Boćanje team board and the girls tell us that the balls we use are smaller than the original ones they use in Croatia. Oh well. That doesn't stop us from playing a few rounds of it and then go home to collapse under the weight of a long and full day.  

The next day was Ivica's birthday so again things get crazy by the afternoon as we hastily improvize some appetizers/snacks for a group of friends coming in the evening. Maja and Elena are spending the day in Ohrid , which actually means they're spending 2/3 of the day in a bus. While Ohrid didn't make much of an impression on them (I'm sure they've seen hundreds of similar "old architecture by the water" kind of places), they had to see it because their parents urged them to go, as Ohrid still has that touristic appeal lingering around ex Yugoslavia.

The evening stretches well past midnight, with homemade wine (for some of us - I'm not saying names - both red AND white) and rakija flowing all over the place in an effort to numb the Skopje heat. The girls have to get up at 6am to take their train to Thessaloniki but just before they march to their room we take one of our typical semi-retarded photos (we always look slightly mental on these) to remember yet another awesome couchsurfing experience.

Elena and Maja are just completing their studies - Economics at the university in Rijeka - but have decided to travel a bit before plunging into grown-up life. Their love for Turkey is pulling them towards Ankara this time (they had been to Istanbul a while ago) but will be making a few stops before reaching it. And yes, Skopje is the first on that list, seeing that it is only a full day's train ride away from Rijeka (via Zagreb and then Belgrade). Once they arrive, we head to a local restaurant in our neighborhood where we gorge on food and engage in loud (they pass the test for being Balkan) conversations in a weird mixture of Macedonian and Croatian with obvious overtones of our once-official, but now non-existent, common SerboCroatian. Even with their heavy local Istria/Rijeka dialects, very few things are lost in translation and it feels immensely unusual to have couchsurfers we don't need to speak English to. Even more unusual is the thought that 20 years ago, the 4 of us lived in the same country.

Years of separate living have made us somewhat oblivious to each other's national/political/social/economic realities, so we spend quite a bit of time covering both Croatian and Macedonian issues; from the relationships with neighboring countries to economic development, stanards of living and the influence of the Western world which affects us in varying degrees. We're happy to hear Maja and Elena say that they do feel Balkan, even with the obvious proximity to Italy and other EU countries.

Rijeka (meaning "River" in Croatian), Croatia's main port city, is known for its shipbuilding and maritime transport. Here's an interesting fact: if you were born in Rijeka 1913 (or before) and lived to see 1991 you would have lived in 6 different countries (AustroHungary, Free State of Rijeka/Fiume, Kingdom of Italy, The Third Reich, Yugoslavia and most recently, Croatia). We've never been to Rijeka, but it seems gorgeous, both in its past and its present.