Our guests from Estonia had to change their plans to fly out of Thessaloniki via Prague to Tallinn because of the air traffic chaos due to the Icelandic volcanic ash. Both of them work at a public university in Tallinn and have to be back at work in the middle of this week but this may be unlikely to happen as they decided to travel with buses and trains to reach Estonia. Even though the Estonians are hardworking folks, they do have a saying which goes something along the lines of "work is not a rabbit to run away from you"...as in, relax, it will always be there. Sounds more Balkan than Baltic:)

So once their tickets to Belgrade (first on the list of many cities they'll travel through to reach Tallinn by ground) were bought on Sunday morning, Hanna and Mirjam did some Skopje exploring on their own, visiting the Mother Theresa Memorial House and the Old Train Station (the most dramatic witness to the Skopje 1963 earthquake). We then met them for beers at a terrace in the old part of Skopje, next to the Kale fortress. During their week-long stay in Macedonia the girls sampled all of our local beers, trying to select their favorite (for us, Skopsko wins every time...)

After a short walk around the Kale, hunger stroke again and we took Mirjam and Hanna to "Kaj Marshalot" - a Tito themed restaurant which always proves to be interesting to our couchsurfing guests.

It was then time to go back home for the girls to pack, give us their last gift (a small bottle of Estonian liquer) and head to the bus station where they took the night bus to Belgrade.

And that was the end of our 30 hour adventure with our wonderful friends from the birthplace of Skype, spiced up with loads of beer, wine, good food, and plenty of discussions about the histories and traditions of our region and theirs. The most difficult part of every couchsurfing experience is always the goodbye - typically a very difficult affair but always drenched in hope that our paths will cross once again, perhaps one fine day, in faraway Baltic Tallinn.