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).

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.