macedonia

Ok.  We're in another country & we have no idea how to speak the language here.  It's a different experience for us.  Usually one of us speaks the local language pretty well.  But, anyways, it IS beautiful here.  And, since I am blogging, I've obviously found an internet cafe.

We had to find one.  We have the name of a place that someone said we should stay, but no street address and no phone number.  And we've been accosted (nicely) by a couple of guys hawking places to stay.  Nice enough men & nice enough places at reasonable prices.  But all of Genci's defense mechanisms have been triggered & he wants NOTHING to do with them.  Really.  It's very primal.

But, anyways....  It's been a pretty good day, even though Genci's been super tense ever since we left Albania (crossed the border into Macedonia).  Yes, we are in a foreign place & no, we don't have very specific plans or a tour guide.  But we're fine.  And he's tense.  It reminds me of England.  Genci has fond memories of England, but today reminded me of how tense, jumpy, reactive he was there.  He does NOT like uncertainty.  It hits all the fear buttons inside of him.  Not good.  He doesn't like going places where he doesn't know people or at least know people who know the people we are meeting.  Someone could be trying to scam us, take advantage of us, etc.  I tend to err on the other side of things.  Sometimes too trusting.  Definitely too likely to see the good in things and have fun in whatever circumstances we find ourselves.  It's days like today that make me wonder how we ever got together.  Defnitely opposites on some sort of spectrum.  And yet people always perceive him as being so relaxed.  I did too.  Hmmm.

Oh well.  We are where we are and we all have our weaknesses.  Mine are usually solved with food and sleep.  His may be solved with predictability.  Don't know. 

Anyways.

We left Tirana today on a mini-bus.  Before too long the road we were on took us into the mountains.  I am still amazed by how mountainous Albania is.  We must have gone around at least 100 hairpin turns today.  I knew the south was mountainous, but today we headed east.  And we were in the mountains.  For a while, we seemed to be on top of a mountain ridge.  Whether we looked out the windows to the right or the left, all you saw was mountain ranges;  not just a mountain or two, but mountains, behind mountains, behind mountains.  Driving through Albania is like driving through the alps - in a minibus with an aggressive driver who seems to barely pay attention to the road, yet never misses a turn.  Within 5 minutes of the ride starting, I wondered if I would live to the end of the day.  But I decided to brace my legs (so I didn't fly forwards or sideways as we turned or stopped quickly, continuously), and not worry about it.  I decided to just assume that everything would turn out fine.  And it did.  What's the use of worrying about it.  Unless you plan to get off the bus (which is the only thing you can really control), there's nothing you can do about the rest of it.  So you might as well enjoy it.  The views were amazing.  I tried to take pictures, but mostly gave up.  We were constantly changing speed or turning.  I needed all my strength & balance just to stay upright.  I also had Luke leaning on me, trying to sleep. And there were trees or other things on the side of the road that always seemed to get in my way as we sped along.  I'll check my camera later to see if I caught anything worthwhile, but my gut feeling is that none of the pictures I took could do justice to what I saw.

We went to the border of Albania & Macedonia, where we got out & walked.  Then we entered a country where we don't speak their language and they really don't speak ours.  You think you can use sign language for things, but trying to negotiate taxi fare & having the taxi driver arrange a time or compare it to bus fare is really not very effective without a common language.  So, besides the fact that Genci was slightly freaking out, I was starting to wonder if I should have chosen a better location to go to.

But we did eventually get to an Orthodox Christian monastery on Lake Ohrid that was very peaceful & beautiful.  I love the fresh smell of the air - mostly nature mixed with some wood smoke.  Mmmmm.  The highlight of the monastery was the peacocks.  There were tons of them.  According to a monk, 30 of them.  Apparently they brought 2 male peacocks to the monastery in 1986, and then at some point a wild female peahen joined them, and now there are around 30 of them.  It felt like a peacock sanctuary.  Really.  It was both amazing and a little scary, as there were signs warning that peacocks may attack children, and they were very close to us.  They couldn't be avoided.  I will download pictures tomorrow night when we get back.  I know I must have some pretty cool ones of the peacocks.  They were very impressive, and they were surrounded by ancient monastery buildings.

I suppose I should check my e-mail now.

The biggest thing about today for me right now is comfronting the extreme negative emotional reaction that Genci has to new places, uncertainty, foreignness, and people trying to sell him something.  He reminds me of his mother today.

Later, when I'm going through pictures, I'll hang onto the experience of the monastery.

Oh yes.  We had a very yummy dinner with good wine at a local Italian restaurant.  I had a Macedonian dish, Nathan had Lasagna, Genci Spaghetti Carbonara & Luke Chicken fingers.  We left very satisfied.

We are now in the old section of town, which is very charming.  I hope that tomorrow we can enjoy town a bit before Genci's anxiety rushes us out of here.