Macedonia

Macedonia has had its fair share of history. Of course it is the birthplace of Alexander the Great (although now there are experts who think he was born in Albania), they took on the might of the Roman Empire (and lost) and still exists as a country today. But. Officially, Macedonia is called the Former Yugoslavic Republic of Maceondia because the Greeks seem to think that the name Macedonia belongs to them. Bulgaria also has a claim to Macedonia as it was a part of Bulgaria (and should still be according to most Bulgarians). I had a friend in high school who is Macedonian and people would give him crap about being greek. I can categorically say now that Macedonia is no where near Greek. They are Slavic in origin and, Im sure they would not like to hear it, closer to Bulgarians than anyone else. That is my observation anyway (disclaimer). The country itself is quite nice, mountainous and beautiful. Our first cab off the rank was the capital, Skopje. There is a large Turkish influence here, which makes sense since the Ottomans had control for a long time. But the Turkishness is somewhat overpowering, leading you to think what is Macedonian and what is leftover Ottoman. The food was really great, cheap and not for vegetarians (or vegans for that matter). BBQ is the name of the game here and they are quite proud of it. The other thing they are proud of is Mother Teresa who was born here. There are a number of monuments dedicated to her and a University. In the city, there is a large amount of construction going on, including a new bridge which will be a few metres away from the old bridge, at least that's what it looks like. There is an old castle which overlooks the town and you can walk up to it easily. When you get there you find from the outside it looks wel maintained, but on the inside is abandoned. There is a good view from its walls nonetheless. Dotted throughout the city are a number of statues and most of them seemed to be tampered with. Hula hoops were the order of the day and they moved from statue to statue as the day goes on, presumably so they all get to have a play. There is an arty feel to the city that borders on the eccentric.
We had a nice place booked for our next city, Ohrid, nestled on the lake of the same name. That was until we actually got there to find an old man telling us, in very broken English, to bugger off, hand wave and all. When I showed him a piece of paper that had our reservation on it, he sighed, said "no, hotel" and pointed down the road. This was a new experience for us, a hostel changing its mind about a guest before we even set foot in the place. The reverse has happened but not this. The old man disappered into the house and about five minutes later reappeared with a phone. He spoke to someone and then shoved the phone at me. The guy on the other end spoke English and informed me that the hostel was closed but that he would give us a room at his hotel. Immediately I thought it was a scam but then he said he would give it to us at the same rate. Ok. Just down the road we found the hotel, which also owned the hostel which made me feel a little better, and they gave us a huge suite, so not too bad after all. The town itself comes with a huge rating, being right on the lake. It is very small though and it only took us an hour to look around and honestly, the town itself was nothing to write home about. The lake is quite nice, very tranquil but I think that was to do with the time of year. During the summer this place must be choc-a-bloc, given the obvious tourist traps that were closed for the winter. The sunset over the lake went a long way to making the visit worthwhile, but it is not really a place I would go back to though. Macedonia overal, on the hand, I would definitely return to. I think there is a lot more to this small country than we saw.