I have a long bus layover in Skopje. I thought it would be fun to look around the shops and such in a city I’ve never been in, but they’re all closed! I already walked around a bunch and now I’m tired, so I found an internet club.
What’s up?
so are there a lot of former Yugoslavs walking around? former Republicancs? ancient Macedonians? what language do they speak?
We have a friend who’s from Skopje!
Yeah, that’s all I’ve got. I’m about to eat Special K for breakfast, how’s that?
Serbo-Croat.
Or has that linguistic definition also deconstructed now?
Shucks. I was hoping they spoke Former Macdonian.
How’s the weather? Is it pretty? You can probably find a ‘things to do in Skopje’ site on the Web.
Oh, not much. I hear my friend Kyla’s in Macedonia, so that’s cool. Jimmy’s singing the alphabet song nonstop.
Actually, Macedonians speak Macedonian. Although if you ask a Bulgarian this question, they’ll tell you there’s no such thing as Macedonia, Macedonian, or Macedonians. According to them, it’s all Bulgarian. Anyway, Macedonian and Bulgarian really are the same language, with different accents. It sounds kinda weird to me, but I can understand it okay. (Although one guy started yelling at me in a language I didn’t recognize. Maybe Albanian?)
Anyway, I left the first internet club and wandered around. I like Skopje, I have decided. The old city area is very charming and the most Middle Eastern city I have seen in Europe so far. There’s a big mosque in the middle of Sofia, sure, but there are at least six here, and they actually do the call to prayer. (I know from people who live in Muslim villages in Bulgaria that they there are mosques there that call to prayer, but I’ve never heard it.) I’ll post some pictures later.
Money is crazy here. It’s like Italy before the euro. I have no idea how much anything costs.
The weather’s very nice. Sunny and warm. I still have two hours to go before my bus leaves for Sarajevo, so…back at the internet club. I’ll be here for hours and hours again on the way back, too.
Ginger, do you have any new pictures of Jimmy up? Is he still the happiest baby on the planet?
No new ones but yes, he sure is.
Hey! I am in the Cleveland, Ohio exurb of Macedonia!
Money is also crazy here, but that’s because we’ve got both a Wal Mart AND a Target.
I think someone’s smoking a joint in this internet club.
Take care Kyla, I recently graduated and I’m looking for a better job, in the long run I’m planing to get into teaching too. I mention that because awhile ago, you were asking for text books for your students and then and right now money is tight for me so I could not help then; but very soon I will be able to help, send me a note if you will need help on that regard in the near future.
Aw, GIGObuster, it’s so nice of you to think of my kids. We’re doing okay with the textbooks at the moment now, actually, thanks to my mom, my friend JavaMaven, who I don’t think is a paying member of the SDMB anymore, CrankyAsAnOldMan, who sent some “My first word” books, which my kids LOVE (especially the one that’s all a bunch of trucks, my boys are totally fascinated with it) and Ms. Baker, who sent me a wonderful package of goodies awhile ago. It’s actually a challenge to work all of this great material into my class lessons, but the kids really dig it.
Okay, the time has finally arrived for me to stop screwing around in Skopje. I’ll see y’all when I get to Sarajevo!
Yep, some Macedonians also speak Albanian. A frustrating language with a million cases and no recognizable sentence structure. When I was in Kosovo, we used to drive down to Skopje to go to McDonalds and go grocery shopping. It was the nearest “civilization.”
Oops.
Ask him for a hit. No, I guess that was yesterday and you’re probably is some other country by now.
So, did Greece and Macedonia work out their different claims on the name? I’d assume that, by now, they would have except so many countries around there have disagreements that go back millenia.
Zaz for Kyla!
I spent two days in Skopje a few years back before driving to Pristina. I really liked Skopje.
Pristina, not so much.
Have you seen the [singing] seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array[/singing] yet?
Wasn’t most of Skopje destroyed in a massive earthquake in the early 1960’s ? So I imagine most of buildings you are seeing in the old town are reconstructions and not the originals.