From Alexander the Great to Serbian Kings

This might be my last post. or at least second to last I am nearing the end of this magical journey and little more than two days from landing in Detroit.

First let me take you back to Monday night, when I ended staying with Thessaloniki with a few friends. It was a fun city with lots of history and character. The nighttime scene was chilled at local pubs, but exciting because I was eating Greek food and drinking some Uzo. We then went on a boat ride in the Aegean Sea, where we could dance in the middle of the harbor until 6 a.m. (Of Course we didn't stay out until the sunrise, but the possibility made it seem even cooler.)

At 10 a.m. I took a 4 hour train ride north to Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. As I arrived to this small country I was thinking how I had originally planned to go to Bulgaria and how I wanted to be in Sofia, but I soon changed my mind after I learned more about the country and city's history.

Skopje is home to Mother Theresa and the city prides its native daughter with a square and statues. Macedonia is home to Alexander the Great and the country prides about one of the world's strongest leaders. The city also has a tragic history that dates back to July 1963, when a massive earthquake damaged the beautiful city and as one artist wrote "The clock stopped turning."

Nevertheless, this poor country remains its character and I spent about 5 hours walking through the old fortress, the stone bridge, old town, which included a massive market and buildings centuries old. It also included a Monsoon which forced me to quickly leave the fortress and bunker down in a pub with a French girl and two men from Poland and Bosnia.

I eventually made it back to near the train station and found a random restaurant along the way. The food was amazing (Beef Stroganoff) and I knew it was a good place when the woman at the luggage counter saw my reciept and looked astonished that I found the little treasure. "Great place. Just great place." she said.

I left the town at 10:20, which was about 1.5 hours late. But I met a friend from Iceland and we ended up talking till about 1 a.m. about how his country is neutral and how the U.S.A. is of course not. We laughed (well he didn't really laugh) when the Serbian border security didn't know where his country was and took his passport for 30 minutes. And after passing out till 8, we are now in Serbia's capital, Belgrade.

Anyway, this has been an incredible journey and I am excited to see beautiful Belgrade before heading back to Budapest tomorrow.