Autumn Hike

As you can tell, I am getting caught up on photos. Back in the fall, Matt and I took our annual hike. Not that we have anything against hiking but I never quite think about it until the leaves start to change. Bulgarian fall-time mountain hikes were gorgeous (see below) so I figured we would give the Macedonian Mt. Vodno a shot.

Bulgarian Hike:

We started our day by driving halfway up the mountain to the gondola.  We rode the (fairly fancy) gondola up to the top to the huge cross.  You can then go up to the top of the 20 something story cross, but we opted against that.  Instead, we walked around the top of the mountain taking in all of the different views.

 On the Gondoloa!

 Making our way to the top.

 The HUGE cross.

Taking in the views.

Playing along with the photo shoot.

We then began our trek down.  We decided to walk down the mountain to get a little exercise (plus we were kinda scared of the gondola..ha!) We originally started following the crowds down a paved path.

 Then we decided to veer off the path, of course we chose the trail with the least amount of people.

 This turned out to essentially be STRAIGHT DOWN HILL!  Our legs were literally burning/shaking.  At one point I wondered if we would make it to the bottom before nightfall. 

On one of our brief breaks.  After this, there we no more photos.  Only concentration.  We FINALLY made it to the car park about an hour later.  We had sore legs for days.  

So that's our hiking extravaganza until next year!

 

Merry Christmas!

I know this might seem a little late to some but today is actually Orthodox Christmas day. And it is snowing! Well just a little bit, really, but a white Christmas is a white Christmas, right?

The festivities actually begin several days prior to Christmas Day and we were lucky enough to witness much of it.

2 days before communities/neighborhoods gather and have these huge bonfires filled with music, singing and warm rakia (Macedonian brandy) our neighborhood event happens to be almost a cross the street from our house.  We opted not to go because we have been MAJORLY jet lagged and, quite frankly, just not in the mood.  It was fun to see the neighborhood a buzz though, hear the music, and listen to the fireworks. Since we will likely be here for the holidays next year we agreed we would venture out and participate.  Below is a pretty terrible pic that I tried to capture of the festivities.

Then early the following morning young kids come around ringing doorbells signing and looking for treats (much like our Halloween.) Luckily we were jet lagged because our bell rang at about 6:30 am! By the time we were downstairs the kids were next door at the neighbors singing ( luckily, since I had no treats to give! Ha) it was fun to listen to the kids running around.

Then on Christmas Eve families gather for a meat less meal.  There is a traditional 40 day fast with no meat that is then broken on Christmas Day. 

I look forward to learning more, and even actually experiencing, orthodox Christmas next year.

For now, I am going to enjoy my LAST day of vacation at home and attempting to stay awake all day so that I can get more than 3 hrs of sleep tonight before work tomorrow...

Happy New Year!

Although I may be a little late, today is the official start to my new year! We arrivd back fom a month in the states yesterday. A now it is back to reality for sure! We arrived back to a smoggy, pollution laden Skopje and to a cat-less house. Talk about depressing! As you know, our (my) 18 year old cat passed away a couple days after we arrived in the states. She was here in Macedonia  with our housekeeper who really took great care of her up until the end. The house is definitely eerie without her.  I got the cat when I was 14 years old so she definitely lived a long, well traveled life! Now it will be interesting to see how long we remain pet-less ;)

Ugh, the picture above is from nye but the iPad is driving ,e nuts and not all ping me to put this in the appropriate spot...

May you rest in peace, sweet girl!

Besides that major downer and getting sick for a week we had a gret trip home. We saw many ( not all) of our friends and family.  Highlights of our trip include:

- I was able to take an awesome trip with my BFF to NYC. I'd always wanted to go around Christmastime! It was awesome to have some one on one QT time! We haven't done that in years!

N

- besides being sick, we had a great week with my parents down in Williamsburg.  My mom and I shopped till we dropped and Matt rested and caught up on TV.

- after Williamsburg we were all rested up and headed to Matt's parents in Staunton, Va.  We had an exciting time there playing little elves helping his parents prepare for Christmas and I had some precious time with my nieces and nephews! Which included a girls only shoe shopping trip and build a bear trip (our Christmas present to the nieces.) In a change from our norm, we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning with Matt's parents

- We made it to my parents for a super yummy Christmas dinner filled with lots of yummy wine

- we closed out our stateside visit in Northern Va with friends which included a quick New Years eve jaunt to New Jersey to see Matt's favorite band

Now we are back in Skopje just in time for Orthodox Christmas, which is Monday.  Lucky us, we have a 3 day weekend before getting back to the grind on Tuesday!

Updates...with Photos!

As you can probably tell, times are a changin' for the Armstrongs over here in Macedonia!  I am usually the type of person to grin and bear whatever comes my way (albiet with complaining to my nearest and dearest.)  This is our life, a life of constant change.  But this time...this time, for some reason, I am having a HARD time with our life changes.  I've decided that I'll just embrace it.  Not sure if that is a good or bad thing, but it is what it is.  I just can't seem to find my groove here in Macedonia.  One of my dear friends that I met in Bulgaria VERY early on (who is still living there) keeps reminding me of our weird/wild first months in Bulgaria.  They were STRANGE and WEIRD for sure!  But I still appreciate those times, they were all part of the process.  With this move, I was not prepared AT ALL!  We had no time and I truely believe that is why it's so hard this time around. 

There are many great things about this country.  The people are SO nice and welcoming!  For instance, check out all of this produce that was given to by neighbors and co-workers.

 We also have been gifted home made Ajvar from our neighbor.  This time of year Macedonian's start preparing for the winter and jarring all of the lovely fresh produce.  Ajvar is a mix of roasted red peppers and eggplant.  I think it's delish on a piece of bread!

Other great things include a REAL town square and an old town (as I've mentioned before.)  There are a TON of crazy statues, which as a non-Macedonian, I sort of think are interesting.  It sounds like a lot of locals just find them a bit tacky...again, personally, I think they are interesting.

 Matt with Mother Theresa.  Mother Theresa, who was ethnic Albanian, was born in Skopje.

 What is assumed to be a statue of Alexander the Great (formally called "the man on the horse) which would probably upset the Greeks since Macedonia and Greece have a "name issue" with the name Macedonia.  There is also a region of Northern Greece called Macedonia.

                                                              The Arc 'd Skopje:)

                                      Matt standing in Mother Theresa's child hood home.

 The main plostad (or square) with the big Skopsko sign (in Cyrillic, of course.)  Skopsko is the Macedonian Nat'l Beer.

 A couple of weeks ago on a BEAUTIFUL day, we went to check out the opening day of a wine festival in the city center.  I thought it would be a GREAT way to try different Macedonian wines. Turns out you buy a whole glass of wine, at each booth, and the glass is filled to the brim.  I didn't like my chosen glass so we ended up leaving the festival for a walk around town and dumped my wine in the grass.  Bummer.

 Another new statue.  A man and a woman embracing, not sure who it is?

 Sitting on a bench, enjoy the day and people watching.

 We strolled down to the river.

 Look at these neat statues!!!

 Matt allowing me to play photographer in the afternoon light!

 My favorite statue, of Filip the I or II (not sure) waving his fist in the direction of Greece...(not my favorite because of what it stands for, just like the big burly man and his fist.  Must stay politically correct here, people...:))

                                                               The Vardar River.

                                                          Another interesting statue.

The old train station turned museum.  I think it is fascinating that the clock on the building stopped at the exact time that the Great Earthquake of 1963 that essentially leveled the city. 

So there you have it.  I still must post about our fabulous trip to Ireland with friends from D.C., next week maybe.

For now, I hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Making a home...

So our shipment  of things arrived from Bulgaria yesterday and Matt and I took the day off from work to receive the items and get organized.  Our total shipment weighed one half of what we are actually allotted and all I could think is 'how in the world do we have SO much stuff?!?!'. This is what it looked like just after the movers left.

Above is Matt.  I asked him why he smiled for the photo because what we had to do was NOT fun.  He said he was happy to have our stuff.  So sweet.  Ha.  I was NOT smiling.  It's so hard to make a house a home! And I am so freaking anal about being perfectly organized. I want to put things away correctly.  Anyway, this is what the house looks like tonight after one full day and one evening of unpacking. 

Andlike I said, this is after SO MUCh work.  But we are making progress which is a good thing since we have our first visitor this weekend.  Yikes!

Kids..

Now don't get too excited about the title of this post people...I just couldn't come up with anything more creative!!  So yesterday we were on our way home from work and this little sedan drove by (at a normal speed) and a CHILD was standing up with his head out of the sunroof!!  Of course, I couldn't get my phone out quick enough to snap a pic!  This is something that drives me NUTS overseas.  I guess there are no child safety laws, and if there are, they are certainly not enforced.  Even in Bulgaria we would see a car zooming down the road and there would be a kid walking around the back see...playing..no seat belt of course.  I might have to look into it more while I am here and figure out why kids are not required to sit in safety seats.  Can you parents imagine??

In another news, Matt's car was booted yesterday...this makes me chuckle.  Sounds like it was resolved pretty quickly and the fine was not too terribly steep...I still laugh. 

Speaking of money, the money here is crazy to me.  It's something like 42 of their denomination = 1 dollar.  So lunch costs 400 denars.  the grocery bill is 4000 denars...I can't even process it properly. 

We are making movement in receiving our things from Sofia...I'm HOPING it will arrive SOON SOON SOON!  I think that will make us feel really settled.  The other thing that I really need to work on is a housekeeper.  The laundry doesn't magically disappear anymore...the pile just grows and grows...To me, a housekeeper is THE perk to living overseas!  Hopefully we will find someone good here who does not insist on stealing from us like our first housekeeper in Bulgaria...

I am SO SO happy that tomorrow is Friday!!  We actually have something social and perhaps FUN to do tomorrow night.  Matt suggested I bring my mug ;) 

Everyone have  a great weekend and hopefully I'll be able to start sharing some photos really really soon!

The Murs Mug!

So since we have arrived in Macedonia I have been "testing" out different Macedonia wines.  BTW, so far, do not compare to Bulgarian wines.  They are more expensive and not as good.  But that is besides the point.  We have no wine glasses!  So I drink my wine out of a coffee mug!  So classy!!  For those of you that know Matt, you know that he calls alcoholic beverages "Murs"  as in "let's go get some Murs tonight!"  or, "are you all Mursed?"  you get the point.  So last week when he wasn't working, he would come home and I would be having my evening cup 'o wine and he would say "you got your murs mug all filled up??"  Now I think I need a special cup/glass just for this.  But until we have proper stemware...this is what I am working with:

Welcome to Macedonia!

Hello everyone!  We've touched down in Macedonia, our new home.  Not to be confused with the ancient Mesopotamia.  Below is a map for you because, why on earth would you know where this teeny tiny country is located?? :) Just next to Bulgaria and just north of Greece.  Should prove to be a pretty ideal location for regional travel.  Travel to the rest of Europe? Not so much!  The flights from here are horrible and expensive!

So, first impressions?  The country appears to be very small and the capital city, Skopje is small as well.  I think there are about 600,000 people in Skopje and 2 million in the entire country.  We have a mountain here much like we did in Sofia.  But overall, the land appears to more dry and arid.  The landscape reminds me a lot of Greece.  Dry, rolling hills, etc.

The people overall seem much friendlier.  I understand hardly any of the language (even though it's quite close to Bulgarian...the stresses on words are so different.)  There is much more of a muslim population here than in Sofia.  The other night we slept with the window open and could here the morning call to prayer, pretty cool.  

 At the moment, I am busy comparing everything to Sofia...the city, the embassy, everything.  I really do miss our Sofia life.  Which is funny, coming from someone that proclaimed to many people that Matt and I could live anywhere.  I know we will be fine, but it is definitely an adjustment.  The good thing about living overseas is that you learn a lot about yourself.  I used to think that change was exciting, now I'm learning that I like to be settled.  I hate the unsettled feeling.  We had a wonderful, well greased machine of a life in BG and now we are starting from scratch again.. 

On positive notes, we love our house.  It's strange for apartment people to actually be in a house, it feels so big to us!  We have rooms we don't even go into!  Our living area is great and provides space and comfort that we did not necessarily have in our "treehouse" of an apartment in Sofia.  I also enjoy our little backyard.  I haven't perfected our bathroom situation yet.  I've heard our master bedroom and bathroom gets EXTREMELY cold in the winter, which doesn't surprise me since it is currently pretty cool and it's 80 degrees outside.  I don't love the set up and am not sure what I can do to make it a bit more conducive for me.  We DO have an American washer and dryer, which if you remember our early days in Sofia then you'll remember doing laundry was one of the great mysteries of the world for me there!  So the American washer and dryer and the ability to actually have DRY and clean clothing is like hitting the jackpot for me!

Funny things that have happened so far:  our first day in town we had to call the "emergency maintenance hotline" because we blew the fuse to our entire downstairs and could not find a circuit breaker that was tripped.  Turns out we have a breaker box outside.  That same day, someone in our house (who shall remain nameless) was messing with our alarm system and set it off.  Of course, being day one, we had NO idea how to shut it off.  It was SO loud and there were flashing lights everywhere!  Local embassy guards were dispatched to our house and after about one hour of working with them, we were able to silence the alarms.  Needless to say, I'm sure the whole neighborhood is aware that the new Americans have arrived!  Lastly, Matt keeps loosing the cat outside!!  He'll go outside and leave the door partially open and the cat slinks out.  He comes in and a few minutes later we are both usually like "where's Chloe???"  and then the mad dash to find her ensues.  She's fascinated with the outside but there is a HUGE doberman next door that could easily hop the fence and gobble up our little old lady!  We can't be having that.  As I type this blog the backyard light came one, it's a motion sensor.  And suddenly I see an orange tabby cat walking around our porch, looking in our windows.  Perhaps these two have maid friends when no one is looking? 

This past weekend we made our first trip up to Kosovo to Camp Bondsteel.  It still sounds so funny to me.  Anyway, Bondsteel is a Nato base about an hour away from us.  They have a Taco Bell (another jackpot for us!) and a Burger King.  It probably sounds gross to those of you stateside but when you have the opportunity to have a little TB in a foreign country, you just can't pass it up!  They also have a little commissary and PX where we can get many of our necessary American fixin's.  Skopje is what is called a "consumables" post.  As in, you are allotted a certain amount of weight to specially ship in food since the local market leaves a little something to be desired.  They have no cheddar cheese...for the love!  So it's nice to know we can scoot up to Bondsteel sometimes to get our staples.  There happened to be some big event at the base that day so our Ambassador was there and we met him in the Taco Bell line for the first time!  A little embarrassing...it's weekend #1 for us and we are already at the TB!  I started work yesterday and during his meeting with all of the different section chiefs he introduced me and shared with the entire group how we met over Tacos at TB this past weekend...nice 'eh?

We still do not have our shipment of items from Sofia, much to my dismay.  I am THE WORST at packing for this type of thing so I ONLY brought flip flops, running shoes, and too pair of my most uncomfortable (but cutest) work heels.  I have no jacket, only light sweaters.  I never even considered that it may be October before our things arrive!!  Hopefully the come quick!

No pictures yet because I forgot the cord to connect the camera to the computer, of course.  But I plan to get out this weekend and begin photographing away!

Stay tuned for more updates and PICTURES!!

Dog Days of Summer

Nothing really exciting to report on our end this summer.  We are literally in the dog days of summer with no vacations planned actually, nothing exciting in general planned.  And it's been HOT here lately as well so being outside much is not awesome.  So, needless to say I'm BORED!  Sure, there are plenty of "chores" to do, but nothing FUN!  I guess the beauty of Macendonia is that we'll be able to hop in the car and be at a Greek beach within a few hours.  I could definitely use some beach time about now!  I really wish I was here, right about now:

With a good book and an icey cold beverage!! Mmmmmmm, heavenly.

In other news, I'm trying to cook and eat more VEGETARIAN lately.   In fact, I haven't had meat in a few days now.  I'm thinking maybe we'll try the whole veg thing during the week and do meat on the weekends or something.  I still LOVE a good piece of meat, but everything that I've been reading all points to meat being BAD.  Plus, we are so lucky to have all of the delicious summer fruit and vegetables available to us!  So a good opportunity to take advantage and try be a little healthier at the same time!

Also on the agenda is to plan a trip here in early September:

We have some friends planning a trip to Ireland and want to meet up with us.  We haven't been yet so hopefully it'll all work out.  It'll be SUPER close to when we move, but I'm trying to stay relaxed about the whole thing. 

But for now, I'll continue to dream I'm here:

And there you have my random collection of thoughts as of late....

July 4th Week

We had quite a celebratory week for the 4th of July here in Bulgaria.  The Saturday before Matt and I hosted a summer soiree at our house.  For no particular reason really.  We do not host things nearly enough because I'm always afraid that our place is too small.  We really love our apartment but because it's an apartment seperated into 2 floors it definitely has a cosey feel.  Anyway, we bit the bullet and decided to have a gathering before many of our friends move away this summer.  As usual, with any party, I didn't take ANY pictures during the party because I was too busy hostessing.  We did manage a few before the party though:

 Our spread of food.  My mom had sent some 4th of July decorations in a care package so we used them for the party.

 Looking out over the mountain from our patio.  My flowers this year are HUGE, I guess from all the rain in May. 

The bar.  Matt, of course, was in charge of this.  I did make Sangria and Margaritas.  I'm still finding sticky spots from the Margs.  Ugh!

Then on Tuesday, July 3rd, we had our official national day celebration at the embassy.  This year the Ambassador wanted something "relaxed", he didn't want people in suits and ties and wanted more of a "backyard bbq feel."  Let me tell you, most receptions that I've been to are very similar.  In a hotel ballroom, with the same food and drink, in business/formal attire.  I think this year was a success for sure.  Our guests seemed to enjoy themselves, and we did too, of course.

                                                          The original diplomats.

                                                     Old Ford (I think they were fords??)

 The Ambassador (in the denim) receiving the colors from the Marines.

 The Marines.  I'm always impressed by how sharp they look in their dress blues.

 And at the end of the function, we even had fireworks! 

 Chloe's idea of relaxing on the 4th, well any day really, I just happened to be home to catch her lazing about on the 4th.

Then, later in the evening, some friends of ours opened their home for a Mexican Fiesta/4th of July celebration.  I told Matt that all I wanted for my birthday was enchiladas and other mexican food.  Because our place isn't condusive to children, our friends agreed to host.  Our friends recently had a little baby.  I was holding the baby for awhile before  I needed to get up and help the hosts.  I asked Matt to take the baby.  He asked if I could just prop her up on the couch.  haha.  So he took her and the boppy and this picture cracks me up.  They are both looking at each other like "hmmmm, what are we doing here???"

 Our awesome spread.  Two kinds of enchiladas, two kinds of rice, dips, homemade guac, homemade salsa, the whole nine yards!

After dinner, and when it was dark enough, all of the women and children went to a balcony in the house to watch the "men" set of fireworks.  And boy were they fireworks.  They were HUGE!  Lets just say one of the neighbors was less than please with us....whoops!

Some when my birthday rolled around the following day, July 5th, we were EXHAUSTED!!  After work we decided to just stay home, Matt made us a delicious salad for dinner, and relax. 

Overall it was  a fabulous week!  This weekend has been super low key and I think we'll head to the pool today for a cooling dip. It's been a little hot here (not nearly as hot as back home thought...)