MACEDONIA

Well, I travelled to Skopje Macedonia which is new country for me.  My friends Ana and Velko were going for 2 days to visit family and they had appointments and invited me along. The trip takes about 3 hours. Velko arranged a hotel (The City Centre Hotel) for me in the centre of the city which was 50 euros for 2 nights in total. He is very well connected here, and the hotel was just lovely plus it had CNN, so I got caught up on Trump News!

This city was full of surprises for me. First of all, Mother Theresa was born here!

The city centre looks all new with many statues, fountains and new fronts on the buildings. It looks very European and impressive. Many cafes and restaurants, the food is very good and very inexpensive. I took 5 people out for lunch with a bottle of wine and it cost 25 euros.

I went to the history museum. I had an excellent guide that told me about the wars and the relationship with Greece, which isn’t good. The Museum cost 2 euros with an excellent private guide.

It is very poor in Macedonia and people are not happy that the Government has spent all this money on the grand centre.

My biggest surprise was a very large Holocaust Museum. It is a beautiful large new building in the centre. It is about the same size as the one in Washington. It was closed, and no one knew quite why. The museum was built on a site where the Jewish community lived, but sadly nearly 8,000 were sent to the camps from this community.

Many trees surrounded by mountains, all in all a delightful surprise plus friendly people.

I also had excellent teeth cleaning for 20 euros!!

P.S

Another surprise

I met Luke on the street, a morman. He was a very well dressed young man. He has lived in Skopje for 2 years. He had received this mission from church in Utah and will be going home next month to attend College.  He was funny and said when he received the letter from church saying where he was going for 2 years, he had never heard of or had any idea where the  country was.

Believe it or not Mother Theresa was born in Skopje! Who knew?

Below are pictures of the vibrant centre of Skopje, Capital of Macedonia