abbey abroad :)

Awesome thing about living in Macedonia #97: Two Christmases. :)

A few lessons learned so far during my time in Macedonia:

1. The Macedonian alphabet song is waaay cooler than ours.
2. Macedonians have a hard time saying "squirrel." It's funny to hear them try.
3. There are tons of things America has that Macedonian doesn't. But. There are some things Macedonian has that America doesn't! Like stoplights that have a countdown so you know when it will be green; and magical kitchen appliances that boil your water for coffee in five seconds or less; and 3-in-1s that have coffee, milk, and sugar in them so you just have to add water.
4. 2 Christmases = HAPPY
5. Always say yes to burek. Always.
6. The Skopje Zoo is quite possibly the very worst place to be an animal in captivity. Perhaps that's why the peacock tried to escape.
7. Some squatty potties are okay. The one at the bus station in Prilep is not. Avoid at all cost.
8. New Years is a big deal here. 12-hour parties two nights in a row is to be expected.
9. Macedonia is a bad place to be if you don't like cucumbers.
10. Take care when greeting someone in Macedonian. He/She will undoubtedly mistake you for a fluent speaker and begin babbling in Macedonian. No number of "Ne razbiram!"s will deter them.
11. Coffee. Everywhere.
12. White teeth make you stand out as American (see #11). Even if you are wearing skinny jeans.

Fly, peacock, fly!

I feel like I experience so many new things, I could blog every day! But I'll spare you that. :) Of course, every time I blog, I'll probably just write every single thing that happened since the last post, so maybe it would be better to just write every day... anyways. Ha. Here we go.

I like it here! It doesn't feel like home, but then again, I've only been here a week. It feels like it's been longer. Every day brings new experiences (and new challenges), but I'm enjoying it. I've had two four-hour language lessons so far. Yes, four hours. I usually do well for about three hours, and then all the letters start running together. But my teacher is great! She's 28, and she teaches Macedonian to the workers at the American embassy. I actually do genuinely enjoy my lessons with her. And I like the language a lot. And being in a non-English-speaking country definitely motivates me to learn the language! There is nothing more humbling than only being able to read at the pace of a 6-year-old (and not knowing what you're reading). Really. And knowing that when you see a 3-year-old, he has a better vocabulary than you do.

Yesterday, I met a girl named Tanja (pronounced like Tanya) who goes to my church. She's my "cultural guide" or something. Basically, I'll meet her twice a week so she can help me get familiar with the city and the bus system (ugh.), and she's a conversation partner for me. I really enjoyed my time with her yesterday, and I'm excited for tomorrow! She doesn't think she speaks English very well, but I would definitely call her fluent. She shared her testimony with me, which was a really neat story, and we were able to have great conversations while we walked around. She took me downtown and to the big bazaar. Talk about overwhelming! It was so crowded and loud and exciting! It's on the Albanian side of town. We also saw plenty of Roma begging. That will definitely take some getting used to.

Here are a few pictures from around the city:

Mother Teresa--She was born here in Skopje.

Mother Teresa Museum

This is the Stone Bridge, built around the 15th century. There are tonnns of statues around the city, and they're building more. That's President Roosevelt, in honor of his helping Macedonia gain its independence. I think. :)

Kale Fortress

Looking into the Old Bazaar. It looks so much cooler in real life!

Today, I got to go into a Roma home for the first time. One of Karen's friends just had a baby, so I went with her to give them a gift. This particular Roma settlement (there are several in the city) has about 3,000 people living in it. It was very muddy and dirty. We drove down a street and then walked through a maze of houses about 3 feet apart on every side! It was all on a steep hill. It looked really neat! But all the houses there are in pretty bad shape. Actually, it reminded me of the houses on the Navajo Reservation, just a lot closer together. When we got there, I met the grandmother and grandfather, both of whom are believers. The mother of the new baby (not a believer) served us Turkish coffee and mineral water. And I learned I don't like Turkish coffee or mineral water. :) The Turkish coffee was okay, just not my beverage of choice. They put the coffee grounds in your cup, and you let it sit for a while after they give it to you to let the grounds sink to the bottom. You stop drinking when you get close to the bottom so you don't drink the grounds. With sugar, it wasn't bad. I'm sure coffee lovers would really enjoy it! I didn't know this before I got to the house, but a lot of the Roma drink mineral water more than regular water. I'd never had it before today, and I can't say I liked it! But that's okay. :) It was exciting to actually see where I'll be working today. And it made me more anxious to learn Macedonian! The Roma speak Romani and Macedonian, but very few of them speak English, and those who do only know a little.

Driving into the Roma settlement

Sweet baby boy :)

Big sister Betty (named after my supervisor) with her new brother

Today, I had my first "I love Macedonia!" moment. It was quick, but it was there. :) More on that later. First, let me tell you about my day!

After finally catching up on my sleep (10 hours... hallelujah!), I got up and was eating breakfast when my friend Ginna called. She and Hannah went through orientation with me, and they live in Ohrid, a city about 2.5-ish hours away. Ginna was calling to let me know they were on their way to Skopje and would be at my church! So it was my very first time in my Macedonian church, and two of my favorite friends were there. Awesome. Speaking of awesome, I LOVE my church! Granted, this is after only attending one service, but the people were sooo friendly. The entire service was in Macedonian, so I didn't really get anything spiritual out of it, but it was such a blessing to be around Macedonian believers. They also sang some American worship songs (and Christmas songs!) in Macedonian, so I just sang along in English. Is that cheating?

Afterward, Karen and I went to a mall to have lunch with Ginna and Hannah and the family on their team that came up with them. This is when the "I love Macedonia!" moment happened. I sometimes have these things I call bursts of affection (or BOAs, as my brother calls them) for people, where basically, as one friend once put it, my heart explodes into little heart-shaped fireworks of affection for somebody. When I walked in the mall, I had a burst of affection for Macedonia. :) There were lots of Christmas decorations* everywhere! There was this ridiculous, repetitive, kiddish music playing, and there was a little crowd gathered in the middle of the mall watching young girls from a dance school perform. Then, this guy dressed in a very worn Santa** suit started climbing a fire escape ladder they had attached to the food court on the second floor. It was so awkward and hilarious. It was part of the program, but everyone just stood there watching as he climbed up for a good five minutes with that dorky music playing in the background and struggled over the top railing, landing right next to innocent family enjoying their McDonald's. And for some reason, all of this ridiculousness just made me really happy. BOA.

Awkward.

Friends from Ohrid. :)

After lunch, I went to a toy store in the mall called Jumbo that randomly sells things for your home. I bought several nice looking photo frames, all for really cheap, and a cinnamon candle to make my apartment smell like home in Tennessee. But I forgot matches. Boo.

Karen dropped me off at my apartment at about 2:30. I won't see her again until about the same time tomorrow, so I thought I might get lonely. (I still can't really do anything on my own yet. But that should change this week!) I prayed that I would be able to meet some of my neighbors tonight or see Bagge again. When I got to my apartment door, it was open, and my landlords were inside! I was thankful to see people. :) Oh, let me explain why they were inside. My hot water heater has been leaking, so they called someone to fix while I was at church. Apparently, they didn't have the key to the apartment, so they took the lock off the door. Then, they had to wait for some more men to come to put the heavy-duty locks back on. They don't speak English, so I don't know this for certain, but that's the only explanation I can think of for why the pieces to my door were lying on the floor when I got home. :)

I really like my landlords. The wife, Lile, is basically as Macedonian version of Madame Blueberry, and the husband, Jimmy, reminds me of someone, but I can't figure out who. He's a sweet little man. We were alone together for about an hour, so I made them some coffee and sat down to chat. In Macedonian. Which I don't speak. It was pretty funny. There was a lot of pointing and ridiculous gesturing, but by the time they left, I had learned a few new phrases and knew that Lile used to teach German and French classes at a college, and they have two sons. It was interesting to be on the other side of an ESL (or should I say MSL?) lesson! Tomorrow, I start my official language study with a tutor. Today was a good warm-up. :)



* Except here, they're New Year's decorations, not Christmas decorations. Lame.
** He goes by Grandfather Time here. Also lame.

I live in Macedonia now! I wonder how many mornings of waking up and looking out the window at the mountains and snow-covered Christmas trees it will take for me to really believe it. I've been here about two and a half days. I would have updated sooner, but... I didn't. I blame jet lag. And internet problems. And mostly jet lag.

My first impression of Skopje: Grey. Very grey. And dirty-ish. And graffiti-ed. Thankfully, I know now that it was just kind of a yucky day. And the rest of the city is better than the area by the airport. I'm not sure that I can put my new opinion of the city into words, but I like it. Yes. Better than I thought I would, I think! I knew it was cold and I always thought the language sounded harsh, so I guess I thought the people would be the same. But they're very friendly! So friendly, in fact, that they're intent on carrying on a conversation with me when it's pretty clear I have absolutely no idea what they're saying. So I just smile apologetically and shrug. And they keep talking. Better than being ignored. :)

My first day here, Karen (my substitute supervisor, you could say) picked me up from the airport. Thanks to getting 5 hours of sleep in that last 48 hours, the whole day was a blur, but I'll tell you what I do remember.

I was carrying an orange in my purse that I got on the flight from Vienna to Skopje. I still haven't eaten it.

Karen took me straight to eat. We went to the mall, and I had toct (pronounced like toast), a typical Macedonian sandwich-type thing, in the food court.

I got my cell phone from Karen.

I took a much-needed shower at Karen's. It's amazing how much better that made me feel!

I signed my apartment lease! Can you believe it? Wonderful Karen already had the perfect apartment picked out. I'll post pictures soon.

I ate at McDonald's. Baha.

I picked up a few groceries.

I slept. Reeaaally well. The internet wasn't working at my apartment, so I stayed at Karen's so I could use hers. She let me sleep in her bed! But the more I get to know her, the more I see that giving up her bed for me was typical Karen. She's really helpful. Really. She's been my guide around Skopje and has helped me with everything. Literally everything.

The next day, I woke up to tons and tons of snow!!! It's so pretty! Brave Karen drove me around. I registered my new address with the police, went to the visa office, and got my photo taken for my Macedonian I.D. Honestly, I didn't know what was going on around me, but apparently those things are important. Thanks to Karen, they got done. :) After I unpacked, Karen and I went to have dinner with the Burkes, a family on our team. There are the parents, BT and Jessica, and their three kids--Brian (4), Lorelai (2), and Anna (3 mos.). Jessica made a delicious dinner! And the kids are some of the most precious kids everrr. I can't wait to get to know them all better!

Today, Karen took me to a street people call Plastic Alley. It's in the Albanian part of town, and there are tons of little shops on either side of the road. I bought a lot of things for my apartment for really cheap. But when we went in a store to try to buy something on the street, the lady gave us the finger wag! The finger wag is common here. You know, shaking your finger to say no? I think it's pretty rude, but everybody does it. So I guess it's not! Anyway, the lady gave us the finger wag because all the shops were closing for the Muslim call to prayer. So we left and went to a big store that kind of looked like a Home Depot on the inside, and I bought more stuff there. I came home for lunch, and then Karen took me back to the Burkes' house to hang out with Jessica. We were supposed to be baking, but mostly she baked and I held the baby. :) Thennn I went on the BIG shopping trip. I got tons of groceries. Things are pretty cheap here, but some of it's still expensive. Basically, if they make it in Macedonia, it's crazy cheap, but if they have to import it, it's expensive. Oh, and you pay in denars. It's about 45-50 denars for 1 US dollar. So when I bought a hair dryer for 999 denars, it was about $20.

I know this post is getting long, but one last thing--I met one of my neighbors! He helped me carry all my groceries upstairs. He's 55 and a retired policeman. I think his name is Bagge. He speaks English--yay! He has a daughter living in Chicago who's coming in town tomorrow, so I told him to bring her by so I could meet her. He was so friendly and kept saying he hopes I'll be his guest sometime. Which, of course, I will. :) I prayed just this morning that I would be able to meet some of my neighbors. He just keeps giving.

Some things are going to take some getting used to, like having the washing machine in the bathroom and the heat turning off at 10 PM and not being able to read signs or food labels, but I'm liking Skopje more every day. I can't believe I get to live here. For my job. Awesome.

It's time.

For the real goodbyes. The ones with the long hugs and the tears and the realization that we won't be seeing each other for a while. After two months of saying mini-goodbyes just in case I don't see them again before I leave, I'm now saying the real goodbyes.

We had about 50 people come by the house last night to say goodbye. It was incredible to be around all the people that have influenced me so much--my youth pastor and his family, old church friends I've known since 3rd grade, adults that have seen me grow up... so many people that have poured their lives into me and shown me what being a Christ-follower really means. And then there were the college friends and friends from youth group... basically, my home was full with almost all of my favorite people! What a blessing. And I'm so thankful to my family for putting it all together. :)

I didn't know if I'd make it through church this morning. I was trying to absorb every word of my last church service in English, but there were so many thoughts going through my mind. How I'll be in a Macedonian church service next week, how I'm so thankful for such an authentic music minister and praise team, how I love Christmas music, how I relish being surrounded by my incredibly loving and supportive church family, how all the new babies will be two years old when I get back... and most of all, how thankful I am for how God brought me to Christ Community. The music minister even played one of my all-time favorite songs (Glory in the Highest) since he knew it was my last Sunday. :)

I've pretty much accepted the fact that I won't be sleeping again until I'm on the plane. There's just toooo much to do! I leave at 6 AM Tuesday. Better get packing! :)

My last 24 hours:

Plane.
Wind.
Hotel.
Yay--snow!
Oh, no--snow!
Taxi.
121 West Wacker Dr.
MACEDONIAN CAB DRIVER.
Signing a paper without knowing what it said because it was in Macedonian. Oops.
VISA.
Wait, my passport isn't stamped...
Back to consulate.
Feeling dumb because it doesn't get stamped until I get to Macedonia.
Awkward.
Catching Fire. (A book. I didn't actually catch fire myself.)
Taxi again.
Plane again.
Home again.

That's right--I am all set to go to Macedonia! I'll probably leave in 1-1 1/2 weeks.

Back to the Macedonian cab driver... Seriously?! Macedonia is TINY. What are the chances that the man driving me to the Macedonian consulate would be from Macedonia? And it was especially awesome because I had specifically--and randomly--prayed for a Macedonian cab driver! He was one of the friendliest people I've ever met! He told me all about Macedonia, and I practiced speaking with him. He only laughed at me a little. :) The main thing he kept saying over and over was, "Oh, you're going to love it there!" He waited for me for free while I was at the consulate, and then he had me sit in the front seat while he drove me back to the airport. And when I signed the receipt and told him that was a nice pen (weird--who says that??), he gave me the pen. Sweet. :) A gift for Macedonia, he said. So basically... we're best friends now. ;) I gave him a prayer card, so I'm really hoping he emails me! Meeting him was such a blessing. The way he talked about Macedonia made me even more excited to get there! Who would have ever thought that my first taste of Macedonia would be in Chicago?