We're Finally Here!

We’ve just only wrapped up our first full day in Macedonia and there’s so much to say. The lot of us arrived bleary eyed but pretty much exited out of our minds at the Skopje airport on Monday afternoon. We all piled into a bus and rode down to our training site. Jillian remarked the whole way, “It looks like southern California.” Completely true. The landscape was very dry with small brush, few trees, and small, rolling hills.

We arrived at the hotel in our training site, delighted to be at rest for at least the next week. Within the first hour or so, Jillian and I had managed to blow out our surge protector. Forgetting it didn’t convert the electricity, I plugged it into the wall and pressed, “reset.” There was a pop, the smell of burning hardware, and my arm tingled for roughly 30 minutes. The rest of the night was much more relaxing, featuring traditional Macedonian food and some local wine ($2 a bottle!), and we slept hard, awaking this morning to a full schedule that included a Macedonian dance troupe, our first language lesson (basic greetings, etc) and a scavenger hunt through the city.

The next few days will be more introductions to basic customs and conversation and on Saturday we finally meet (cue: dramatic music) our host families. We’re looking forward to trying out our new language skills on the local Macedonians, who seem to be very friendly and eager to help us as we slosh through basic phrases.

What else would they name the airport?

More pics to come, but the connection is bad...