FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia)

This past Friday night I got the opportunity to Skopje the next day because one of our students is from there and needed to go home to get his things. This students name is Gjoko and he has been accepted at Ole Miss with a scholarship to go study journalism. We were worried about this because Gjoko could not get a visa to go into the US. BUT Gjoko got his visa! So he gets to go study in the USA!

I've realized that its really difficult for students that do not have an American passport to get a visa to go anywhere. To get my visa to come here the paperwork was intense but they gave it to me within a week. For students here to travel into other countries they have to get visa documents to even go for the weekend, unless it is a Shengan country.... which just means that they gave agreements between them so that people can move easier.

So yesterday morning 5 of us from Perrotis College got into Klearchos' car to head north into FYROM. After a little confusion (on my part) and a quick trip back to my room, we all had our passports and papers to cross the border. Because I work at an international college (we have something like 4 continents represented) all our passports were different colors and languages :)
Greece, FYROM (Macedonia), Bulgaria, and America were all represented!

I LOVE THAT ABOUT HERE... we're all SO different and still can be friends and understand each other.

Crossing the border both to and from the guards looked at all of our passports and raised their eyebrows at such international diversity.

In Greece there is a giant argument with people from FYROM about the name of the country- Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia or simply Macedonia. People from FYROM call their country the Republic of Macedonia. Greeks are upset at this because Macedonia was the land that is FYROM and stretched all the way south to central Greece. But when you cross the border the signs of the country say Macedonia. This dispute is deeper than you would think.

We went into Berovo and Strumica. Berovo is a town located near Bulgaria...

Berovo is in the central eastern side of the country. To get to Berovo we drove up across the border by Strumica and through crazy mountains with a ton of fog. It was about 3 degrees Celsius and got down to -3. Awesome right? There was a ton of fog but no snow! That part was irritating especially driving through mountains trying to get back to Strumica after sunset... thank God I wasn't driving!

FYROM's currency is the Denar. 60 Denar = 1 Euro.

This is Gjoko's neighborhood in Berovo... there are older vehicles like this everywhere and fire wood is stacked up because that is how everyone heats their houses.

We went to a cafana (a restaurant) and had tons and TONS of amazing food. This is a Macedonian beer called SkopSko. It is like the national pride of FYROM and was really good! 

This is the salad we had... it was SO good! The fish looking stuff on the plate to the right is cheese that has been fried. The cheese is very salty and is a lot like haloumi in Greece. 

This is the lake in Berovo... unfortunately is was foggy but it was still pretty!

There are differenet kinds of Slavic languages throughout this region. South Slavic is comprised of many different dialects. They include Macedonian and are all different even though all dialects can understand and communicate with one another. This is Macedonian:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Slavic_languages

It was really interesting seeing a country that had been so effected by centuries of disputes. I really loved it though!

Salonika

Recently the NY Times published the Top 41 Places to Go in 2011.... and Thessalinike, (also known as Salonika) was ranked #38...
http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/travel/09where-to-go.html?pagewanted=4

This is why you should come see the beauty of what has become my Greek playground!

1. Located right next to the Aegean/Meditteranean Sea!


Coming from Florida and always being around water this gave me a sigh of relief when I first landed in Greece. Actually, if you fly into SKG (Thessaloniki) you will come in right over the sea and realize immediately that the water here sparkles a different shade of blue... this is absolutely beautiful!

2. History

Not only was Thessaloniki ancient stomping ground for the relatives of Alexander the Great (approx 315 BC) but through history the city has changed hands so many times its history is completely unique. The Rotunda (I think the first phsyical structure erected to worship Zeus... at least thats what scholars say) marks this checkered history. The Rotunda is a giant building which has been adapted to suit the main religion of whoever controlled Greece throughout the ages... From the Romans to the Turks everyone has pretty much left their mark of the city.

Everywhere you can see ancient or Byzantine churches smushed between modern streets, parks, sidewalks, apartments and stores.... this is something that absolutely blew my mind the first time I saw it. Although history is SO MUCH apart of the city progress is still being made.

Haha- for example the future subway in downtown Salonika... they had to destroy part of some ancient something so that they could actually build it.
Or... like my residence hall I live in... when they were digging initially they began finding Roman stuff from back in the day... so in the basement/1st floor their is like an exhibit where the builders just left stuff and built around it.
This gives a really nice feel to the building.

3. Location

Thessalonike is located in the northern part of Greece. This means that it does get cold (we had snow here!) but not too cold. Albania, FYROM (former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), and Bulgaria are within a few hours north and Turkey is only a bus ride away to the east. Not to mention one of the hottest places to vacation here is only 1.5 hours away... Halkidiki.


4. χαλαρώ = Thessalonike local word for relax!

Hanging and and being chill is so much apart of the culture in Greece... but in the north its kicked up to a whole new level... they have a local word for it!

5. Nap time

This is a standard part of Balkan culture that I believe Americans need to adopt. Everday from 3-5 pm is naptime. Stores close, people are quite and the world seemingly stops. The streets turn from busy to quite and the everyone slips into their apartments and homes to take their daily afternoon siesta. Now- in true fashion naptime is followed by coffee... so don't fret that all productivity is lost. But things typically take longer (much longer) to get accomplished in Greece.

The ancient art of phyllo :)

For me the past few weeks since I've returned back to Greece has been filled with so much fun. In the past couple weeks I have learned how to make phyllo dough- from scratch! From this I learned to make tiropita (cheese pie). A few days I learned how to make pastrami... never have I thought I would actually learn to cure meat with salt and make a paste that dries the meat out to perfection! Apparently you can make pastrami from any meat availalbe. I would post the pastrami recipe but I only have it in Greek. BUT if any of you are brave enough to try making phyllo it really isn't that difficult (at least not when I tryed with 2 lovely persistent Greek women standing over me perfecting my rolling technique).

For the most perfect phyllo dough ever:
-4 cups flour
-1 cup cold water
-4 teaspoons oil (vegetable i think- or olive)
-1/2 tsp salt

(Yes! This is really all it takes... and a heaping spoonful of gumption!)

Mix these together with your hands to create a large (consistent) ball of dough that isn't too elastic and is mixed well. Form into 10-13 small dough balls and wrap all of them together in seran wrap and stick in fridgerator for 30 min to 1 hour.
Now don't get over zealous and try to work with these dough balls before they've been in the fridge long enough.
Get some extra flour so that you can roll these balls out individually. Traditionally Greeks use a giant wooden cutting board looking area to roll these suckers out. Instead of a standard rolling pin they use long wooden dowels to beat the phyllo into long paper thin pastry perfection...

I'm thinking an American equivalent (if y'all don't happen to have these traditional wooden things in your kitchen) is a small rolling pin and large flat surface to work around. Now- get ready for some serious phyllo action.

Pull out your dough and work with 1 dough ball at a time. Put flour on your flat surface and place dough in middle placing more flour on top. Press the rolling pin into the dough horizontally and then vertically creating an imprinted cross. Put rolling pin in middle and roll out gently but with force. Remember- it's just dough... but its phyllo. The point is to roll it out thin enough so it can crisp up to taste amazing with many layers.

Do this with every dough ball... And from here you can make milopita (apple pita), tiropita (cheese pita), spanatiropita (spinach & cheese pie).... the oppurtunities are endless!
Have fun!

Warning: this can be really time consuming...

I was standing in the cafeteria when Mrs. Soula came up to me and said to me "you will learn phyllo today?" I responded "sure!"
This was around 2.30 pm. I entered her kitchen around 3 pm and around 6.30 my golden tiropita (cheese pita) came out of the oven. My phyllo was freaking perfect. I stood admiring this golden Greek art as 12 older Greek men and women stood around the pan munching on their own slices of my phyllo masterpiece they raved at how perfect my phyllo actually was.
Amist many foreign greek words I managed to translate a few of their vocab as they gushed... "who did this?!?," "American girl," and many different forms of "fantastic phyllo!"

I am pleased to say that when I return home I will be packing a giant long wooden phyllo rolling utensil. When I get back in the US I will most likely be building my own giant wooden cutting board... it's super functional and just plain looks so awesome.