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!