Yesterday was my first full day here in Skopje.
The day actually started very early in the hostel I am staying at. At 1-1:15 am, with myself still awake and two others sleeping in a six-bunk dorm, the woman working here flung open the door and turned on the light to show two prospective guests the room. She talked seemingly at the top of her voice while showing the room off, and then closed the door and turned off the lights after a minute or so. The two guys didn't check in and join us in the room-so I guess they chose to stay somewhere else-I don't know if I would be that picky at that hour.
At 7:00 am or so, I put on my sneakers to go for a jog, as per usual, and went out to the small courtyard in front of the hostel. Then I tried to open the gate to go onto the street, but couldn't. The gate was locked-from the outside-but also from the inside. The property isn't manned from one am (or maybe 1:30) until 8:00 am-so during that time, no strangers can get in-but nobody who is staying here can get out. So I was stuck here until 8:00. when I had the breakfast and went on a walking tour of the city.
Skopje has a good deal of history-there is an old railway station, where use was discontinued in 1963 because of a devastating earthquake-and was turned into a museum. It also turns out Mother Teresa was born in Skopje, so there is a museum dedicated to her which i visited on the walking tour, along with a small Catholic Cathedral. Towards the end, I saw the medieval old town, where traders since the Ottoman days sold their wares, and was now filled with carpet and souvenir shops, and a large mosque, which used to be the second largest Mosque (after Istanbul).
In between though-we saw statues. Lots and lots of statues. And neo-classical architecture. The mayor of the town loves statues, and classical architecture. So we passed a house of telecommunications and other government buildings all made to appear that they are hundreds of years old, yet they we're only completed over the past 5 years. We saw a giant statue of Alexander the Great, and two bridges with statues evenly spaced (about 7.5 meters) on each side from the next. Each bridge must have had 40 statues on it. Statues of poets, singers, and everyone else. All of this was finished within the past 5 years. There was even an old pirate boat in the river, ordered by the mayor, (the river is barely wide enough to contain the boat). The tour guide mentioned the mayor was also building a ferris wheel, along the lines of the London Eye, and a huge tower modeled after the CN Tower in Toronto.
When I asked how all this classical architecture and statues we're funded, the tour guide mumbled something about the European Central Bank extending low cost credit, and how most of the smart people in town had left, and the only ones left we're people who didn't care much about the extravagant spending. Although I spent four hours on the tour, (including a twenty minute break to drink some rakia), the guy seemed to rush through, and he didn't want to answer my questions. He mentioned that during socialist days of Tito one area was frequented by prostitutes, and I asked why there we're prostitutes during socialist times, where basically everyone had a job-he said that wasn't important.
He also mentioned an area around the stock exchange, and when I asked why there was a stock exchange in a country with a relatively small economy, he snapped at me and claimed he went to school for economics and knew all about stock exchanges.
After the tour, I joined four others who we're on the tour for lunch at a restaurant he recommended for salad with lots and lots of cheese and bread with more cheese-the service was slow.
At four oclock, I went back to the hostel for a nap, and to check somethings online about future plans. Then I went back into town for dinner of pizza (the menu in the Balkins is limited), and returned to the hostel around 11:00. This hostel, unlike the last one I was at, has a flat-screen tv in the lounge, so I watched some European MTV (which still plays videos), and then went to bed.
