Southeastern Europe Travel Diary Part Six

21.11. 20:57
Today was the first day of my trip that was less active. Before I work I went to a bakery and had breakfast. I also prepared my clothes for washing, as I’m planning to do that at my next destination, Thessaloniki. After I finished work, I walked around Igoumenitsa and discovered a few cute spots. This town is the first place I could imagine living. It’s small and not over-touristy. The people seem very nice and my accommodation is the first one I really like.

23.11. 19:46
I’m exhausted. Today is the first day I’m really exhausted. Not from travelling, though. I feel like it’s my surroundings. Work has been stressful because I’m currently taking a lot of days off, and there are many things that need to be done before Christmas. I really enjoyed my time in Igoumenitsa, there wasn’t much to do or see but I found a cute little park I really liked.

Yesterday, I arrived in Thessaloniki, but it feels like it’s been ages ago. It’s so weird how time is slowing down while travelling. Every day, I’m doing so many things. It feels like one day could be a week, at least. Today after work I explored the city a bit and though I’m in the very best accommodation yet, I don’t like Thessaloniki. I imagined it as a tourist holiday destination, but it’s more like an industrial place. It’s super crowded and the roads are very busy. I guess this is the first big city of my trip. There aren’t many things to see and the museums I really like only operate during my working hours. As we’re one hour ahead here, I might be able to go in the morning before work, though. The city general appears more grey if that makes sense, and I see many shady people here. I’m actually looking forward to going to the next place tomorrow.

25.11. 20:44
I have to admit, I haven’t been feeling like writing these days. I can’t really say why, but I feel like I’ve been super busy juggling work and travelling. Although it’s only been yesterday when I crossed the border to Macedonia, it felt like ages ago. The drive was quite enjoyable. At the Macedonian border, I had my first encounter with “trouble.” The officer asked for a green card, and I had no idea what he meant. My first thought was some type of VISA, and I immediately thought how stupid it was of me not to research it beforehand. But then he told me that it’s some kind of international car insurance. Because there were many cars behind me and I didn’t want to keep the queue, I asked him if I could park and look for it. He agreed and kept my passport and car information with him. I looked through my car papers but couldn’t find anything. Luckily, the Greek internet was still working (my European plan does not include Macedonia), so I tried to call my insurance guy. But unfortunately, he didn’t pick up the phone. I saw a place selling green cards right at the border, and while I half thought about just going there and buying one, I knew in my guts that I had international insurance. So I went online to my insurance documents and soon enough found the international insurance card to download. I went back to the officer and showed him the document, hoping it would be ok to provide it digitally. He said it was alright and I was able to continue. I was already speeding up when a few metres ahead, a customs officer signed me to stop. He asked me if I had anything to declare, and I said no. He saw the boxes with my donations for Romania and asked me about it. I told him what was in there and that he could have a look. But he declined and let me continue. As I was almost running out of gas, I stopped at the next gas station and was happy that my research was true and gas was so much cheaper in Macedonia than in Greece. About 50 cents per litre.
Soon enough I arrived at my accommodation and after settling in, I went to check out the city centre. The positive feeling I had as soon as I crossed the border continued. The people seemed friendly, and Skopje like a welcoming city.

The museums were still open, so I checked out the Mother Theresa Memorial House and continued to the Macedonian Square, where a little boy was playing football. I signed him to shoot the ball to me, and he did. We played for about 10 minutes before I continued to the Holocaust Museum. This was the most interesting Jewish Holocaust Museum I’ve seen yet (aside from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam), and I’ve visited many. It was well designed, the stories were told in an understandable way, and it was really interesting to see the Macedonian point of view.

That’s why I continue to visit museums in every city. Even if it’s the same topic, there are always different points of view. It also made me very sad to find out that out of 7000 Jewish Macedonians, only 50 survived the Holocaust. The thing that got me the most was the gas chambers. Yes, obviously I’ve heard of them before. But in this museum, they recited the whole process (they didn’t actually show anyone getting hurt, of course), from when the people were taken to what happened to the corpses afterwards. Never in my life will I ever be able to understand why people are murdered. Especially for their race or religion. In my opinion, religion should be prohibited in public, and there hardly would be any conflicts left around the globe.
Anyway, I went back to my accommodation.
Today, for the first time of my trip, it’s been raining all day. I had a very slow morning before heading to the city and decided to leave my umbrella behind because I don’t really mind getting wet. As it was getting colder (according to Google only 4 degrees), I changed from my jumper-like vests to my softshell jacket, which I bought in Melbourne back in 2019. I’m still trying not to put warm clothes on, as I guess it will be freezing in Iceland and try to harden my body up a little. So I only wear a thin long-sleeved shirt underneath the jacket and it was more than warm enough for me. Because I walked a lot and the rain was getting heavier, I got really wet. But that didn’t keep me from exploring the Old Bazaar and the Skopje Fortress.

I really enjoyed it but finally decided to go back. When I arrived, I could hardly move my fingers and was soaking wet. I warmed up, had lunch, and started to book my Iceland trip. This was the most exhausting thing I had to do yet, as it was super hard to find a flight to Valencia that wasn’t ridiculously high-priced. I looked for hours and checked almost every airport in Europe until I finally booked something. Then, I also booked the accommodations and the rental car, and now I feel good that I finally did all of that and can relax a little. I’m actually enjoying doing nothing after the previous days and am happy that I’m off work till Thursday. Tomorrow I’ll leave for Kosovo.