Mmm, so after watching Titanic for a while on my laptop I went to bed and when I woke up things just weren't as fun as they were before. I couldn't unlatch my compartment door when we were crossing the first border out of Italy at around 4:30 am and with four or five border patrol officers all giving instructions in some unknown language when you are still half-asleep, it can get a little stressful. Luckily I got it open before they were too irked and I was able to go back to sleep again.

The morning was fine too, until it came to figuring out how to continue my journey to Belgrade when my ticket only went to a small town nearby. That town came and went and still no one was coming up to me. It was lucky that they took so long to ask me about my ticket because they ended up taking 8 out of the 12 euro I had on me... and those extra stops in between just might have pushed me into offering either pounds or US dollars to make up for the difference. With my way to Belgrade bought and paid for, all I had to do was stare out the window at the snowy fields of Serbia and hand over my passport to be stamped whenever an officer knocked on the compartment door. It was easy to get used to the system.

In Belgrade I nervously walked over to the tourist information center to ask about train tickets. The man that helped me was surprisingly nice about everything and I was able to buy a ticket to Skopje on a train that left in one hour. An hour in Belgrade doesn't allow you to do much, but I found some drinking water and people watched for awhile outside of the train station before getting on the train at 2pm. It was quite crowded when I got on so I found a middle seat to squeeze into in one compartment and got help from a gentleman to lift my backpack into the overhead rack. I only got a few words out to the five others in the compartment, just something to convey that I only spoke English. I just read Trainspotting and occasionally looked up at the others but obviously did not understand what was going on. I also lent one of my pens to the girl across from me for her Sudoku puzzles and ate a bit of chocolate that was offered to me, both interactions making me proud of myself for being able to handle the language barrier. When the sun went down though, our unheated compartment got quite cold and, when combined with two people smoking, pretty miserable for me so I left to find another one. I squeezed myself into another middle seat and got help again with my backpack. This gentleman spoke a little English so I had a broken conversation with him throughout the next few hours about his dreams to live in southern Canada and how bad Serbian trains were. Right before he left he rummaged a bar of Czech chocolate out of his bag, so of course I returned his generosity with a package of Austrian chocolate wafer cookies. He left with his sons and waved goodbye on the platform, leaving me with an extremely high opinion of Serbians.

Feeling kind of empty and sad that my new friends left me with another four to five hours of train ride to look forward to, I was surprised by four more people filling up the compartment. The first was a younger guy that spoke some English and told me he was a train operator. His friend followed him in and they waved in a couple of girls, one of which sat next to me. She ended up being fantastically interesting and also extremely good at speaking English. Her name was Jelena and had been at school with her sister, the other girl in the compartment, Jolena but they were both headed home. Jelena was so friendly and excited to be speaking English so we had a very high-energy discussion about Scottish/English accents and actors we loved and, this was the best, the Twilight book series. Jelena squeezed a bit of the ending of the fourth book out of me, then explained that the fourth hadn't been translated into Serbian yet so she was going to have a friend buy it in English for her so she wouldn't have to wait. I was sorry to see her and her sister off a few stations down the line, but once again the compartment was filled with three more Serbian girls that the two guys waved in.

Me and my new friends from Serbia in our cozy train compartment

They liked taking photos so I've got a lot on my camera... the guy in the middle was the only one that spoke any English so he was my interpreter

These girls didn't speak English so I was only given a line or two of English every once in awhile from the train operator. Still, they included me as best they could and we ended up having quite a good time together. I found it very entertaining watching the two guys flirt with the girls and their reactions to it. At one point I got to show off all my pictures from Alaska to them which was fun. I started to drop off after the second breakdown of the train and ended up just listening to their conversation, not understanding anything of course. I knew I didn't want to fall asleep and wake up in Greece, kilometers and kilometers away from Skopje, so I held on to consciousness even after the compartment emptied at the border crossing. To stay awake I just listened to my iPod and sang along to Beatles and Jason Mraz songs out loud, sitting by myself. A couple German backpackers stopped by and asked if I knew how long it was to Skopje, so I had other people looking out for the right stop too. I walked a little ways from the train and started thinking about my next move, get denari and a taxi, when I looked up and saw Seth. I ran up and gave him a big hug which knocked him back a little since the weight of my backpack gave me quite a lot of momentum. It was such a relief to see a familiar face after more than 24 hours in a train with completely unfamiliar language surrounding me. We walked a ways and got a taxi to his flat where I met his sister Jenna and my bed, the fold out couch.

Oh it was lovely to sleep in something that wasn't moving and it wasn't until around noon that I woke up to the smell of Turkish coffee. That stuff is strong and I'm certain I'll never be able to drink a normal cup of coffee again. We had a relaxing day of walking around the city and up to the castle that overlooks the Macedonian part of town. We ate lunch in the Albanian part of town, a plate of really delicious sausage type things with freshly baked bread and all the fixings. Coffee was next at a place called Cafe Roma where I had two delicious Macchiatos while watching three small gypsy children terrorize the people passing by. They would surround one or two people and just jump at them, pulling their purses and jacket pockets even while being shoved away. I'll probably have nightmares about gypsy children for awhile after this.

Back at home Seth made a plate of cheese, olives and bread which we munched on while drinking Rakaja and talking to Seth's friend Cole. Cole is from Iowa but he's been in Macedonia for four months and now teaches English to business people. We went out to a wine bar together and enjoyed several bottles of red wine as the place filled up with smoke and people. Part way into the evening the table behind us was filled with Americans and we all just couldn't stop listening to them and laughing. Apparently Seth and Cole had never seen other Americans at this bar before and it was rather unnerving to have them lean over and talk to us in English.

Macedonian words I've learned so far:
Thank you - Fallah
Cheers - Lise Strabe
No problem - Ne ma problem

Seth's other two friends, Mema and Leon, joined us during the last bottle. They convinced us all to go to Club Havana where a band was going to be playing live rock music. The band was actually quite a good cover band and it was really fun to be singing along to the Friends theme song, Kings of Leon and Incubus with a club packed with Macedonians. My eyes were red from the smoke by the end of the night and it was nice to escape to some fresh air. It's something I probably never appreciated enough before, but after staying in a country that loves to smoke I will probably never take fresh air for granted again.