Lake Ohrid

This past weekend and week I spent my time around Lake Ohrid. It is a very popular tourist destination and perfect place to get away for some R&R. I left on Saturday and headed over the mountain to Ohrid.  I stayed with a volunteer that lives there.  When I arrived ,she had some work to do so I went off exploring.  I had been to Ohrid a few times before, but when I had it was normally just for the day.  I also wanted to take pictures of all the historical and touristy places that I had already seen, but never took pictures of, because I always said I would come back. (Note: all of the historical information is from my "Macedonia" guide book.  There is no way that I could remember all this.)

 This was the view when I walked out of the volunteer's house and up some stairs.  She lives all the way at the top of the only hill in Ohrid. So you can see everything from there.

 My first stop was the Roman Amphitheater.  It is just over 2,000 years old, but had been buried for centuries until in the early 20th century trial excavations confirmed its location.  By the 1990s it was fully uncovered and is now being used in the summer, as in the old days,  for outdoor concerts and performances. If I go to a concert there this summer I have been told to look closely at my seat to see if I can decipher the name of the season ticket holder who owned that seat 2,000 years ago.

 A typical Ohrid house.  They are tall, because families build another floor for the next generation, and are white with dark wood finishing.

 A little church hidden away on one of the side streets next to someone's house.  Ohrid use to have 365 churches.  One for every day of the year and dedicated to a different saint. This explains the Macedonian holiday called "Name Day".  For some, they name their child based on the name of the saint who's day it is when they are born.  But others just pick a name and when the saints day comes that is the person's  "Name Day."

Then I went up to the very top of the hill where the church of Sveti Kliment at Plaosnik is located.  There is an archeological site around the renovated church.  It use to be the monastery school of Kliment started in AD 893.  Kliment had built the original church on the ruins of the early 5th century basilica at Plaosnik and had even built his own tomb into the church, in which he was buried upon is death in AD 916.  The church was renovated and enlarged 3 times in the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries; but during the time of the Ottoman rule, the church was transformed into a mosque.  The mosque did not survive the end of the Ottoman Empire; and after its destruction only the legend remained.

 There are still some mosaics around the church.

 The Tsar Samoil's Fortress.  Up until the Ottomans arrived in Ohrid the town was completely enclosed within these city walls.  Once taken over, the town expanded beyond the walls as the Turks and Ottomans moved into Ohrid area.  Like other towns in Macedonia with fortress, Skopje, Shtip, etc, the Ottomans kept the Christian population within the town walls. The town walls must have felt more like a prison barrier than a defensive structure.

 Poppies are all over Macedonia.  I saw these on my walk down from Sveti Klimet to Sveti Jovan.

 Sveti Jovan, the most frequently visited church in Ohrid because of its beautiful location on the cliffs directly above the lake.  The church was featured in the movie "Before the Rain".

 Boats on the lake.

 A shop that sells traditional Macedonian clothes. The lady was very nice.  She let me look around and take pictures and told me some of the history behind some of the clothes, at least that was what I thought she was saying.

 Sveti Sofia, the biggest and oldest church in Ohrid.  I paid the domestic price, 50 den, and walked around inside. I had never been inside before and the walls were all covered with beautiful frescoes 

 The paper shop. I visited this shop when I was in Ohrid for our training and I bought a print of the traditional Ohrid houses. The gentleman makes his own paper and uses an old printing press to print pictures of Ohrid that he carved by hand.

 Pretty Ohrid street with the old houses.

 And yes. Can you believe what I found?!  It is located in the center, there is only one in Ohrid, and it is only open in the summer.  It does not have a deep fryer so you can only get burgers, but still I had to stop by and get a taste.  Does not matter where you go McDonald's is always the same.

I then went and walked around the pazar. Thought it would be easier to get pazar pictures outside of my town and in a touristy town than everyone in Resen looking at me wondering what I am doing.

 Summer fruit!!! Strawberries, cherries, apricots, and now peaches are out.

 Traditional Macedonian cookware. I have a small one that I bought to make the bean dish, tafche grafche, but I ended up using it to make spinach artichoke dip instead.

I spent the rest of the weekend hanging out with Dina, watching movies, walking along the lake, drinking coffee, and people watching.  A perfect relaxing weekend before we had our language training in Struga.

We had our Language Training in Struga at a big hotel on the water. The big thing was that the hotel had elevators and a bowling alley. It's sad when you get excited to ride an elevator. This is the view out the back of the hotel. We all would have our coffee break outside enjoying the nice weather.

For this training we had different sessions all based around Macedonian or Albanian language. I took some grammar classes, but the most interesting classes were the vocabulary classes because they were all based around certain topics.  For example: women's talk  --we learned vocab that you would need to get your nails done and to go to a salon, very popular conversation topics with the ladies here. I also took a slang class and learned that the word for "airplane" in Macedonian can also be used to describe a hot chick.  I also took 2 classes in Albanian so I would know how to say hello, my name is, and understand the alphabet.

BUT the BIG highlight of the trip was that myself and a few friends found bumper cars!!!!

This was the closest I am getting to driving!!!!  It was myself, 4 girls, and a bunch of Macedonian guys. We, the Americans, were driving like you would in bumper cars, but the Macedonian guys were just driving around like it was a regular car. They did not understand the point to bumper cars, so we had to teach them!!!

Tomorrow I am off to a town called Sveti Nikoli for an archeological dig and then heading to the famous Popula Kula Winery to celebrate my birthday.  It's summertime!!!!