[typewriter]
[typewriter again]
Okay, so now we are at the Malmö Airport waiting for a flight, obviously
I'm just gonna show you what we're gonna give our hosts because it's Airbnb
So even though we are paying for it, we thought it would be nice to give them something
We're gonna give them these...
Swedish Christmas buns
They are very yellow because there's a lot of saffron. Swedes like saffron during Christmas a lot
I don't like it really that much myself, but
that's the Swedes. And then we have
this salty licorice thing because you can't leave the Nordic countries without giving people this.
Like, you can't. It's illegal
I'm just gonna say that like
Equipment isn't really that great. We have this old phone
and this is my microphone
So, the quality isn't probably gonna be amazing, but we're trying. It's fine.
I just want to try to do this kind of thing
[loud sounds because it's never quiet in Balkan]
[loud noises here too]
[traditional live music]
I'm already ready for bed. So I look pretty horrible, but whatever
I just wanted to tell you about the reason of our trip
Basically, I have to take this English exam and it was much cheaper to do it here in Macedonia than it is in Sweden
And we like Macedonia. We like Balkan
So we were like...
Why not just come here and do it here?
Because we like to be here in any case.
And actually it's pretty funny because I had some problems
I didn't get one mail. So I had to call them today and blah blah blah
So in any case I didn't know the details until today
So we had seen the address of the British Council earlier
So we thought it exam would be there. But actually it's somewhere else and that place is like
THREE minutes, three minutes, from our hostel. How lucky can you be? It's crazy
And we have like a lot of hostel options, or actually this is Airbnb but, you know, same stuff
I'm just like really
This is good, yeah, this is good
Okay, so I just had my exam, or like most of it because it has four parts and I had three of them
It was listening, reading, writing and then I will have speaking a bit later today
And... it was fine. Like I have done similar things in Swedish and French. So English was okay
I need B2, which it's like my French, so I think I'll have it in English. Yeah, I think it was fine
Yeah, now we are thinking about what to eat. We don't really know
I want... I don't know what I want. I don't know. We will see
Okay, so I'm just gonna explain the name
situation/conflict/thing that they have here
Basically, Macedonia, historically,
means a much bigger area than this country is today, and the culture was Hellenic
...which means Greek, basically
So this is why a lot of Greeks
are really not happy with how the country is named
Because they think it's a great thing and not a Slavic thing
Their main argument is that
... Macedonians today are Slavic and not Greek
The Greeks have been using their veto right to prevent Macedonia from entering for example the EU and
NATO and stuff like this
Because they just didn't like how Macedonia was appropriating their culture, so to say
Yeah, for example the airport used to be called
Alexander the Great Airport and like
Some streets used to be named after him and stuff like this
But now they have talked with that because they want to enter these things
and also this year there were some discussions about it
and now it seems like they will rename the country as
North Macedonia and Greeks, Greece, are fine with that
[Vincent] Not all [Me] Well. not all
But it seems like we are getting a solution there because so far it has been called
Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia, which is way too long, you know
Greeks might get like really really angry
If you call this country Macedonia
I have been there, like I just said "I went to Skopje, Macedonia" and there's some Greeks were like "muhmuhmuh"
They don't like it because they think it's like stealing their history
And the funny part is that people who do know about the Hellenic Macedonia and that history period
...they know it's not Slavic. They know it's Greek
And the people who don't know, they didn't know about it at all
So the fact that this country is called it doesn't really matter, you know
So I find it a bit ridiculous... All these conflicts here in the Balkans. They are a bit too heated for my taste
But... that's how it is here. Oh, look. There's a catch
So this place is
a personal must in Macedonia. They have really nice tavche gravche
It's a local bean stew and it's pretty much always vegan
Then we have some bread with it and some Bulgarian salad without the cheese, because...
well, for obvious reasons. And some local drinks too
And I don't wanna film the people so I'm just gonna show like this. It's really simple
We come here every time we come here.
... "We come here every time we come here?" Great. Yeah, but I think you got me
Okay, so we are walking in the city park
It's pretty brown and stuff, but it's actually pretty nice. It's really warm. I don't know 17 [C], maybe
I'm not wearing a coat or anything, just a t-shirt
It's completely fine
So, it's nice
[guess what, it's loud]
[Adhan / Muslim prayer call starts]
[adhan in the background]
[another mosque joins]
[adhan fades away]
So the cross there is like a memorial of 2,000 years of Christianity or some sht like that. I don't know
Basically, it's like a middle finger to the Muslims living here. Kind of like "yeah, we're Christians here"
Yeah, the reasons to build it were kind of not that good. But I think it's pretty...[laughs a bit]
[waterfall sounds]
[engine]
[still engine, that was one loud boi]
Now we had some bus problems, again. Nobody really knew when it would go, people said different things...
People weren't sure it would go to the last stop or not
But now we hope that it will come here soon so that we can take it
It's actually coming... Yayyy
Okay, so if you ever come to Macedonia or Skopje
Don't use the buses
So much effort... It doesn't work... We have like a seven day ticket
...it wasn't like that expensive but still we still have to take taxis, because the buses just don't come
Now we hope that there is going to be one in an hour, but we don't even know
So we're just having some food in a mall
Hoping for the best
So we are about 600 meters up high in the mountains and
We came here because there's a... it's called Macedonian village
It's like an outdoor museum, but it's closed
But luckily, we met a monk on the bus and he invited us for tea. There's a monastery here and it's really beautiful
They have this really old church. We weren't allowed to film inside, but it was really beautiful
And this whole place is just really peaceful and calm
compared to the city
... down there. You can't even really say it with the camera, but it's there
It's like 6:00 a.m. and we're going to the airport
Just gonna tell you guys...
Nobody in this country has change. Like, let's say you want to buy something for 5 euros
then you pay with a 10 euro bill. You know.. ish
And then they don't have change! Like never! We took the taxi, and they didn't...
Then like we were like, okay, we will go to this small kiosk there
That one
I will buy something so we will have smaller bills. But then the kiosk didn't have anything either!
We're talking about a 10 euro -ish- bill, you know, not like 50 euros, or 100 euros
They did either [have change]
And then our taxi driver did something
I don't know what. Then he got some change so we could pay with our 10 euro bill
And we need 600... no, 360 denars
for the bus, and we have like 680 now
[it's loud here too]
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