Profile: Macedonia

Meet Macedonia

- Small, landlocked Balkan country
- Divided and conquered a mind boggling number of times
- Has had three flags in recent history most recently the flashy red and yellow sun

Cuisine: Cheap. I actually only had one real meal which was nice enough grilled vegetables and the rest was salad - like Greek but the cheese grated. Local beer was also basic lagers but dark lagers could be found (still on the cheap $2-3/0.5l)

Stray Dog rating out of 5: A couple were making a huge racket in a fight one evening on the street near the restaurants but otherwise barely noticed - 1.5 chiens.

Sidewalk Safety: Where sidewalks existed relatively safe, otherwise watch out for cars.

Rambling Impressions: Hard to get a true impression from 3 nights in 2 cities but here's what I saw. The country has gorgeous mountains and chasms requiring tunnels for highways often. The capital city, Skopje, has a ridiculous amount of stuff. Sure, most of it is just statues and bridges and things but there are also an inordinate amount of modern museums as well as a couple ruins. I, of course, visited on a Monday when everything was closed and only got to enter Mother Teresa memorial (born here) and the Museum of the Struggle by the People of Macedonia (and struggle they have - amazing the country even exists now). Lake Ohrid is supposed to be wonderful but in the wet snow it looked pretty but that's all. People seemed indifferent for the most part with only some English spoken although a few that I had some further interaction with were kind.