With a Little Help From My Friends

My quest to cook with a grandma continues… My plans to do it a few weekends ago fell through, but I have another opportunity over the holidays! Plus, I befriended a grandma (Ivanka) in my building. More details on that to follow in a later post.

The Embassy folks coming to watch class was also rescheduled, for December 14th. Too bad, because the class they were supposed to see was so fun; my students did group presentations that were incredibly interesting. I told them to choose any topic they wanted, and the presentations spanned from ‘Halloween’ to ‘Climate Change in the Amazon’ to ‘Places to Go Out in Skopje’. The goal was just to have them work together and practice speaking in front of their peers.

The Tale of the Four Thanksgivings

This was my first Thanksgiving away from home. Usually, my two best friends from high school drive from Ohio to our house in New Jersey and spend the weekend with my family, and we watch the parade, go for a hike, have a Harry Potter movie marathon, and do a ‘Christmas craft’ – a tradition my mom started when we all came home from college the first year. Thanksgiving is in my top four favorite holidays (Easter, Christmas, and Groundhog Day round out the list… before you judge me for the last one, consider this: how many opportunities are there in adult life for pure, unbridled joy over something so absurd?), so it’s a difficult one to miss.

Anyway, I thought Thanksgiving week would be quiet, considering it isn’t celebrated here… boy, was I wrong. I was invited to not one, not two, but SEVEN Thanksgiving meals, but I could only make four of them. The first happened on Wednesday at the American Corner Skopje, which is an educational co-op conveniently located at my university. I homemade an apple crisp for this one, and it was a hit. Around 50 people showed up, including friends I didn’t know would be there, and I made new friends with some Peace Corps folks. Peace Corps and Fulbright are like this 🤝 in Macedonia.

The second one was at Jackson’s place in Shtip on Thursday. He invited me and some of his friends from the university where he teaches, and we carved a couple rotisserie chickens. For sides, he made stuffing, macaroni and cheese, and roasted potatoes and squash. I homemade a pie from a pumpkin I picked up (some may say ‘absconded with’) from outside of a nightclub the week before. I figured they were done using it because Halloween was over… I didn’t want a perfectly good pumpkin to go to waste! I cut and roasted it, then made it into a puree, and it made a delectable pie – not the prettiest ever, but judge for yourself in the Photo section. 

The third one was in London, where I jetted off to the Friday after Thanksgiving to see Josette for the weekend. She and I had a Thanksgiving leftover meal on Friday, complete with mashed potatoes, green beans, chicken, roasted veg, and stuffing. I think the consensus between many friends my age is that a turkey is just too overwhelming to prepare… The decision was made for us in Macedonia though, turkeys simply aren’t available!

London Town 

I’ve been to London once before, so we didn’t need to take up time doing any major touristy things – just exploring and enjoying being back together. Quick interesting story about me and Josette – about a week into knowing each other (still on our first trip to Israel) we met a middle aged couple at a restaurant where we were having dinner in Tel Aviv. We struck up a conversation with them, and the woman told us she met her best friend on their first trip to Israel, 30 years prior. We took it as a sign, and despite the distance, we’re always there for each other – long distance best friends. 

Josette lives near King’s Cross, so early Saturday morning I walked around the neighborhood. We went to a Christmas market in Hyde Park, shopped in Notting Hill, went to central London to visit her Iranian friends protesting outside of Parliament (to get the IRGC on the UK’s list of terror groups, a worthy cause IMO), and had dinner at a really phenomenal Indian restaurant. On Sunday, we had brunch and went to Columbia Street for the flower market and Christmas shops. In the afternoon, I went to the March Against Antisemitism in The Strand – apparently like 100,000 people marched! This is a really important issue to me, so I wanted to take the time to support. In the evening, we ordered Korean food and went to see the new Hunger Games movie which (barring some violence – not a fan of gore but I knew what I was getting into) was so well done. I’m notorious for falling asleep early AND sleeping sitting up (re: first blog post) but I power napped before the movie and didn’t feel tired at all during it!

Travel Debacles

I had an afternoon flight on Monday, but we spent the first half of the day getting brunch and running a few errands. My flight to Frankfurt was delayed due to snow (somehow one of the most efficient airports in the world absolutely shuts down for the first snow of the year) so I missed my flight to Skopje. I sat next to a kind German man on the flight to Frankfurt, and he stayed in the airport an extra two hours to help me get a hotel voucher, figure out that Lufthansa was going to keep my bag overnight, find a few essentials from a convenience store above the train station, and track down a cab away from the long line of other passengers trying to find a place to stay for the night – all things that would've been infinitely harder if I wasn’t accompanied by someone who spoke German. 

I was anxious before the flight because travel issues really annoy me, and I just wanted to get home – plus, I’ve never navigated the ‘stuck-somewhere-internationally-overnight’ situation, by myself or with someone else. Worrying gets me nowhere, I know, so I prayed that I would get home, but more than that, I asked God to provide for me and do His will to strengthen my reliance on Him. And He did provide — the help of a kind stranger, a safe place to sleep, and an automatic rebooking for a flight to Skopje the next day. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t praising God in the moment for giving me the opportunity to trust that He would provide… but I’m glad he gave me the chance to do so, and to build skills to get through such an ordeal. Plus, I get to share the story with all of you, which I hope is a reminder that there is a God who loves you and will see you through the hard things. 

Julia! 

I needed Wednesday and Thursday to recover, and then very early Friday morning (1am), Julia arrived!! One of my lovely friends, Beqir, and I picked her up, and then we got some much needed and all-too-brief sleep. She came to the class I teach at 9am, and then we got sushi for lunch and cute Christmas sugar cookies from a bakery I like. In the afternoon, I had to host a chess practice session with my fellow Fulbrighter here in Skopje, where I lost all 3 games I played. To reward myself after surviving such devastation, I replaced my boots (that were made for walking and then subsequently fell apart, after 3 good years of use). At night, I took Julia to meet some of my Macedonian friends at a rock-n-roll themed bar called Woodstock. 

On Saturday, we had a slow morning before going to Silbo for a late breakfast, then had coffee before meeting up with new Peace Corps friends I made last week! We met them in the Old Bazaar for chai and lahmacun, a Turkish dish of flatbread with spicy minced meat, tomato, and shredded lettuce. After an hour and a half of good conversation, we parted ways so Julia and I could track down a FFM jersey (Macedonian National Soccer Team). After successfully finding the one she wanted, we took the bus home and chilled before getting ready for the evening. Our plans included going to a friends’ apartment to play games and then going to Kafana Frosina (my favorite) for a going-away party of a close friend.

Sunday included brunch with Srishti (fun fact: she makes the best chicken korma EVER) and the fifth Thanksgiving meal. My university students wanted to host one, so Julia and I went to one of their apartments to celebrate. We rounded out Sunday with church and cooking at home.

On Monday, Julia came to my class again, and afterward we did some shopping before meeting up with Srishti again for coffee. I had Macedonian tutoring in the early evening, and then we went to the photo store so I could take my ID pictures. Dinner was at Pelister, a great restaurant in the Centar named for a mountain range.

“My” dog Ricky (really he’s the stray everyone in the building takes care of) and I saw Julia off on Tuesday afternoon. We don’t see each other nearly as often as we used to, but when we’re together, it’s like no time has passed, plus we text or call daily, so we are always up to date on each other’s lives. No one prepares you for how weird it will be to grow up as a twin and then live separate lives out in the “real” world…. 

Gratitude

As I showed Julia around and introduced her to my friends, I reflected on how blessed I am to feel so comfortable here, to know my way around, and to have so many meaningful relationships nearly three months in. I can hear some objections through the screen…. Yes, I think it takes longer than three months to make truly deep, meaningful connections with people, but I also think I’m off to a great start towards that end, considering I started from scratch here.

(Song Credit: The Beatles)