Sunday morning - I started out to see if I could make it to Mt. Vodno. As I turned the corner from my apartment, I kept hearing a voice- Alo, Alo. I finally turned around and spotted Garo sitting outside at a tiny coffee shop on a patio by the apartment building near mine. We are neighbors
Garo was having morning coffee with his friend and fellow bandmember, Zlatko. Naturally they were smoking cigars- they invited me to have coffee.
Zlatko speaks very good English and translated for Garo. Garo is mainly a drummer but also likes the guitar. He is especially fond of B.B. King, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix, Chic Corea and some other jazz musicians of course I had not heard of but who, I imagine, everyone else knows. Garo will play Carnegie Hall in June- Zlatko will go along to be a roadie.
. His sons have a project where they take classical pieces and make them jazzy. Jazz Chopin!!
They know they should not smoke so that is why they are sticking to cigars. they talked about how hard it is to stop smoking and I volunteered my experiences trying to quit smoking and having been addicted to coca cola. Garo drinks a lot of Coca Cola because he believes he has a sugar deficiency. I noted that I believed coca cola had been responsible for rotting away my teeth. Zlatko then tried to gently caution Garo that this was something to consider.I thought about further explaining how someone in my 5th grade class had won the science fair by letting teeth sit in coca cola and discovering that the teeth would actually be dissolved but I thought maybe this could wait for another day.
Zlatko said that when Yugoslavia existed, it was socialism lite. They could travel freely and had low cost , high quality health care and education. Just no private industry. They feel that state control of industry was bad and had to go but now there is a lack of health care and education. Zlatko felt that for purposes of the economy, it was good for Macedonia to be part of a larger country but that because the people can't get along- Serbs, Croats, etc. , it was not possible to keep everyone together.
Zlatko felt that the Bosnians are truly protesting for freedom and against a very corrupt and unworkable government but that the Ukranian protesters are a mix of both progressive and reactionary forces.
Garo has played several times at US Embassy functions. he once played for over 7000 people in Skopje. He will play here in April and this is a must for me to attend.
Zlatko was very happy that we are here training criminal defense lawyers. Zlatko feels that the main weakness in Macedonia is a fundamental lack of understanding of democracy and free speech. If you speak out against the ruling party you may find yourself arrested and that there is no real presumption of innocence. Beyond a reasonable doubt - the meaning and application of this fundamental principle is still being struggled with here.
Following coffee, I took off for Mt. Vodno- of course in the exact wrong direction despite my map. This afforded me the opportunity to once again walk around the entire city, albeit in a different direction then usual. I finally made it to the right road and now I know where I can catch the bus to go up the mountain. I made it only up to the Villa Vodno- trip advisor's # hotel pick for Skopje. I thought I would pop in and have brunch.
This is not, however, NYC. No brunch. In fact, meals are served only for guests. The staff, however, was so friendly and offered me some tea or coffee despite the no feeding of non-guests policy. They assured me that members of the US embassy and the Bulgarian embassy have stayed there and they made me look at the flags in the parking lot- YES! the US flag fluttering away.
I asked them if there was any restaurant in the area and they assured me there was no place at all to eat in the vicinity. I walked a little further up the hill and then it began to rain so I came back home. At which point of course ,once inside, it became sunny and nice again. Sundays are very quiet in Skopje- it almost feels like a little village if the little village had lots of monuments with lions and Italian restaurants.
government building
de rigueur monument
monument- debating about????
Skopje architecture
???!!!!
On the way to Mt. Vodno
Letting sleeping Skopje dogs lie
Villa Vodna
On the way to Mt. Vodno- the neighborhood gets fancier
Villa Vodna landscaping
Vineyard and parking garage combo
Get it?- No parking in front of this person's house and beware of dog!
I make progress getting closer to the Millenium Cross atop Mt. Vodno
A good place to go if you have leprosy, etc.
You can never be too rich, too thin or eat too much bread, sugar and salt- esp for breakfast and snacks
There are no roads from here to there- just wander through the buildings Oh- and they have changed all the names of the streets from when it was Yugoslavia so don't bother with internet maps
a house? not a house?
A government official got in a lot of trouble over this one. He said the architecture, esp the use of colors was "Albanian" style. The Albanian community was quite insulted.
