--Thursday, 04 May 00-- (Day before departure)
Work, work, work, a frenetic day. There was so much that I needed to complete or ready to hand over to George. To my surprise I got everything essential done by 7 PM and sent my last set of emails.

While I was walking down the hall I heard George ask someone from the Vehicle Registration office if they had gotten a warning about a new virus that came in an email with the subject, "ILOVEYOU". As I passed George I looked at my screen and saw that I had four emails of that subject in a row. Being in Kosovo is no protection from the risks everyone else faces.

During the day, while I was rushing in and out of the payment office, Adelina asked me if I had a moment. I didn't but I made one for her, the most reliable employee in the office. While I tried to stand still, Adelina surprised me by giving me a gift of a pen set from the Albanian staff. I was surprised and flattered and thanked them all several times.

Alan, Margaret, Al Woodhouse and George took me out to dinner at the Parliament restaurant, one of the better in the city. The food was quite good and they treated me which always improves the taste of food. I enjoyed the wide ranging conversation immensely.


--Friday, 05 May 00-- (D(eparture) Day)
The weather was the best its been since I arrived. I got my laundry and finished packing. Then Smile arrived. We went downstairs and had a Cappuccino. We came back up to my room for our last intensive language training and it was once again a pleasure. Smile has made so much progress, I am proud of him.

After, we got the Herald Tribune and a USA Today and walked up then down Mother Theresa street on our last stroll. I checked out of the Grand and we sat outdoors and had a Coke. Erols, my driver, arrived precisely on time.

It was hard to leave my student Smile, from whom I had learned as much as he had learned from me. Especially in cross cultural experiences it is hard to determine who learns the most. Even linguistically I now had the ability to order a cold beer anywhere Albanian is spoken. Smile and I shook hands and he looked me in the eye and said, "Come back to Prishtina!" I said I would do my best and squeezed his hand -- and we parted company.

The interior of the very fancy -- and expensive -- Alexander's Palace.

The drive to the Macedonian border was pleasant and the crossing uneventful -- I didn't even have to get out of the car. Erols drove me to the hotel in Skopje that he thought I wanted. He had told me that I had the hotel name wrong, that it wasn't the Alexandria but Alexander's Palace. We stopped at the very grand -- and equally expensive -- Palace and they didn't have reservations for me so I called Susan's office. The person who answered the phone told Erols where to find the Alexandria and he took me there. The Alexandria is unpretentious but well appointed and in the center of town (the Palace is on the outskirts).

After checking in I went for a walk and discovered a McDonalds so I had a plain double cheese, small fries and a coke for lunch. It was hot and tasty and perfect. Ah, I was on my way home to an unlimited junk food heaven. God is in his heaven and all is well with the earth.

I stopped into a bank to get some Macedonian currency. That was easy enough once I had managed to push the front door open: I have never seen a door this heavy that was not attached to a vault.

Then I found the Austria Airlines office to pick up my ticket. In the process I discovered that Avioimpas (the Macedonian airline) has an early morning flight to Vienna with a United connection to Chicago arriving the same day! So I could have gotten home in one day instead of the two days mandated by some boob in the travel office. My frustration was huge.

Skopje the City
Skopje suffered a devastating earthquake 37 years ago and almost everything in the city is relatively new. The streets are wide with ample sidewalks without cars parked on them.

The jewel in Skopje's crown is a pedestrian Old Town that seems to be almost designed for tourists; it is filled with outdoor cafes, restaurants, jewelry shops, clothing boutiques, etc. Just the things that Western tourists think pass for local color.

The streets of Skopje are conspicuous in their cleanliness as are the sidewalks, the frequent open spaces and large parks. A swiftly running river, the Vardar, courses through the city and someone was smart enough to put a park on each side. It makes for a lot of pleasant ambling although the river banks seemed underused by walkers.

Under a Plane tree and within the sound of a fountain.

I walked around the city and found the pedestrian bridge over the Vardar to Old Town. I explored it for a time and ended up sitting under a Plane tree and beside a tinkling fountain taking notes in my Palm Pilot. The waiter made a point of getting behind me so he could look over my shoulder and see what kind of device I was using.

Two of the endless secession of boy salespeople. I did end up buying a cigarette light that had a knife that popped out four inches if you pressed the wrong button: I called it the lobotomiser.

Here, as in Prishtina, young boys walk around offering cigarettes and other trash to everyone in sight. In contrast to Prishtina however, these little brats don't take "No," for an answer. They pester you and whine and repeatedly reoffer what you have repeatedly rejected. In Prishtina, a "No" is taken at its meaning (and even ignoring them is taken as a "No"). Skopje could learn something from Prishtina.

I met Susan at the hotel at 5:30 PM and we sat outside and chatted. Ultimately she drove me to an excellent restaurant near where she lives and we talked endlessly over dinner. We had a great time making up for lost time: it had been more than 18 months since we had last seen each other and even though we had been in touch by email, face-to-face contact is always a better way to meet a friend.

Susan dropped me at my hotel in her white Ford Ranger(?) and I sat in the restaurant-become-bar and listened to someone sing against a recorded background. He was frequently applauded but his style was not to my taste. It was kind of like karaoke with some talent.

It was all part of trying to relax, to reduce the energy level to something normal.

In our conversation, Susan had told me that Dana Dima and her son Dan visited her. She said that Dana told her that nationality in this region was defined by how much you hated your neighbors. Dana always has insights and I can't disagree with this one.

Joe