tales from ohrid

after staying in ohrid for one week i'm starting to get that itch to move on, although it is naturally very hard to leave this town. i've met some fantastic people out here. there is ben, a master of international relations and (in my opinion) an expert on knowledge of the balkans. met a girl named pauline in skopje and crossed her path again here in ohrid. then of course there are dozens of others who have found their way in and out of our small tribe. i've heard this before, and proved it with my own eyes, that travelers in the balkans cross each others paths quite frequently. there seems to be a pretty general set of paths of which people travel and it reminds me a bit of central america.

somehow this connection is what keeps us centered although we are so distant from everything else.

ohrid is really a beautiful place. part of me wishes that i had a really nice camera so i could make some sort of attempt to capture the beauty of my surroundings but even still there is only so much that a camera can do. typically the pictures i post are really just for me, like stamps on a passport.

you see a lot of things like this (above) in macedonia. they are faint remnants left behind from old structures and if you force your imagination to squint you can almost make out what used to stand there.

outside of this monastery (and i'm bad with names) there is a great archaeological dig taking place to restore as much of the original site as possible while unearthing a few religious treasures along the way.

hiro yuki.. the finest japanese chef i've met