I can’t emphasize enough how different these countries are. Macedonia feels like an extension of Turkey. You see it as soon as you walk around Skopje – the people here have square heads. You can see the square heads in the photos I took in the souk. There is a strong Muslim feel to the place.

I spent hours wandering the souk taking photos. The men loved having their pictures taken. They hammed it up and shouted for me to shoot them. But when I pointed the lens at a woman she would immediately cover up and demand money, even the old women. I got some good photos in Skope but it’s not a place to visit.

I stayed at the rip-off Holiday Inn, which costs $130 per night! This is as much as the average Macedonian makes in a month. For breakfast, I had Tang to drink, and I poured Tang on my muesli to make a semblance of a breakfast.

I went early to the souk to take photos and the old shoe-shine guy had just gotten his kit set up. He beckoned me over, insisting that I bring my Teva sandals to him because he wanted to show me something (or so he said in sign language). So I made the mistake of putting my sandal up on his shoe holder. My sandals are made of suede (probably fake suede). The ond man takes out a piece of sandpaper and starts sanding away at the straps of my sandals! Not only is he sanding the straps, he’s sanding the stitches, so now my sandals are going to self-destruct in a week! Then he showed me his work and told me to compare it to the other sandal. I couldn’t tell any difference. But now I had to let him sand the other one so they would both break down at the same time later. He asked for the equivalent of $2, and I protested. We settled on 40 cents.

Five bus hours later, I was in Ohrid, a lovely medieval town on a beautiful lake. The lake used to have wonderful fish in it until the locals ate them all, so now they bring fish in from other places. It was here that I met Petrit, a man who knows my doorman, Tommy, back in New York.

Petrit teaches French in a small town called Debar, where Tommy is from. Almost no one in this part of the world speaks English, but Petrit and I got along great speaking French. He and Tommy’s brother took me on a day trip to Debar. I don’t know if Debar has ever seen an American. I was treated like a royal guest. I got tours of houses, I was offered bon bons and pizza, I was taken around like a prince. I took photos everywhere to bring back to Tommy. They even called Tommy from the local phone booth place and I had a chance to talk with him. It was great fun. They invited me to stay a few weeks, but I said I had to go to Albania, so again they dropped me at the border and I walked across.

Ah, but here’s the little story about Macedonia and why I don’t think they’ll make it into the EU as soon as they’d like.

I took a boat ride across the lake from Ohrid to a monastery, where it happened that Sunday was the big day that everyone gets dressed up and goes to the monastery for various activities. So the boat was packed with Macedonians in their Sunday finest, with kids all dressed up and old people hanging onto the rails wearing hats.

Upon reaching the monastery, everyone immediately got in line to go into the old church. I think the church is 800 years old. But it wasn’t a line. It was more like rugby without cleats. Everyone simply pushed toward the door of this old church. There were about 200 people pushing from all directions toward one little door. I really had nothing else to do, and the ferry wasn’t going back for 4 hours, so I got into the crowd and was pushed along toward the door. It took an hour and a half in the hot sun to go 40 feet. People just pushed and pushed, so it was uncomfortable for everyone. Small children cried. Short people had a hard time breathing. I got bruises on my back from people being shoved into me. It was really serious pushing! My legs got sore just from resisting, so I wouldn’t be crushed. Men and women, young and old, they all were pushing hard for a solid 90 minutes in the heat to get into this little church.

And once inside the church? People kissed some old paintings and left some small pieces of food on an altar. That was it. 90 minutes of marathon pushing in searing heat to kiss a few icons. I later told this story to Petrit, who nodded and allowed that there were primitive elements of their society. The Macedonians are lovely people, but they aren’t Europeans. I’m not sure they ever will be.

After all the pushing, I was exhausted and had to eat something. I went to the little café, which was completely overwhelmed by the crowd. Out of thousands of people no one spoke a word of English. I managed to order some cucumbers and tomatoes (in this part of the world, that’s what I call a combo salad). I had some bread and olive oil. I was seated at the same table with an old couple from Greece. I said I was from America.

The old man looked at me and said in perfect English: “America. George Bush, boom boom.” I couldn’t have agreed with him more.

- by David Siegel