Skopje

I'm in Macedonia now. I had a hellish night bus ride from Sarajevo to get here, through Croatia, Serbia, and then into Macedonia. I have no idea why Croatia was involved because if you look at a map it's pretty out of the way. Also had an old grandmother next to me who snored over the 16 hours and would periodically jab me in the ribs in the middle of the night. It will be fine though, because I get to GREECE tomorrow (hoo-ray!). My favorite cities/countries thus far are Slovenia (Ljubljana was amazing) and Bosnia (went to Mostar and Sarajevo), which I didn't expect. I really want to come back to the Balkans now and I'm already mentally planning my next trip (I want to start out in the Middle East and work my way up through Turkey to Southern Europe). If I manage to get a whole lot of time off (like 3-4 months) I'd want to work myself all the way over to Barcelona along the Mediterranean. i guess that's my future goal now -- maybe during a summer between law school years.

I also experienced culture shock for the first time here in Skopje. They use the Cyrillic alphabet so I can't read anything (or guess at it), I have no guidebook, and I'm just kind of winging it. Between that and the long bus ride, when I got in yesterday I was just kind of dazed and overwhelmed. It's certainly fun and a new experience. The last time I was this overwhelmed was Japan and I had Kate there with me. It's entirely different to be on your own feeling like you have no idea what's going on. Anyway, I'm going to wrap this up, but hopefully I'll get on again before I go cruising in Greece (at that point, you probably won't hear from me here or on facebook for at least a week).