Homestretch

Last big Peace Corps gathering in Skopje this past weekend. Amazingly, there are more human beings than statues in this photo.

And just like that...I'll be a former Peace Corps volunteer at the end of next week. Over the past few months, I've felt like I was on my way out, close to leaving but not quite there, but now it definitely feels real. If I want to say goodbye to people before I leave, I have to start figuring out which days specifically I can see them. There's no 'ovie denovi' or 'ima vreme'...by the time I get to Skopje on the 30th, it'll be too late. On my part, I pretty much have to accept every coffee invite or na gosti regardless of whether it is convenient at the time or not, because I might not get another chance. I know it will be sad to say goodbye to some people, especially those I've known since I moved to Oblesevo in November 2011 and kept in touch with after I moved to Kocani last year. But I also know I'll be relieved to be done with my service as Peace Corps volunteer. After two years in Macedonia, I really need to be doing other things with my life that better utilize my skills, experience, and personal motivation. I've had some victories, but they were few and far between. It is difficult to be happy with your work life when only once or twice a year you feel like you accomplished something meaningful. There are a lot of causes behind that, some of which go back to my own personality flaws, while others relate to simply bad luck when it came to meeting the right people or administrative failures that continue today. If your own organization refuses to learn from its mistakes, it doesn't exactly set volunteers up for potential success when they move to a new community for two years. Of course, we are supposed to be prepared to 'serve under conditions of hardship.' Being a Peace Corps volunteer is not easy, both mentally and physically. But placing volunteers in organizations or schools where they already had strong negative feedback from previous volunteers is just inexcusable. And I'm not even referring to my situation in this case. With that, I'll save the rest for some very frank close of service interviews. 

Guess which one has 800 miles on it. I think it looks pretty darn good after 800 miles. And yes, I bought the exact same pair of shoes again.

As I've gotten closer to my last day here in Macedonia, I haven't had much Peace Corps-related work to do, but thankfully there have been some fellowship applications to complete and I've had my daily marathon training to keep me motivated and focused. Since I started specific training in early August, I've run a lot of miles. Over the weekend I finally bought another pair of running shoes to replace my badly worn Nike Pegasus 28s, and I have to admit it was hard saying goodbye to them. I mean, I managed to get through 800 miles on these shoes since June, and they treated me right. When I first bought them, I think I was blinding pedestrians with their neon glory, and I think somehow, if it's even possible, I received even more stares than usual when I was out running. Before switching to the new shoes and after spending most of Saturday drinking beer and eating junk food with Peace Corps volunteers, I did a nice 18 miler along the Vardar on Sunday:

Doing this hungover and dehydrated is not recommended. 

I've been battling some runner's knee over the past week, and while that's not resolved yet, running on the bike/walking path and parts with dirt/grass was a lifesaver. I'm fairly certain my knee problem has arisen in part from running hundreds of miles on whatever this asphalt/concrete hybrid is they have here around Kocani (and I'm sure in other places). It's pretty awful, but you don't realize it until you run somewhere like Skopje. Thankfully, at this point I only have two fairly difficult weeks left in my training, and then I will start my taper for the Valencia marathon in Spain. This is a good thing. My body needs a little rest after an endless stream of aches, pains, minor injuries, and random accidents like hurting my ankle on a rock. It is also good because I am going to be traveling all over Morocco and Spain before I get to Valencia on the 15th.

While running in Spain should be fairly straightforward, I'm not so sure about Morocco. Don't get me wrong, there are some amazing Moroccan long distance runners, as good or better than many of the top elites from Kenya and Ethiopia, and clearly a lot of people who are very serious about running. But I don't think they're training anywhere near the Medina in Marrakech and Fes. When I thought of Morocco before planning this trip, my first thoughts were of ridiculously chaotic bazaars, the Sahara Desert, and that pretty bad-ass scene from the Bourne Ultimatum where Matt Damon jumped through windows and ran on rooftops chasing some assassin in Tangier. Well, in the case of the latter, I suppose running was involved, but I'm pretty sure he also had to kill the highly trained commando in order to survive, and that hasn't been part of my training up to now. So anyway, I have two hard workouts scheduled during my time in Marrakech, and I honestly have no idea what to expect other than what I scoped out on Google Earth. I may need to revise my expectations and just focus mainly on not getting creamed by a moped or other motorized vehicles. If I can get as far from the Medina as I can without getting killed in the process, I might be able to get those workouts done. Priorities, right? 

Beyond that, I am really excited about going to Morocco and Spain. Just today I bought my ticket to see the Alhambra in Granada. I also finished the remaining bookings for my 26-day trip (before the cruise ship home) today. My itinerary/travel plan is 10 pages long. I have 3 different apps for self-guided walking tours and a Spanish dictionary installed on my phone. I am set and ready to go. Not much left to do except start saying some goodbyes and get ready for a pretty awesome transition to the next stage of my life. 

My favorite season arrives!

View towards Plachkovica on the road from Crn Kamen

With impeccable timing, the weather in Macedonia has quickly transitioned from the summer heat to the comfort and awesomeness of the fall. I say impeccable timing because the NCAA and NFL football seasons are just starting up, so if I'm going to live stream some games with a 6-7 hour time difference, it must at least feel like football weather. But really, the fall is my favorite season, and that hasn't changed since I arrived in Macedonia two years ago. In Fall 2011, during my pre-service training in Kratovo, I took advantage of the cool temperatures to go hike, run, or sit at the Talisman cafe-bar after language classes to feed my then- new-found addiction to salep.  A year ago, I had just moved sites to Kocani, and again maximized my outdoor activity with running and hiking. This year, I am temporarily sidelined from running due to an ankle injury (yep another injury), but that doesn't stop me from going out on my bike to try to make up the miles I wasn't able to run. At the same time, it lets me explore some random villages and areas I hadn't visited in the area due to their distance from Kocani.

My first stop was Gradec, where coincidentally another Peace Corps volunteer lives, and I was immediately struck by how isolated it felt despite being only a few miles from the larger town of Vinica. The road leading to the village is somewhat steep, and it pretty much ends right at the base of the Plachkovica mountain. It had the look and feel of a typical mid-sized village in Macedonia, but the mountain setting definitely added an extra element to its appeal.

After checking out the village, I continued on and came up to some kind of rock quarry, and a dirt path that led further into the mountain areas. I decided to walk for a bit rather than take a chance with my bike tires. Since I'm technically supposed to be resting my ankle, I didn't walk long, but it was pleasant enough with nice scenery.

After leaving Gradec, I passed back through Vinica and headed to Jakimovo, another small village but distinct for the beautiful church at the top of a hill overlooking the village. The church is named after St. Joakim Osogovski (like the large monastery in Kriva Palanka that I blogged about literally years ago), but it was only built in 2002, so compared to most churches in Macedonia it is very very new. After walking around the grounds for a few minutes, that previous note became obvious, because it was impeccably clean and well-kept. The views towards Vinica and Plachkovica were outstanding. I won't ask why there is such a big church in a small village...but it was nice to look at.

Approaching Jakimovo

Jakimovo below, Vinica in the distance

Vinica zoomed in

Once I took the obligatory photos, my next destination was supposed to be Istibanja, a settlement (somewhere between a village and a town) to the north of Jakimovo, but I took a wrong turn and, unaware of it at the time, I was on a road towards Kalimanci Lake (the largest man-made lake in eastern Macedonia). It was yet another area I hadn't seen since I've lived here. The road was nice and steep, and I would have gone on longer if I had known where I was. Instead, I turned around when I reached a village I thought was Istibanja, but it was somewhere else called Crn Kamen.

As a whole, it was a great day to be outside, enjoying the weather and still seeing new things. I've always found in my experience over the last two years that I'm able to cure most frustrations from being a Peace Corps volunteer by simply getting outside. As volunteers, we're extremely lucky to be in a country with the natural beauty and generally agreeable climate like Macedonia. Since I have less than two months left as a PCV, I plan to take full advantage of it!

Back from one crazy trip, time to plan another!

Last week I learned that I will officially complete my Peace Corps service in Macedonia on November 1st. While that is by itself a big deal, and worth reflecting upon, I won't be doing that in this post. Mainly I want to share my epic travel plans that will cover November 1st until December 12th.

I wasn't kidding. This is pretty awesome. 

Here is where I'll cover most of my 'land' time

It is probably confusing trying to interpret the lines and everything, but basically I'll start my trip after flying from Sofia to Barcelona, and then catch another flight the next day to Marrakech, Morocco. From there I'll travel for about a week, spend at least one night in the Sahara Desert, then take a ferry to southern Spain, and spend about 5-6 days in the vicinity of Seville and Granada. Next, I'll fly (amazingly the cheapest option) directly to Valencia on the eastern coast, stay in a comfy hotel, and run the Divina Pastora Marathon on November 17th. After that, assuming I'm still alive after the race, I'll make my way to Madrid (with side/day trips), and then finally end up in Barcelona again around the 23rd of November. I'll hang out there for about four days, maybe see FC Barcelona play a match, and meet up with a few other Peace Corps Macedonia volunteers. On November 27th, those same volunteers and I will hop on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, and take the slow boat back to America, not before stopping in the Canary Islands and the Bahamas. Onboard, I'll eat ridiculous amounts of food and read the first two Game of Thrones books. And relax too, because traveling for 3 1/2 weeks and running a marathon will make me TIRED. After 14 nights on the ship, we'll arrive in New Orleans on December 12th.

So, the level of awesomeness in this plan is difficult to quantify, but I think it's pretty high. Some other interesting aspects about the trip:
- I will be prepping for a marathon the entire time I'm traveling in Morocco and part of my time in Spain. Part of me wants to do a tempo run through the medina in Marrakech for the sheer insanity of it
- This will be my first time crossing an ocean on a ship since I was in the Navy. Sadly, I won't get to drive...well, we'll see. Anything is possible when Julie Tumasz is on your ship!
- Several members of the ship's crew are likely to be Macedonian, because working on cruise ships is a popular job for recent university graduates from Balkans
- I studied Spanish in high school - will it come back to me on this trip, or will I speak Russidonian when a local asks me '?Que hora es?'? I'm betting on the latter.

With a little over two months to go before this trip starts, I have a lot to plan for and a lot to look forward to. It's hard to believe that I'll actually be home in the US by December. I don't know when will be the next time I come back to this part of the world (easily could be sooner than I expect), but I might as well leave in style this time around!

Back to Poland

Besides living in Macedonia over the last two years, I've spent more time in Poland in the last four years than any other European country. My most recent trip, and the last stop after 9 days in Ukraine, was my third visit, but the first time I've been back since May 2010. In my previous two visits, I was a bit...in love with Krakow. The only other places I saw in Poland were the city of Wroclaw and the mountain/ski area of Zakopane south of Krakow. My love for Krakow is validated by the fact I've visited 18 different European countries since 2009, and yet Krakow is still my favorite city in Europe. Nevertheless, on this particular trip, I wanted to see the 'non-Krakow' part of Poland. Which, surprisingly enough, is a pretty big part of the country. I only had four more nights after leaving Kyiv, so I split my trip between the capital city of Warsaw and the Baltic Sea port city of Gdansk.

A rough map of non-Krakow Poland. As you can see, there are other places in Poland to visit. 

Before I managed to leave Kyiv though, I learned that sometimes when you reach your backpack during airport security screening, it's possible to cut off a nice chunk of skin from your finger. This would have been a little more humorous had I not been bleeding all over the place as the Ukrainian security guy checked and re-packed my bag for me, as I was busy trying to stop the bleeding with a dirty sock. I had no idea how deep the 'cut' was, nor did I know what actually caused this injury. As far as I was aware, there was nothing in my bag capable delivering this rather malicious freak wound. Thankfully I cleared security in time to go to the bathroom and managed to just cover the finger with extra bandaids and hoped it didn't bleed through all of them before I got off the plane in Warsaw. I got through the quick flight and made my way to the hostel I was staying at, just a short walk from the central train station. Of course, my concern for my finger was overridden by the Starbucks awaiting across the street from the station. It's a Peace Corps thing, I think.

Enjoying a nice frappuccino, I sampled some of the modern landscape that makes up the 'business-side' of Warsaw today.

You could almost fly a helicopter through that opening. 

Eventually I got to the hostel and the first order of business was finding a pharmacy to get more bandaids, and then check out the damage. Well, taking off those bandaids was a little bit like that scene in Die Hard where John McClane is picking glass out of his feet. I felt sorry for the other hostel people who had to walk by that scene in the bathroom as I yelped and cursed. Anyway, it was a nice chunk missing from the finger. Luckily, it was just shallow enough that I probably didn't need a doctor (actually based on the advice of the med student who was working part-time at the hostel). She said, "It will probably stop bleeding." Ha! I was also relieved because if it was serious, I might have to take time off from running! At least I have my priorities straight. And I didn't want to have to call Peace Corps medical either.

Yummy. This was taken 3 days later. 

So with my finger sorted out, I brought some extra bandaids and set out to eat something for lunch because it was like 2:30pm at that point. My intentions were clear when I asked, "where's the nearest cheap pierogi place?"

A glorious, glorious sight. So good. 

After pierogi heaven, I walked down the main thoroughfare of Novy Swiat in the direction of the main square and the hub of tourist activity in the city. Warsaw is a much different city than Krakow. I believe a lot of that has to do with the fact it was almost completely destroyed during World War II after the Warsaw Uprising. Of all the horrific and tragic stories from the war, the Uprising and its aftermath rank pretty high up there. It was actually one of the big reasons I wanted to visit Warsaw. Not only to see what the 'restored' Warsaw looks like after close to 70 years, but also to go to the Warsaw Uprising Museum and learn more about what happened in 1944. So in walking down Novy Swiat, it felt as if something were missing, despite the incredible restoration work. Maybe the contrast is that before the war, the area around the main square was truly a hub of activity in the city for all people, whereas now it just seemed like more of a tourist trap. In Krakow, it felt like everyone used the square as 'their place', whether you were just visiting or lived in the city itself. Regardless, it was still enjoyable, and here are some photos I took in the vicinity:

Statue of Adam Mickiewicz (also found in L'viv if you recall)

Warsaw's Castle Square

Market Square

Old city fortifications

The Vistula River, the longest river in Poland 

This could have been added to one of the BBC 'hot weather' photo albums that they do occasionally. It was definitely hot.  

The following morning, I went out to explore more of Warsaw with my running shoes, crossing the Vistula into the 'Praga' part of town. I saw the brand-new stadium built before the 2012 European Football Championships, as well as parts of Praga that weren't destroyed during WWII. Warsaw took 2nd place on my trip for running routes. It has an extensive network of bike/walking paths, particularly along the river, and it offered some nice views. It was difficult to turn around and go home because I was enjoying it so much, and consequently it ended up as the longest run on my trip.

When I got back to the hostel, I met up with a fellow American traveler and we set out for the Warsaw Uprising Museum. It was as powerful as I expected, and fascinating to learn the stories of some of the fighters and other aspects about the conflict I didn't know about. While it was clearly a betrayal that the Soviets left the insurgents out to dry after encouraging the uprising and having a large military force in striking distance, I also learned they probably should have seen it coming given that the Soviets consistently disarmed and arrested the Polish Home Army insurgents who fought with them in other parts of Poland before the Warsaw Uprising. Stalin recognized that Warsaw was the hub of the Polish resistance and it was in his interest to see its leadership decimated and the city of Warsaw itself destroyed, so in the post-war 'new order' he would be free to shape Communist Poland the way he liked. Stalin was no idiot. Just one of the most ruthless people in human history.

After a few hours at the museum, we walked all the way to the beautiful Lazienki Park to try to catch part of the free outdoor Chopin concert held on Sundays in the summer. Of course, this did not disappoint, as the pianist was magnificent (you better be if you're playing Chopin in Poland), and the picnic-like atmosphere in the park by the Chopin monument was quite nice. Most people just sat on the grass or on blankets. I sat on my Warsaw map.

After spending the whole day walking after a long morning run, I was totally exhausted by the time we returned to the hostel, and I had just enough motivation to order a pizza for dinner before calling it a day. The next morning I left for the port city of Gdansk, my final stop before returning to Macedonia. I didn't know what to expect from the 6 hour train from Warsaw, but I didn't think it would be so packed. All the passageways were packed with people because there were no available seats in the kupes, and it was really hot. At least there was a cafe/restaurant car, so I was able to get some lunch there and enjoy a little bit more personal space. Whereas Warsaw was relatively quiet in the vicinity of the central train station, Gdansk was completely the opposite. I recognized quickly it was tourist season and there were just thousands of people walking around everywhere. I think I would have appreciated the city more if it weren't for the sheer volume of traffic on the streets. It's also not a particularly big city, so it makes the impact of all these people more dramatic. You could see why people would want to visit, though. It was another city largely destroyed during the war, but I'd have to say the restoration was even more impressive at first glance in Gdansk (also not to forget reconstructing a city of 1.5 million is much more difficult than one with 400,000). Gdansk is a city that changed hands numerous times over the course of history, at one point part of the Prussian partition of Poland (known then as Danzig). Gdansk is also famous for its role in the fall of Communism. The Polish Solidarity movement, starting in the Gdansk shipyards, heroically stood up to the Communist Party and inspired similar movements across all the Warsaw Pact countries in the 1980s.

Fish restaurant on a boat

St. Mary's Church, the largest brick church in the world

View from inside the city nautical museum

Later in the evening, several people from the hostel went out to a bar with 4 zloty beers (a little over a dollar) and traditional 'drinking food' like Polish white sausage, bigos (sauerkraut and meat), and smalec (lard spread). We all had a good time, though one of the people we were with decided to go on his own to a club (not so bright) and woke up the next morning with people going through his wallet. He also apparently was planning to go to eastern Ukraine on his own and couldn't speak a lick of Russian. Godspeed to that one.

One of my last full day in Poland, a Scottish friend from the hostel and I went by boat to Westerplatte, where the first shots of WWII were fired. Westerplatte is a man-made peninsula and at the outbreak of war in 1939 was lightly defended by a Polish garrison. Facing overwhelming enemy superiority in firepower, the Polish forces still held out for 7 days before surrendering. Today it is a park/memorial with the remnants of some of the fortifications, a memorial, and one bombed-out barracks. It also faces the Baltic Sea, which was a unique experience for me in my travels. I didn't get a chance to go swimming, though the water looked nice.

Gdansk Shipyards

the beach at Westerplatte

The Baltic Sea

Boardwalk along the Baltic

Cemetery for those who died in the battle 

Inside the bombed out army barracks

Monument to the defenders at Westerplatte

At this point, I was pretty much done with traveling. It had been two weeks since I left, and it wasn't a leisurely two weeks. I was constantly on the go, with long trips between destinations, and there wasn't a single city where I just sat around and relaxed for long. In my first 48 hours of travel, I got around 3 hours of sleep. Since I tried to run every morning that I didn't have an early train or plane, I wouldn't be surprised if I lost weight (well if that's even possible at this point), which generally doesn't happen on vacations. So I was ready to head back home, even if the idea of being 'at home' was not particularly appealing. I'm also at close to my 2-year mark in the Peace Corps, and I feel like I've pretty much exhausted the possibilities with that too. With my 'big trip' out of the way, all I hope to do in these few months is train for the Valencia marathon (and plan that big 'post-PC' trip to Spain/Morocco) and avoid offending too many people with my impatience to move on to something else in my life. Thankfully, I don't have much longer to wait. This exhausting but incredibly rewarding trip through Ukraine and Poland definitely confirmed that I'm ready for a change of scenery.

So with no big trips to talk about for a while, I'm going to start writing about running. There are just too many random and funny stories to be told that I have no choice. Hope you've enjoyed reading about my trip and there will be more to come soon!