601/732–10 Apr 2025 ) Лудо, Скопје!
I woke up at 6:30 am and checked out at 8 am On my way to the bus terminal, I stopped by a supermarket to buy mineral water, which cost €0.29 for 500ml. How low-cost it was! I was confused at the terminal because I couldn’t figure out which platform the bus to Skopje stopped at. There were no boards displaying destinations, and nobody was inside the ticket counter. However, a bus driver helped me find the bus to North Macedonia.
The journey to Skopje took longer than expected and arrived at the terminus 20 minutes later. To leave Kosovo, a police officer came into the coach to collect my passport. Contrary to this, to enter North Macedonia, I got out of the vehicle to show my passport. I was a bit surprised because till now, whenever crossing a border, I had to either exit the coach twice or hand over my passport twice, so this was the first time the hybrid pattern had happened.
Since I contacted the hostel beforehand last night, I headed there a couple of hours earlier than the check-in time noted on Booking.com. Choosing an available bed, I went out to sightsee. Because I had only eaten Haribo since this morning, I was starving. Therefore, I nibbled into a random cafe to savour a double Americano and two pieces of bread. One of them was like a curry bread, and the other was a croissant with vanilla cream; both were extremely scrumptious.
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While I tried to stroll through the city, the road just outside the cafe was closed because of a mysterious VIP. Due to them, I had to detour and had no chance to visit the Mother Teresa Memorial House. Upon my research, I discovered that the VIP was Urška Klakočar Zupančič, President of the State Council of the Republic of Slovenia.
By the way, there are a tremendous number of statues in Skopje. Really immense numbers of statues are in the city centre. When the small Arch of Triumph captivated me, I couldn’t stand up laughing. Moreover, I saw several people riding electric scooters. Even if I might have just missed it before, they astonished me because it was the first sight in Balkan countries.
I was bored with sightseeing, so I went to the fortress. Unlike the one in Prizren, the way to the fortress was a gentle slope, and it took less time, so I could reach the summit soon. Since I didn't have enough time until 5 pm when the fortress closed, I decided to go down after walking around there briefly. However, a guard somehow caught me, and we had tea together in the monitoring room.
Even though I didn’t want to dismiss this kind of encounter because they were the best part of travelling, he was creepy. He kept touching me and asking me to go for a drive, but he was creepy and persistent despite my refusal. I just wanted to refuse. But I was talking to him, thinking that I would never see him again. However, he made a racist gesture, so I lost all care for him and quickly drank tea and left. I think he was a hopeless idiot for not realising how bad his behaviour was.
A little way down from the fortress, I found a nice brewery, so I decided to have dinner there. Because I have to get up early tomorrow morning, I wanted to have supper and get some rest earlier. Whilst I ordered a beer and a plate of chicken, the dish didn’t come even after waiting for 30 minutes. The waiter whom I told that the food hadn’t arrived yet happened to not be good at English, so I somehow managed to communicate with her using Google Translate.
The food that finally arrived was simple, to put it positively, and modest, to put it negatively. Three pieces of chicken, three pieces of large chips and three tomatoes. Another issue arose regarding payment after the meal. She didn’t give me sufficient change. Normally, I wouldn’t mind tipping, but this time, I waited 40 minutes and didn’t feel like paying.
Upon returning to the hostel, I soon had a shower and prepared for tomorrow. Though I will get up early, second only to the day I left in Sarajevo, but unlike there, there are many people in my dormitory room. So I have to prepare for check-out, not to make any noise that disturbs their sleep.
