Trip to Greece!

Last week, on kind of a whim, Shaun and I took a trip to Greece. I know that sounds very flaky, but you have to remember that Macedonia shares a border with Greece, and it would be equivalent to taking a trip from Vermont to New Hampshire. Anyway, it was a really lovely trip. We rented a car, which gave us freedom and flexibility that we wouldn’t have had otherwise. We left Monday afternoon, drove to a small roadside hotel in northern Greece run by the nicest family. Then Tuesday we went to Meteora. This is an area full of rock spires that hermits used to live on, then later had monasteries built on them. There were 23 monasteries total but only 6 are accessible by tourist. After Meteora we drove east to the coast, found a nice beach and spent the rest of the day there. Wednesday we wandered back towards Macedonia, stopping in towns, and at waterfalls, and then wandered through parts of Macedonia that we had not been able to see. It was really lovely to have the car and not be restricted to bus schedules.

The most discomfort we had was due to tension between Greece and Macedonia. The Greeks don’t like Macedonians because northern Greece is called Macedonia and the Greeks think that the Macedonians should have picked a different name. (In fact they made them say there name was the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, FYROM, rather then just Macedonia, and made them change the flag.) The Macedonians think Greece is being silly. I have no strong feelings on the issue, except that it is such a big issue here, and is more of an ego things then anything else as far as I can tell.

We were asked a couple of times if we were from Skopje, the car got keyed, and the boarder guards were very ominous, until they found out we were Americans. After people found out we were Americans they hated us much less. Although, I have a newspaper clipping of Greeks burning the Macedonian and American flags together when America recognized the constitutional name Macedonia and not FYROM. (This happened early in my service)

Enjoy the pictures!