First of all, I almost broke the small bath tub in my friend's apartment. The bathroom is teeny tiny. Imagine the smallest closet in your house and then imagine it with a toilet, a washing machine, and a bathtub. There's no sink, so I was brushing my teeth over the tub when I leaned a little too hard on the edge (apparently) and the entire thing flipped on its side in this tiny little room. I fell along with it and ended up inside of it on the floor. I thought for sure I had just broken the damn thing and I sat there for a good 30 seconds contemplating all the options, but mostly just shocked at the situation. When I heard Sash come out of her room (after hearing the loud crash) I got up and opened the door. The look on her face didn't ease my nerves about probably having to find some store and buy a new bathtub. She said "Quick shut the door so my grandma doesn't see!" She lives with her grandmother who is a bit nervous, but luckily also forgetful, because after we managed to flip the tub right side up and make sure nothing was damaged, she had already forgotten that she heard the noise as well.
Then on my 3rd day, I woke up with a bit of an annoying scratchy throat which in 24 hours had turned into an impossible-to-swallow-without-flinching sore throat. I had my first foreign doctor experience to get some antibiotics so that I could get better and not be laying in bed the entire trip. I went into the office, she looked at my throat, pushed on my jaw so hard that I thought my eyes were going to pop out of my head. Then said I had swollen tonsils (thanks PhD..) and an ear infection. So I started some amoxcicillin and a week later finally felt better.
On Thursday night, Sash and I came home from her boyfriend's house tired and ready to pack our bags for the weekend trip to the lake when I opened the door to her room and noticed little black pieces of...something...all over my suitcases and the floor. When she came in the room I pointed it out to her and she, again, made a face that did not tell me this was something she had seen before and said "Oh my gosh we have a rat." But the amount of stuff on the floor, TV, computer, and shelves suggested that it wasn't A rat, but a family of rats. I thought "Oh my God is it in my suitcase?? Am I going to have to claim 'mysterious Macedonian rat' when I go through US Customs?!" Then we looked up at the wall and saw where there had been a white cover there was a hole. No, it was not rat shit on the floor, but soot. It had been really windy that night and apparently a gust came down through the chimney and blew the cover off the wall and left black soot covering the room. So we cleaned the room bottom to top and then finally packed for the weekend.
And then the cherry on top, our first day at the beach in Ohrid on Friday, it rained. It hadn't rained there in weeks. But the rest of the weekend was beautiful and we were able to go to the beach, see some of the city, and relax under the sun.
Tomorrow morning I am off to Sofia, Bulgaria to spend the last 5 days with my friend Dessi, who was in my international student orientation group last Fall, and also with my friend Danail who I worked with in Wisconsin Dells. Then it's HOME HOME HOME and I can't wait to see my family and friends and the last few weeks of some Wisconsin summer sun.
A few pictures:
Statue of Aristotle in Thessaloniki, Greece
Mountain overlooking Skopje, Macedonia
Matka, Macedonia. Absolutely gooorgeous!
Enormous lake in Ohrid, Macedonia
