Greetings all, I have just started another blog, one focusing on pictures that I find for whatever reason interesting.

This new blog is at:
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/rhodri2112

And some day I’ll post here on LiveJournal seriously again 🙂

For now, let me just say my life is very busy. I am taking two language classes this semester and that was not the best thing I could have done. They’re fun classes in and of themselves, but taken together they are a ton of work.

In several weeks I will present my first conference paper. In the midst of my languages, my medieval philosophy class, and my sections which I’m teaching, I have to finish that this week.

There’s probably lots more I should add, but hey, I have to get a new photo up in the new blog.

Well, I’m home. Virgin Airlines could do better, but Midwest was great.

Off to bed.

Tomorrow: Pennsic Prep

Saturday: Off to war

So I ended up in Newcastle. I probably did not do Newcastle justice, but I did get to see some neat things.

Newcastle is an industrial town that is re-inventing itself into more of a tourist town. It has the sites to justify it, too. Within two blocks of my B&B in the suburb of South Shields was the Roman fort of Arbeia. Across the Tyne from South Shields are the ruins of an old Priory. The castle keep in Newcastle is in fantastic shape. There’s the North Sea terminus of Hadrian’s Wall at Segedunum. Oh, and there’s this Bede’s World thing.

I didn’t see all of it. I did go to Arbeia, though I did not have my camera, nor did I either take pictures of the Priory or stop by it. The foundations of the fort are all that remains, and it’s neat, but I have to admit I’ve been a little jaded from my time in Macedonia.

I tried to go to Segedunum, which is off the Metro stop at Wallsend. Interestingly, all of the Metro signs in Wallsend are bilingual, English and Latin. Unfortunately, and this is an example of how Newcastle is transitioning to a tourist town, there are no directions how to get to Segedunum once you get off the Metro. This was the first historical site in England or Wales that wasn’t marked so that I could get there.

It was not, however, the first site that was not marked well. To get to Bede’s World, you get off at the Bede Metro Station, but if you come from the east and South Shields, there are no signs to Bede’s World anywhere. There are plenty of signs for Metro passengers coming from the west, though, and after I crossed under the bridge I found them and was on my way.

Bede’s World is a combination of three basic parts. First is the existing medieval church of St. John and the ruins of the medieval abbey that had been built over the abbey that Bede lived in. They do have the foundations of both abbey’s marked in stone, so you can get a picture of what each looked like. Plus, there’s a lot of signage showing more how things looked, though several had unfortunately been vandalized. Most powerful was a marker stone Ceolfrid had written in the 700s.

After the church you go to the museum, which is a well thought out design. It works for a great number of audiences. It has enough artifacts that it is appealing to the expert. It has lots of recreations that someone who doesn’t know as much can really enjoy it. It also has a lot of neat things for children to do. It’s a bit Disney, but unlike the Jorvik exhibit, the Disney is an attempt to enhance the history, not overshadow it.

Finally there is the Anglo-Saxon farm. They’ve really tried to make a working Anglo-Saxon farm using as few modern tools as possible and to keep the modern world out. It’s a challenge given their location, and modern legal requirements, though, as there are big oil tanks on one side, an industrial area on the other, and lots of hints of modernity put in places for safety such as obvious life savers. Nevertheless, it’s a really neat place to go, but I have to say the pigs were huge, intimidating, and behind very small fences with warnings about how sharp their teeth were.

At this point I tried to go to Segedunum, but failed due to the lack of signage. I did wander around Wallsend some, but never saw any hint of the exhibit. So, after walking around for a while, I gave up and went to the castle keep in downtown Newcastle.

The castle keep is amazing. It’s essentially intact, and you can spend lots of time wandering around it’s three levels with many rooms and corridors. It’s really really cool. The top gives you a great view of Newcastle, and while it’s not the most scenic city in the world, it’s not horrible and they are really working to improve it. In any case, the keep is well worth visiting.

So here I sit on my way back to London and my preparations for coming back to the States. Of course I have mixed feelings. I’ve been out of the US for about 45 days. It will be good to have a cell phone again, though I dread checking my voice mail. I should be at Pennsic at some point this weekend, so that will be fun. I’m looking forward to seeing people.

Yet…, I’ve missed so much. I didn’t get to Caernarvon or Rhuddlan or Chester along the Welsh north coast. I didn’t get to Scotland at all, so no Edinburgh or Glasgow. Durham, where Bede is buried, is a lovely town I saw from the train but did not visit. I didn’t make it to Kent or Cornwall. I didn’t see Canterbury or Westminster Abbey. I didn’t make it across to Ireland.

It’s been long, great, and sometimes strange trip, and I have to admit it will be a relief to get home, if only for a little bit, but I’m already hoping for more opportunities to come to England.

This afternoon, I essentially complete my packing and get ready to go. Tonight I think Eddie, Mia, and some others are going to go to the Black Horse for one final pub night, and then in 26 hours I get on the plane. Sigh.

Yesterday was another very fun and interesting day. Since Clare was not feeling well, it was just Tom and I. We roamed to the south and east of Redditch, getting almost to Oxford. Rather than describe it chronologically like usual I’m going to bounce around a bit, saving what I think is the best for last.

We went by two places which I would have liked to have seen, but did not wish to pay for entry. What little of each we could see was interesting and beautiful, but I tend to shy away from $30 entrance fees. The first place with that sort of fee was Blenheim Palace. This is right off of Woodstock Town Centre, and you go through a cool arched gate to get into the grounds. It’s supposed to be very beautiful, and it is the birthplace of Winston Churchill, which explains much of my interest, but I couldn’t justify the expense. The other interesting place is Warwick Castle, which has been turned into a sort of a medieval theme park. Again, very interesting, but even more expensive than Blenheim. Tom and I contented ourselves with driving around the two places, and I snapped a few pictures, but that’s about it.

It was in Warwick, though, that Tom and I had a proper English carvery for late lunch. Basically, they serve you a place of roast beef, or turkey, or pork, or chicken, or whatever, or all of the above, with Yorkshire pudding and veggies and lots of potatoes. The Irish may be famed for their reliance on the potato, but it’s an English staple as well.

Speaking of the mundane, Tom and I began the day by going to the big Car Boot Sale in Redditch. Basically this is a huge garage sale festival type thing. They have it every week and it’s really neat. It’s so big, we roamed for an hour and a half and probably saw a quarter of it, and Tom said yesterday’s was a small one. Had it been in Columbia, I would have been in trouble, but I didn’t think I’d be able to fit the lovely couch and chair set that would have been perfect in my library into my suitcase. Sigh.

One of the most intriguing places I’ve been was the stone circle at Rollright. There’s a circle which is pretty well preserved of approximately 70 stones here. Why approximately? Apparently no one can ever count them consistently. If you can count the same number of stones three times in a row, you’ve earned a wish. There’s also a set of three stones call the Whispering Knights and another called the King’s stone. The Knights and the King’s Stone are Stone Age gravestones. They also know where the Stone Age village was. It was very eerie to stand on the heath and know that humans have been in that place for 4000 years. Very moving.

The most impressive place we went to was Kenilworth Castle. This was originally a Norman castle built using the local sandstone, so it is a huge red structure. It was added on to by John of Gaunt and then later during Elizabethan times, so it has several different architectural aspects, but because of the sandstone, the anachronisms fade somewhat into an overall redness. Unfortunately, the castle is in ruins because it was destroyed in the Civil War, but a huge chunk remains, including a lot of little rooms.

Finally, the most powerful place to me was the one that is advertised with the least fanfare. In fact, it’s not really advertised at all, you just have to know that it’s there and have to know how to navigate the town of Bladon. Bladon is immediately to the south of Blenheim Palace, and Winston Churchill, his father, son, wife, and several relatives are buried there. I got some pictures of his tomb, one of them with my fyrd medallion. You know, if there was any person living in the twentieth century who was a fyrdman, I’d have to say good old Winston was probably it.

So today I head off probably to Newcastle or Edinburgh. Kinda depends on the next train from Birmingham. I leave you, however, with a fyrdman-like quote from Churchill:
“Never give in–never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

Today was a really fun day. Clare, Tom, and I crawled into their red Peugeot and started driving around the Welsh border.

It started with a trip up to Stokesay Castle. It’s really a fortified manor, but interesting nonetheless. The main hall and tower are in excellent shape, with some really neat rooms. It also has a quaint little church next to it.

From there we went to Knighton, which houses the Offa’s Dyke Museum. We strolled around and identified the Dyke, which is not as easy as you might think. While they have tried to keep it in repair in the last century or so, much of it has disappeared. Also, what is left has been overgrown with trees and bushes. However, there is a 182 mile path along and atop Offa’s Dyke you can hike. We wandered a bit on this, and where we were, which was right next to the River Teme, was beautiful. I have seen and done quite a few wonderful things on this trip, but I’m not sure that any of them top this place. Here, in the shadow of the Dyke, I performed the Wanderer for Clare and Tom. Magical. Plus, I got some cool Anglo-Saxon souveniers and books (sorry Mom).

We then proceeded up from Knighton with the ultimate goal of getting to Shrewsbury. Most of the Welsh border roads we drove today are hedged lanes amidst beautiful scenery with pretty English countryside towns popping up periodically. Plus the road to Shrewsbury leads through some other interesting sites. We stopped at the town of Clun and visited their castle. This castle is mostly in ruins, but what’s left is impressive. It’s also at the top of a hill, and I have to say the Markovi Kuli Exercise Program ™ was very helpful in allowing me to run around much easier.

Also on the road to Shrewsbury was the Mitchell’s Fold Stone Circle. This stone circle is not in tremendous shape, with only a few stones standing above the ferns which surround the circle, but it is neat nonetheless. People aren’t supposed to have fires on this hill, but I have to admit, if I had a chance, I’d love to build a fire at the center where others obviously have and sing until the wee hours. More magic.

And yet more magic and more song to end the excursion. We got to the Shrewsbury battlefield and I roamed around it and to the chapel which honors the dead there. Like the Hastings battlefield, there are purple and gold wildflowers and I sang Hotspur as I walked around. Yes, I’m totally geeky, but singing that song in that place was totally and completely magical to me.

So tomorrow we’re going to do a similar drive. We’re not sure where yet, but there’s lots of magic in the air, and we’re going to find it.

So I didn’t make it to Wales yesterday. I came real close, though, and ended up in Shrewsbury.

The train I was taking stopped at a lot of places, one of which was Oxford. I decided now was my best chance to get to the Ashmolean so I stopped there. I didn’t really explore Oxford, I mostly got off the train and went to the museum and then back, but what I did see was really neat.

The Ashmolean, of course, was awesome. The have a bunch of Anglo-Saxon jewelry, highlighted by the Alfred Jewel. It’s beautiful. I have lots of pictures. Of course, they also have a lot of Egyptian, Greek, and Minoan stuff, but unfortunately, they had the Minoan section closed. I had really wanted to see the fruits of Arthur Evans’ work but it’s going to have to be next time. I did see quite a few interesting things in the gift shop, including some books (sorry Mom).

The rest of the day was spent getting on to Shrewsbury. I decided to stop here for a variety of reasons, not least of which were the Cadfael mysteries. I ended up staying at a room in a pub called the Vaults, which was fun, and had dinner at a place called the Traitor’s Gate Brasserie. The food was a little expensive, but the pub had Fuller’s London Pride on sale for a pound a pint. It was a nice relaxing night. I did roam around a little bit, though not much, and got to see the big statue of Darwin outside the library.

This morning I did a lot more. The Vaults is literally in the shade of Shrewsbury Castle so I went there first. It was a lovely morning and the castle grounds are extremely well kept up with flowers and gardens. It was very pretty. Interestingly, there was a wedding there this morning. Hmmm, a wedding in a castle and being marched out not by organ music but a bagpiper. That, I have to say, does not suck.

So from the castle I marched to the Severn. No, I wasn’t with Douglas of Scotland nor did we join with Glendower, but then again I lived. That, by the way, is a reference to a song Calontir often sings called Hotspur which is about the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403 when Henry IV defeated Henry Hotspur. Not surprisingly, I sang or thought about this song a lot this morning.

What I marching to the Severn for was to go to the Shrewsbury Abbey church. It is this Abbey which is the setting for the Cadfael mysteries set in the twelfth century. The church is very lovely, and the effigy of Roger de Montgomery, one of William the Conqueror’s leading knights at Hastings, is in great shape. Going back to the Battle of Shrewsbury, Edith Pargeter who as Ellis Peters wrote the Cadfael mysteries, also has a historical fiction of that battle which of course I bought.

After that I marched back up the hill giving great thanks to my Macedonian experience with hills to eat at a place called Cromwell’s. Yes, that Cromwell. The pub happens to be right next to a church originally built in Anglo-Saxon times, and while there’s not much that survives of the church from that time, there’s still something. So my day included an Anglo-Saxon church, a Norman knight, a Crusader monk, one of the greatest knights in history, and one of the greatest rebels in history. Not a bad day.

I am now at Clare and Tom’s in Redditch for a few days. Tonight we’re relaxing and going to see Pirates of the Caribbean. I had hoped to see it in Macedonia, which just would have been so weird to see in English with Macedonian subtitles, but Macedonian movie theatres are a few months behind. They had MI3 instead, and that just wasn’t good enough to take me away from my wanderings.

Speaking of wanderings, tomorrow we’re going westward to some places they like. We’re then going to wander north, maybe as far as Rhuddlan castle, and hopefully back to Shrewsbury so I can see the battlefield itself.

Sunday the plan is to basically go west and south. Either tomorrow or Sunday I’ll be walking on top of Offa’s Dyke. I’m very excited about that. Now, it’s about dinner time.

Today has been sort of a light day. I did get laundry done and did get started on the packing of the big suitcase for the trip home. I also went to Windsor for a bit.

Windsor is only about a half hour from where I’m staying and as you’re arriving you get quite a nice view of the Thames which you cross and the castle on the hill. In fact, the castle dominates the town. The train station puts you only a couple of hundred yards from the entrance, so it’s real easy to get to.

Since I got a late start because of laundry and puttering around, I just barely made it into the castle before they closed. Not surprisingly, since the royals stay there periodically, the security is very tight. It’s also extremely well renovated and kept up, so it’s beautiful. I have a bunch of pictures wandering around the open air portions of the castle which will go up when I get home.

However, because I got in late, I barely got to see the chapel and I didn’t get to see the armor and weapons at all. I’m thinking I’ll go back if I get a chance. I did, however, get to the gift shops and there were actually quite a few interesting things there.

After that, I had a very good meal at a very American style restaurant with table service and everything. It was literally right down the road from the lower gate, and sitting at my table on the street the gate was framed by shops down a very medieval street.

So, all in all, a basically lazy day. Tomorrow will be much more. I’m going to head out to Wales. I don’t quite know where yet, but we’ll see. As a guess, probably Caernarvon, but I may go to Cardiff, see the castle there, and then ride the train north through Wales. Should be lots of fun.

For now, though, it’s to the pub to see Eddie and a bunch of Viking mates off to a big event in Denmark.

There’s a bar in Wichita that I (and my parents) have frequented. It’s called Kirby’s and it has had a very eclectic set of clientele of artistic, intelligent, and different people. The interior of the bar is a jumbled up mess of posters, grime, and history that at one time or another has been painted in eclectic tones to match the people.

I bring up Kirby’s because we spent yesterday evening at place that Kirby’s would like to be someday. It was a Turkish coffee bar that was very wonderfully decorated. It had traditional Turkish couches, pillows, and stools in little booths secluded either by hanging clothes or in separate rooms.

We had a fantastic time and the group included many of us from the States but also a bunch of the Macedonians who had worked with us. I had a lot of fun getting my two roomies, Erik and Matt, a little drunker than they had intended. Erik gets drunk after two beers, so we bought him four. Matt can do way better than that, so I kept buying him beer after beer that he insisted he would nurse, but he kept drinking them so fast we had to buy him more. It was a lot of fun.

Today was mostly boring, interspersed with a little terror, and a lot of bleah. We got up at 8:30am, three hours after we had been getting up so it was way late. We ate breakfast, packed, and waited. I was done packing by 10:30am. The bus left at 2:00pm. It was a long boring wait, only moderately helped by the Simpsons Uno game that would not end. I should note that the bus trip was a little interesting, given that to cool it off the driver drove with the sliding door open most of the way.

Anyway, we got on the plane just fine, but here’s where the terror part came in to play. This was probably the most turbulent flight I have ever been on. I was not helped by the fact that the lady sitting next to me was horribly afraid of flying in the first place, and her twitching set my nerves on edge anyway. There were several really big immediate altitude changes and a lot of buffeting. Of course this all happened on the ascent so we had most of the flight to wonder about whether we would make it or not. We did make it, of course (either that or the afterlife has wireless), but it was nerve-wracking. Fortunately, the flight from Vienna to London was great. It was not full at all, the seat next to me was empty, and the flight was smooth and relaxing. The Airbus A321 has a lot more legroom than the 737-700 which helped a lot too.

I’m here in London now and I should apologize for this post becoming temporally muddled. I started this entry at the Skopje airport, added more just after getting to London, and am finishing this on Wednesday morning. I stopped last night because Eddie, Mia, and I went to a pub. After the first flight I really wanted a beer.

By the way, speaking of temporal confusion, it has been pointed out to me that the journal entries are not shown on the journal at a consistent time. Some of them reflect me making the entry in Central time, others in English time, and others in Macedonian time. LiveJournal’s timestamps come from the computer the entry is made on so if I make on the laptop I’m carrying, it is on Central time. If I make it at Eddie’s or an Internet Cafe, that will have local time. Don’t know how many noticed but I thought I should explain it.

So I’ve got some laundry done, and once it’s out on the line I’m headed out to Windsor this afternoon. Tonight there’s a crew going to the pub (surprise) and tomorrow I start roaming. I’m going to go to Wales, I think, and then on Friday afternoon I’m going to head to Birmingham to see Clare and Tom. Then we’ll see.

Sunday we went to the city of Ohrid which is, surprisingly enough, on the shores of Lake Ohrid. The lake is beautiful, surrounded by mountains and small villas, and towns, and churches.

After arriving in Ohrid, we started the day by going to the National Museum of Ohrid. The museum was amazing. Not so much the artifacts, though they were cool and plentiful, but we’ve seen a bunch of similar artifacts either in museums or pulled out of the ground ourselves in the past two weeks. The museum was in a very old and very beautiful house in Ohrid, however, and I spent most of my time staring at the woodwork that decorated it. The ceilings were all carved wood or intricately painted plaster. There were many cabinets, icon shrines, and other storage places arranged in the walls. Stunning. I could easily live there.

After that we were released. I had a few things on my to do list. One I wanted to get a boat ride. After lunch, a few of us got a boat ride to where there was supposed to be a cave church. It turns out, however, that these cave churches were likely made during times when Christians couldn’t worship openly, so they really don’t exist as tourist spots. We did, however, get taken to a place that had a shrine in the rock and right above it was the Church of St. Jovan’s. This is right next to the lake and was a beautiful view.

We then decided to go to the castle. This turned out to be a bit of an odyssey. There are two ways to walk to the castle. One goes through the forest and is fairly short, though fairly steep. We didn’t realize we could go that way. We went the other way which went through the town, generally up fairly steep, but it was up and down and took us about 45 minutes to get there.

It was, however, worth it. The castle wall has been greatly restored, and we got to walk up on the gate tower and the battlements. I didn’t realize that the Macedonian tradition included bagpipes, but there was bagpiper on the gate tower and he played for us (after, of course, we tipped him). He even handed me the bagpipes and tried to show me how to play them. Between his ability to speak English and my musical ability, it will not go down as one of the world’s musical highlights. After this, we walked around the walls some more, getting great pictures of the town and the lake.

We then strolled amidst the tight streets and lanes of a medieval city toward the lake. We got another boat ride, from the famous Captain Mile (pronounced me-lay). He said he’d take us around some and show us some neat stuff around the lake.

The lake is very old, very deep, very clear, and very beautiful. I tried the water as we were sailing around, but Mile said to wait as we were going to the best spot for that. He led us into a little inlet past a Macedonian navy base with a moored patrol boat (i.e., their whole navy).

He showed us first the fish hatchery. They’re trying to breed more of the endangered Ohrid Trout, which is a huge delicacy in Macedonia. The trout doesn’t seem to want to grow anywhere but in the lake though, so they’ve had some problems there.

The special part though, was he led us to one of the springs that fill the lake. It comes out in this old fountain and the water was delicious and cold. After drinking some, we cooled off from a long hot day by dangling our feet in the spring water. It was wonderful.

Mile then took us back out on the lake to see the President’s House. Tito apparently wanted a lakeside villa so he had one built. Following all of the changes here, it’s ended up as the retreat for the President of Macedonia.

We then hustled back just in time to make the bus back for the long drive home. I wouldn’t have minded staying the night in Ohrid, it’s a great place to hang out in.

Today, we went back out on the mountain for one last day. We profiled some of the pits, including mine, which basically means we draw the side walls pretty thoroughly. After that we backfilled. I’ve dreaded this, and it turns out with good reason. It was hot, there was lots of dirt, and it’s frustrating to think you dug out all of this dirt simply to put it back in so that someone can come next year to dig it all out again. I also went too fast and my back started arguing with me. GRRRR. But it all got done, thanks mostly to the other people.

We worked on some of the final paperwork and packing of stuff so we should be pretty good to go tomorrow. I’ve gone and picked up a new suitcase that is sitting next to me in the Ramshorn Food Court. Tonight we pack a bit but we’re planning on sitting by the river and having beer with our Macedonian friends.

Then tomorrow, to Vienna and hopefully to London if I make the connections.

Yesterday I finished digging my square. There was a ton of paperwork because of what I found. Archaeological pits, at least the way the Fullers do thing, are organized around the locus. Each different layer of dirt type is a locus and each interesting area/major object/delimited area is a locus. Plus, you can just start a new locus if the pit is level and you haven’t changed loci in a while. I never saw a different layer of dirt and until I saw the wall I never had a reason to change loci, though I did change twice just because during my dig to make my paperwork a little easier.

However, yesterday, I added Locus 4, Locus 5, Locus 6, and Locus 7 to my notes. Locus 4 is bounded by the wall I uncovered, three big stones, and the pit walls in the southwest corner. Locus 5 is northwest corner bounded by the wall and the line extended of the three big rocks. Locus 6 is east side of the pit bounded by the line of the three rocks. Finally, Locus 7 is the wall itself.

Dr. Fuller was very pleased with how my pit looked. I dug another 10cm down throughout the square, giving the wall more definition. I didn’t find a ton of stuff but I did find some. It doesn’t really matter, though, because they’re definitely going to redig my square plus put another square to the west to follow the wall. I’m hoping I can get updates from Dr. Fuller next year on what they found.

After finishing the archaeological stuff, we headed off to see a medieval church near the castle. The painting inside was amazing. I wish I could provide some pictures but they would not let me take any. Suffice it to say it tooks several Constantinople artisans several years to paint the walls of a smallish church. Incredible stuff.

We didn’t have to get up until the luxuriously late hour of 7:45 so last night most of us went out roaming. This was actually the first time we were down in the city during the night. Several of us sat in a cafe relaxing by the river. It was really nice.

Today we went and saw several more things. We went to the Skopje City Museum, which is essentially our employer on this dig. They had a good variety of stuff there. The most interesting things were a gold ring with what looked like pearl that had a bireme or a trireme carved into it. Also, there was a great icon of St. Dmitri armed and accoutered for war.

After that we went to the National Museum of Macedonia. This place has artifacts starting from the Stone Age to the present. There were some very interesting swords there that were surprising for their large size. I hadn’t realized the Greeks used such longswords, and one of them might have even been a curved sabre-like cavalry weapon. It was hard to tell whether the curve was part of the sword or if the weapon had warped before being excavated. Nevertheless, these were very interesting.

We then went to another Orthodox Church. This one was much younger, being completed in the early part of the nineteenth century. It was very beautiful as well. It apparently took three woodworkers seven years to carve the wood which makes up the main center wall of the church. The big tragedy of the day though is that this was the first church I could take pictures in but my batteries died on me and the replacements I had held virtually no charge. GRRR.

Then came one of the highlights of the trip. We ended up a restaurant in a building built in 1470. It had a beautiful courtyard with lovely shade from a large tree which was very cool. The last part is important because it’s been getting increasingly hot the past few days, though not quite to the level that I hear it’s been in Missouri and Kansas. Anyway, we had a very lovely lunch. Mine consisted of a Macedonian salad and then Sarma, the Macedonian version of stuffed grape leaves.

We had originally planned to stay in the city and roam around, but was just too hot. We did wander some but not much. We ended up for a bit at the same riverside cafe we went to last night with the same waitress who remembered us (well mostly me, she remembered I drink Laszko Dark). We had some ice cream which is ubiquitous here and also slightly different than in the States. More creamy tasting. It might be made of goat’s milk, but I’m not sure. It’s tasty though, whatever it is.

It was still very hot, so we just decided to call it a day, which is how I ended up checking email and posting. I’m going to buy a new suitcase after finishing up here and then head back to the hotel to relax this afternoon.

Tomorrow we go to Lake Ohrid to see the sites. There’s a castle, some museums, and some churches to see. I’m also looking forward to the lake cruise, which I’m told is very beautiful. Should be lots of fun.