After meeting the Nova students, our next stop was at a lovely traditional Macedonian restaurant in the heart of Skopje. It was only the first of many places we have gone that remind me of Romania--the intricately carved wooden architecture (associated with Ohrid, pronounced "OKE-reet"), the brightly covered and elaborately woven traditional textiles covering the walls, even the ceramic skillet in which Tavče, a bean concoction recognized as the national dish, is served (pronounced "Tava," with the "v" somewhere between a "b" and a "v" sound).
But at the same time, I am continually startled by how dissimilar Macedonia is to Romania. Both countries share a common history of Communist, dictatorial oppression, but the latter fails to evince the developmental emergence I have witnessed here in Skopje. Granted, my visit to Romania was nearly ten years ago, but there was still a charming preponderance of the traditional grandmotherly babushka---along with the not-so-charming ones of outdoor toilet facilities and unhealthy disregard for traffic laws. By contrast, right down the street from our hostel in Skopje, roughly the same size as Sibiu, Romania, is a huge indoor mall with a grocery store that puts Sainsbury's to shame, and drivers and pedestrians alike obey the traffic lights--complete with pedestrian walking signals! A prominent member of Macedonia's ruling parliamentary party bragged to us about the city's construction efforts, which we beheld in full force later that evening as we gazed across the Vardar river at rising Corinthian columns ensconced within layers of scaffolding.
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