Peppers and Tobacco

I suppose my focus of thinking is currently constrained by my University classes. I find studying one area while seeing a much wider world a bit hard to assimilate into a coherent world view.
I have a class (a not very good class) focused on gaming, robots, and technology. I am pretty sure the people I saw in Macedonia harvesting tobacco or drying the tobacco on their porches are not thinking about Robotics much.
Then my war and media class had me thinking about the break down of Yugoslavia, which is of course still a topic in Macedonia but it is 'the past'.
The country still has larger current concerns. Zok and I went to the 'new' museum, which turned out to be a very strange history lesson.
The building had a strict no photos policy so I'll have to try and describe.
There were wax figures of historic persons, juxtaposed next to huge paintings. These were brand new paintings, but they were meant to look like paintings a bit like the famous 'Washington crossing the Delaware'.
Then the ceiling had small led lights that twinkled like stars. There were also very modern aspects. Basically you walk through with a guide who explains the oppression of Macedonia since the Ottoman empire.
There are several maps showing Macedonia before it had been occupied and taken over bit by bit to become the small landlocked country that it is now.
They skipped talking about Alexander (King of Macedonia, aka Alexander the Great), or about the symbol on their flag, these are two of the main reasons Greece is fighting against Macedonia being let into the EU among other things. They also sort of ended right before the war that broke up Yugoslavia. They did talk quite a bit about the oppression from Bulgaria because this was the start of the idea that Macedonia was never its own culture or community, and that their language doesn't 'count'.

My non-fiction writing class makes me think about all the opportunities so many of us have. There are many, many people with limited options.
I also have a hard time understanding governments. There is so much trash and litter. That and the empty buildings and graffiti.
When there have been countries that have successfully cleaned up their environments why do many countries seem not to care?

In Macedonia there are still horse and carts on the roads with the cars.
There are signs for them. I missed getting a good photo. The iphone for photos is convention but not good for action shots.
Most are a sort of 'tinker' trade. In Prilip they take any unwanted electronic equipment. They fix them up and re-sell them.
At least someone is recycling.

Buda and Pest divided by the Danube

Zok and I had to fly through Budapest and then change planes to get to Skopje, Macedonia.

When I first met 'Speed' of the STRD roller derby league, she had just come back from staying in Budapest and talked about how much she liked the city.
So Zok and I were inspired by her recommendation and we decided to stay over a couple of days and re-acclimatize ourselves.
We stayed in the same hotel because they have thermal pools that can be accessed from the hotel side, making the whole, bathing suit, robe, towel process easier. We could not take much with us, as we knew we would be loaded down with gifts from Zok's family.

The hotel was really interesting.
http://gellertbath.com/

I was a bit disorientated during our whole time there. Zok pointed out that this was the very first stop we had ever made where I didn't research the city beforehand. Normally I have a small notebook filled with places of interest, cafes and bars to try and dozens of places to try and overwhelm Zok into at least one cultural event.

Zok knew of a really, really good Italian eatery that he went to when he was in Budapest with The Hives. If you have not gotten the impression from me about how expensive the food and alcohol in Sweden is, then I am not typing loud enough. We went for Italian twice. The entire dinner (and we were splashing out) with a bottle of wine, a dessert and Zok's appetizer and main were less than the price of just the bottle of wine here in Stockholm.

I also found a funny place for lunch, and a lovely little chocolate and wine bar.
Budapest although definitely inclined towards tourists, was still quite foreign.
The city is not trying to really change itself in any way to appeal to a tourist.
Also I suppose due to the amount of languages, most staff people simply ignored you. There was a definite theme of people sort of looking around in a confused manner, in the entry of some place and being completely ignored by the staff. Or, there were hawkers trying to reel you in to places with there "Sir, Madam, very good, very hungry, Good day" a chatter of broken English.
Somehow this depressed me, as I know I sound about the same when trying to speak Swedish.
I lucked into a copy of 'Time Out' in English at our lunch bar which is how I found the chocolates and wine (Vin and Wonka). I also found some markets, and we tried one, I really wanted to get onto public transport and see another neighborhood. Turned out I shouldn't have bothered. Haggling is conducted of course via a small calculator, even Zok had a hard time since we were dealing with about 200 ft to the AU dollar, and had just been dealing with Macedonian denar. I never get used to 'Oh, 20,000 ft for that jacket? What a good price'. I thought we would find quaint second-hand shops filled with communist era treasure, but what we found was warehouse and warehouses of dollar store items. Later we found out that the market was across the street, but this was just vaguely better quality. Knock off items and second shift items from China mostly.
By the fourth immense warehouse of repeated, fake flowers, odd linens, bizarre jeans and endless stretch pant leggings I felt as if recycling my whole life has been ridiculous and futile.

I would have liked to go further out, there is a summer palace, which can be gotten to by the suburban train line.
The countryside of Hungary has a reputation of being really beautiful.
Zok says 'There is always next time.' but of course Zok's favorite place to go is to a place he has never been before.

"...all these places have their moments..."

The now defunct school where Zok's Mom, Aunts and Uncles went.

View from the garden

I did take advantage of the home grown food. Sweden's imported 'fresh' foods don't agree with me. This photo is just the 'starter' of (each!) meal. It also tends to be vegetarian so that works well for me.

Zok's mother Mara was born in a village near Skopje.

Six children of twelve lived into adulthood, Mara is the only one that moved out of Macedonia. Her brothers and sisters moved to Prilip, with the exception of one, who moved to and still lives in Skopje. The cities are about two hours (and three toll payments) apart by car. One sister moved back to the village. The village actually was moved over by about say two miles or so, after cholera made many sick, everyone (forty or so families) re-settled.

The village only has about nine occupied houses now.

I thought that it was interesting that now there is both water and power people moved on to the city-but then I only have small bits of stories.

I find that the more I am surrounded by foreign language the less I try to understand. Well, I am trying, but sometimes my mind just drifts into white noise and minutes pass and I've lost even gist of the conversation. I find that as I am always trying to translate, as opposed to just understanding that I find myself doing just that- translating and filling in the deeper meaning- which doesn't work, of course if the conversation is actually deep.

Јас цха одом Маседониа

I have not been writing much, well I have been writing a lot, in Swedish, and for my University classes, and writing up drills for Roller Derby practice.  But for the blog- not so much.

I can't tell when my friends are checking in here, so sometimes I just see that there are no comments and I take a week or two off from putting anything up.  I would hate to be extremely boring.

But, in case I eaten by a goat, I will put this post up so you have a clue to my last whereabouts.

Zok and I are going to Macedonia early Tuesday morning.

We have not been there for years as you may be able to tell from the photos.

The bridge you see was built in the 1400s.

As you may know, Macedonia's high times were somewhere around the medieval era.  Mostly the country has been conquered and divided-again and again.  Actually one can view the country as quite tenacious, and marvel at their ability to keep both culture and language alive.

I want to go to this Monastery but Zok is already saying "No".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l-E-p4_2t8 

The last time we were there, the country had high hopes of becoming part of the EU, but this has not happened.

I doubt I will have any access to the Internet, and frankly I will settle for power that equals hot water for bathing.

Remember if I am eaten by a goat or fall from a mountain or both; I still want the rumor to be that I was 'swept out to sea'. 

 

"I miss you now, like I guess I should have missed you then..."

I had a long weekend of derby in the city of Malmö, about a five hour drive from Stockholm.  I went with a Referee and three skaters.  Our hotel was filled with skaters from Finland.  The other Swedish team, Crime City, live in Malmö, and the last league came from nearby Copenhagen.  Talking to the skaters from Denmark was a pleasure, because since they love Princess Mary, they all know about Tasmania and there is much less confusion while talking over a beer.

They had an amazing speed skater on their team Martattack, she doesn't use toestops and controls her speed mostly by lifting her front wheels, she was amazing to watch.  I felt proud however that my derby tactics to stop her worked enough that the team won against them, in what I am told was the most exciting game of the six that were played over the weekend.  Bench coaching was sort of cool and less stressful than reffing but not quite as fun.

There were not as many fans as I would have expected- the skating ability so far outstrips the public interest.  However as you can see, by the face painting the ones that were there were quite enthusiastic.

Much singing and chanting...

I definitely take a longer time to recover from cramped spaces, long days, and longer nights.  We have an extra night off training though as I am not the only one suffering from the long weekend.

Next up- Macedonia.

"...on stranger waves, the lows and highs..."

I have had a lot of school, derby, and Swedish lessons taking up all my time.  I left on Friday afternoon to attend a Roller Derby 'advanced' bootcamp in Berlin.   I knew that I did not technically qualify as 'advanced' and I certainly felt that way when the coaches kept stating "I am sure your leagues do they types of drills all the time".  Each time this was stated I thought to myself, "The girls in Tasmania would think I was trying to kill them if I made them do this drill"!

I also had to pull myself off to the side to do some of the drills that I had never seen before and was slow to enact.  Also I have come to realize the level of 'aggressive skating' here is much higher than I am used too.  

I have had two days to recover but I am still tired.  I am going to Mälmo tomorrow for two days and six bouts.  I am going to bench coach the Stockholm games, which is something I have never done before.

Perhaps all the 'new' is what is causing my exhaustion.

Both coaches in Berlin were inspiring.  Although I think that for me the point is not to strive to be them, but to hold them up as a standard so that I can better myself.

Derby is growing fast, on a professional level as well as the level of athleticism.  Yet each week I think there are more 'small' places starting a roller derby league.  There is a large gap between them.

But this seems to be normal for sport.  There are junior leagues, professional leagues, b-leagues, pick up games, sport clubs- in each level and in each place people make the sport their own.

My excuse for having barely any photos and not even getting postcards in Berlin is due less to time constraints and more to the hazards of traveling in a group.

Thorildsplan Tunnelbana or how Sookie tried to beat the rain

Two days of non-stop rain. The two days I had for personal skating. One of STRD newer referees invited me to a skate park that is under a bridge and often skating in the rain is possible due to the amount of pavement the bridge keeps dry.

We were not quite that fortunate, I have a massive bruise from taking off when my wheels had gotten too wet. But at least I think my crash made the 6 year old girl skateboarder feel better about her fall...

I was happy to just get out of the apartment and go somewhere new.
The park was near a station I have been meaning to go to because of the tiling there. As usual I did not have a the better camera with me.

This week I also took a bus to check out a rumored outdoor 'covered' rink. This proved to be true and although the rink really, really needs to be clean up, at least we can skate in wet weather.
So for now practice is being held there.
I am going out early today to make up my skating time. I ran the last session and therefore didn't get to skate much. I might have to ref today so, again I won't get much actual practice time.
However, next weekend I am attending a skating camp in Berlin. Being organized by the Berlin Bombshells, and run by Swedehurt and Suzy Hotrod.
I just hope I can keep up...