Monday was our final day in Bitola. Everyone was busy getting ready for the final leg of our adventure - Thessaloniki in Greece and Constantinople. Violeta was especially busy - washing, cleaning, preparing the house for her absence, cooking - and on top of all this, friends and neighbors were stopping by to wish her and Tina a safe journey. This involved Violeta welcoming them with Raki, a cup of Turkish coffee, and a pastry. I think there were at least 3 rounds of visitors today - the woman who lives next door even brought me a gift - a package of Turkish coffee and a box of chocolates - she is a widow - she was telling me how much she misses having coffee with Violeta.
There were also follow up appointments with doctors and dentists. The most important project was to find a drive to Greece. Violeta had reached out to her circle of friends - they found someone who would drive the 4 of us and 7 suitcases plus 4 backpacks to Thessaloniki for 500 euros. Tina and Violeta thought that was too much money - so they were waiting for a better offer. And the waiting paid off! They made a deal for 250 euros - the driver and his van would pick us up at 10 am tomorrow.
We spent the rest of the day doing final packing - Tina and Violeta spent time with Ilce and Tina's father. I just tried to stay out of the way.
Tuesday morning we were as ready as we were going to be. Ilce had gone to work at 6:30 am so I didn't get to see him although I had said a quick goodbye the night before - I had thanked him for his hospitality, for making me coffees with ice cream, for the drives, for his sense of humor.
Tina's father and JB walked over to the police station to let them know we were leaving. Did I mention that we had to register with the police when we arrived in Macedonia? We didn't bother to register in Skopje - we waited until we got to Bitola. We went to the police station with Tina's father. We had to give the police officer our passports and wait outside while the officer and Tina's father went inside to register us. It took about 15 minutes. You can be detained if you do not register - you also have to show the registration form at the border. I thought that we had to register in the other countries that we visited - the hotels usually do it for you - we didn't do it at the AirB&Bs - but we managed to get through the borders okay.
From what I can make out this document says:
Confirmation
Certificate - Certifikat
registration-reregistration of residence or residence address of the apartment ...
application for registration and deregistration of residence or change of declared address - date of departure or change in address -
Murphy Mary Ellen
04 06 1950
USA
P A25513830
S Novaci/where staying/lodgings
Date of declaration 20/09/2024
Date of departure 08/10/2024
Signed by the authorized personnel.
The driver arrived a little after 10 - he, JB, and Tina's father loaded the bags into the car. I said goodbye and thank you to Tina's father - I really liked this quiet man. I got into the car while the others said goodbye.
The driver was all business - we made one stop for coffee before we reached the border. When we arrived at the border with Greece, there was a sign stating something like - Macedonia belongs to Greece - a sign of the animosity between Macedonia (officially the Republic of North Macedonia) and Greece over Macedonia using the name Macedonia after the breakup of Yugoslavia - Greece has a northern province on the border named Macedonia and claimed that North Macedonia was trying to appropriate/annex that area. Greece went so far as to block Macedonia from entering the EU and NATO - thus the name change. Now it is Bulgaria that is blocking entrance into the EU.
The driver parked over to one side - gathered up our passports and walked over to the Macedonian officials - he seemed to know most of them. I thought this was unusual as generally the officials want to take a look at everyone's faces to make sure they match the passports. Tina heard the driver say to the Macedonian officials that he does these drives on his days off. We moved up to the Greek authorities and the same procedure - he talked with them as if he knew some of them - then we were off. The drive went by pretty quickly - same agricultural fields but Greece seemed to have much larger fields. Power plants in the distance. The cities seemed bigger.
When Tina talked with Ilce later, Ilce said that he thought the driver was a police man or was in the military. I believe it from his authoritative stance.
Traffic seemed to build as we were driving into Thessaloniki - there were large apartment buildings everywhere. In Macedonia, people buy an apartment - no condos - Tina said that the residents probably pay a small charge for building maintenance. So the outside of a building may not look the best while there are lovely apartments inside. When JB and I dropped Tina and Violeta off to visit her friend one night, that was a new building in an area being developed.
The driver found the AirB&B on a narrow street with no parking. He pulled into a non-parking spot and he and JB quickly unpacked the van. We walked back up to the apartment building. We were maybe a half hour early. Tina called the landlord because the key was not in the lockbox. S/he told Tina to hold on for 15 minutes and someone would be over with the key. JB and Tina insisted that Violeta and I go over to the nearby outdoor cafe and have a coffee while they waited with all the luggage for the key. So we went - Violeta had coffee and I had a Coke Zero. We watched the traffic and people go by until JB texted that they were in the apartment and had brought up all the luggage.
The building had an elevator - but there were 2 sets of stairs with about 4 steps each to get to it. The elevator would only hold 1 person at a time! We had a 4 bedroom and 2 bathroom apartment - I had one of the bedrooms with a balcony - these pictures are the view from my balcony. We unpacked and then headed out to get something to eat.
Most of the balconies had some kind of plants - you can't really see it clearly but the top middle apartment has clothes hanging out. I presumed that most of the apartments were rentals because, like in Macedonia, people have clothes hanging out on their balconies every sunny day because they have no yards to have clotheslines and dryers are expensive. None of these apartments had clothes hanging - not too many had patio furniture or many flower or vegetable plants.
So many apartment buildings in all these countries! So of course there is no parking. The building across from us has an underground parking garage. You can see a white car parked inside the building - someone had just pulled up - the people got out and went inside and the car is waiting for one of the employees to drive it down into the garage. The employees will drive it out to the owner when it is needed.
The Aegean Sea was only 2 blocks away so we walked down to see the White Tower. We passed this couple who had just had pictures taken with the White Tower in the background.
The White Tower may have replaced a Byzantine tower built before the 12th century. The present tower was built sometime in the 15th century after the Ottomans captured Thessaloniki and was part of the city's walls. It was used by the Ottomans as a fortress, a prison, and an execution site.
The Janissaries were an elite military corps that formed the Sultan's household troops. They were the first modern standing army to be equipped with firearms. They were established in the 1300s - eventually part of the tax levied on non-muslims. The corps was made up of 10-20 year old Christian boys who were forcibly removed from their homes. circumcised and forced to convert to Islam. They were sent to Muslim families to learn the Turkish language and customs and the Muslim faith. They were not allowed to grow a beard, learn any trade except soldiering, or marry. They then were impressed into the Janissary corp which was known for its discipline and complete loyalty to the Sultan.
When the sultan tried to adopt modern European military organization and technology in the early 1800s, the Janissaries eventually revolted. Once the revolt was suppressed, the Sultan Mahmud II ordered the execution of rebellious Janissaries. All the Janissaries being held in the White Tower were massacred. Other young and old Janissaries were exiled while the rest were murdered.
We walked along the sea side. Thessaloniki is a large and busy port city so there is a lot of marine traffic - makes for interesting watching. The road is one way and runs parallel to the sea. There is a fence separating the seaside walk from the traffic - so you have to walk to one of only a couple of crosswalks with timed traffic lights to stop all the trucks, buses, motorcycles and cars. The restaurants and shops are on the opposite side from the sea walk.
The Mothers-in-law on the Aegean Sea!
We stopped for coffee and later stopped for dinner. We walked back near our apartment and finished the day off with ice cream - nothing like dining outside!! And so much to see in Constantinople!!
Just a quick note - the cigarette smoke from those guys at the table behind us was horrendous! There were people beside us vaping. I was surprised that there were no non-smoking areas anywhere - the smoke was a killer. Thank God for outside dining - eating inside is unbearable because of all the smoking.
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