the reason that I am telling you all this and even bringing up this topic is that I have recently begun trying to learn macedonian at a more accelerated pace. I will be posting words around the apartment to help out and even in the bathroom. Hopefully this means that I will be able to understand every 3 words that people speak here compared to when people say "I am" or "I want" Thankfully my new roommate is here specializing in Balkan languages so if he does not help me out, I will systematically try and kick him out also... jk?
Another thing that I wanted to write about was the alcohol law here. Right before I came back a law was passed making it illegal to sell alcohol after 7 in anywhere except clubs or discos. Of course you can still find places to buy alcohol from but this usually entails the dude looking around for police and charging you a few denari more. Basically the feeling just leaves you dirty and that you have done something morally wrong because you have to keep explaining you wont tell anyone about it.
Another somewhat confusing thing here is the amount of money things cost. A typical candy bar or pop will cost anywhere between 35 to 50 denari or $1. Going to the grocery store and stocking up for a decent amount of time can set you back about 700-1000 denari or $20 depending on how you buy. What I am trying to get across is the idea of having things on a 10-1000 scale instead of a 1-10 scale. I have always been someone who thinks simple is easier and being here my first month and learning the numbers 1-10 and then realizing that I will almost never really need to know those numbers is a little disheartening. A friend of mine has written about how you will almost always be using 100 denari bills when you are buying something. This is because typically whatever you buy will of course be in this price range. To compare 100 denari is about $2.50. I know this part of my blog contains a lot of ranting and is a bit confusing seeing as I am completely lost myself right now, but what my general thought is is that for awhile I could not understand the money situation a all.
On a side note. Devet and Deset. I hate you (this is the words for 9 and 10 respectively)
Lastly I would like to mention that new years is coming up. I hope that all of you will be enjoying yourselves back home and it is my wish that none of you hit a deer. Here in MK new years is THE holiday. People get dressed up, dolled up, fucked up, any kind of up you can think of. From what has been told to me, we will all get very nicely dressed, go to a very nice place for dinner and then to some club to go dancing and partying. A lot of people even take extended holidays to lake Ohrid, which is still one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited. But the reason I bring up the new year is that kids here will throw fireworks off here at least once every 5 mins. Today I was at a museum with a few friends and I wanted to start a video of us walking around with the fireworks going off in the background and tell everyone it was actually gunshots. Sitting in my apartment now I have heard at least 10 go off in the last hour. The funny thing about all this is I am told it will only get worse as new years gets closer and will reach its peak after. The other funny thing is that the kids using all these fireworks are about 10 years old. Clearly the regulations on fireworks are about as lax as cigarettes here.
Well sorry that this post consists of mostly random rants and strange topics. Maybe next time I will tell you about the Albanian "mafia" dominoes bar I want us to go to soon or the new wine bar my friend Seth wants to become a local at. But of course those are for future posts.
I leave you with this.
- Never trust a beautiful linguist with an amazing rack. She will be a ghost.
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