Bulgaria and return to home

The day after, I travelled to Bansko with some friends using a car. The city is in Bulgaria and is quite famous in all the balkanic area as a ski place. It's principal racetrack is called Alberto Tomba, bery famous italian skier.

Crossed the bulgarian border, we travelled a lot before to find a village. The part of the montains are quite poor and comunicate all the comunist history balkans had.

We were able to find a good offer and we took a hotel 4 stars with pool, spa, kitchen in every room for only 15€ in the city centre.

To arrive from Skopje to Bansko, without knew the street, we spent a good part of the day, arriving there for the dinner and quarter of hour in Spa.

We've been in the ski place and took a walk in the city discovering to be the only italians in the whole city, standing at the opinion of the seller in the streets.

The night we've been in the same clubs of the day before, Oxigen and Johnny K.

The day of departure from Bansko, we cleaned the room around midday and we finished the last things to do.

After regard the friends, I took the bus from Bansko to Sofia. I've paid 7€ and I spent around 3 hours to reach the capital. There I went to McDonald, international place where to find wifi, to eat and wait for some friends.

After a fast beer, we went to put my luggage n the house of my host and after we went in Terminal 1, Hipster/rock club with some live bands and a good atmosphere, with prices not so high, infact the cheapest beer 0.5l was around 1.5€. ( 3 leva).

The 17^th was the last day in Sofia. I went to visit the city and making the classical mainstream pictures, visiting only the old city centre.
Sardika, the centre, is reacheble with metro, and is full of historical building, churches and you can find the most knew street in Sofia, Vitosha street, where everyone go to shopping and with fancy places.

Furthermore I've visited the mainstream chatedral of Alexander Nevsky.

My tour wasn't without many informations cause I made it alone and, once I've finished to walk, I've been in a bar where I took a tè and wrote some lines of the blog.

When I finished, I return back in the host's place, and we ate and drunk, warming us up before the travel.

Unfortunatly when I came back by bus, I had the feet wet and for 8 hours like this, I took cold and fever.

Now I'm ok again and ready to see what happen and which one will be the next adventure!

Skopje & Mavrovo

Arrived in Skopje, I've been welcomed from my host, Adrian, that was waiting for me so long time, and I went to his place to put the luggage. After we went to look for a club where they product their own beer.
In the bar we choose there wasn't so much people, so we decide to take a walk in the city.
Skopje is quite different from my expectations. The city centre is huge and good to see.
There you will find the biggest statue in Europe dedicated to Alexander the Great.

Also, another place to visit is the Gran Bazar, where you will find every kind of shop and a lot of clubs.


The 5^th of jenuary, woke up at 13h, we ate something and we went to take a coffee.
After, we went to take an humburger, so good and huge, and after another rest during evening.
During the evening we went to a Narghilea place, one of the most famous during summer.
Obviously, beeing winter, the club was quite empty.
We went to Shanti hostel where we met the organizers of the event and a participant.
That night, there was the “orthodox Christmas”, so in every street and neighborhood, there was a campfire and all the families were celebrating together the festivity with food and drinks.
The party was also with traditional dances around the fire.


The following day, for tradition, at the singing of the rooster, the children of the quarter meet each other to sing in front of the houses, a traditional song asking for money, food or a general present for christmas.
We met with the organizers and participants to go out and party for the second part of the orthodox christmas.


In this part, is celebrated a big dinner and cooked a piece of bread with inside a coin. The bread, after, is shared between the members of the family and the one that will take the coin, will be lucky for the rest of the year.
The day after was the beginning of the event.

As usual, I woke up late and, after lunch, we prepared the luggages to go to the hostel.
The family that host me and another italian guy , started to cry.
That family that offered us a lot of ospitality and friendliness, let me remembered about the first experiences in AEGEE and first goodbye I had to say in my life without knowing if I would been able to see again a person or not.
Now, I'm able to front these situations but sometimes happen that I feel sadness for people that leave with I create a really great relationship and that I will be not able to see them soon.

Once we started the event, we had a bit of time to know each other, regards the old friends and take a shower.
After, we went to a Kafana to eat something, a tipical place in balkanic countries, and after dinner, I came back to the hostel cause I felt sick.
The day after we took part to the city tour. Between other stuffs, one of the curiosities of Skopje is that the city changed a lot in the last 5 years, infact Skopje is completely different from the city of 2007.


This is for a cultural project that took place in Skopje for increment the cultural patrimony of the city.
With this venture, they create the statue of Alexander the Great, the main square, rebuilt some bridges and new buildings. For it, they paid around 600 milions of euro.


The evening we took part in a workshop about traditional dances and after we partecipated to Bar Crawl, ending in a club to dance.

The 3^rd day of the event, we went to Mavrovo, one of the most knew ski place in Macedonia.
Unfortunatly there wasn't snow, so we took part in an alternative plan.

The first day there we went to Marka Canyon.
This is one of the canyon with one of the deepest caves in Europe. The canyon now present one big dam that keep and depurate the water. Here we went in a kind of little electric boat. At the beginning it seems very unbalanced, but after I felt safe.


From here we arrived in Mavrovo e we took the rooms. The place wasn't so good, but for three day we could survived.

The day after, we've been in the monastery of St.Bogorski. Also the same day they organized a workshop about macedonian traditions and european night, where happen, as normal, almost everything.


The last day we took the funicular railway in the ski place to see the view from the top of the racetrack.
I was scared cause, over that was the first time taking the funicular, the sistem didn't seems so safe.
The view was amazing also with cold and wind.
The evening was a lot of free time and during the night we read the gossip box. During it, the electricity start to miss, and that create a lot of delay. In the end we went to a club and we came back with private minibus.

After Mavrovo, we came back to Skopje in Shanti hostel.

After drinking in the hostel a lot of shots of Rakija, a kind of grappa that you can find in balkans, we went to different clubs to spend the night.
He best is the one with live music in Gran Bazar, where the atmosphere is always quite good.


We went in a club of latin music for the “old new year” and we met some mecedonian girls that took us in another club where we finished the night.

Serbia

I arrived in Belgrad around midnight, running into the fog with the minibus.
Arrived at Isidora's place, the girl that hosted me, I put my stuff in th room and in 30 minutes I met a group of participants that was already there in the city, talking with them until 4am.

The event started the 29^th, after I spent a day to reach Belgrade.
A lot of activities, maybe not organized at the best, but a funny experience.
It was the first New Year outside Sardinia.

Between the different activities during the event, we've been in Nikola Tesla museum, a little museum but enough interesting.

Escape Room, a really great activity to do, but not well organized.

European night, the first for me with double nationality and without spanish people. I made the romanian and italian stands.

The free walking tour, activity outside aegee contest, but included by organization.

The NYE was in a disco, kind of underground, with tables on the ground floor and a little prive upstairs for us.
I woke up and now it's everything covered by snow. It's the 3^rd of jenuart and the event finished yesteday.
A nice event, but organization and places were not the best in my opinion.
Obviously I had everything I wanted, understand the cultural contest and value the differences with Romania.


The first thing I saw was that in any place is possible to change Lei in Dinari, so everyone that pass from Romania to Serbia, need euros.
The change is 120 Dinari for 1 € and the level of medium life is extremely cheap, maybe the cheapest in balkans.
A beer for example costs, in a pub, from 140 to 190 dinari for a 0.5L ( we talked of 2€ more or less).

The serbian language use two alphabets, the latin one and the cirillic. The serbian, having only some differenxes, is similar to croatian, makedonian, slovenian and so on, cause before all these countries were Jugoslavia.
Furthermore, talking with some organizers, they told me that for them is easy to understand and learn russian, cause is very similar. You can have the same rapport with Romanian and Italian.


The city present modern and old characteristics. There for example are present a lot of destoied houses, bombed during the war and never completely rebuilt.


In Belgrade, over the city centre and classica christmas market, is possible to visit a lot of things as the old park, where you can see the “Statue of the Winner” and the two rivers that flow in one, the Danube.


To go out in Belgrade, the tipical thing is “kafana”. This type of restaurant/pub is made for eat, drink and dance. At the beginning, these kind of places, was the meeting point, following the local stories, of the mafia. It's here that in the most part of the Kafanas, that follow the italian theme, you can find tablecloths red and white, tipical stereotype of an old italian restaurant.

The 4^th in the morning, after informed me about how to reach Macedonia, I cooked a fast lunch in the hostel and I went to take the bus with one of the organizers, Vasil.
Arrived in the station, I bought the ticket and troubles started, as the arriving in Serbia.


The driver, didn't want me to enter cause I was the only foreigner there and he gave the priority to the local citizen.
Helped by the guards, after 35 minutes, I went inside the bus and we started the trip.
The travel was aroung 8 hours, with 6 extimated. Luckily, Monika, one of the organizers from Skopje, was in my same bus and we spent the time to talk.