Two Saints, One Day

February 14th is Valentine's Day...or is it? The whole Saint Valentine thing has not really caught on in Macedonia, in part because it is already another holiday, Sveti Trifon, celebrating patron saint of wine growers. Last year I traveled to wine country and went with Macedonian tradition, standing in a city center with a couple hundred other people consuming wine at 9 AM, but this year I opted to stay closer to home for a more Valentine holiday.

At the American Corner, I told a group of 8th graders about Valentine's Day while we played a game and made a poster.
We talked about the candy hearts with messages on them and the kids made their own clever Conversation Hearts.




The Corner also provided apple cake because, I think, it's an American dessert. We Americans tried to explain that it's not traditional for Valentine's Day but they went with it anyway and hey, it was tasty nevertheless.

In addition, I got to play cupid to my sitemate Lauren by delivering a surprise bouquet from her boyfriend in America. He requested my help to get flowers to her and we'd been conspiring over Facebook. Seeing her initial shock and subsequent teary happiness was lovely. I may not have had a Valentine, but it was a sweet day.

I *heart* hiking

If you get up at 3:15 AM, it should be for something really good. Fortunately I feel like this was the case when on Sunday I got up at that ungodly hour for my second hike with the Pelister Hiking Club. Kaylee and I were surprisingly not sore from the previous day's Ultimate Frisbee (or maybe it was just that 4 AM shot of whiskey from our fellow hikers that dulled the pain) as we piled into the van for the 3 hour drive to the mountain.

Dreading a repeat of the previous day's rainy weather, I was pleased to awake to a day that couldn't have been more perfect for hiking. Kaylee and I teamed up with Pelister hiking club member Igor and a friend of his from Skopje who I will call Tommy (because his name was something that sounded like Tommy but not quite and then I forgot it). Reaching the summit took us 4 hours and about 3 of those were uphill hours. I took 70 photos, in part because the scenery was gorgeous and partly because it was an excuse to rest. A selection of my shots is up on Picasa.

Kaylee and I wore matching T-shirts that say "I *heart* MK" and people got a big kick out of them on the trail. They were also a bit confusing to the Pelister club members because they had trouble telling us apart since we are the same height, similar coloring, both from Colorado, and our names in Macedonian are only one letter different (Кејти vs. Кејли). Okay, so admittedly we knew matching shirts would cause some confusion but it was fun confusion.

2.5 hours later, we were back at the trailhead eating snacks and drinking what seemed like the most delicious Coca Cola ever. Somehow all that exertion yet again barely phased the seasoned club hikers, who drank beer and sang songs the whole van ride home until we returned to Bitola at 10:30 PM. I myself slept most of the drive back, so I guess that I need to keep working on building up my "endurance."