The Flights over, part I

Let the adventure begin! Where to start...hmmm...ok, so during my 5 hour layover in DC, I met a woman from Brussels. She is a doctor of some kind and was quite fun to talk to. I got on the plane to Paris, finally, and realized my seat was in the middle of a row of 5. Awesome. It was not dead-center, but still. The middle. The women on either side of me ordered special meals. The woman sitting to my right had a vegan meal. I didn't think anything of it until I realized she was French. A French vegan?! How does one live in France as a vegan? How CAN someone live in France as a vegan? A large portion of their cuisine is dependent on cheese, cream and butter. I was in complete disbelief. I was so shocked, I figured out a way to discuss her airplane meal. As it turns out, she is not a vegan, just a vegetarian, which is difficult, but not impossible. So my hypothesis cannot be rejected: there is no such thing as a French vegan.

Charles de Gaulle airport is the WORST airport I have ever experienced. Keep in mind I am comparing it to Johannesburg, Atlanta (chaos), Beijing, Zomba...you get the point. Because I was issued paper tickets, I had to wait to check in until 1-2 hours before my flight so they could issue me a boarding pass. Now, you would think there would be somewhere to sit between the area they check to see if you have a ticket and where they issue a boarding pass. They had a cafe, duty-free shopping, Amex currency exchange and not a single bench. I met a Bulgarian man who was in the same boat as me. He was funny. I can tell he is a bargain shopper and did not think highly of the Macedonian language. I was practicing my Cyrillic alphabet and showed him my Macedonian text book. He found it very interesting, described Macedonian as a dialect of Bulgarian and told me he had never seen 2 of the letters I was learning. Interestingly, he never told me his name and when I asked why he was going to Bulgaria (besides the obvious fact that he was Bulgarian), he would not answer the question. He works in Atlanta now and his mother is no longer with us so I figure there is something shady going on. Maybe he was part of the Bulgarian version of the KGB...

I must run but I will let you know about my first impression of Skopje, my amazing apartment and the security test. Oh and I will put some pictures up. Talk to you soon!