The last full day in Ohrid got off to a late start, I know, it’s no surprise. We wanted to keep it down to a dull roar after the hardcore fun we had had. Charlie and I had gotten in around 6 or 7 so really, noon wasn’t all that late to ask to sleep was it? The problem was that at around 7am the staff started cleaning the kitchen which was right outside of our door and talking EXTREMELY loudly, or at least I thought it was. Then just shortly after that the Polish contingent woke up and noisily, carelessly and inconsiderately went about getting ready to depart. Sheesh, people…hostel etiquette! It’s 8am on an f-ing Sunday morning…some people have lives at night.
Once we were all up and about, except for Josje who was still feeling ill (she blamed it on my šopska salad, but I’m skeptical), we started making a plan. That was after a 30 minute retelling of the previous night’s adventures sans Josje and Joe. We finally managed to wrangle Josje out of her funk to the point where she was able to get ready and go with us which just so happened to be at almost the exact second that Antonio showed up as je said he would the night before only he was quite late “I knocked on three wrong houses” he said by way of explanation and that was good enough for us.
We made our way up to the fortress so that Josje could see it and so Antonio could as well. I did mention he’s not a native of Ohrid didn’t I? I’m not sure on the spelling of (nevermind, I looked it up) Veles, that’s where he’s from he tells us. Anyway, he was sightseeing right along with us. After the fortress we trudged once again through time to the archaeo. dig site and into the church where Antonio proclaimed that he “Loves Orthodox!” This would be the first of such statements from him.
After all of that we headed down to a cafe that was nestled in a pile of rocks right up on the beach. In fact, the men’s room was half actual rock and so it was like ‘pissing in a cave’ as Dr. Joe so eloquently put it. We dropped back a few beers, some burgers and had some far too serious discussion. It went something like this:
“I hate Hollywood (may have been Americans) for making Alexander the Great gay [in reference to the film],” Antonio
“Oh I think he was gay long before that,” Dr. Joe.
“Alexander the Great was NOT GAY!” a slightly upset Antonio.
“Wasn’t he Macedonian Greek? So is it that big of a problem?” Josje interjected hoping to calm the situation.
“He was Macedonian! There are no Gay Macedonians…I hate gays,” a now somewhat enraged Antonio stated vehemently.
Note: This whole conversation was edited for brevity to just give you the highlights and point of it. The fact of the matter is that our new friend, 18-year-old Antonio, is homophobic. The thought had crossed my mind that perhaps he was closet homosexual and that was what accounted for his almost violent knee-jerk reaction to our insinuations that Alexander the Great was gay…which he was. Or best case scenario (for Antonio), he was bi-sexual. Now, considering that he was a “Greek King of Macedon” per Wikipedia (not the end-all-be-all font of correct info I know) it wouldn’t be at all surprising if he had indeed been gay. I mean really, does it even matter? If he was then it’s a major blow (no pun intended) to those that believe that gay men aren’t masculine as he romped his army through pretty much the known world then. If he wasn’t, then he was just a pent up and ambitious man who wielded a sword and the lives of others extremely precisely. Either way, speculation is idle as it will prove nothing.
Where was I? Oh right, Alexander the Great was gay and Greek…two things that Antonio was seriously angry about (no matter what he says) and there are no gay men in Macedonia (which I think the rest of us proved false during our PantSpotting game…more on that later). So, we decided to switch topics to appease our young, narrow-minded friend. Like I said, he’s young and he’ll learn the ways of the world. Or he’ll realize that he’s gay and stop gay-hating. I’m not saying he is, I’m just saying, all signs point to Yes according to the magic 8-ball.
Right, onto greener pastures. We hitched a ride (after beer and burgers had been consumed and tempers soothed) with one of Antonio’s friends who had a boat and basically played water taxi for us taking us back to the main part of town.
Mostly at a loss of what we should do, we wandered about for a place to take a load off and just watch the world go by, which is pretty much what we ended up doing with our new game PantsSpotting. Now some of you might find this strange, but remember, Josje was an active player in this game.
The point of PantsSpotting is thus – When one person spots someone whose pants (underwear for you Americans) can be actually seen through their trousers, skirt, dress, etc…all of the others must drink. Now, VPL (visible panty line) does not count. Other players must agree that an actual separation of color exists from their ass and legs, i.e. that you can clearly distinguish their pants… I know, it’s a strange game, but we were a strange bunch and really…it was sort of fun. Plus it gave us all leave to stare at everyone’s asses all evening. Just for kicks, and because a totally awesome one went by, we threw in mullets as well.
Then we ran into two Norwegians. During PantsSpotting we had spotted them being tailed by Old Dude with Private Accommodation and big backpacks and figured they were staying at Sunny Lake Hostel, which they were. So we waved them down and invited them to join us, being the friendly though strange group that we were. We introduced them to PantsSpotting and chatted about this that and that other thing…
After a good two or three hours of this Antonio had pissed off with a couple of his friends to go do god knows what while we continued the game for a bit. Eventually Josje called it a night and headed back while Joe, Charlie, the two Norwegians (whose names I surely can’t spell properly but both started with S) and I went down to the lake to find a free table next to the water… I told you it wasn’t going to be a very exciting night didn’t I?
Eventually we ordered an entire pizza (640 Macedonian Denar? about 11 euro for 5 people) and headed back to the hostel. Well Josje was there, Joe went ahead and myself and the 2 Norwegians followed with the pizza. Charlie had gone out with Antonio and his friends. I had no less than three calls from Antonio throughout the night which I didn’t hear as I was sleeping and my ringer was turned off.
Wow, 1200 words about nothing really right? This was the final night in Ohrid and still, it was better than a bad day in most other places. Tomorrow was travel day and time for the group, sadly, to break up and go our separate ways. But it was a weekend that will never be forgotten. Action, adventure, probably some romance of some type and lots of strange goings on. It will go down in infamy as the Weekend we descended upon the town of Ohrid and turned it upside down. I can’t wait for the reunion tour!
Josje
ChrisRick