As we already came back a few weeks ago, it's time to hear what our trip was like
The flight was way too early, and therefore we were all tired during the flight. But no time to sleep because a 1,5-hour flight is over in a heartbeat. We watched the sunrise from the plane, which I loved.. and I actually had a decent chicken sandwich on the plane. My boyfriend is always too scared to eat those packed sandwiches, as they often give him stomach problems, but I need to eat when I wake up (and I really didn't have time at 3 AM lol). The flight went smooth, no ear problems (my boyfriend has had numerous surgery when he was young, so it can often be a horrible landing or take-off). We landed on time, to be awaited by our host. I'd contacted him for a transfer, and asked if we could leave the luggage in the apartment if it was empty the night before. Because travelling with a toddler and then walking around for 5 hours including luggage isn't the most convenient thing. Instead, he made sure the apartment was not booked.. So he picked us up from the airport, had a nice talk, dropped us at the apartment at 9 AM (without extra cost) and so we had a very pleasant arrival. He didn't even want us to pay the transfer now and told us to check if we had enough denar left when I bring you back to the airport, if not you can pay in Euro or with a card, whatever you like. I thought this was actually a pretty nice thing to do, as sometimes you get stuck with some leftover currency that you can't change back.
After getting some tips we decided to start exploring Skopje
The weather was 24 degrees constantly these days, and perfect to be outside. We wanted to have a look at the old bazaar and started walking in the direction of the big square near the stone bridge. The statue above is on the big square and a good navigation point. We were pleasantly surprised to feel like we were in a clean city, compared to Budapest. Everything looked quite new and the people were super friendly.
The food
We had a wonderful simple lunch near the old bazaar. I forgot to take a picture of the lunch, but we had 1 tortilla (which was nice itself with seeds in it) with chicken, and my boyfriend took one with beef. Both were filled really decent and contained quite some beef/chicken. Not like we are used to here in Budapest when you eat gyros and they fill it with vegetables mostly instead of meat. We also ordered french fries and different sausages. The drinks we ordered were 2 Ayran (my daughter me love that) and a can of soda. Total costs were just above 4 euro! And none of us was hungry after lol. The best thing about this food was that my boyfriend had no issues with his stomach at all!
Time for dinner!
Our apartment was in a very busy area, it all came to life at night. We decided that we had walked long enough that afternoon, and we were also a bit tired because of waking up in the middle of the night to get to the airport. That's why we just walked in the area of our apartment to find a place to eat. My boyfriend spotted a little restaurant where he liked the menu, so we sat down and ordered our food. I ordered a chicken souvlaki and my boyfriend something that I don't remember the name of lol. But I can tell you that was about 1kg of meat! It was huge!!! And he said it tasted delicious. On the side we had some extra french fries and this greek salad shown below:
I forgot to take my camera, and our phones don't make too nice pictures at night, so sorry for the bad pictures, but trust me, it was delicious! We even ordered one extra greek salad once it was finished as it was very tasty. This meal including drinks only cost us 20 euro if I remember correctly. The meat my boyfriend ordered was the most expensive thing on the menu, so it fell under the category of expensive meals over there I think, but we were hungry after that long day. And also after dinner, my boyfriend had no stomach trouble at all. Everything was fresh and of good quality. Which was refreshing compared to the food we sometimes order when going out in Budapest.
I did some translation work at night
But soon I noticed I was way too tired to really focus, and in the meantime, my boyfriend and daughter already fell asleep while lying on the couch, so it was time to go to bed. We all had a long day behind us, and tomorrow was going to be another day. I was quite excited to see more of Skopje the next day, and we were hoping to find a nice place to shop for some clothes for all of us. More of our city-trip to Skopje will follow...