Monday, January 5, 2009

Happy New Years! And other assorted news

I am now back at work (but hardly working) after my second 4-day weekend in a row. I could get used to those. Unfortunately this will be a full week for me.

New Years was fun but nothing too exciting. Fireworks, alcohol, and the new incarnation of ABBA in downtown Skopje. Saturday night I gambled a little on my cooking skills and attempted to make chicken fried steak for the first time ever. The end result tasted good but bore little resemblence to the gold standard, chicken fried steak as cooked by my mother. I think I had too much oil in the frying pan because I couldn't get the crust as crispy as it should have been. My gravy was just so-so - I didn't add enough milk so it turned out thicker than I wanted.

The sky dumped loads of snow all over Macedonia and Kosovo this weekend as well. When I got ready to drive back to Kosovo on Sunday, my Jeep was buried in snow. It probably took 15 minutes to clear it all off. Unfortunately, idiot me forgot to take pictures of it. When I got back to Kosovo my parking lot was full of snow as well so I had to fight my way through that. Once I got to where my room is, I had to shovel 18 inches of snow out of the way to get to my door. Trudging three quarters of a mile to work through the snow isn't fun either. I think I may need a snowmobile or at least snowshoes. Thankfully I have a pair of winter boots my mother bought me when I was back home which have turned out to be one of my smartest decisions ever.

The snow-covered landscape is pretty though. It covers the dirt and trash that line most of Kosovo's roadways. Little snow-covered villages with smoke rising from the chimneys are very picturesque as well. My only complaint is that it is now getting damn cold as well. Today's low is 14F which I thought was pretty bad until I saw the forecast for tomorrow - 8F.