Last weekend in January

I think I speak for all the people who travel overseas for long term assignments, when I say that there comes a time when the novelty and excitement of new foods fades and all you want is the familiar tastes, even if it is just fast food, like McDonald's with little nutritional value.

Anyway, I woke up this morning thinking about food, nothing exotic, but just to be able to walk into my kitchen back home, filled with nuts, fresh fruits and vegetables and other favorites and make myself breakfast. I am not sure this feeling was triggered by the McDonald’s hamburger and fries I ate yesterday afternoon in Skopje or a walk through the aisles of the adjacent grocery store looking for something as basic to me as whole-wheat flour! I finally found it in the organic cereal section in a small 500g packet.
I made myself oatmeal and raisins for breakfast – not using Quaker oats, but a German brand. For lunch I had a delicious tomato-cucumber-lettuce sandwich using whole grain bread. Doesn’t it look absolutely delicious? It was. I finished my meal with a cup of Indian tea. Dinner was a homemade piece of poppyseed cake and muesli with milk.
With whole-wheat flour in my pantry I was ready to make Indian style food on Sunday, starting with chicken curry and with full intentions to make paratha or roti to go with it. While I was preparing the curry late - about 11 am, I was interrupted with an invitation to visit some new people in my town and I immediately took up the offer. 5 hours later, I served the delicious chicken curry with ‘integral’ or whole wheat bread instead and a tossed tomato and cucumber and lettuce salad to my Macedonian language tutors. I had to skip making the roti's because I just didn't have the time. Here is the accompanying salad.

On Monday, I am still talking about food. After my afternoon English lessons about food, I expressed a strong desire to eat beefsteak. Guess what, a coworker who was in the city of Prilep for an errand, volunteered to stop and purchase steaks for me! I am in food heaven. Ce la vie!

Sometimes, no not sometimes, always it has been little stuff that brightens the day. Today it was the snowfall. When I woke up and saw a light blanket of snow clinging to every horizontal surface, from the narrow metal balustrade, to the spidery thin branches of the trees on the side of the mountain, I felt great. There was a quickness in my movements as I got dressed to go out for my morning walk. The stray snowflakes drifting down enveloping me with a softness associated with snow, making my heart sing. Only yesterday, I felt how will I last 2 years in my chosen self-imposed exile/adventure!
Today, my thoughts are about the stillness of the morning and the assets of my adopted city dressed in their finest. How familiar I have become with this place; the streets, the stray dogs, the people, the many fruit stands and their owner's, the couple of bakeries I frequent and the super market cashier's! This is my home for two years and I feel a pull-push relationship with it.
I love the fantastic views of the mountains sheltering this valley! I walk through the small pine forest on the small hill (mountain?) south of the town, less than 5 minutes walk from my house. It's dark green color set against the brown of the local oak and other trees is now a familiar place, as familiar as the wooded paths, the beach and the streets of LF. Today's snow cloaks the dark green and brown with a white coat, while the spring and summer wildflowers and other small animals that take shelter here have yet to reveal themselves to me. I remember how delighted my friend and I were when we spotted a deer, a fox or a coyote in the forested streets of LF-LB. Those thoughts remind me that I am in no hurry to go home, at least not yet, not till my work here is finished and I have experienced all the seasons.
Yesterday I learned about about a village close by which has fields of mountain tea on one side of the valley and berry bushes on the other side. Now I have something else to look forward to - accompanying my new friends to their village during those months and hiking up to those fields. So today it no longer feels like exile, but an adventure that is just starting