Sleeping in a grocery store, 2 days in Macedonia, and entering Greece

Interest for me and my bicycle on the Albanian countryside 🙂

I have a new tactic when I reach a town that I want to sleep in, but where I have nowhere to sleep. I buy a drink and look very open to socialize. Then most likely somebody will come and ask me about the bike and where I come from. We talk a little, often in a mixture of different languages as good as it gets, and then they realize I have nowhere to sleep. The people are so hospitable that they most likely will offer me somewhere to sleep. It is amazing. Above is an empty storage room of a grocery store where the store owner let me sleep.

Little guy cleaning the windows of the store I was sleeping in.

The store owner tried to explain how to get from one town to another. I’m not sure if the map made me any wiser, but he was so nice 🙂

The store owner, ah, I can’t remember his name, invited me to have a couple of beers with his friends. I was a bit scared after going with him in his car, because he had 5 beers. And I have never seen somebody smoking so much. Constantly. 3,5-4 packages a day he said.

Entering Macedonia. The border guy was asking me for documents of the bike and I said I didnt have any. He said “Oh, big problem”. Then he laughed so much when he realized I came by bicycle and not motorbike as he thought.

Dead snake on the road. Blaah.

Me and traditionally dressed up Macedonians in Bitola.

Entering Greece.

First sign in Greek – hard to understand. I had to use my knowledge from the math lectures in school to figure out which Greek letter corresponded to which Latin letter.

Unfortunately, I didnt get the opportinity to drive it, but I was at the back, without helmet like a real Greek. I was a little scared yes 🙂 In Edessa, Greece.

And now I am in Thessaloniki, Couchsurfing again with a very nice medical student. Tomorrow I continue, direction Turkey. Maybe I will reach Istanbul in one week and a half or something like that.