Chapter 2 – St Naum, jazz, and the art of relaxing

After a good sleep in, I think my body has adjusted to Macedonian time. Eventually got up and had some breakfast. Jess, I know you bag me for having strange breakfasts – but you would be in your element here. Imagine eating different kinds of cheese and devon for brekky!

First stop was to check out some of Ohrid's “beaches”. Not exactly like beaches as we know it. Think more of a resort built right onto the water, where you can go and have a drink, sunbake etc. Very laid back. Petar reckons we came at the right time, as the crowds weren't there but the weather was still good. He was saying in the busy times you can queue up for hours for a spot!

Then made our way down towards the Albanian border, to see the monastery of St Naum. Interesting place. Kind of has two parts, the lower touristy/cafe area (where I ate about 2 kilos of meat) and the monastery itself.

Saw the statue of St Naum, that was carved out of a tree with a chainsaw. They had pictures documenting how this was done, and amazingly the majority was done in a day. The monastery had this awesome old walkway, which was very good for someone with better photographic skills than me.

Speaking of which, theres no pics of the main chapel, as it was a big no no. There was also no talking. I tried to imagine what it must have been like to live there. Very different life indeed. It was clearly a sacred ground held in very high regard, and everyone treated it as such. Petar even sat down and had a moment of quiet reflection and prayer. He came out feeling revitalised, but that could have been my god like influence.

Spent a bit more time in downtown Ohrid, basically hopping between different cafes. Petar tells me I have to learn how to bludge like a Macedonian. I'm more than happy to work on that.

That night, we went to a jazz club with a friend of Petar's named Gorjan (like Goran, but with a Y thrown in). He spoke English reasonably well, and was kind of amazed at my attempts at Croatian. He did say I sound like a pom though. Thats OK, as they like that accent – unlike the American one. Must be universal.

Jazz club was very cool. Petar also knew the owner, so we had a table reserved and some free drinks. The band wasn't too bad. They were actually French, kind of like a fairly mellow SKA punk sound. They sung in Francois, but their chit chat was in English. Highlight was a cover of a Red Hot Chilli Peppers song, mostly because I could actually sing along.

That finished up around 2am I think... and Gorjan was meant to be starting work at 8!