Europe About Me! Amuse Yourself! Home Other Places Rome! Scuba Diving! Travels Where Am I? View/Sign Guestbook Villa Escudero Zap Me Back to Travels

Go to it! Home About Me! Where Am I? Travels My Soapbox Amuse Yourself Zap Me! Other Places Other Places in Europe! Rome! Back To Top Copyright © 1998-2001 by Eric Mah. All rights reserved.

Europe Gee, How Did I Get Here?! During my time in Europe, I managed to see quite a few places and see quite a few faces. I was expecting an air of arrogance and abruptness from those on the European continent, you know, a "typical" snooty European. I was pleasantly surprised to find warm hearted, convivial people in most of the countries I managed to travel to. Here's to traveling and the subsequent opening of minds and hearts! Stopover in Frankfurt, Germany Yep, that's me with some co-workers. And yep, we're working reeeeeeally hard in that bar we're sitting in. Hey, we couldn't let a stopover in Frankfurt, Germany go by without imbibing some genuine German beer, now could we? Frankfurt has a variety of architectural styles nicely intermingled in a small area. Here I am on a street corner near the main entrance of the Frankfurt Train Station, an area that clearly highlights the old and new. I had a very good first impression Europe from my little saunt into Frankfurt. The streets were very clean, people very cordial, and everything just seemed so, so . . . European! I thought that Europeans would be a bit stand offish and a bit snobby, but that's not really true. True, they're not quick to flash you a smile when you pass them out on the sidewalk but when I asked many a bystander to help me snap some pictures, most everyone was very courteous and happy to do so. Welcome and good-bye! Foreigners in a strange land finding their way back to the train that would convey them to the airport for their connecting flight on to . . . . Macedonia! Though we only spent about four hours roaming about on German soil, I received a good impression of how things and people were like in Europe. Skopje, Macedonia Macedonia?! Where in the heck is that? Well, I'm sure many people now know where this little country of approximately 2 million is after all the coverage it got due to its close proximity just south of Kosovo, Yugoslavia. I'm staying in Skopje, the captial city and I was surprised to find that it's a very nice, developed city. I was expecting trash filled streets, boarded up offices, dilapidated infrastructures and many people out begging for hand outs in this former province of Yugoslavia. Clean streets, well-developed highways, tree lined avenues and plenty of lively night-time hangouts filled with fashionly dressed young people though are what you'll find here. Remember the Yugo, Yugoslavia's own home grown three-cylinder hopeful for becoming the modern version of what the Volkswagen Beetle was in the 60's and 70's? Well, they're alive and running here in Macedonia! I'm really impressed at how friendly people here are once you get past the initial introductory stage. I was out walking about the other night and I happened across a wedding party in a restaurant. Curious as to how they celebrate wedding receptions here, I asked if I could take a peek inside the restaurant. To my surprise not only did people usher me in, practically everyone wanted to take a picture with me! I don't know if it was because seeing an Asian face was so rare here or if they'd react to any foreigner like this. To the right: the dancing and merriment that accompanies the reception after a wedding ceremony.