Friday, March 31, 2017

Skopje: Lego Festival at Skopje City Mall

Finally - on the last day of the event - we got to the Lego Festival at Skopje City Mall

Previously we had the opportunity to see the lego sculptures that were placed around the mall (when we were there for the One Can event for International Women's Day) -- but this time my daughter was able to play with the legos.








 

we tried ice cream at a new place - side note - we love these Cedevita drinks

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Politico article: "Bill Clinton: Resurgent nationalism ‘taking us to the edge of our destruction’"


These words ring true at home - and here in Skopje.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/bill-clinton-nationalism-235894

Bill Clinton is pictured. | Getty
Former President Bill Clinton did not discuss President Donald Trump during his appareance specifically, but warned repeatedly against “us versus them” thinking. | Getty

Bill Clinton: Resurgent nationalism ‘taking us to the edge of our destruction’

Don’t buy what purports to be nationalism that’s engulfed politics in America and all over the world, former President Bill Clinton said Thursday; what’s actually at play, he argued, is more insidious and interconnected than that.
“People who claim to want the nation-state are actually trying to have a pan-national movement to institutionalize separatism and division within borders all over the world,” Clinton said. “It’s like we’re all having an identity crisis at once — and it is an inevitable consequence of the economic and social changes that have occurred at an increasingly rapid pace.”
Making his first major public appearance since his wife lost last year’s presidential election, Clinton did not discuss President Donald Trump specifically, but warned repeatedly against “us versus them” thinking that he said has become such an active part of politics in America, in the Brexit vote, in the Philippines and throughout Europe.
The speech was the keynote at an event hosted by the Brookings Institution honoring the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
“The whole history of humankind is basically the definition of who is us and who is them, and the question of whether we should all live under the same set of rules,” Clinton said. He added that often, people “have found more political success and met the deep psychic needs people have had to feel that their identity requires them to be juxtaposed against someone else.”
Brookings President Strobe Talbott, who was Clinton’s roommate when they were both Rhodes Scholars at Oxford University, and served as his deputy secretary of state, introduced his former boss, saying, “No American president has worked harder for peace in the Middle East, both in office and out.”
Clinton repeatedly held up his old friend Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995, as the standard that contemporary politics is falling short of. Rabin was a man changed over his life, Clinton said, displayed courage and was so reliable that then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was so “in awe of him” that he was ready to make agreements based on trust.
 Rabin “was smart, he was careful, he understood the insecurities which roil through every society at every time—and instead of being paralyzed by them or trying to take advantage of them, he tried to take account and bring them along,” Clinton said.
And going back 25 years in Israeli politics, Clinton reminded the audience that when Rabin became prime minister in 1992, he was subject to a “relentless assault on his legitimacy, his personal legitimacy by the radical right in Israel,” which included two rabbinic rulings justifying the killing of a Jew by another Jew.
Rabin’s assassin was a Jewish Israeli opposed to the peace process, who cited such logic after shooting the prime minister at the end of a rally on Nov. 4, 1995.
That, Clinton said, is another lesson to take from what happened to Rabin. “We have to find a way to bring simple, personal decency and trust back to our politics,” he said.
Clinton called the day of the assassination his worst day in the White House, adding, “I remain convinced that had he lived we would have achieved a comprehensive agreement with the Palestinians by 1998 and we’d be living in a different world today.”
He recalled Rabin telling him once that he was making peace because otherwise, “Very soon we will either no longer be a democracy or no longer be a Jewish state.”
Clinton urged leaders and their constituents to try to rediscover Rabin as a model, rather than continuing down the current path of politics, though “we are programmed biologically, instinctively, to prefer win-lose situations, us versus them.” “This is a very old story. It’s as old as the Holy Land, and much older. Ever since the first people stood up on the East African savanna, ever since the first families and clans,” Clinton said, “ever since people encountered the other. It is a very old story. And it always comes down to two things — are we going to live in an us-and-them world, or a world that we live in together?”
Rabin’s tough-minded approach to finding ways to work and live together is what’s needed, Clinton said. “If you got that, in every age and time, the challenges we face can be resolved in a way to keep us going forward, instead of taking us to the edge of our destruction.”

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Video: 50 Shades of Macedonia

A friend of mine posted this video on facebook.  There is spectacular scenery in Macedonia!

https://www.facebook.com/TUINederland/videos/10155153249975719/

DMWC presents: The Ambassador of the Republic of Serbia, H.E. Mrs. Dusanka Divjac-Tomic: The Road of the Roman Imperators

The DMWC (Dobrodojde Macedonia Welcome Center) this morning hosted an event (at TCC Grand Plaza Hotel) with the Ambassador of the Republic of Serbia, H.E. Mrs. Dusanka Divjak-Tomic.
With the Ambassador of the Republic of Serbia, H.E. Mrs. Dusanka Divjac-Tomic

lots of great materials about travel to Serbia

traditional Serbian costume

THESE: I was so excited to see the dried plums wrapped in bacon (you saw these also on my posts from the lunch in Bitola -- YUM)







I very much enjoyed the film about the Roman sites in Serbia

the president of the Dobrodojde Macedonia Welcome Center --Emilija Milandinova Avramcheva - introduces the Ambassador

the Ambassador speaks about the Roman sites and introduces the film

thank you to the Serbian Embassy for these delicious treats
Image may contain: 6 people, people smiling, people standing and indoor
from the DMWC facebook post
some of the materials about travel to Serbia




The Ambassador's presentation - The Road of the Roman Imperators - included a film that highlighted the archeological finds in 5 Roman towns in present-day Serbia.  (Did you know that
18 Roman Emperors were born and/or lived in present-day Serbia?)  The setting was not conducive to taking notes, but here are a few highlights:

Sirmium
     (5 Roman Emperors were born here. Was the temporary seat of Constantine the Great. Constantine minted coins here - and royal gold coins were excavated on the site. This was an important site during early Christianity. Many martyrs were from Sirmium)

Singidunum
     (here we saw beautiful Roman jewelry, including beautiful intaglio cameos, as well as special ceramic pottery)

Viminacium
     (here was saw some beautiful frescoes)

Naissus
     (this is where Constantine was born and lived, before moving to Britannia. After desolation by the Huns, the town was forgotten in the Middle Ages. And more beautiful mosaics!)

Iustinia Prima

I very much enjoyed the film, traveling back in the 3rd and 4th century, and learning about recent archeological discoveries in Serbia (and the pictures of the mosaics, the frescoes, the coins, the jewelry, and the ruins...)

The website of the Republic of Serbia in Macedonia:

More about the Ambassador, H.E. Mrs. Dusanka Divjac-Tomic

Here is the DMWC facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/MacedoniaWelcome/?pnref=story

The TCC Grand Plaza Hotel:  http://tccgrandplaza.com/

Smufs: The Lost Village -- Штрумфови: Скриеното село

My daughter went to see Smurfs: The Lost Village with one of her friends from school, while I enjoyed a macchiatto with her mom
 
Штрумфови: Скриеното село

Here you can see the trailer for the  movie as we watch the movie in the theaters:  in English with Macedonian subtitles:

http://www.cineplexx.mk/movie/the-smurfs-the-lost-village/


 About the movie:

Во оваа нова анимирана авантура на Штрумфовите, Штрумфета отркива мапа од мистериозно село каде што заедно со нејзините пријатели Штрумф Текнувало, Штрумф Трапавко и Силен Штрумф тргнуваат на пат преку Забранетата шума, која е полна со магични суштества, за да го спасат од лошиот волшебник Гаргамел. На патот полн со акција и опасност, тие се мноу блиску до отркивање на најголемата тајна во историјата на Штрумовите!

 
And they're off!
 
I can't wait to get back to see the new Disney live action

Убавицата и ѕверот

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

SEEU -- mid-term for US Constitutional Law -- followed by celebration at the Austrian Palace

After administering (the admittedly challenging) mid-term exam, we went to celebrate at the Austrian Palace, near SEEU (at the gateway to the Old Bazaar). It was a beautiful day for a Nescafe on the balcony.

 I was delighted to have the chance to get to know the students outside of our classroom setting. (Among the topics discussed  -- educational exchange in the US)

Here is the Austrian Palace facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/Austrian-Palace-1615644815319787/


there were many different "rooms" and sections of the restaruant; we had our very own balcony/alcove/veranda

I am looking forward to reading the exams...and to find out what my students learned so far this semester

 








such a beautiful, sunshine-y day - I ordered a (chilled) Nescafe

this is the site of the pink beetle on the roof - that can be seen from the patio at SEEU (pictured in an earlier post)

we were in the shadow of the SEEU campus (this is the view of SEEU from the backside of the building)



the fresh juice here is delicious