Skopje, Macedonia - 1981 Then part of Yugoslavia.

MrsOpus, our friend Chris, and I were driving from Munich to Athens. The reason had to do with a jilted bride, a cancelled wedding, non-refundable tickets, a car purchase, a mis-appropriated AMEX and an urge for revenge. But that is another tale.

We had over-nighted the previous night just outside of Bar. Somehow, we got lost and discovered eventually that the friendly people along the route were trying to tell us that a bridge was out. Waving and yelling "brucke kaput" just did not register. Therefore we were very delayed after driving thru Kosovo. Upon arriving into Skopje (We had hoped to make it to Thessaloniki). Our guidebook indicated that there were only two hotels in town. I think one was the Intercontinental and the other's name I cannot recall. The former obviously was more than our maximum budget of $5.00 per night each. The later fit the budget and there was no other choice.

We checked in. Actually asked to see the room which was difficult as there was only one approximately 15 watt bulb hanging from the ceiling. There were 3 single beds and a bath. No restaurant in the hotel nor any apparantly in town expect perhaps at the expensive hotel. So we dodged the locals drinking slivovitz and smoking on the street and bought some pastries - that was dinner.

We bedded down since we were exhausted from dodging pot-holes and Russian-built trucks all day. During the night, the need to use the facilities arose. I walked to the facilities and the floor felt spongy, in fact it bowed about 1 foot.

In the morning under sunlight, we discovered that the spongy part of the floor was a threadbare carpet suspended over a large hole in the floor. The walls were a dingy grey which was not paint, the bath was less than marginal and had cold warm water. But think of the memories.