Balkan Tag 3 - Journey to Macedonia

At 08:00 we said goodbye to our host families and set off in two coaches on the long approximately 450 km journey to Ohrid in Macedonia. During the first stop at 'Kaufland', everyone stocked up on enough provisions for the day trip. At the border to Macedonia, our passports were initially collected and examined by the Bulgarian border control, but as soon as we got them back, they were collected again by the Macedonian control. This made the border crossing accordingly long. The following hours were largely uneventful. The landscape changed very rarely and most of the time we drove on very narrow, winding roads through the wooded mountains of Macedonia. Most of the time, people spent the trip catching up on the sleep they had missed in the last two days.

At around 17:30 we arrived at our hotel. However, immediately after check-in, we had to leave again, because at around 18:30, the 'IX. International Summer festival OHRID PEARL' started with a small procession of participating choirs along the lakeshore. The goal was a banquet hall for such performances. Each of the participating choirs then presented a selection of pieces. In addition to us as representatives of the Federal Republic of Germany, choirs from Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Turkey also participated. Thus, we were the only participating choir from Western Europe. From the beginning, we immediately noticed the restless atmosphere. Whether a speaker was on stage or a choir was singing, the audience, consisting of the other festival participants, continued to talk lively without lowering their voices.

After our performance of about 10 minutes, we made our way back to the hotel, where we had a late dinner at around 22:00. Everyone was then allowed to spend the evening individually. Some went to the lake, where they ventured into the water individually. The others chilled out or went to bed early.