I got up relatively early to head across town to the bus station and checked when the first bus to Bitola departed. It was at 12:30, which meant I had to wait a while, but that was actually welcome since I remembered that I left my power bank back at the hostel. After running back and forth I got the relatively short bus ride and then put my thumb out to catch a ride to Greece. It's not far at all across the border, so I figured it wouldn't be too hard to get a ride. I didn't get much attention for a little while, but eventually once I'd found my way to a gas station someone pulled over. They weren't going to Greece somehow, but their interest garnered the attention of an incredibly old Macedonian guy nearby who probably lived alongside Alexander. He had rolled in a minute prior in a beat up red Yugo that looked like it couldn't have been any model year after 1992, and he was somehow towing a small trailer. He spoke maybe 5 words of English and started loudly shouting at me, clearly inviting me to ride with him. I was a little put off by the fact that he was missing all of his front teeth and only had a few canary-yellow molars, and by the fact that he was in the process of inflating his tires but they kept deflating again by the time he finished with the others. Perhaps against my better judgement, I loaded my stuff into the back seat and waited for him to get the tires as inflated as he could. At this point I was having second thoughts, but it couldn't have been more than 10 miles to the border and a gas station worker translated that he was only offering a ride to customs anyway, at which point I'd have to find my own way. I was advised that this was still probably my best bet, so I committed and crunched into the seat. The Yugo's terrible reputation is well earned - it was supremely uncomfortable and when he started it up the whole thing rattled like a tin can. To be fair, this car was certainly over 30 years old and I can't expect too much beyond the fact that it still drove at all. It also seemed to have no safely features aside from seatbelts; apparently airbags weren't standard in Yugoslavia. We started off down the road.

He kept trying to talk to me despite it being incredibly obvious that I didn't speak any Macedonian and that he spoke no English. At one point he started asking me "Deutschland?" and I figured out he was trying to guess my nationality. Not sure why he assumed that I'm German but I told him I was American and he started trying to list all the American cities he'd heard of - "New York! Chicago! Toronto!" Every time he spoke he'd take his eyes off the road to look at me and we'd swerve alarmingly toward oncoming traffic. I was very cognizant of the Yugo's lack of safety features, and the only thing preventing me from being terrified was that the car didn't seem capable of going much over 25 MPH. I tried to avoid speaking with him since it seemed to make him a worse driver, but then he dropped something rather unsettling - "Rakkia! Rakkia!" For those who've never been to the Balkans, rakkia is a type of spirit that everyone loves here. I had it a few times in Sarajevo and it's terrible. Regardless, I became very concerned that he had found himself too sober and needed a nice pick-me-up. A few minutes later we entered a small farming town, pulled into a grocery store (I'd only been in the car maybe 10 minutes at most), and I was encouraged that maybe he just wanted to buy rakkia and some other groceries for later. I walked into the store but found its inner door locked, and when I went back out I saw my driver walking across the street to what was unmistakably a bar. I caught up to him and sure enough, he was slamming back rakkia shots at the counter and offering me beer. I declined and left the bar to pull my bags out of the car - I was willing to put up with a fair amount of red flags, but it had started to seem unwise to drive with this guy while sober (to be fair, he may have been drunk already and this was just him topping up) and there's no way I was driving any distance with him while drunk. When he'd finished his shots and returned to the parking lot a few minutes later, I made clear that I wouldn't be coming with him. He had some other guy who spoke English try to convince me that drunk driving is actually safer ("Nobody's more careful than a drunk driver!"), but I was pretty adamant that I wasn't getting back in the car with this guy. He drove off and that was that.

Now, the obvious issue here is that I found myself stranded in a tiny rural farming village in the North Macedonian countryside with no means of getting anywhere, and not even a gas station which I could shark for rides from. I stuck my thumb out but nobody bit for an hour or two, and the sun started to set since the mountains block it out far above the horizon. I had to make a choice here - wait near the bar where at least there's some sort of civilization, or to try and walk the 5 or so miles of highway to the border with all my bags. Maybe on the Greek side I'd be able find some sort of accommodation and figure out my next move in the morning. I really didn't want to do that since it sounded miserable, but seeing as none of my other options were especially attractive either, I started marching south in the fading light while sticking out a thumb whenever a car drove past. Throughout this whole affair, I surprised myself by being calm and unafraid. At no point did I feel like I was in any danger or that I was truly trapped, I was mostly just dreading how annoying it would be to get back on track. For what it's worth, I'm actually pretty well equipped for a situation like this. I have my stove and some gas, my water filter, and plenty of eggs, ramen, and carrots, so I could've gone properly hobo for multiple days if worst came to worst. A roadside fried egg was starting to sound pretty great, actually, since I hadn't eaten much all day. But after 15 minutes or so of trudging with all my stuff, I finally got a bite: a Hyundai Accent (only the coolest people drive those) pulled over on the side of the road and a Greek couple probably in their early 30s rolled down the window. The man established that he'd take me to the border but not any further since it might raise suspicion at the Schengen crossing, and I agreed to take what I could get. Beggars can't be choosers, I guess.

My saviors were great - they made awesome conversation and were really interested in my travels. I got some cool info on Greek culture, including the fact that they call the planets after the names of the Greek gods rather than their Roman counterparts, as everyone else does. I love the sort of cross-cultural dialogue this sort of thing cultivates. In fact, upon concluding that I'm not an insane hobo (as it had doubtlessly appeared, and in some ways nearly had been), they had no issue taking me through customs with them. We drove for a couple hours to the small city they lived in called Edessa, where they left me at the bus station. I offered them the euros in my wallet but they refused, and I booked a bus ticket to Thessaloniki for a couple hours later.

The rest of the night was uneventful. Thessaloniki doesn't have a subway for literally 5 more days when it finally opens after decades of work, but for now I had to take the rather inconsistent bus system to get across the city. I have to learn all my Greek letters and the sounds they make, which is slightly helped by the fact that I've got pretty good at reading Cyrillic. I don't really know what's here but it seems like a pretty cool city, though I got in too late to do much tonight. Lots of students, by the looks of it. I'm also thrilled to finally be in Eastern European time so the sun sets after 4:30 again - these 4 pm sunsets have been tough. I'm planning to meet up with Lindsey from Skopje tomorrow and explore the city for a bit with her.

So, North Macedonia. Not the most exciting place ever. In terms of its history, probably the least interesting of the former Yugoslav states, though the landscapes are nice. I just wish there was more to do in the off season. Also, hitchhiking. A blast when it works, but when it doesn't... Yeah, gonna have to be judicious about how I utilize it in the future. If the stakes aren't too high and it goes well, it's easily the best way to travel, though.