Halloween in Galway

The night got grimmer as it got later - pirates vomited beside the River Corrib, ghouls with bottles stumbled in the streets, scantily dressed cats and bloody brides crowded the bars.  An awful sounding fistfight began in the early hours outside our window; accompanying it was much shouting and pleading.  In the morning, we saw spots of blood on the concrete and broken bottles in the gutter.  Bits of costume were strewn everywhere in the wet. A report was in the paper about a man whose costume caught on fire.  He'd been dressed as a sheep, in cotton balls and gauze, and had burns on eighty percent of his body.  The Galway nightclub he'd been at wasn't far from us.  Frightful stuff indeed.
We spent Halloween in Ireland, where the holiday was born, and came away a little unsettled.

It's hard to tell what to believe when it comes to pagan traditions and festivals - this is the stuff of legend and misty history after all - but most historians say that Halloween's roots can be traced back to the Celtic Irish festival of Samhain.  As far back as the first century BC, Samhain marked the changing of the seasons and a time when the dead could make their way out into the world of the living - there were bonfires and animal slaughtering, feasts in honor of ancestors and costumes to trick evil spirits.
The pagan rituals have mostly been replaced, but the frightfulness still resonates powerfully in Ireland.  This isn't a holiday for children.

We saw little trick-or-treating, which seemed odd at first but made sense later.  A few kids were in costumes, but there weren't many and there were even fewer after dark.  Parents keep their young goblins and witches inside on Halloween night, we've learned, because the streets are just too dangerous. After a fun, energetic parade, Galway began to spin out of control and tilt toward alcohol fueled revelry, fights and firecrackers.
These three girls were asking people for money in a pub before they got chased out by the bartender ("Go on!" he said, not quite angrily.  "You can't be in here without your parents!")

Dublin police and firefighters were attacked through the night by people throwing stones and bottles.  In one instance, emergency service vehicles were ambushed when they responded to a phony call for help.  The night is wild by tradition.  In Galway, firehouses and ambulances were "stretched to the limit" by the fires and drunken chaos, but nobody seemed surprised.  Luckily for us, the wickedest stuff happened after we were in bed.
Ghoulish and bloody costumes were more in vogue than ironic and humorous, but there were some laughing exceptions.  Two friends wandered the streets dressed as a beer bottle and a banana.  One girl went out as a twister board.  This young man was… something.

It sound as though we didn't have fun, but we actually did. A real excitement pervaded the early going.  The weather was fine and clear, the moon was not much less than full, the streets were crowded and the pints were flowing.
In the dead of night, we listened to a girl beg "nobody wants to fight anymore," as the sound of blows echoed in the darkness.  On the bus out of town the next day, a group of highschool boys called friends on their cellphones - "we've been in Galway.  Nope, haven't slept.  Bars were too crowded, couldn't get in anywhere.  Just drank silly inside the flat."

Halloween is such a place-specific event.  In America, it speaks most directly to childhood and dead-leaf nostalgia. Two years ago, in Krakow, the streets were quiet and somber in advance of All Saint's Day.  In Barcelona last October, around the time of La Castanyada, the few people celebrating seemed intoxicated partly by the novelty of it all.  Here in Galway, we felt that the city was on the verge of falling apart in the dark.

Here's a video of the parade, with all of its drumming and twirling.  A note: Rebecca suggested that I name this post "Hall O'Ween"

The 270th Annual Helsinki Baltic Herring Fair

"Is that this week?  There are so many happening in Helsinki, it is hard to keep up." - the woman who runs our hostel.  The Helsinki Baltic Herring Fair certainly IS happening this week, all week, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a happening that would get us as excited as a 270 year old annual festival dedicated to herring.  As Merlin recently waxed poetic about in Sweden, we both think herring is a small, simple dose of perfection.  Luckily, there were plenty of other people who were well aware of the Herring Fair.   And on Opening Day, the crowds at the Port of Helsinki were thick.  The excitement was palpable. 

The fishing boats had been arriving all weekend and Sunday morning, they officially opened up shop.  The Fair has been held at the beginning of October every year, without fail, since 1743.  That's 70 years before this even became capital of Finland.  In the beginning, Helsinki was just a port town that was easily reached by the nearby islands and the Åland archipelago.  So, it was the entry point for Baltic herring to the mainland and the annual fair would determine herring prices for that year throughout the country.  The participating vessels needed to show proof that all the fish on board had been caught and processed by that fishing boat and its owner.  It's a rule that still applies today.

Back in the day, the fierce competition would drive fishermen to unsavory behavior.  Things are more friendly today.  Still, I wondered, all day long, how people chose which back-of-the-boat they'd buy their herring and bread from.  The pickled, marinated and salted fish on hand were almost identical from place to place.  There were probably some people who are from the same town or island as the vendor.  Others may have been drawn by the decorations or the free samples.  But mostly, people matched up as you'd expect them to.  Nice older ladies went to nice older ladies.  Gruffer guys went to gruffer guys.  Families went to boats that had their own little tykes helping out. 

The Herring Fair used to mark the end of the fishing season.  Harvest Time.  It's that time of year that you begin to think about your cupboard and in the first two centuries of the Fair, it was especially important for folks on the mainland to stock up on protein reserves for the long winter ahead.  The cold Autumn water would bring in a wealth of herring and sprats, which needed to be caught, canned and sold before ice made any trips in or out of the harbor impossible.   Today, the herring at the fest isn't just seen as sustenance.  The offerings are creative, colorful (and, in some cases, perishable).  The can has mostly given way to the more visually enticing plastic tub, in which rowanberry, mustard, pepper, garlic, sliced carrot and beets are all locked away with the silver fish

Two stages were set up, a Mainstage and a Small Stage, and the Opening Day entertainment was decidedly fishy.  Finnish celebrity chefs Sami Garam & Janne Pekkala ran back and forth between the stages, handling the schedule of events mostly by themselves.  At a kitchen set up, they'd cook up herring recipes and banter with each other and the crowd.  Up on the Mainstage, they introduced Duo Timjan who sang "songs of the sea in the spirit of Helsinki."  On the small stage, they ran the Herring Filleting Competition, duking it out themselves and then bringing two laymen onstage to get their hands bloody.  (They say that the Baltic herring is particularly hard to fillet, with a spine smaller than its Atlantic cousin.)  The two men also moderated a panel of discerning tasters who took their Market Food Jury duties very seriously.   Other competitions included "The Most Beautiful Fishingboat Competition" and the, probably most important, "Herring Product Competition."  That judging was kept a little more private. 

Like any great fair or food festival, there was a plethora of eating options.  This wasn't the type of fair with easily handheld food or generic treats.  Nor was it one where the smell of sweet or fried (or sweet and fried) things eclipsed all other odors.  October and ocean weren't buried under waffle and fry.  Stalls filled the main and market squares and dozens of picnic tables allowed for unhurried savoring.  While herring wasn't the piece de resistance of the prepared foods scene at the fair, we managed to find some excellent Baltic herring soup, served with an already split and buttered piece of Åland bread.  It was just about as good as you can get on an October afternoon (as was the non-alcoholic glogg and heart-shaped spice cookie we followed it up with).

There was a hot dog van tucked away and a few strips of bacon on one of the giant skillets, but it was essentially meat-free.  See? Not your typical fair to say the least.  The best part was the Finnish-ness of it all.  The Helsinki Baltic Herring Fair has grown from its roots in some modern directions, but none that feel disingenuous or that make this fair indistinguishable for others.  Sure, there was a crepe griddle and a waffle press at work, but they were specks in a sea of Finnish pastries like karjalanpiirakat.  These huge paella pans fried up heaping portions of crispy little muikko, (a smelt sized whitefish specific to the Baltic).  Instead of french fries, fingerling potatoes and veggies were fried up alongside in bulk.   There was smoked salmon on rye, fried salmon with crumbled blue cheese, salmon soup, salmon, salmon, salmon. 

The salmon darn near stole the show with theatrics like this drool-inducing smoker/flame roaster.  A red-faced husband and wife duo kept this baby going all afternoon long.  She threw more wood on the fire.  He fetched a slab when it was done  and carved at it or sold it whole.  Where there weren't flames and smoke, there was grease and sizzle.  Then, there were the herb crusted logs of salami, that were actually salmon and the golden brown, cinnamon bun spirals that were - you guessed it, rolls of salmon.  Herring was the star, but salmon was its shape-shifting side kick.  It was the beef of this particular outdoor get together, the marbled lunch meat, greasy steaks,  and flame broiled crowd favorite.

The Helsinki Baltic Herring Fest was refreshingly free of schlock.  One guy sold balloons, but otherwise, the non-food items for purchase were steeped in 270 year tradition.  A bulk of the fishermen at the fair have always come in from the Åland Islands.  The vessels  would arrive with fish, still alive and kept so by men who would stay up through the night rocking the boat back and forth to allow water to slosh in and keep the fish from dying.  On board would also be black Åland bread and knitwear made from island sheep wool.  Today, round loaves of Åland black bread are as plentiful as the herring and hand-knit socks hang from booms.  We ran into the Albanus, which we'd seen filled with apples back on the archipelago.  Here, the crates were unloaded and the fruit sold, alongside Åland applejuice.  It was like seeing an old friend again.  Perhaps the real reason the people of Helsinki have held onto their Herring Fest for so long is that it's a yearly meeting between mainlanders and islanders.  It is the time-honored tradition of welcoming fellow Finns in from days, lives out on the sea.
Just a little video compilation of Opening Day at the 270th Annual Helsinki Baltic Herring Fest.  Some groovy tunes, beautiful boats, spattering salmon oil, herring filleting competition footage, a panel of tasting jurors and people stuffing their faces with delicious food.  Enjoy.

Waffles Vs. Pancakes

The waffles were left to the professionals.  Here we have "Vaffelbui," one of the lower key food tents at Seljord's Dyrsku'n festival.  With no olfactory input, one would think it was some sort of sewing group.  Three ancient women and one man, seated at a long table, each hard at work behind a white machine. All wore colorful floral aprons and made no small talk, focusing on their equipment: a waffle iron, bowl of batter and ladle.  Sweetshop workers.

Waffles are a tradition in Norway, eaten most often as an afternoon snack with a dollop of jam or sour cream and a cup of coffee or tea.  Norwegian waffles have a very specific, very pretty, shape - like a paper snowflake cut to resembles a series of hearts.  Or a five leaf clover, if there was such a thing.  They are light and thin, without the deep ditches of the Belgium variety.  Norway's waffles are foldable, stackable and pretty much uniformly delicious.

As for the pancakes.  Pannekaker are most certainly a traditional food... except, these aren't them.  Don't be fooled by the folk costumes!  Norwegian pancakes look and taste almost identical to crepes and Swedish pancakes.  These fluffy bad boys are much more IHOP than IKEA.  At both the Dyrsku'n fair and the harbor market in Oslo, festively dressed flippers were enlisted to give an extra edge in the great Waffle vs Pancake battle.  Let's call them Flapjack Jills, shall we?  Pretty in their bunads, they poured, flipped and plated the pancakes with smiles.  While the waffles piled up, the American-style pancakes were gone as soon as they were ready.  Pancakes 1, Waffles 0.

The thing about Norwegian waffles is that they're not as time sensitive. The appeal of pancakes is their freshness, the way butter absolutely vanishes into one when its warm. When I was a child, I would go ahead and apply another pat. If I don't see it, I may not taste it! (I went through a chubby phase). Waffles, particularly Norwegian ones, are great at any temperature. Case in point: our first taste of Norwegian vafler was on the ferry from Bergen to Stavanger, a pair of them, folded in half and plastic wrapped. It was around 1pm and everyone was having them. The limp package, plastic wrap and all, was thrown into a microwave before we could shout Holy carcinogen emission, Batman! and served with a tub of bringebær (raspberry) jam.  It hit the spot.   Pancakes 1, Waffles 1.

Testament to the To Go nature of the Norwegian waffle, folding them in half appears to be the favored method of both carrying and eating them.  An afternoon waffle with jam and tea is probably still the ideal waffle eating scenario.  But this is the 21st century and a big wad of folded ones consumed greedily on the go with a cup of coffee somehow balanced on top or below is modern waffling in practice.

Which is maybe why these non-traditional pancake stations are pushing hard for the 'traditional' angle. Perhaps waffles have gotten too commoditized, have been pushed too far from their cast iron origins. The pancakes wind up being a slow food version of the same thing, eaten just about the same way, with the same accoutrements, but on a plate with a knife and fork. Homemade, hand-flipped, fresh off the griddle.

Like the waffles, these flapjacks weren't very sweet, but the toppings on hand were.  Lumpy, sweetened apple sauce, jam, pink strawberry cream and a big bowl of sugar.  Also available for smothering were big, yellow blocks of butter in varying states of decimation.  Again, a hot pancake is pretty much the best thing ever for butter slathering.  The going's always a little bumpier with waffles.  Waffles 1, Pancakes 2.

I was a little surprised by the lack of variation from station to station.  No blueberries thrown into the batter.  No cornmeal or whole grain.  No chocolate chips or chocolate syrup (both blasphemous in my book).   There was an unwritten rule about what these pancakes should be, even if not "Norwegian." Maybe this is the beginning of a new tradition - maybe some people made the switch because it's a lot easier to keep re-using and/or clean a griddle than it is a series of waffle irons.  There's something to be said about the experts chosen to man the Vaffelbui.  We saw many catastrophic gos at our hotel's buffet-breakfast waffle iron.  Style and skill points go to Waffles (and the Vaffelbui crew), for sure.  But you've always got to leave room for new traditions.

Seljord Dyrsku’n Days

In the granite mountains in the heart of Norway, where the fields are rocky and the pine trees grow thick, we wandered for hours among antique tractors and penned sheep.  We ate heavy food, breathed in country air, listened to the music and voices of tradition.
Festivals and country fairs are a traveler's holy grails.  There is always a lot to see, there's always plenty of "culture," there are opportunities for photos and good food, strange happenings and chances to really get at a country's soul.  So we made sure to make it to the Seljord Dyrsku’n, the largest farm festival in Norway and a perfect way to begin the Autumn.

In a beautiful courtyard, with the red, blue and white Norwegian flag flapping overhead, proud farmers showed off their husbandry, their animals, their brocaded skirts and cowboy hats.  The stables on three sides were purpose built for the fair, and were full of animals.  The heifers were buffed and brushed to a high gloss, the horses were groomed until they shone.
The Dyrsku’n began in 1856, as a simple cattle show put on by the local Telemark government.  The event has grown to include show-goats, horses, sheep and even - in the exhibition barn - pigs and llamas.  The animals are shown in some obscure set of categories, with age and breed seeming to play a part.  This young agriculturalist and his charge were enviably calm.

Watching the cows being judged was a bemusing and somewhat silly experience.  It's difficult to get a group of bovines to do exactly what they're told, especially with a crowd and strange sounds booming around them.  There was a lot of milling around and frightened lowing.  The owners tried to keep things as calm as possible, but it wasn't easy.  We're not sure if temperament was factored into the judging or not, but the more phlegmatic animals seemed to score the highest.  A young girl in traditional dress was enlisted to hand out ribbons and diplomas, which she did shyly but with great accuracy - only a few times did she bestow a prize upon an undeserving farmer.

Of course, like fairs anywhere, there are spinning attractions and fried foods at the Dyrsku’n.  Unlike fairs in other places, though, the noise and chaos are kept to a minimum.  There are no barkers and the rides and pop-shot booths don't play music.  And through it all, surrounded by green mountains and under September sun, there is a parade of heifers and fiddles.  For a few moments on the midway, as the cows go past, it feels as much like the 19th century as the 21st.  Everyone stops and claps, a few young animals kick up their heels.  There are top hats and black vests, young men in sneakers.  The audience holds paper plates loaded with waffles and sausages.  The Dyrsku’n is a celebratory festival, not really a carnival.

There are two distinct parts to the fair, and each side is kept somewhat separate from the other.  There is the country fair exhibition, where the pigs are shown and flowers are worn in the hair.  There's also the trade show, where excavators gleam and chainsaws rev.  If the first part of the fair is laden with nostalgia and pancake batter, the second is very of the moment.  Old men in rubber boots get excited over brochures, young men climb into tractor cabs and kick at snowblower screws.

We ate pancakes with sweet applesauce, baked potatoes and lamb sausage.  We basked in the autumnal sun.  We listened to a band play their string instruments and watched a young couple dance. There's something pleasing about spending the day around people who've dressed up.  In the hazy spirit of Thomas Hardy, the fair had us dreaming of yesteryear. Because nobody spoke in English, it was almost believable - as though maybe Seljord really was a forgotten place, where young maids walked with their goats and old women made cauldrons of mushroom soup.

In some ways, the Dyrsku’n trade show is more for the Telemark farmers than the competitions are.  The fair's website proclaims that one can "find almost anything that money can buy – from the very latest in agricultural machinery to old clocks, sports gear and ecological food."  There are almost six hundred exhibitors.  Even local car salesmen have booths.  We saw a man selling herring in a sea captains cap and Finnish saunas lined up alongside pellet stoves.  Cherry pickers loomed over it all like giant cattails.

Tens of thousands of fairgoers descend upon Seljord every year, and a lot of them stay the night.  In nearby fields, scores of RV's were camped with lawn-chairs and barbeques arranged messily between them.  It looked like a happening scene.  Most of the vehicles had Norwegian license plates.  The town - not a big place - was overrun.  Men in bright yellow vests and mittens tried to keep the traffic flowing, but it was difficult.  We imagined what it must be like at night, with music wafting in the darkness and meals cooked under the stars.

When we arrived at the Dyrsku’n, the sky was dark and there was a fine drizzle in the air.  We had blue skies and bright sun after half an hour.  It was cold again by the time we were leaving, with a fine-edged September wind.  As we drove east, back towards Oslo, it felt as though the fall had found us there in the mountains.  When we arrived in the city that night, Seljord felt very far away, as though it was something we were remembering from childhood or a book.

Rottweilers And Serbs in Niš

I first saw “f--k Serbia” written on a bathroom wall at a Brooklyn gas station.  It struck me, then, as an odd thing to write, but in Europe it’s a pretty popular bit of scrawl.  I’ve seen it a lot lately, in Croatia and Slovenia and on walls in Macedonia and Albania.  The point is, Serbia isn’t well liked by its neighbors.
In the gathering darkness of a warm evening in Niš we came across a strange, violent dog competition.  Men and women sat in lawn chairs, smoking and talking.  We spent some time marveling at the strange things we happen across.  Traveling – at its best – brings you completely unexpected rituals and cultural spectacles - like this circle in the trees, where people calmly watched Rottweilers attack a man over and over and over.

We aren't in Serbia to judge or rehash history, but 1992 wasn't that long ago.  It's difficult to come to a place like this without questions.  What are Serbs really like?  In general, they've been either incredibly friendly or quite brusque.  They aren't especially crazy about America.  People our age have been wonderfully open and friendly.  In general, they're a lot like most Slavic people.
The dog show was a ritualized display.  One could sense the anticipation of tensed muscles, the quickened panting before the leap, the sharp whines imploring the trainer to loosen the leash.  Attack dogs are strange things, and it takes a particular type of person to want to train them - someone who wants to both control and commit violence.

A young, thin man stood behind a kind of blind with a baton in one hand and a protective tube over the other arm.  When he jumped out and began looking threatening, a dog was supposed to run up to him, bite the arm tube and shake it while being beaten by the baton.  Sometimes, the dogs weren’t quite sure they wanted to attack.  Sometimes they were over-eager, and wouldn’t stop mauling the tube when they were supposed to.  It was frightening the first few times, but we got used to the gnashing teeth and brutish behavior.

Even to uninformed watchers like us, it was obvious which animals were better trained.  They were generally the calmest, and the quickest to loosen their bite when told to.  All of the dogs, though, were admirably non-threatening and well-behaved when they weren't about to attack.  There weren't any fights between the animals, and there was almost no barking.  We felt very safe wandering amongst the wagging tails and lolling tongues.
We feel safe wandering around Serbia, too.  Serbs are good people.  I wish, more than anything, that I wasn't suspicious of them. They don't deserve it.

Apparently, Niš is a Rottweiler hotspot.  Some ten kennels in town are devoted to the breed, and their owners wore t-shirts advertising their services.  Affection between Serbs and Germans hasn’t historically been strong, but the breeders and trainers have names like “Vom Haus Engle” and “Vom Hasen Haus.”  (Also, the hilarious “Rott-Angels from IceBerg.”)  The Deutch bent seemed strange, but there was a clear militaristic, close-cropped-hair aesthetic that isn’t exactly German but emulates a popular idea about Germany. We wondered, watching the show, if some Serbs feel a connection between their country and other old antagonists - a wounded pride, maybe.  Perhaps a desire to be understood for what they are today, rather than what they were.

This kind of dog show happens in other countries, of course.  It's not a specifically Serbian thing, but it resonated with us here in a way that it may not have elsewhere.  It brought to the foreground something that we'd been thinking without wanting to, a question that doesn't quite seem fair - not "who are Serbs?" but "are Serbs the same people that they used to be?"  Rottweilers are very friendly dogs, generally - but they can also be frighteningly vicious.  

Hıdırellez Bahar Şenlikleri - The Spring Fest

We passed three dead snakes on the narrow country road to Çalıklı.  The drive took us through empty fields and near a dry streambed.  The road signs for the town were spelled in different ways – one read “Çalıklı,” another “Çaleklı.”
It’s not a big village.  There are about twenty houses and a whitewashed mosque.  A big crowd had gathered around a cow pasture.  We parked the car beside a few buses and walked over with our cameras.  Circled by a few hundred onlookers, pairs of men – bare to the waist, slicked with oil and sweat, their chests heaving – wrestled one another while a man wandered between them with a drum.  This was unexpected, but we hadn’t really known what to expect – we’d come to the Hıdırellez Bahar Şenlikleri (Turkish for “Hıdırellez Spring Festival”) knowing only that there would be singing and dancing.

It was a hot day in south-eastern Macedonia, some twenty miles from the Greek border, and most of the people cheering on the wrestlers had gathered in what little shade there was – under a few umbrellas and beneath the new leaves of three sycamores on the pasture’s edge.  There is very little information about this festival online, and we had come feeling as though we were following a rumor.
But there we were, watching this ancient Turkish sport and feeling amazed to be part of it.  A man played a kind of wooden horn loudly, the drum beat a laconic rhythm, judges roamed the ring in baggy şalvar trousers.  The contestants did elaborate dances between matches – ritualized, springing, arm-flailing displays to exhort applause from the crowd.  Winners were carried back to their groups on the shoulders of friends.  The losers lay on the grass panting before slinking to the sidelines.  Before every round, the men poured oil over their shoulders, their heads and the leather pants they wore, making themselves as slick as possible.

In Albania, the culture felt more Greek the closer we got to the border – here, though, it feels as though we’ve skipped over the Hellenic lands and landed somewhere near Anatolia.  There are lots of ethnic Turkish and Roma settlements in the lands around Strumica, and the language is heavily influenced by those cultures. Hıdırellez is a pan-Turkic festival that celebrates the coming of spring and the awakening of life – it has roots going back to ancient Mesopotamia, and various Muslim countries celebrate something similar.  In Macedonia, it’s as much about celebrating Turkish identity as anything, and it means a lot to the people of Strumica and Çalıklı.  Groups of dancers and wrestlers come from all over – from Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and even Azerbaijan.
Interestingly, the non-Turkish people in the area seemed hardly to know it was going on – or to know, but not want to say anything about it.

That night, in Strumica, we asked around, trying to figure out where a Hıdırellez concert we’d been told about would take place.  A man at the cultural center shook his head and said nothing, looking down at the ground.  A man at our hotel said he wasn’t sure.  A woman at the highschool was very friendly until we asked about Çalıklı and the spring festival – she began abruptly to walk away.
We actually took this to mean that there had been some mistake, and that nothing was happening.  It wasn’t until that night, when we heard drums and horns in the central square, that we realized there certainly was something going on.

A group of young dancers in red costumes danced energetically and strangely to music played by a few kids.  The musicians had a flute-like instrument, a trumpet and a drum – they played lively, fluttering music as loudly and quickly as they could.  The dancers did a jumping, line dance routine, turning their heads stoically from side to side in unison as they flicked the draping of their clothes and the streamers on their hats.  Only about ten people were watching.
It was a magical, powerful revelry and a beautiful sight in the dark.  And then it was over.  The lot of them stopped and filed into the cultural center.  We followed them and found more music.

Inside, a raucous crowd danced and sang along to unfamiliar songs.  The musicians sat in tuxedos, playing well.  The singer was probably famous.  She wore a long sleeved, flowing, red dress and a cascade of blonde-tinted curls.  Teenagers laughed and talked and cheered, running in and out of the auditorium with friends or standing in the aisles to socialize.  Parents and grandparents sat and gossiped.  The hairstyles were sculptural and full of grease, the clothes were tight and skimpy.  It was hot, the music was loud.  We stayed for about half an hour, standing in a crush of young people near the door.
Later that night, at about 1:30 in the morning, we heard the young drummer and trumpet player go noisily by under our window – the street was still lively and a small ruckus rose and followed them as they played.  It woke us up and we would have been more upset if they didn’t seem so earnestly celebratory.

The next afternoon we went back out to Çalıklı but found ourselves a little late.  The young dancers – more of them now, bussed in from different places – were changing out of their costumes and into their best festival clothes.  The oil-wrestling field was empty now except for a few heifers, but there were still hundreds of people.  We followed the crowds up through a lane of country-fair stands – toy guns and headscarves for sale, grilling kofte and beer drinking men under tarps.  The older women dressed in full tradition robes, their best silks.  The younger people preferred tight pants and tanktops.  There was much hello-saying and groups of talking friends. We made our way up past the mosque to a covered stage, where people were sitting in the shade and waiting for a performance to begin.

We waited too and talked with a few people.  We’d received a lot of quizzical looks but never felt uncomfortable.  Even though we didn’t fit in the locals seemed more proud of their festival than protective.
Eventually, the same red-dressed, probably-famous singer emerged from her van and began to sing the same songs as the night before.  The audience here was more staid.  They seemed to be from the countryside instead of Strumica – they watched more attentively, the clothes were more traditional.  Around the stage, tractors were parked and a few cows were tied up.

We left with the woman’s voice still ululating in our ears.  A few amorous youths were lurking out by the line of parked cars and buses on the road.  Popsicle wrappers and soda cans littered the ground.  As we drove away, we could still see smoke from the kofte barbeques rising behind us.  The festival was winding down, and we weren’t the only car driving out along the little road.  A scattering of townspeople sat in chairs along the way, watching the traffic from their front yards.
It was an incredible experience.  Even after three events over two days, we felt as though we’d only caught a bare glimpse of something.  As an older man said to us by the wrestling field, this was “something very special.”  He watched the athletes and seemed caught by emotion.  “We didn’t always have this,” he said, meaning he and his Turkish neighbors.  “For us, this is something special.”  You can imagine how we felt.

The Hıdırellez Bahar Şenlikleri in Çalıklı is celebrated over three days around the fifth of May.

Happy Labor Day!

"It's a day to be in nature with family..." explained Stefanija, an aspiring singer who was visiting her cousins for the holiday. So, everyone just sits around drinking and grilling?  "Yes, exactly," she laughed.  Labor Day seems to be the same the world over and we were lucky enough to join in on a real holiday barbecue.  We'd been hiking in the sun for two hours during which we'd met a turtle stuck in some shrubs and a recently road-killed snake.  Don't drink and drive, folks.  Behind every house, we could hear laughing and clinking of glasses.  Meat-tinged smoke made signals in the air that read YOU ARE JEALOUS.  Then, in the village of Ljubojno, this minimart-cum-restaurant appeared like an oasis. We sat for a drink and a moment out of the scorching sun.  What we got was much, much more. 

Two generations of men sat around a table on the porch. The front door of the store was open and they went in and out getting what was needed. Traditional music played on the stereo and plastic plates covered the tables - sliced tomato, whole hot peppers, grilled slabs of sheep cheese, scattered amongst the beer and rakija. The main event was about to begin.  There was a gas grill sitting amongst piles of empty bottles, but attentions were turned to the other, larger one.  "This is the best grill in.... in the world!" proclaimed Lambed, the grillmaster.  He'd welcomed us and taken our drink order when the others had looked a little skeptical.  Soon enough, we were embraced with full Macedonian hospitality.  "We'd like to invite you to join us for some meat."  It's not polite to turn down an invitation.

Nor is it polite to refuse a gift.  Our order of "wine" had arrived in the form of a one liter bottle of Macedonian white.  (That's the equivalent of 1 and 1/3 normal bottles for those who may not know).  When it was around four fifths of the way done, another was sent over.  "From him!" one man said of another.  Our place was cemented.  We received a taste of the first batch of meat off the grill: a veal burger, chicken cutlet and hot dog.  You'd be amazed at how good those three things can taste when wood-fired to perfection.  The whole batch of meat, which also included sausage wrapped in bacon and veal chops, had been marinating all day.  A halved onion was rubbed over the surface of the hot grill before anything went on.  This was an artform. 

Macedonia's Labor Day used to take place over three days - May 1st, 2nd and 3rd.  After the fall of Communism, when the actual completion of labor began to take precedence over the celebration of it, they shortened the holiday to two days.  Now, it is just one.  In small villages like Ljubojno, teenagers go and live with family or friends in neighboring cities in order to attend high school.  So, Labor Day is a rare day back at home during the school year.  We'd seen the bustle in Lake Ohrid, Macedonians who can afford to make a whole weekend of it gave a peek at what the town must be like in the summer high season. 

Some places were sleepier because of the holiday, some were more crowded. The little store in our home village of Brajcino, a (somewhat) sobering hour's walk from Ljubojno, was closed for the afternoon.  That didn't stop men from sitting outside under umbrellas, drinking beer and playing cards.  They left their recyclables lined up by the door and went home for the holiday dinners their wives had prepared.  Cars from Slovenia and Serbia filled the small parking lot in the town center.  We're pretty sure all of the former Yugoslav countries have the same Labor Day holiday. 

You see mini-reunions happening all over on days like this.  Cousins who only see each other once or twice a year fall easily back into familiar roles, dogs bark at visitors they don't recognize, young couples smooch and smoke cigarettes in secret. Like Stefanija and her friends, most people ring up their relative with the most picturesque residential location and pay a visit.  It's hard to compete with the Brajcino area in that respect.  The weather couldn't have been any more perfect and outdoor breakfast tables easily transitioned into lunch tables and then dinner.  You could smell baking almost everywhere.

The plows, shovels and tractors stay put for the day.  Except for this man, out on a joyride.  The kids of the town clearly knew he was coming and hopped on his cart.  Lest we forget the true meaning of Labor Day (drinking and grilling), Tractor Man didn't just brake to pick up new passengers.  He happily used the opportunity to pour himself a drink.  Happy Labor Day from Macedonia!