What do Macedonians do on second Easter Day?

Back home. Glad to be home. Glad that I made it. Those who are usually known as friendly and helpful people, transform into descendants from hell once they're behind a steering wheel. When in a car, Macedonians are able to show the more obscured parts of their nature. Today was special. They'd gone mad beyond recognition. In a way this is good fun to observe.
It was National Picknick Day today. The day after 1st May or 2nd Easter Day? I don't know what exactly triggers everybody to go out, but all in Skopje appeared to have left their homes for a good sesh of food and drinks in the nature. Matka is a popular spot, but also Vodno and... Ohrid. Our destination for today. The enormous chaos on the road heading for the first two pay toll gateways is nothing compared to what was about to come on the road to Gostivar and onwards in the mountains to Kicevo and Ohrid. A short list of memorable moments:

• Ficos are fully packed with one whole family, food for a day, a grill and a complete set of garden furniture (the latter conveniently stacked high on top of the car). As it comes with Ficos, the furniture is as big as the car itself. Pretty sight.
  
• National Picknick Day means FOOD! A lot of food. Food keeps one alive. A lot of food keeps Macedonians on their feet. Please notice that it's about a lot of great food. The foot is distributed in anything that moves. Today's most noticable one was the Volkswagen Golf. It was crammed full with lettuce. Not just in the boot. Not also on the back seats. No, also the passenger seat in the front, the place where this passenger usually puts it's feet and... the right hand side dashboard is window and roof high packed with the healthy greens.
  
• Overtaking cars on two lane mountain roads = national sport and/or russian roulette. I'm not sure which label is most suitable. I'll go for the russion roulette, but as the activity appeared so popular today, I'd rather put my money on the first option - national sport.
  
• Go out picknicking means serious food preparation and not just for 2 hours. We've seen families on picknick places in the morning with grills functionaing on full throttle who wes saw on our way back at night as well. Still grilling.
  
• Product of a moment of "Logistical Euphoria": chairs in the car boot. table on top of the open boot lid. Ropes have to do their best to keep all together.
• This lost table in the middle of an extremely busy Tetovo – Gostivar 4 lanes road, waiting to be picked up. The combination with the car driving madness described above makes this quite a tricky rescue operation. Avoiding the slaloming cars around the table is a especially nasty business. Please keep in mind that there is ample space to position one single bike left and right of the two narrow lanes. The ditch (right) and the concrete wall (left) sufficiently limit the space of freedom.
  
• Queueing up for usually quiet pay-toll portals – second one from Skopje, 15 km before Tetovo. Overtaking the queue is allowed.
• Getting back from Ohrid to Skopje on the mountain roads for half the trip is record racing. My personal best is 1 hour 53 minutes (or so). All time best is probably around a little more than 1 hour and 10 minutes. I don't think I'll ever take that as a challenge.

Fotos from Ohrid

	Sveti 'Cliff Side' (this will probably be corrected in the course of next week, when locals have had their eyes feasted on this one), the lake and some trees seen from the Samuel's Castle.
	Another Samuel's Castle view down.
	What is known as typical Ohridski architecture can be found throughout the whole of the old city.
	Ohrid Lake.
	Small Sveti at lake with own holy and healing well. Take a sip...