It's all cyrillic to me

Seriously, what do they need so many letters for?
Well it's been a busy few days for me. I've moved around quite a bit. Last I wrote I was in Greece. Now I'm in Montenegro. And it has been an interesting trip getting here. You can't really plan ahead when travelling in this part of the world because you can't be sure of bus times until you actually get to the bus station. You can google all you want but have to be prepared to figure something else out when you get there.
But before all of that I had a day in Meteora. They have these monasteries perched on top of cliffs. They are impressive. I walked up to about the third one (there are 6 still in use today) but then I got hungry so I walked back. But not before getting completely surrounded by cats at one point. They just appeared out of nowhere.
The next day I began the hope-there-is-a-bus part of the trip. The internet had told me that there was a daily bus from Thessaloniki to Skopje at 5.30pm. So I headed to Thessaloniki and spent about 3 hours trying to find this supposed bus. When I asked people they mostly just told me to go to a different place and ask for information there. I finally found someone who told me I had to go to a particular travel agent and gave me directions. But his directions were not very good and I couldn't find it and when I went back to ask again he had gone for the day and the other person had no clue about anything. I did eventually find the right place and there was in fact a bus that night so I got to Macedonia without too much more trouble. Just a short delay at the border because the spanish immigration were terrible stampers so the greek immigration didn't want to let me out. But they did. And the rest of that particular journey was pretty straight forward.
The next day was Sunday. I've come to resent Sundays somewhat since I've been travelling. Everything is closed. Macedonia turned out to be better than Italy because the mall with the grocery store was open decent hours even though all the independent shops were closed. When I went to the old part of town it was almost completely deserted. But it was pretty. Skopje is practically exploding with sculpture. It's everywhere. The central square has probably about a dozen statues including a giant horseman monument thing surrounded by lions. There were guys in chairs and guys in robes and women shopping and a bull about to charge a restaurant. And those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head.

So, climbing a mountain in a thunder storm: not my best idea ever. But it works out well for you because now I feel the need to huddle in my bed for a few hours which means I might actually finish this post. I've been writing it for a while.
Where did I leave off? Skopje= statues. And advertising. Almost every street light had a sign attached to it advertising something. It was an interesting place. They also have their own currency, Macedonian denari, which are useless everywhere else and I have 109 denari left over. Which is less than €2 so it's not a big deal but it's all in 10s (they have 10 denari notes and coins and I have both) so it takes up a bit of space in my wallet.
After Skopje I caught a bus to Priština, capital of Kosovo, where the internet said I could catch a bus to Podgorica, capital of Montenegro. I couldn't find the  times for the buses from Pristina to Podgorica online so I took the earliest bus from Skopje and got to Pristina before noon. But the bus wasn't until 5.45 so I had most of a day to see the city. It's not the prettiest city I've been to. More functional. But I found the university and the statue of Bill Clinton on Bill Clinton Boulevard.
Then the bus to Montenegro. Not the best bus ride ever so I'll skip the actual journey. Got a few more stamps in my passport. Arrived in Podgorica at 3 am. The internet had led me to believe it was about a 5 hour trip. Not a 9 hour trip. So I spent a few hours in the bus station and caught the earliest bus to Kotor. Which is where I am now. And it's magical. Not really sure what I like so much about it. It is very dramatic with the mountains surrounding it and the fortress looming over the old city with the bay in the middle. And the old city is walled and free of cars with twisty streets and little shops. But I've been other places with twisty streets so I don't know why I find Kotor so special but I do. I've already put Montenegro on the list of places to come back to someday. All of the trouble getting here was completely worth it.
The first day I napped a lot to recover from my epic journey, yesterday I wandered the town and bought shoes and today I planned to climb up to the fortress and then continue along the old merchants' road as far as I could get in one day and see if I could make it to this famous village in Lovcen National Park. I prepared for rain and did go a bit past the fortress but after the rain got really heavy I decided I should probably start back before I got uncomfortable. Which was a good call because that meant that when the hail and lightening started I was already on the way back and when I was really drenched and wished I could teleport I was more than half way. But the walk up was mostly dry and the views were amazing. I definitely feel like I'm going to have to come back someday with more time.
I find it interesting that this may be on the short list for favourite places I've been so far but no one had ever told me that Montenegro was worth visiting. I have had a lot of advice about where to go. When you're travelling and talking to other travellers the topic of unmissable places comes up fairly regularly. A few people have said Eastern Europe in general but when asked why always first mentioned how cheap everything is. Not one person mentioned Montenegro to me. So let me be the one to say it. Montenegro should be on your to do list.