SKOPJE, CHANGE OF PLAN AND SZEGED!

15TH. APRIL 2011 - in Austria. SKOPJE CONTINUED! CHANGE OF PLAN AND SZEGED.
An unexpected 'glitch' ended my last entry - now I continue! Skopje is a city of almost one million people and it is 30 kilometers in length. Without a hitch, Mirjam took the city roads. We passed the Cathedral and a little later, thanks to Mirjam and Google, we entered the street where Mother Teresa's Sisters live. A brief phone call on Monday evening had brought us an invitation to overnight with them. They live in a house, bought Mother Teresa 32 years ago, and refurbished four years ago. It serves for their residential ministry to children and they also have a Soup Kitchen. We went to Mass at the house of the Sisters of Eucharist and after, enjoyed hospitality with Mother Teresa's Sisters. They even gave us the loan of a Sat-Nav that has truly shepherded us safely here to Austria.

A 7.15a.m. Mass at the Daughters of Charity, four of whom I had met in Ohrid, gave us an early start. We left in glorious sunshine led by the Sat-Nav and clear words from the Sisters. We had just a little meadow, with lots of daisies, on either side. Just behind, there were mountains to the right and hills to the left! Mixed with chat, we listened to - "The Priests". As they sang -'May the road rise to meet you', I recalled to Mirjam the last thing we did before leaving Korce, was to sign a copy of that Celtic Blessing for our Maltese friend, Laurence. He was due to call as it was his Birthday! We reached the Border Control and entered Serbia in the late morning.

In the early afternoon, we changed our travel plan. Our new course would take us to Hungary and we would exit Serbia to the North. We got through the Border Control to Hungary before 7.00p.m. We then travelled a further 24 Kilometers to the city of Szeged. This is a beautiful University city with a wide river and pleasure boats plus marvellous buildings. All this we saw en route to getting accommodation. We had Mass at 7.00a.m. in a colossal, very ornate Cathedral and passed "The JOHN BULL Pub" when returning for breakfast! Mirjam very carefully place the required ticket on our vehicle so that we would have an hour before leaving. To our amazement, we had a "Fine Summons" that had been placed there just ten minutes into our hour. On principle, I would not pay! Mirjam took care of the vehicle while I went to three offices accompanied by Noemi, a student with English and Hungarian! Finally, the adminstrative staff accepted that an error was made and all was well! We left and had a very enjoyable journey to Budapest! No Border Control for a change. We got a little rain instead.

Our journey continued onto Vienna, which we bypassed, promising ourselves that, if we got our business successfully completed, we would return to visit the city at the weekend. More than an hour later, our Sat-Nav informed us we had reached our destination. We had arrived in a little village, at the home of Mirjams' friends. This was on the direct route for our appointment today and left us with 130 kilometers for this morning!

Auf wiedersehen!!!