7 cities, part 2

if lenny kravitz knew what his music was being used for, he would be very happy, said the serb. further proof that he, in fact, gets it. gets that it is entirely us to have all four doors open, 'fly away' and 'american woman' blasting from the speakers, as we wait on a line of cars that looks more like a parking lot to cross the border from serbia to macedonia.

yup. a motherfucking road trip!! after london, i flew to belgrade where me, the serb, his brother, and his brother's prissy (but very nice) girlfriend, embarked on a journey through the south of serbia, the capitol of macedonia, skopje, and on to lake ohrid, where we spent the next five days roaming through the mountains, praying in monasteries, and lounging by the lake.

our trip was fantastic and eye-opening, and heart-opening, and not only because i was visited by a saint. on this trip, the serb and i reached another level in our relationship: we laughed. not that we don't always. we do, always. but up until that night, 3 nights in, on a moonlit walk by the lake, when we doubled over, stomachs aching, tears in our eyes, literally whooping and hollering, over some joke i can't remember now, our private jokes were more of a physical nature. both of us people of action (he an athlete, me, a dancer), we've always found humor in our physical impressions of, well, each other. (he nails me, by the way. it's uncanny.) but this night, he made a joke, i seized on it, added something and took the funny another level. then he played off my play off and we laughed harder. and then i riffed on his improv and before we knew it, we'd collapsed onto a bench beside the water, cackling uncontrollably.

for the next 20 minutes our ever-present language barrier dissolved like sugar in water and it was so, so sweet. we infected everyone around us with our laughter. every single person that walked by, looked at us, confused at first, then inevitably, started giggling. and for perhaps the only time in that 5 days, the macedonians around us were not pointing, whispering and staring, or asking to take photos with us. they weren't treating us like either freaks or celebrities. they were laughing with us. and it was all very human and very spontaneous and very beautiful. enjoy the show.