Liz is having fun making the sidewalks near where she lives suitable for traversal. In Скопје I suspect she’d have a little more difficulty. Here sidewalks / pavements / footpaths most certainly aren’t for walking. Instead they seem to be for parking. Walking on the roads generally isn’t too bad, although I’ve had a couple of near misses in the wing-mirror vs laptop-bag stakes, and you need to be extra vigilant for motorbikes (particularly so in the main square where you aren’t expecting them at all and it seems to be more difficult to hear them).
Crossing roads, however, requires an entirely new set of skills. I thought I had developed these in Tallinn, where the trick was to stride out purposefully on to the road and force the cards to stop. I’ve been informed that the same approach is required here, but obviously I still have too much scent of fear, as drivers tend to take that as a sign to accelerate towards me, rather than stop. Crossing at traffic lights is particularly hazardous if you’re foolish enough to expect that a red light will make the cars any more likely to stop.
So far I’ve managed to avoid any serious injuries, but if I go silent for a long period, you’ll know what’s happened.
