Catena Mundi

The end of the world, somewhere along the Europastrasse. It would seem that the E75 has a great number of ends! Viewed in terms of geometry, that’s no small feat for a line—which is, after all, what every road amounts to. But here I’m talking about the end of the world: “Catena Mundi.” At least, that’s what the Romans called it. They meant FYROM, of course, as I’m sure will be instantly clear to all readers. RYROM, which in German would read EJRM. Anyway, tomorrow I’ll be setting off from Macedonia to drive over the border to … Macedonia. Which is precisely what the Romans called the end of the world, and I think that’s interesting, because they actually got as far as the Middle East—which is to say: far beyond the end of the world. (So maybe it’s not flat after all?) At any rate, what this is about is the republic that’s governed from Skopje, as the Greeks typically call the country that the United Nations recognize as RYROM.