American Abroad

Long Ago and Far Away

2010-12-02T10:12:00.000-06:00

That's kind of how Albania is starting to feel to me--like it was a long time ago and far far away. Don't get me wrong, though, because I still fall asleep thinking about it every night and I still talk about it all the time! It's just that lately there's been so much going on in my life that what happened then seems like ages ago.

But with all the snow and wind and cold here in MN, it is a most un-Albania like climate. However, the one thing I keep craving is totally Albanian. I want some salep in the worst way! lol :) It's smooth thickness and warm flavor would be just the ticket on these bitter cold days. Oh, man! I just want a cup of salep in my hands, warming them up, steam rising from the top with that deliciously comforting aroma wafting to my nose. Mmmmm!!!!

But alas. I am here, not there. And here, salep does not exist. I will have to settle for cheap cappuccino or hot chocolate, or crappy cafeteria coffee with lots of flavored creamer. lol Just goes to show that no place is perfect. A combination, however, would be amazing! :)

Love & Hospitality

2010-08-27T11:37:00.000-05:00

Chapel is always a place where I end up doing a lot of thinking. The same is true of church. Maybe that's a bad thing. Maybe I should be doing more listening and less thinking. But so often, the person that I'm listening to says something that sparks my thought process. Today's chapel service was no exception.

The leader was talking about a trip he went on (I forgot where. Mexico? Costa Rica? Something like that. I know it was somewhere around Central America.) and a lady he met named Rosa. He didn't speak Rosa's language and Rosa didn't speak his. But after he'd hiked 2 hours up the side of a volcano to the little village where Rosa lived, she invited he and his family into her home and offered them some ground corn meal and sugar water. She used handful of English words that she knew, she gestured, pointed, and smiled. She hugged and waved and laughed. And then, when it was time leave, Rosa sent them off with handfuls of avocados and red beans. By the standards we are used to in America, this doesn't seem like much. A hike to a village? Only being offered a glorified water drink? Being sent home with vegetables? Little verbal communication? Most of us would be thinking, "Um....awkward...."

But I could relate fully. I got to thinking... I may not have hiked to people's homes when I was in Tirana, but some days it did feel like an urban hike, hoofing it will my full backpack through the heat and humidity or through the damp, shiver-inducing rain, to get to the other side of the city to make sure I made it to some one's house on time because I'd accepted the invitation into their home. I knew little of their language and they knew little of mine. There was much gesturing, waving, pointing, and nodding. There was always, without fail, excessive cheek kissing. :) I miss that greeting. Laughter was always abundant and the smiles were the kind come so frequently and last so long that by the end of the visit my cheeks hurt.

I remember being sent home with petulla from Mrs. Huna. I remember Kesi and Klea's family send us home with homemade plum jam. (It was gone in a hurry! hee hee!) I remember leaving other homes and being sent away with cookies, candy, nylons (for real), pictures, cards, etc. Whatever people had, they wanted to give. They showed their love, not by words, but by their actions, through their hospitality. The joy on their faces is burned into my mind. People in Albania were always to quick to share and give much of the modest little they had. Though so different from what I was and am again used to, I can scarcely remember other situations that made me feel to welcome, so loved, to cared for.

Christian love is an amazing thing. It doesn't take words to communicate. It doesn't even take big actions to communicate. It takes a willing and generous heart. Sometimes these big lessons are shown in small ways.

Te dua shume, Shqiperia!

And So A Year Has Passed

2010-07-01T23:21:00.005-05:00

One year ago today was my last day in Albania. My flight left that night and I spent the whole day with my stomach in knots. Every moment was spent on the verge of tears which spilled over on several occasions. I had such a mix of emotions--sadness at the goodbyes, pain at the thought of never seeing some of those people again, hurt that there were things left undone and unexplored, aggravation that I'd spent my last week sick with the mumps and then a swollen eye the day before leaving, joy at knowing I would see my parents and my brother the next day, anticipation of reunions with friends, excitement at having a new house and city to acclimate to, thanksgiving for the multitude of blessings God had showered on me during my there, and nervous about such a long journey by myself.

I know that at the time I wrote about feeling relief. And, truly, that was my main emotion because it rolled all of those others into one big ball that made it seem normal to be having so many acute feelings at once.

Today, exactly one year later, I still feel just as blessed, if not more than I did that day. There aren't words to describe the gratefulness I feel for the people I met, the things I saw and did, and the placesI went. I literally have a new perspective on everything because of my time in Albania. Just thinking of it fills my heart to the point of overflowing with love for my Albanian friends and family. They taught me so much and were more patient with me than I deserved. It just makes me wonder how my Heavenly Father can love me and be patient with me even through so much more. Unfathomable.

But all of those things that altered my perspective, changed my perceptions, opened my eyes to new lines of thought, provided understanding, and educated me, all bear witness to God's love. He provided what was best for me ad taught me exactly what he in his infinite wisdom knew I needed to know. And all it took was a very unique country in Eastern Europe. ;)

The picture is of a bracelet that Neda gave me that last day in Albania. It was hers and she literally took it off her wrist and gave it to me. She told me to wear it for good luck, that when I wore it I wouldn't be sad because I would think of everyone there and be happy. She also said that it would make us close in our hearts because I would have her with me. I have been given many things in my life but I have never had someone take something off of their physical person and give it to me like that. Neda is someone with very little to give yet generosity frequently comes to mind when I think of Neda. So the fact that she gave me something of her very own right then and there makes it probably one of the most meaningful things I've ever been given.

A bracelet is a circle; everything is continuous. Therefore, in my mind, it is an appropriate symbol of my experience in Albania. All things work together for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. God knew it would all work out--the ups and downs--and that it would all fit together.

After a year has gone by, my mind is obviously jumbled with thoughts and emotions once again. But above all, I know that God set me to Albania as part of his purpose for me. I will never ever take that experience for granted. Aside from giving me my Savior and the wonderful family I have, it was the best thing that has ever happened to me.

**Note to the reader**
To write this, I used the iPhone app. for my blog and something is not right because the picture didn't attach. I'll work on figuring that out.

Daydreaming

2010-06-28T18:17:00.005-05:00

I am a daydreamer. My thoughts are constantly going. The gears up in my head turn endlessly. Nine and a half times out of ten, I don't mind this one bit.

Sometimes when I was in Albania, I would just daydream about the places I'd seen and the things I'd done. I'd daydream about the places I had yet to see and the things I had yet to do.

I specifically remember, on several occasions, sitting at my desk in my room, staring out the window at the beautiful sight of grand Mt. Dajti while listening to what I like to call "God music." This just means that I was listening to Lakeside Acapella Choir songs (the choir I was in during high school) or to some sort of Christian contemporary artist like Kirk Franklin, Casting Crowns, or Amy Grant. But I remember just staring at the sight hearing the words of the songs praising God and jut thinking how blessed I was for what I was experiencing. I remember thinking about how thankful I was for the things I was learning every day, for the understanding and perspective I was gaining, for the way the distance from home made me appreciate people more, for the new relationships I was building, for the opportunity to see more of God's spectacular creation, etc. I can recall an overwhelming sense of peace and security during these times spent at my desk staring out the window. There were so many unknowns around me and ahead of me, but all I felt was complete contentedness looking out at the beautiful mountain and blue sky.

Here, the skies are blue today. The weather is gorgeous. Birds are chirping and there is only the faintest breeze blowing around the scents of plant life, ushering the fullness of summer into the house. Most often, it is days like today that bring out clear vivid pictures from my Albania room. Today's vision looks like this:

The picture was actually taken on one of my last days in Tirana. I was standing on the balcony outside of the living room watching a storm blow in. It occurred to me that though I'd watchedthis a number of times before, I'd never captured it in a photograph. And though the view from this balcony and from my bedroom windo was splendid in good weather, to me it was an absolutely awesome picture of God's majesty and splendor when we could see a storm building over the mountain. So many examples of his power all in one place.

There I go again.....when I should be getting the lawn mowed, the car vacuumed out, scholarship applications completed, etc., I find myself daydreaming about Albania. And I wouldn't have it any other way! :)

In The Back Of My Mind

2010-05-11T10:27:00.002-05:00

In the back of my mind there is a large room. That's how I like to think of it. In this room are remnants of a time and a place. The room is filled with faces, most of which belong to children. Smiling laughing children of all ages. There are a few adults in the room. A tall, thin mother with slightly crooked teeth, bright eyes, and a contagious smile. A short man who looks like a big American football player but has the personality of a teddy bear. An observant woman who watches and speaks in two languages. The room flashes with scenes from many places. Views of umbrellas lined up along the beach. Sidewalks where purple and yellow buses stop to drop off and pick up passengers. Crowded round-abouts with boisterous honking vehicles, yelling pedestrians, screeching motorcycles, and bicycle bells ringing strong. Views from the top of a mountain. A simple green curtain with a small wooden cross hanging in front of it.

This is my Albania room.

Locked securely in my mind, it echoes with words like, "Po!", "c'kemi," "mirupafshim" and phrases like, "naten e mire," "sa bukur," and "shihemi neser!" Even after almost a year, the sights and sounds enclosed in this room are vivid. At night, my dreams live in this room and transport me back to the places I miss and the people I love. Sometimes, I fall asleep with tears streaming down my cheeks because the pain of missing this place is so strong.

In the back of my mind, Albania is never far away. I think of it every day. Though the number of people who can relate to my experiences are few and far between, I steal moments from this place daily. It is hard to keep up with my friends--no, family, is a better word--there. Do I do a good job of this? No. Not as well as I should. Is it hard? Yes. How do you explain a life that they don't understand? How do you do this with words on a page that are simple yet descriptive enough, all while being properly articulate?

In the back of my mind is the desire to be there again. I want to see those places. I want to talk with those people. I want to laugh, to get upset, to be angry, to be confused, to be excited, to be educated again. I don't want to relive the experience I had because I know it can't, wouldn't, won't be the same. What I want is simply another experience. Another experience in the same place with some of the same people. Some would be absent this time around, but others would step into the picture. Can I have this? Will I have this? Who knows.

Instead of dwelling on the unknown, I will focus on what I know. What I know is what I experienced. So, to keep from forgetting, I will continue this blog as a place where I can record my memories. I will share my feelings now, from the opposite side of the fence. (The grass is always greener.....right? lol) So please, allow me to unlock the door and let you into the Albania room.

Gone, But Never Forgotten

2009-07-08T21:27:00.001-05:00

A note to the reader: I wrote this on my last night in Albania but didn’t get to post it (for many reasons) until today.

As I sit in my apartment for my final night in Albania, my main emotion is relief.

I am relieved that I made it through a year here.

I am relieved that I made friends that will last a lifetime.

I’m relieved that I get to go home tomorrow.

I’m relieved that I will have good heath care again so I can stop being sick.

I’m relieved that I was able to travel without running out of money.

And most of all, I’m relieved that at the end of it all, I feel successful.

God has been by my side through every step of the way, and, if you’ve been following my adventure, you know there have been numerous ups and downs. I guess I’m sort of even ending on a down note, since I’ve been sick the last week. I had to cancel plans to go to Kruja, to go to Berat, to go to Durres, to visit the National Museum, to visit the National Art Museum, and to spend time with my friends and students here.

At the same time, being stuck mostly in my home for the last week has helped finally figure out just how important my relationships here have become. Aida came two days in a row to help me with various duties so that I could save my energy and rest. She ran errands, washed dishes, hung up laundry, and did a little cleaning. Neda came one day to do the same. She and Olsa and Ledio even spent the night here once—sort of to check on me, sort of to be able to stay a night in my apartment, and sort of as an excuse to be away from home. lol Aida and Neda both helped me with getting my last souvenirs to take home. Olsa and Neda have both helped with cleaning. And the Huna family (Neda, Olsa, and Ledio and their parents) even invited me to their home for my last dinner in Albania. Neda and I made the fixings for tacos but since we can’t usually get tortillas here, Mrs. Huna made petulla. Yum! Put them together and it’s kind of like a gordita. Tasty!

As if fighting of a mumps virus isn’t enough, this morning I woke up with my left eye swollen ¾ of the way shut. I had to go to the doctor anyway to pick up a copy of my records so I figured since I was going there anyway; I might as well just see the doctor, too. She said she didn’t see any reason why I should be concerned. She said it didn’t show any signs of severity and I didn’t exhibit any other symptoms to be concerned about. In fact, she thinks that because I’m fighting a virus and because my arms are covered in various bug bites--some bordering on horrendous, one that’s golf ball sized and swollen even on the inside of my arm—that she thinks the swelling of my eye is just my body’s way of over-reacting to either a mosquito bite near my eye (though we couldn’t find any bite site) or to something that got in my eye.

Hopefully it won’t cause me any problems on the plane. It’s a little purplish so really, it kind of looks a little like a black eye. Funny. Well, not really, but what am I supposed to do besides laugh? I’m frustrated, but it doesn’t pay to show it or dwell on that negative feeling. So instead, I just chalk it up to another way I’m allergic to Albania and laugh. So if they question me at the airport, I will make a smart remark in typical Katie fashion. Hee hee! Probably something like, “Moving across an ocean is dangerous! Watch out when you’re packing!” Or I’ll pull of the classic, “You should see the other guy!” Haha!

Mostly what I’m concerned about is getting enough rest tomorrow before I leave. My landlord and his wife are coming in a 7:30am to start cleaning. Whoa!!! That throws a major kink into my normal sleeping pattern. Plus, I was hoping to be well-rested when I wake up to face my last day.

After I get up and find a way to waste a few hours around here, it’s over to church to print all of my flight stuff—itineraries, reservation numbers, confirmation numbers, etc.—and turn in the keys to Agron and then say goodbye to he and Vitori. Then I have to say goodbye to the Huna parents. And then to all my students who live in that building. None of that will be especially easy. But I remind myself, “There’s no crying in moving!” because it’s not goodbye. Friends stay in your heart. You don’t forget them. God allowed them to be a blessing in my life for which I will always be thankful.

After that, Neda is coming back with me. She’s coming with me to drop off the wireless internet equipment and my phone to the man who bought it. There, I’ll be able to use their wireless internet to hopefully post this, to check my flight status one more time, and then to email my parents and Meghan, since they are my rides home.

Before and after that, we’ll spend some time weighing my luggage. I pre-paid for one extra piece of luggage. I know the weight on that is fine, but I think one of my suitcases might still be over. They lowered the weight limit by a considerable amount from when we moved over here. That makes packing a bit more difficult.

Helen and Lejda are coming to pick up some things that I’m giving them and for a final farewell. At some point, I’ll shower, so I’m a bit more clean and refreshed before heading to the airport when my ride picks me up at 6:15pm. The Huna’s have a cousin who owns a car and he’s taking me to the airport and charging me half of what a taxi would cost. I’ve met him and he did the same for Emily last week. Plus, I figure it’s a good way to get rid of the last of my lek since they won’t be very helpful once I’m out of Albania. This way, Olsa, Neda, and Ledio can ride to the airport with me. They don’t think I should go alone.

I’m a little afraid this will make the goodbye harder, but oh well. Once I’m past the security gate, I can relax and just let the waiting begin. From there on out, it will just be a whole lot of waiting. Waiting to board, waiting to take off, waiting to land, waiting to exit the plane, waiting to claim luggage, waiting at customs. Then on to the hotel for my overnight layover. Then waiting for the airport shuttle from Gatwick to Heathrow. Then waiting to check in, waiting to board, waiting to take off, waiting to land, waiting to exit the plane, waiting to claim luggage, waiting at customs, waiting for Meghan. Once I see her car, the waiting will finally be done. No more waiting to be home—I’ll be there! In my own country with my own friends, on my way to see my family!

In approximately 48 hours, Albania will be a part of my past. But the things I’ve learned, seen and done, the people I’ve met and grown to love, and the place that was completely foreign to me will forever be a part of me. No matter what happens next on the path God’s laid out for me to follow, Albania will always be a part of my heart—a very vital part of my life. For that, I thank God.

Before I head to bed, I would also like to thank all of you who’ve supported me, encouraged me, and been a friend to me throughout this past year. You’ll never know how your thoughts, words, and prayers have lifted me up when I needed it. I ask now that you keep my in your prayers one more time. Please pray for my health throughout this journey home and for safe, smooth, comfortable flights. God is good and he never fails. Thank you for that reminder.

Quarantined

2009-06-24T18:29:00.002-05:00

I have very little to report to day as I remain quarantined in my apartment. Emily left here around 2:30am and it was a quick goodbye. Refreshingly, at least from my perspective, it was an exciting goodbye. I felt like it was the sign of completion at the end of a very productive and positive year of work. Also, it was exciting to say "See you in the States!" and know that we will be comparing notes as we both find out what God has in store for us next.

At the same time, I did shed a few tears after I locked the door and walked back up the stairs, alone, to an emptier apartment. It did sink in that our time here is truly at an end.

After waking up at 1pm, (Hey--I was tired, up late, I'm sick, and I'm supposed to be resting. ;) At least I have good excuses. lol) my daily activities included:

Flushing mass quantities of various fluids.
Taking a shower. Being alone is no excuse to be stinky. Hee hee!
Doing one load of laundry.
Folding the sheets and towels Emily hung on the line yesterday.
Talking to people on Skype.
Watching movies on TV (when I could find something in English).
Reaching a new level on the facebook game Farm Town.
Playing other online games.
Making soup for dinner.
Emailing my travel plans and full itinerary to my family and Meghan, since she'll be picking me up in Chicago and driving me to Milwaukee where we'll meet my family for dinner.
Frequent visits to the bathroom due to the extensive liquid consumption. lol

Tomorrow's agenda includes much of the same from today, minus the cooking because I have leftover soup. Aida is coming to keep me company and to help with some things. She offered to come and help me pass the time by keeping me company and helping with some things. What a great friend!

I'm feeling fine. There's hardly any pain thanks to mostly sitting still, no talking, and ibuprofen. The swelling maybe went up just a tad from yesterday but it's hard to tell. Other than that, I just feel tired and don't really feel like doing much except sitting on the couch. I'm just feeling a little stressed about all that needs to get done before I leave and not pushing myself those last few days before I head to the airport. Olsa and Neda had agreed awhile ago to help me with cleaning the apartment, so I'm not worried about that. I'm just worried about all of the stuff from our apartment that has to get to church and then get organized in the new location. Tomorrow I'll try to think of a plan for that. It will give me something to do.

But for now, I'm having a flashback from my childhood. I know I need to get some sleep so I hear my dad's voice in my head saying, "Shadrach, Meshach and To-bed-we-go!" lol Goodnight!

Time Is Of The Essence

2009-06-23T15:49:00.015-05:00

First and foremost, you will have to read this post in its entirety if you want to know my most recent news. So much has happened in the past week that if I don’t write about it in order, I will forget it all. So let’s back up a bit, focus on the highlights, and then begin, shall we? (Forgive the horrible formatting with this. I am NOT an expert and have just guessed my way through.)

Sunday, June 14
- Was jolted awake, literally. We had a small but noticeable earthquake shortly after 7am.
- Met at church to take any available girls 12 and older to the beach.
- About ¾ of the way into the furgon ride, Doris puked.
- At the beach, we saw another bear on a leash—twice. This was a different bear than the one Emily and I saw in Tirana.
- The furgon ride home was, thankfully, puke-free.
- After showering and treating sunburn, we went downstairs to Pastor’s for our last pizza and game night. Each person won at least one game. Very appropriate. :)

Monday, June 15
- I cancelled my classes because students hadn’t been coming and we had an unrelated huge project to complete.
- We spent between 4-5 hours at Pastor’s assembling liturgy/hymnal worship booklets
- 100 Albanian booklets for the church in Durres
- 30 Albanian booklets for the church in Tirana
- Approximately 5 English booklets for Durres
- Approximately 10 English booklets for Durres
- One Worship Leader binder for each church
- One Accompanist binder for each church
- Tirana (Agron, Vitori, Pastor, Me, and Emily) and Durres (Mikal and Pavolina) church workers unite for one final dinner together.
- After the meal Emily and I met up with Tim and Helen, Lejda, and Aida for some drinks and chat time.

Tuesday, June 16
- To keep Pastor’s family tradition alive, we went up to Sky Tower for his last night in Albania. He and I both chose ice cream (of course) and Emily tested out the Irish Coffee. All choices were heartily approved and enjoyed.
- Pastor’s taxi picked him up at 3am so around midnight we wished him farewell and said, “See you in the States!” :)

Wednesday, June 17
- My last classes with my St. Louis, Boston, and Atlanta groups. Also our first class in the new location so we played games, snapped a few pictures and I treated all classes to ice cream.
- Attendance was poor and some of Emily’s students came to my classes. I guess once school’s out, they don’t pay attention to anything but playing and having fun. :)

Thursday, June 18
- Around 11am, Aida came over for coffee. We enjoyed a nice chat and made plans to meet later in the week.
- Last class with the Seattle group. Attendance was great, and a few kids even brought friends. - More games, pictures, and ice cream.
- Emily had her last classes. All’s well that ends well. :)

- Had dinner at the Huna house where we were stuffed to the max with Mrs. Huna's scrumptious homemade byrek. Mmmm!!!

Friday, June 19
- Went to the French Pastry shop for lunch with our new American friend, Kate, who’s spending the summer in Durres. (Her husband is Albanian.) I will miss their Orange Chocolate Torte.
- Last Activity Night was held outside to play some relay games. After a group picture we were suffocated with kisses and farewell wishes. J
- Fun continued with salsa dancing with Helen, Lejda, the other Lejda, and Aida for some salsa dancing. We also joined for a bit at various times by Shari, then Nardi and his friend. A great time was had by all!
- *Note* At one point, we were line dancing to Mexican salsa music at an American-themed Irish pub in Albania. Among the group were people from Albania, England, the US, and Macedonia. How’s that for cross-cultural? ;)

Saturday, June 20
- Had our first worship service in the new location. No electricity, but since only Agron, his mom, Vitori, Emily and I showed up, we skipped songs and Vitori translated for Emily and me. It was actually quite pleasant.
- Luckily, were able to change our Saturday afternoon plans so that we could finally have some time to ourselves. This was great as it gave me the afternoon to rest since I wasn’t feeling the best and it gave Emily time to pack.
- Needed to get out of the house in the evening so we went to the Hunas to say hello. Found Neda all dressed leaving for a school dance. Ledio was getting ready so we left a bit later with him. Turned out to be a good thing as he didn’t know where it was being held so we helped him find it.

Sunday, June 21
- Woke up with a strange swelling under my left ear and around my left jaw area. Though it was uncomfortable, I couldn’t cancel plans. Had a lunch date at the Huna household so Mrs. Huna could teach me how to make petulla. Yum! :)
- Still experiencing discomfort, I sucked it up and enjoyed our evening guests. Aida and Lejda came over for dinner and games as a final way to spend some time with Emily. They are always great to be around and will be dearly missed.

Monday, June 22
- Swelling and pain in my ear/jaw area was worse when I woke up. Emily suggested I go to the doctor. Good advice.
- The doctor touched it, asked if it hurt, asked two more questions, looked in my ears and my mouth, and asked me if I was up to date on my MMR vaccinations. I said yes and the doctor proceeded to tell me I have a version of the mumps virus.
- Deciding this couldn’t be possible, I carried on with daily plans.
- Went to the Xhika’s house (Fatmira, and her three girls, Aurora, Albina, and Albiona) for pasta, pizza, fruit, and candy. They surprised us with a fresh elaborate bakery cake. Played games, talked, laughed and ignored with pain and swelling. Much fun was had.
- Continued ignoring the pain and swelling as we moved to Kesi and Klea’s house for a 12th birthday party for Klea with her sister, parents, cousin, and uncle. Gjoka household is always fun and feels like another home. ‘Twas a great time. :)
- Kept moving because our next date was with Ledio. His American sisters (Emily and I) wanted to take him out for ice cream to spend some time with just him. We spend so much time with Olsa and Neda and we wanted to show him that we love him, too. Had a great time and a great talk with our Albanian brother. :)

- After returning home, I checked WebMD and the Mayo Clinic website to see if what my doctor said was correct. It was. I had the classic symptoms of more mild strains of the mumps virus.
- Looked at the rare but extremely severe complications and got scared.
- Checked on treatment and prevention.
- Lots and lots and lots of rest. No going out and very very very limited home activity. (Think mono. Had that once, too. Eww.)
- Force fluids, fluids, and more fluids.
- Stay away from people due to being contagious.
- Take Tylenol or Ibuprofen for pain.
- Ice swollen area.
- Rest, rest, rest. Sit, sit, sit. Very still. All day.
- Called my family to report the news to them. Parental units showed extreme concern.
- It was decided I shall treat this like mono and do absolutely nothing until Saturday, when I go to church.
- Thus cancelled all plans I had for this week. Sad. L
- Decision was made to keep the same flight and ask for help with packing and cleaning. No need to wear myself out before a big trip.

- Got frustrated with the lack of information from the doctor I saw here.

Tuesday, June 23
- Spoke with parents again, after they consulted the clinic at home.
- All information I found was recommended by the doctors at the clinic as well.
-Sat on the couch virtually all day but made three photo albums.
o Road Trip to Croatia
o Fun From May
o Salsa Dancing

As I write this, Emily is filling the last of her luggage and doing the last minute odds and ends. Her ride to the airport will be here in about 2 and a half hours and her flight leaves at 5am. It will be weird to spend time here without her, and since I am pretty much quarantined to the apartment, it will get a bit lonely, I think. Thank God for Skype! lol

My main concerns now are that Emily makes it safely to Germany, has a great trip, and then makes it to the US safely. And while she does that, I will become great friends with the couch in my apartment--as if we aren’t close already. Haha! My other main concern is to do exactly nothing until Saturday and then take it easy and slowly until I leave for the airport on Wednesday evening. Please keep both of us, as well as the mission here, in your prayers. And expect more updates from me these next few days since I will have plenty of time on my hands. ;)

The Way I See It...

2009-06-17T06:11:00.003-05:00

For some reason, facebook has refused to successfully upload any photos for me this weekor last. I’m not sure why there is a problem, but I do know that I will share my Croatia pictures with you as soon as this problem is resolved. On the bright side, I can share pictures from our day trip to Shkodra. I actually had this album done awhile ago, but I forgot that I hadn’t shared it yet. Oops!

Lately, class attendance has not been good because school is officially done. I just hope that today and tomorrow for my last claasses the students will come back. We’ll see. I’ve been playing games with my classes. I’ve been playing hangman and am absolutely amazed at how much they’ve improved since the first time we played that way back in the fall. Wow!!! They’re so smart! :) We’ve also been playing Spelldown, which is the same as Scrabble. Their ability to recognize and find words had improved leaps and bounds. A few students have even found 5 or 6 letter words. Good for them! And we’ve played some Jeopardy games to review concepts and vocabulary we had studied. It’s been really fun for me to watch them develop and improve their English speaking abilities.

We also had coffee at another home this past Thursday night. We went to Anxhela and Ina’s house. Their mom actually knew more English than any of the other parents we’ve met so far. She was at about the same level as some of the beginning students. Then we found out that she speaks Italian, so, obviously, she’s able to pick up languages. It was fun because all of our other students that live in that same apartment building joined us. It was like a little party! And she made some delicious Turkish coffee. Mmmm! I love that stuff! We had a nice visit with them and they wished us the best of luck and health upon our return to the States, but they said they wished we weren’t going back and told us that they are sad because we are leaving. Awwww! So cute! I wish I could stay and get to know more people, but I promised them that I will save money so I can come back for a visit. :)

Wednesday night we met Aida for a backwards dinner walk. Let me explain. The fast food here can be ordered to sit down, to go, or to walk and eat. But it was very hot that day—in the 90s (that's why I look so bad, lol)—so we decided to meet for ice cream first. We went to Behari, the best place in town. I ordered a special item, the Behari Sundae because it’s an original. I can’t get it anywhere else so I wanted to find out what it was. I’ve never had anything like it. I got this HUGE dish of what looked like whipped cream covered in fruit. I’m not kidding you! There were pieces of apples, oranges, kiwi, strawberry, melon and two cherries on top. There were a few nuts sprinkled over it and it was drizzled with chocolate syrup and cherry syrup. Under this was a massive mound of whipped cream. Once I ate all that, I got to the ice cream. There were two flavors, chocolate and kiwi. It was super tasty! I’m very happy I ordered it. :)

Our backwards dinner walk continued as we headed towards a qofte joint. Qofte, in case you’ve forgotten, are little sausages. Albanians think they are spicy, but Emily and I think they’re just right. They eat them with a spicy flavored salt on them. Qofte = delicious artery clogging goodness. :) So we got qofte on bread because you can eat it on the go, like a sandwich. Aida was proud of me because I ordered completely in Albanian. lol She likes to make Emily and I do that when we are with her. We ate and chatted a bit more as we walked.

Albania is closing in on election day. The election for prime minister is on June 28 and the city is plastered with posters and advertisements for the various candidates. Albania is a country of roughly 3 million people. Land wise, it is the same as the state of Maryland. However, they have between 20 and 60 recognized political parties. Of course some parties have more money for campaigning than others. But everyone always talks about how many parties there are. Right now, from what we can gather, the leading candidates are from the Democratic party and the Socialist party. Sali Berisha, the current prime minister is running as the Democratic candidate and Edi Rama, the current mayor of Tirana is running as the Socialist candidate. There are a few other parties that have popular candidates, but Sali Berisha and Edi Rama are the two most well-known because of their current roles.

Many of our students and their families are pro-Sali Berisha. This is because he is from the northern part of Albania, as are many of the families we reach. He has done good things for Albania, but he has also done some very questionable things. For example, there are two small cities right outside of Tirana that are basically illegal cities. When he became prime minister, he told me people from the north that they could come to Tirana and just have this land. Well it belonged to someone else and he just gave it away. Nothing else to it. There are still lots of disputes going on because of that action. Also, he has taken credit for getting Albania into NATO, when in reality, Bamir Topi, Albania’s president, is responsible for that because he is the one who went to meetings, studied the process, entered negotiations, etc. The other thing that does not impress us about Sali Berisha is that when we got here, much controversy began involving the credibility of those he placed in high positions around him. Many of them have since been found to be corrupt.

If we could vote, we would vote for Edi Rama. He has studied in politics and business and has vastly and quickly improved the city of Tirana. He understands tourism and he understands that reputable conditions improve opportunities for business. Also, Edi Rama understands that world standards are different and really wants Albania to reach those same standards. He just has a wider, broader view of what Albania can be and from what we’ve seen, heard, and observed, these types of changes represent a positive future for Albania. Edi Rama also has a much better understanding of the younger generations of Albania. He grasps that they are the future of his country.

Now remember, we are by no means experts. What we know we’ve learned from seeing, observing, asking questions, being told, or catching English on TV. But, how can we form an opinion from anything else? I am very curious to see what Election Day is like and to find out the results.

I might do something I've never done before--post two blog updates in one day. That's right. I said it. It is definitely down to crunch time around here. And since it feels like every waking minute is spent doing something or seeing someone, my free time is at a minimum. However, after my last days of classes today and tomorrow, I have actually schedule free time into my schedule so that I can take care of things like this. lol :) I also have to sort some things and start packing. Plus, I believe that today is when we are moving the church from our current location to the new location just down the hall. Exciting! But, I will write later because the events of the weekend, Sunday in particular, certainly need to be recalled. What a day! :) Now you have something to look forward to. Hee hee!

Easier Said Than Done

2009-06-08T18:42:00.002-05:00

It started with a toaster. And some plastic canisters. Then it was a heater. Next came the rugs. After that it was the bike. That's when it hit. When I gave up the bike, it hit me that I'm leaving. It was a little sad, at first, putting things up for sale and givnig them up. But now that there are a few more items removed from our apartment, it's just a reality check.

Harder though, were the moments on Sunday after English church. But let me backtrack to last Thursday to explain.

Emanuela told me after class that she and her sisters, Brisilda and Dajana (both my students as well), would be leaving the next week to go to Greece for the summer. Their dad works there and is only home in Tirana on the weekends, and they have lots of family there. A large majority of their summer is usually spent with these relatives. But when she told me this, it sank in that those three won't even be here for their last class with me. That made me sad.

So Emily and I decided to invite those three, plus Luela and Aldo (Luela is my student and Aldo is her cute little 6 year old brother, who I'd like to put in my suitcase and take home as my souvenir. lol), over to our house for dinner on Saturday. The five of them are always together so it just seemed logical to invite them all, even if Luela and Aldo aren't leaving. They hadn't been here yet, anyway.

The five of them came over and we had a blast! We snacked on some peanuts and cherries and soda while we played Uno. Then we ate hamburgers, macaroni and cheese, potato chips, cucumbers, and cookies for dinner. An all-American meal. They liked it. :) Then we played some more Uno, took pictures, and chatted for a bit. It was hilarious because Aldo doesn't know any English, but he totally came out of his shell and was cracking us all up! He was making little jokes that the girls would translate so Emily and I could understand. And he was being silly--not wild--just funny. I think he had the time of his life being here with those girls.

When I had spoken to the girls to invite them over after Activity Night on Friday--**side note** The Activity was Line Dancing and it was super fun to watch them try it. :)--Aldo was with them. He understood enough to know that they were going somewhere with me. With a very concerned look on his little face, he said, "Teacher! Teacher!" and pointed to himself in a questioning manner. I smiled and said, "Po! Yes! You too, Aldo!" And he beamed. :)

Back to Sunday after English church.

Emanuela, Brisilda, and Dajana came and after church Emanuela told me, "Teacher, I have some bad news. Brisilda and Dajana and I will leave for Greece tomorrow." I was sooooooooo sad! I know I shouldn't have favorite students, but those three are definitely among those at the top of my list. Emanuela and I have really become buddies and I was truly hoping to be able to spend some extra time with them between the end of class and the day I leave. But, alas, that's not in the grand plans, so we took some pictures and said good-bye just like we would any other day.

However, I leaked, as is typical when I have to say a serious good-bye. I didn't cry cry, but I felt like it. There were other people around though, so I held it in. And since I can joke about myself, I explained that my friends and family all know I'm the crier, especially at movies. Everyone always tells me, "Katie, you should watch this movie! It's really good! But you better make sure you have some Kleenexes because you'll cry." lol I can't help it, ok? It's just the way I am! lol ;)

Class attendance has been dwindling lately. I'm not that surprised though. We have come to realize that the last week or two of school here doesn't actually involve any real classes. Students, when they have already taken their final tests, just have school to go through lessons that they won't get tested on. It's kind of like a big study session. They seem to treat it that way, too, because if they don't feel like going, they don't. So since school attendance is shady, our attendance has been shady. Besides, it's been summer weather here since the end of April and no one wants to spend time in a classroom. The summer bug has bitten!

A strange and unfamiliar feeling has overwhelmed me these past few days. I'm very very eager to get home, of course, because it's been so long since I've seen family and friends or just been able to pick up a phone and talk to them at will. And there are plenty of foods that I'm just dying to have again including these two at the top of my list--milk and real cheddar cheese. Have I mentioned I'm from WI? Haha! True Wisconsinte at heart, can you tell? lol But really though, I'm caught in this feeling of wanting enough time to get things done so I feel organized and ready when July 1 arrives and at the same time feeling like time is crawling now and I'm stuck waiting because I'm looking forward to something so much. This sounds crazy, but the closest feeling I've had that I can describe it to is like Senioritis. Hee hee! I kid you not!

I don't have a choice about staying here, so I feel like my work here is complete. I really feel like I've done all I can in the time that I've had. I feel like there's little left for me to offer. Yet, I know that there's much for me to offer when I'm back in the States so there's much to look forward to. It's just like graduating from high school or college. You feel good about the accomplishments behind you, the work you've completed, and the experiences you'd have. Yet, at the same time you are eager for the future, ready for adventure, and curious about the new experiences.

Saying good-bye is always easier said than done. But apparently the preparations for returning home are the same way. I feel like I'm in "The Waiting Place." You know, the one Dr. Seuss mentions in Oh, The Places You'll Go. (Which I should really start including in my list of favorite books....) This is what he says:

"...headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place...

...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.

NO!
That's not for you!"

The story goes on to say somehow you'll escape. Patience is a virtue, and I must not have enough of it yet, so God is teaching me how to have patience and wait. Soon I'll be somewhere new and things will take a new route.

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but at some point in my life, I started looking forward to change. I like knowing something new is coming. It keeps things exciting. It gives me something to look forward to. I am motivated by being ready and preparing for a new challenge. It really helps if I can choose the new task, but even so, it's fun for me to look for something new. The idea of a career always doing the same thing in one place is absolutely unappealing to me. God has given me a different opportunity every year for the past three years since I finished college. Next year will be year four of something new.

I've realized that he's taught me I don't need physical stability because he is my stability wherever I go and in whatever I do. He won't change no matter where I am or what I'm doing. The good-byes are the sad part about enjoying frequent change. Being able to feel like my work is complete and that I am ready to move on to the next thing is the blessing.

That's how I feel right now.

Teeth Sticks, 55 States, and Jellyfish

2009-06-01T09:50:00.004-05:00

Sasha: "Teacher, you have teeth stick?"
Me: "Oh, you mean a toothpick? Yes, I have some toothpicks."

Teeth stick. That is probably my new favorite Albanglish word. That's what I call the words my students make up in English. It's kind of like English speakers who make up words in Spanish. They speak Spanglish.

Anyway, in regards to the Albanglish, Sasha asked me that question when we were finished eating yesterday. The MMM group came over for some American food and a movie. We had hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, chips, salad, and pickles, with ice cream for dessert. Very American. They enjoyed it a lot, but the teeth sticks became very popular at the end of the meal. lol

It was funny when Sasha asked because right away, I knew exactly what she meant. What else could a teeth stick be? Emily and I have realized that we have become quite proficient at interpreting Albanglish, however, our English skills have diminished over the course of time because sometimes we catch ourselves speaking in likeness to our students. Haha! :)

I haven't mentioned this next part yet, but this past week there have been some physical troubles with our church building. A large chunk of the building that houses us has had problems with water leaking from pipes or pipes that have basically burst. Well the situation became so bad the weekend that we were in Croatia that part of our ceiling collapsed. Fortunately, it was just a small area that fell. There was a soffitted area right above our door and that is the portion that collapsed, however significant water damage was done to the cement walls on that end of our room. The computer and printer and electronics are all on that side of the room, but thankfully none of that was damaged.

The water pooled up in the one end of the church and continued dripping for a few days. This past Tuesday, it started running instead of dripping, so Agron made the decision to cancel class. He said that the water was bad, and was concerned for our health and the health of our students. Agron was afraid of someone getting sick or getting an infection from too much exposure to it, so he cancelled classes for that day.

God has been good to us, though. No one has had problems with their health, and he was able (and willing!) to continuously clean out the dirty water, mop the floor, and keep things clean. Agron is such a blessing to the church not just for all his work with the services, but for the physical work he puts in to situations like this. He is a wonderful Christian man, leader, and example.

Also, Agron was able to talk to the owner of the building and there is another spot that we will be able to move to. It's only about 4 storefronts down the hall. This is in a section of the building that has not had water problems, it still has a bathroom, and this new area will have a window. Currently, we are windowless. The window will be awesome for airflow, especially when we have very busy motion-filled Activity Nights. Thank God that he was able to provide a space for us basically next to our current location so that we are still easy to find for new people, still easy to locate for our regular contacts, and in a section of the building that has been damage free. Rejoice in the Lord always! :)

When class was cancelled on Tuesday, the decision was made once I arrived. Agron didn't want to make the decision without me. I thought that was very thoughtful. However, since my students like to arrive early because it gives us all a little time to chat (Aren't they sweet?), they were already there. I didn't want to just send them home after saying hi, so I came up with a different idea. I took anyone who wanted to stay to a bar kafe by the church that had umbrella tables outside. It was a very hot day so I let everyone order something cold to drink, got out some paper, and we played hangman. It's a good game to work on spelling and letters and just seeing and recognizing words. We sat and played for about an hour before heading our separate ways.

However, while we were playing, somehow we started talking about the States. During that conversation, I mentioned that when I was in 1st grade, we had to learn all the States. I told the kids that when I was in 1st grade, I already knew them because I'd learned a song that had the name of every state. They wanted to hear it, of course. Any time a song is involved, my students want to hear it. lol So I sang it, right then and there. After I finished, the following funny conversation occurred.

Aurora asked me, "How many states there are?"
Me: "How many states are there? There are 50 states."
Aurora: "Wow! This is many!"
Klea interrupted, "But, no, teacher! There are 55."
Me: "No, there are 50."
Klea: "Why only 50?"
Me: "....Because that's all there are."

It was really funny to me because she was ready to argue with me that I was wrong. But when I said, "that's all there are," she looked at me, thought about it, smiled, and said, "Ok!" I asked if they knew what provinces or territories were, but they didn't, so I'm pretty sure she wasn't confusing states with territories or anything. Still, it definitely made me chuckle! ;)

It was after this that one of my students introduced me to a tasty new snack. See, I was waiting around to talk to Agron to decided what to do about classes for the rest of the week. We decided to play it by ear, but anyway...as I was waiting, Xheni (pr. Jenny) walks by and stops to chat briefly as she was on her way to a class. She was eating chips but I had never before seen the flavor. They were chicken flavored chips. She asked me if I wanted to try one. At first, I thought it sounded kind of strange, but then, in the same thought, I realized that barbecue flavor is strange too, but it's good on chicken and it's good on chips, so maybe chicken flavor is good on chips. I tried it. It was delicious! I got some later in the week as a snack for myself. lol

Other events from the past week included two coffee dates at students' homes. First, we went to the Kodheli family's home. The mom, Ariana, and her young daughter Ester, are in one of Emily's classes. Their son, Kevi, was in one of my classes, but now that it's nice weather, he's involved with soccer (excuse me--I mean, football), and doesn't come to class anymore. We had a very nice visit at their home. Kesi and Klea were there too, since they live across the hall in the same apartment building, and to help with translating. They fed us many snacks and gave us plenty of soda and we had lots of laughs. Ariana is a teacher, too, so she had stories to share with us. Then, her husband got home from work and was asking us many questions about our families and our homes in the States. They are just a super nice family and both Emily and I felt very happy and blessed to have been able to spend a bit of personal time with them.

On Saturday, we spent the afternoon with Kesi and Klea. Their grandmother lives near us and they usually visit her on one of the weekend days. So they planned to come over to our house for a little while before going back to their home, and from our house, we would go with them to theirs. While they were here we took some of those funny quizzes on facebook. Whenever our students come here, they want to use the internet. It's not that popular to have home internet here. Some families do for a time (people pay by month here), but the fact that we have it all the time and on two computers is very exciting to our students.

One of the quizzes we took was called "What is your true inner nationality? A quiz of global clairvoyance." As it turns out, I am German at heart (surprise, surprise, lol), Klea is actually Spanish, Kesi is Swedish, and only Emily is truly what she appears--American. Obviously, these results were humorous to us all and continued to be a running joke throughout the day.

At their house, we were stuffed with snacks and treats and soda, and we also played a rousing game of Scrabble. In class, we have the same game except it's called Spelldown. I play it with my students pretty often and am always impressed at how well they do at spotting the words. Every game they are quicker and find longer words. But when we play in class, we don't play for points. We just play with the goal of using all the letters in the bag. Klea, however, is quite competitive and requested, "When you come in our home, you can bring the Spelldown and we will play for points!" So I obliged and packed my travel Scrabble game in my bag before we headed to their apartment and it was a blast. The girls' parents were laughing as they watched us. :)

On the way home, I almost stepped on something I've never seen outside of water. They were thrown on the ground--just dumped out of a bag. I could tell, because the empty back was near them. It took me about 5 seconds of looking at them to realize what they were: Jellyfish!

We already have another home invitation from two sisters, Anxhela (pr. Ahn-gel-ah) and Ina. We had originally set a time for this week, but we forgot to tell them that Emily's sister Sena and her husband Brian will be visiting this week and are arriving that night. So we re-scheduled for the next week. One of my students, Doris, had also mentioned wanting us to visit her house, though she has not brought it up again, and though Albanians don't seem to mind people inviting themselves, I don't feel comfortable doing that since I've only met her mother once. We'll see if she mentions anything.

We've now been to Kesi and Klea's house 3 times, we've been to Ariana's house once, to Emanuela, Brisilda and Dajana's house once, are going to Anxhela and Ina's house, and have been to Sara and Danja's home on multiple occasions. And the Huna household (Olsa, Neda, and Ledio) is our other family so we are there very frequently. It's nice to have these connections here.

As promised, I spent much of my free time the last two weeks trying desperately to catch up on my photo albums. Here is the result of my work. I now have pictures of the end of Day 2 in Rome as well as the first half and the second half of Day 3 in Rome. I even finished off the Rome trip by adding Day 4 and Day 5.

Though I'm not completely caught up, I was able to finish the photo album of the beach day in Durres with Sara and Danja. And I even had time to complete one more album so you could see pictures of some of the activities with my students. Now I need to work on the pictures of our road trip to Croatia and compile the last of the random fun pictures from the month of May.

I can't believe that May is over. Today is June 1 and that means I leave for the US one month from today. My last day here is July 1. At 6:30pm (Tirana time) my plane will head off into the horizon and will leave Albania behind. I've said it before, but this brings very mixed feelings. I know that God wants me back in the States for some reason. Otherwise, he would have given me the opportunity to consider staying or leaving. But, with the funding to Albania being pulled, there is no opportunity to have this job again next year.

Part of me is thankful that I didn't have to make the decision myself, because that way, I never ever have to feel like I made the wrong choice, one way or another. At the same time, I feel a little jipped that I didn't get to think about the ways I can contribute here or if I still have something to offer here. But the Lord know best, not me, and I just have to face the facts.

So on July 1, it's off to America I go. The thought of saying goodbye to my friends, students, Agron, Vitori, and the Huna clan is not a happy one. Goodbyes are very rarely appealing but they are usually unavoidable. Such is the case with this one. Obviously, if the circumstances were different and if it wasn't so far and so costly to come back for a visit, it would be an easier goodbye. I am preparing myself to make it a cheerful and friendly departure as best I can because I know that my lines of communication with my life here will not be severed by thousands of miles, an ocean, and two continents. And that, is a much happier thought. :)

On the other hand, I am ridiculously excited to be home again. I can't wait!!!!! Obviously, the thing I am looking forward to the most is seeing my family and friends again after so long. They are a HUGE part of my life and I can't wait to be around them again and to be able to talk to them whenever I want or to plan time to spend with them. Plus, I am excited to have good health care so I can be feeling good again. I have felt yucky since the first week here and I will finally be able to get to point where I feel great every day. American health care is a gigantic blessing that I have been fortunate enough to have for my whole life. Wow! I will never take it for granted again.

I also have a plethora of exciting events that I am looking forward to this summer. In July, my dad is celebrating a very important birthday. (I'm not sure he'd appreciate me saying which one, but I'll just say this--come July 13th, I'll officially be half his age. ;) Hee hee! I love you, Dad!) Also, my parents bought a house and will move in just a few days before I return so I will be around to help organize and set up the new place--extra fun since that's where I'll be living when I get back. At the end of July, my godson/cousin, Ben, turns 8. I can't believe he's that big already! And I am just itching to see him and his little sister Rachel again!!! Plus, my good friend Matt is getting married to a great girl and I am looking forward to being able to attend their wedding and help them celebrate.

In August, one of my best friends, Meghan, is getting married at the end of the month. I am honored to be part of the bridal party and am anxiously awaiting all the fun that is in store for the wedding weekend. I will also get to see another one of my good friends, Lizzy, and her husband Nate, who will be there from TN.

Two other summer highlights to look forward to include a road trip to West Virginia with my friend Christie. Beth, the same one who visited me, runs a summer camp there for kids mostly from the DC area. We can camp there and get meals there so lodging and food will be free. Basically, all we need to spend is gas money. Bring on the fresh country air!

In addition, my aunt and uncle who live in Grenada are on furlough for a portion of the summer and will be spending some of their time with us in WI. Yay!!! They've always lived far away from me so any chance to see them is exciting. But they moved to Grenada only a few weeks after I moved here because my uncle accepted the call to be the pastor at our mission there. It will be so fun to swap foreign living stories with them.

Obviously, it helps me think of the good things to come in the future rather than dwelling on the sad. Plus, I know that once I am home, I will be so excited to be able to write/email my friends here to tell them all my news. And more and more of them are getting facebook so they will be able to see pictures, too. Technology sure makes the world seem smaller!

Whew! This turned out to be another novel by yours truly. Since I have the day off, I figured it was a perfect time for another update. It's Children's Day here, another holiday. Some of my students don't have school, and some have other activities planned at school, with family, or elsewhere, so I decided to cancel class and let them just have the day to be kids. It goes by too quickly--they just don't know it yet! As for me, I feel a bit like a kid too from the excitement of having an extra day outside of the classroom. You're only as young as you feel, right? :)

Please, continue the prayers. We are steadily making some progress in getting things set up before we leave. Moving to a new location will slow this down a little bit, but I'm confident we can handle it and still have things in place and as organized as possible before July 1. All prayers and encouragement are helpful! Thanks to all of you for reminding me of that! :)

A Plethora of Information

2009-05-29T16:09:00.002-05:00

Ok. Since I have been receiving many more questions about how things run around here I decided I should address these questions before I give any personal updates. I have time right now so let me try and give you an overview of everything here.

Right now, the way this works is that we have English classes at 3 different levels: beginners (those who haven't studied English until now), high beginners (those who study it at school and can get the point across though they have limited vocabulary and grammar), and one intermediate group (they are mostly fluent but with small mistakes). Each group meets twice a week. Emily teaches the three beginner groups, and I teach the 3 high beginner groups and the intermediate group. So Emily teaches classes a week and I teach eight. Then, there is one student that I meet with on her own twice a week because she has a different school schedule than everyone else and there is one group of young beginners that Emily meets with on their own twice a week, if they remember. lol

Overall, our attendance has been very good. Our numbers haven't fluctuated in a huge way. We have around 40 students. Most of them come to classes regularly. This always impresses me because they didn't pay for the class, just for the book(s). No one reminds them that it's time for class, they just remember on their own. Keep in mind--the majority of our students are between 10 and 13 years old.

Once a week after my high beginner classes, Agron has a devotion with the class. He's been using the Christ Light lessons that are used in the lower grades in the US. It's a better level for them because the English is simpler and because the stories are new to them. They really like it and often ask if we will have a devotion before the class even starts. :)

My intermediate class ends at 7pm and he feels that's too late to keep them. Also, some of those kids are already pretty solid contacts and he knows some of their parents personally so there other ways to reach them.

Emily does her own devotions with her classes. They are using the Albanian version of a My First Bible. It's really really simple and she sometimes feels like it doesn't have much depth, but for the very very limited English her students understand, I think it's perfect because it keeps their interest since it's at their level. Yes, it could have more substance at times, but an introduction doesn't need to be complex.

Besides that, we don't actually have any other religious classes going on. In the future this could (and hopefully will) change because there were 4 girls who told me they'd be interested in learning more. They're all around "normal" confirmation age so I brought it up to Pastor and Agron and they were happy to hear it, of course. It was talked about briefly but nothing stable has started yet. I'm going to try to bring it up with the girls again--and also with Pastor and Agron--to see if we can't get started with that before I leave, but we'll see.

The MMM group, Mary and Martha Meetings, is a group for girls ages 13-17. We have about 6 or 7 girls that attend these monthly activities. We meet and do something away from the church. Some things we've done include bringing them to our place. For Christmas we had a huge cookie baking day. Once we had them over for pizza and a movie. Most recently we went to the artificial lake and had a picnic. At each meeting, we have a little devotion and just spend time talking with each other and making connections to each other. It has helped the girls become more cohesive and I've noticed that they are more likely to come to church now if they see someone they know from this group.

Girls who are 11 and 12 constantly beg to be a part of this group. We've even had 2 boys (and I think in all classes combined we only have 5 or 6 boys, if that) ask if they could please please come. Of all the things that will be difficult to continue once we leave, this is the one that I think will hurt the most if it falls apart. Not saying that it will, I'm just expressing my fear. One of the girls who comes to this group, Kesi, has really stepped up as a leader. The younger ones in the group really look to her and Agron has even let her teach the devotion lesson to her sister's class a few times. Olsa has also expressed an interest in doing more church-related work so Emily and I are planning to sit down with those two and teach them how to keep this MMM group going.

You know about our weekly Activity Nights that are open to our students and their families. They are always popular and they were a great way to get new faces involved in the Christmas Program and Easter Program this year. Being that Emily and I are the ones who organize and run that hour or so of weekly excitement, we have been the one building relationships with these people. Now we're trying to get them to connect with the people who are permanent fixtures here. That will bridge the gap and hopefully make it easier for these relationships to grow in the future.

We also have a monthly activity for adults that we call Cappuccino Club. This is for those who are 18 or older. It's always very small, and it's always all women, though we advertise it for either gender. Agron doesn't come, but I don't know why. Vitori has come twice, and Olsa has come once, so that helps. A mom in one of Emily's classes loves these days. She comes regularly. This lady, Fatmira (I've mentioned her in the past) has 3 daughters in our classes, one of whom participates in MMM. Sara and Danja's mom came twice and once she brought a friend. So though it is small, it is branching out which is nice to see.

Pastor is arrived Thursday for his last visit here. He will leave around the 20th of June after that, there is no full time Pastor here. Pastor Vogt, who is in the Ukraine, will act as a circuit pastor for the church here, in Durres, in Bulgaria, in the Ukraine, and I'm not sure where else. From what I've been told, he'll be making small visits to check in on each of these places, teach some classes with the leaders at each location, and assist with other issues/projects as needed. It's good to know that someone so dedicated will be here to help things keep going, but the church in Tirana is very young and very new. I pray every day that God blesses our synod monetarily so that a full time pastor and Kingdom Workers can be sent here again. It is needed because we are not yet at the level here where we have people we can teach and train as consistent leaders aside from Agron and Vitori, who do everything already.

There are so many things to pray for here, because the possibilities are numerous and right on the brink of becoming something bigger. It's sad to think that there won't be as many people working here but I have to keep telling myself it's not up to me. I don't know how the Lord plans to work here, but I do know that he won't abandon those who believe so I am confident that the small seeds of faith in so many people will continue to grow with his help. I just keep telling myself that my job here is to act as people's introduction page to the Bible. Hopefully, I've been able to do that job well.

In other news, my next posts will include an overview of our road trip to Croatia this past weekend, numerous links to recently created photo albums, funny stories of my students, and tales of home visits. You won't want to miss this. ;) I'll do my absolute best to be timely with the rest of these blogs, but bear in mind that as my remaining time here is very very limited (just barely over a month) my schedule is becoming increasingly full because we're trying to cram everything in at the end. Typical. :) But it continues to be quite the ride and I'm thankful for every second of it! :)

Curious?

2009-05-14T14:16:00.005-05:00

It's a known fact that kids get curious. My kids are no exception. Sometimes my students ask me strange things. For example:

1. Once a girl came in with her fingers crossed, held them up, and asked, "Teacher, what is this?" That class learned about good luck superstitions. lol

2. Another time my older group asked me what the word "n*gga" meant. (Thank you American rap music.) I answered honestly and the student apologized for asking. I explained that class was the right place to ask such a question.

3. "Teacher, what does ' 'round' mean?" I immediately knew the student was referring to the song that says, "You spin me right 'round, baby, right 'round." Good thing this class had already learned prepositions! lol

4. After I assigned the task of working in groups to write a dialogue that another group in class would act out, a student asked me, "Can we write about a social issue?" I very enthusiastically replied, "Sure!" Turns out this group (2 girls) wanted their two characters to be gay in order to play a joke on the other group (2 boys) that would have to act it out. I nixed that idea ASAP since we're in a Christian environment and are trying to teach morals. Next time I'll ask what the social issue is before I give an enthusiastic answer.

5. One particular day, I had a group of students who asked me what a word was. Well, they kept pronouncing the word like "cows." So their question was, "Teacher, what is 'cows?'" I was having the hardest time figuring out what they meant because they said they thought it meant crazy. After about 10 minutes and more explanations on their part, I finally got one student who thought maybe she could spell it. C-A-O-S. I realized they were asking about the word "chaos." A crazy situation. Haha! :)

6. This question wasn't so crazy, but her example was hilarious. The students were working on making sentences that followed this format: "When I was 8 years old I wanted to......but I couldn't because....." So they were working quietly for a few minutes when one student came up to me and asked, "Is this right? I don't know the right word at the end." I looked at her paper and read her sentence. "When I was 8 years old I wanted to ride a bicycle but I couldn't because my equilibrium was off." She could think of the word 'equilibrium' but she couldn't think of the word 'balance.' Hahahaaa! :)

My students crack me up. Knowing that all to soon I will have to say goodbye, I've been really treasuring every day with them. It may not always be the most interesting day and we may not always be doing the most exciting things, but it is always fun to just see their smiles, or hear them talk more and more in English or see how much their confidence level has risen. It's such a joy! I will desperately miss that when I'm gone.

You may be curious about what I've been up to outside of class. Away from work I've been catching up on my photo albums. I finished the one of explorations in Tirana from when Beth was here and then I finished the one of the celebrations from when Albania joined NATO. I also added photos from my our first day in Rome. Then I added photos of our Colosseum tour and our adventures in the Roman Forum. I still have a long way to go before I'm caught up on photos, so bear with me. Please! What fun is taking photos if I can't share them? I just need some time to get them all posted.

The weather here is starting to get hot. Walking anywhere, near or far, is a sweaty process and biking only enhances the sweat level. But, that means it has not been raining. Woo hoooooo!!!!!!! :) I hope most of the rain is gone for good. I've seen enough of it to last me a long long time.

Keep the prayers coming because now is when we have to start figuring out how much of what we've implemented this past year will be able to be continued when we're gone. Not only do we have to figure that out, we have to figure out how, and continue teaching people how to do it. It's no small task. It's not an easy one either. Pray that God gives us the guidance we need to keep things moving along successfully here. Thank you!

Going, Going, Gone

2009-05-04T06:31:00.006-05:00

That is the best way I can think to describe my time here. There are many reasons it's been so long since my last update, but let me assure you: I’m baaaaack! :) Well, sort of. We had been without internet at our place for awhile (again) and just on Thursday we finally found out the supposed problem. Our internet is all paid up, but apparently we had used all of our allotted time or bites or something for April. I don’t understand how that is possible or why on earth they would try to operate their business that way, but it’s just one of many things I don’t understand so I shake it off. lol However, I am used to actually receiving a consistent reliable service if I’ve paid for it, so I couldn't help but be slightly perturbed. The lack of internet has meant a lack of blog updates, so once again, I am apologizing. It has been quite an interesting and fun time around here since I last wrote.

Since I last wrote, we did a home visit at the Xhika household. This is the family where the mom and youngest daughter are in one of Emily's classes and the older two daughters are in my classes. Anyway, we have learned that the mom and her girls are very artistic. They all draw and the mom paints. While we were at their house, she showed us her paintings and wouldn’t let me leave without choosing one to keep. I couldn’t believe it! She let me pick any one I wanted! My choice was one that reminded me of my childhood. It’s a small boat tied up to the shore and it shows a small house/cabin close by. The woods surrounding the cabin and bordering the water portray trees in the fall. I love the array of colors in the picture and the scene itself takes me back to Stoddard and the river and the little cabins and fishing shacks along the shore. I just hope it makes it back to the States in good condition.

Before I go on about all that's been happening, I have to say that the thing which has excited me most is the church attendance lately. Your prayers have been working! The crowds haven't been huge or anything, but at least our little space has looked more full than empty. We have even had three female adults who've come for the first time! Pray that they (and the children who've been coming) continue to do so and that they develop an interest in learning more seriously. God is good! It's so great to be able to have more people there and to know that the Word is being shared through our students when they speak of the things we do hear. That's when it just breaks my heart that there won't be so many people here to continue things next year. But that isn't my worry. I need to turn it over to the only one who is in control.

So.....on to the other events!

Two Fridays ago the Activity Night was a Hollywood night. I made big white letters to look like the Hollywood sign and then I put them on the wall. I surrounded that with start cut-outs I'd made. I had told the kids to come dressed as their favorite celebrity. Some of them dressed as Albanian celebrities and when one of the girls started telling everyone that was wrong, I said, "That's ok! They're on their way to Hollywood!" lol

Then I took a picture of each kid in Hollywood (the area of the room where I'd put up the sign) and then we took a group picture of all the celebrities in Hollywood. Instead of dressing up like a celebrity, I wore a black shirt and black sunglasses (yes, I wore sunglasses inside) and told them I was the paparazzi because I was taking pictures of celebrities. Haha! They loved it! Then, I told them about people getting a star with their name on it. I asked how celebrities become famous and we decided it was because they have talent. So anyone who had a talent to share with the group could come up and show us and then I gave them a star (from the wall) and wrote their name on it. It was awesome. We had singers, dancers, models, gymnasts...it was quite entertaining!

We had a picnic at the park for our monthly MMM activity on that Saturday. The weather was awesome and everyone remembered to bring their own food. We played Uno, a game like volleyball, and took pictures. All went well except that a dog peed on Kesi's coat. Oops! lol

Since Emily's friend Colleen was visiting, onSunday we went to Durres to showe her the sea and the sights in the city. We ended up meeting Vitori and therefore we ended up meeting some of her family. They are awesome! They even took us on a quick tour of the town and then out for ice cream. The wife has a small hair salon and told us that next time we visit, she'll do our hair for us. And the husband said we have an open invitation to their home whenever we'd like to visit. Awww! People here are just so kind and generous to guests. I never ceases to astonish me.

Classes throughout the week went well. After my Seattle group met on Tuesday, I got into a good discussion with three of the girls about ideas for Activity Nights. I didn't want to cut the discussion short just because Emily had to use the room for class, so I invited them to have coffee with me next door at the bar kafe. They know the workers there so I knew they could get permission to go there with me. They had some good ideas and I was so excited about them that I made the schedule right away the minute I got home. :) lol

Another one of my classes learned prepositions so we used flashcards with diagrams on them to learn words like: into, out of, under, on, in, around, along, across, up, down, inside, outside, etc. We also came up with numerous sentences using those words. Guess what the homework was? More sentences! lol They actually get excited about that though because I told them they had to write sentences that were different from the examples we said in class. This is funny to me because I would not have thought this was exciting if I were the student. Haha!

The class week finished up smoothly and that brought us to this past Friday and Activity Night. We had planned an American Food night. I made some of the macaroni and cheese that we received in a care package. It's totally American because every kid in the US loves it. lol Then we decided on peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches. We couldn't find peanut butter anywhere (big surprise) so Emily bought peanuts and made it herself. It turned out quite tasty! And then I made two simplified cheesecakes to take as well. We had a very small number of children who came because Friday was another holiday here. Worker's Day. Many parents had off of work so kids went out of town or to the beach or even to work with their parents that day. Those who came had a blast and most of the food went over well. They got a little taste of what it's like for Emily and I when we're constantly being given something new here. lol :)

Saturday after church we met with Fatmira and her youngest daughter Albiona for coffee. There had been a little time mix-up the week earlier for Cappuccino Club and so we re-scheduled with her. So after church they came and then we invited Neda and Olsa to come with also. We went to the place next door and had a nice little chat. I wasn't feeling so well because I've got a bit of a cold, so I mostly smiled and laughed. ;) It was still fun though

Yesterday--Sunday--Emily and I went on an excursion. We went to a town in the north called Shkodra. There is an ancient fortress there and you can explore it. We took a furgon there and back. If I haven't explained it already, a furgon is like a mini bus/extra passenger van that drives to a from two different cities all day. It's not really on a schedule. You just wait until it's full and then you leave. These rides are faster than a bus and usually are much more entertaining. We didn't have anything super exciting happen on our ride, but it was fun just the same.

The fortress was awesome and the views were spectacular! Shkodra is situated on a river and a huge lake. It's surrounded my mountains making it rather picturesque. We explored the fortress and had fun singing, dancing, and laughing. Basically, we acted like kids to the amusement of a few non-English speakers. Once we realized people could see and hear us, we figured they'd already seen it, so why should we stop? You know, don't quit until you're ahead. Hee hee! :) We had a little picnic and took tons of pictures, which will be posted at sometime in the future. (I'm about a month behind in posting pictures. Sorry! It just takes so much time!) Other exciting things we saw in Shkodra included a live one-eyed owl on a chain in a bar kafe, a sign to a place called Puke (obviously there is a picture to go with this), and a spiral staircase that lead to nowhere on the side of the road, just sitting there like a light pole. All this said and done, we saw beautiful sights, learned some history, were never at a loss for entertainment, had perfect weather, and couldn't have spent the day in a better way. :)

This week is starting out to be rainy. Boo. I will NOT miss this much rain. Ever since I was a kid, I've always hated rain. I'm still holding out hope that it will turn out to be nice weather this week but we'll just have to see. At least I don't have to go out in it right now. My St. Louis class is cancelled today because all but one of the kids are on a field trip with their class at school. It gives me more time to finish this. :)

Keep the mission here in your prayers. And please as that God would grant me good health during my last two months here. Oh, and sorry for not proofreading this. lol ;)

A Moment In Time

2009-04-21T16:06:00.006-05:00

I feel like since I returned from Rome, I haven't had a spare moment to myself. I'm going to keep this strictly business as there is much to be reported in the update department. Tonight I finally have a moment to get this all posted.

First, I finished posting the pictures from Day 3 in Athens. There were tons and tons and tons to choose from, but I kept it to only one more album. :) Tough, but like I've said, my time is at a minimum. Then I posted the pictures of our March MMM activity, the girly day where we painted our nails. Happy viewing!

The Sunday after I returned from Rome was an interesting day. It was the date of Western (Catholic) Easter and our friends from the Baptist church informed us of an event that was taking place in Tirana. The road from Skenderbeg Square to Mother Teresa University was closed down for a march. All Christians in Tirana were invited to participate in an Easter march, sort of parade style, but without the different units. It was one big mass of people with banners and signs proclaiming the resurrection. We ended at the university where we were greeted by a band and a gospel choir which our friend Gretchen was singing in.

There, the band and choir led the crowd in sort of a concert of popular Christian contemporary songs. It was all in Albanian, so I didn't know all the words, but it was cool to recognize some of the songs. For example, one of the songs they sang was "Lord, I Lift Your Name on High." In English, the words repeat these two stanzas.

Lord I lift Your name on high.
Lord I love to sing Your praises
I'm so glad You're in my life
I'm so glad You came to save us.

You came from heaven to earth
To show the way
From the earth to the cross
My debt to pay
From the cross to the grave
From the grave to the sky
Lord I lift Your name on high! (3X)

It's generic, but yet its simplicity says it all. It was a good message to share in a public place. Then a few different people spoke, I think reading portions of the Bible. It wasn't exactly a service as much a a concert and celebration. Even though not all the doctrinal details are the same, the main message doesn't change so it was nice to see the number of people that were out celebrating that good news. It was even more exciting to think about how many people walking past were hearing it for the first time.

After that, we had a picnic in the park with some of our friends. I finally got to meet Louise, who was here when Josh and Joel were here and was also here for part of last year. She lived in the apartment below us, so Josh and Joel knew her very well and Emily knows her, too. She was back to visit people and celebrate Easter here. The day ended with game night at pastor's.

Monday morning I woke up not feeling well. I taught classes anyway because it was the first day back after our two week break. I only taught one of my three classes that day, because in each of the other two classes, only one person showed up. That's what happens when we start classes on a day when there is no school. It causes confusion since our usual rule is if there's no school, there's no class.

I went back home and that's when things really started to get interesting. I felt horrible and it took me an hour and a half to eat one little bowl of soup for dinner. My stomach was just really hurting me. About 11pm it started to get really bad. The pain was getting so strong that it was making my back hurt and my whole body was becoming tense. Eventually, somewhere between midnight and 1am, Pastor and Emily managed to call the clinic's emergency number to take me to a hospital because I said I needed to go. It was the worst pain I have ever felt in my entire life. On a scale of 1 to 10, I gave it a 13.

Pastor found a taxi that took us to the hospital that the clinic's emergency person recommended. That was an adventure in itself. It was like stepping back in time, except no one even spoke my language. It looked like a hospital room that you always seen in WWII movies, where there are multiple beds and windowed cabinets with a few supplies. To make a long story short, I ended up getting a shot of pain medicine in the rear (that was an experience I'd never had before), an IV of saline, calcium, and a muscle relaxer. When that drip was finished, they gave me glucose because I was dehydrated from other symptoms I'd been having. You can guess. Then they wrote down some medicines they thought I needed on a piece of paper--5 of them--and sent me home.

I woke up a few times in the night because of pain once the medicine started wearing off, and because I needed to visit my porcelain friend. Around 10:30am I couldn't get anymore unrestful sleep, but the really bad pain was gone. I was still frequenting the bathroom and was feeling very very weak and tired. Even a bit jittery.

I decided it would be a good idea to go to the doctor at the clinic for a follow-up. Pastor went with me because I didn't really remember much from the night before. It was a bit hazy because all I could think about was the pain. The doctor who examined me happened to be the same one who'd been on phone duty the night before. He checked me over thoroughly and decided that I had a very nasty stomach virus. He said he'd seen a few other cases of it and it started with extremely intense stomach pains and by three or four days later it subsides and just leaves the person feeling really tired. He said to eat simple dry foods for about three days, mostly bread and pasta.

I did as he suggested and things proceeded just as he had predicted. Now I'm still feeling tired, but it's because of that and a busy week combined to really just wipe me out. However, now I can say that I've experienced the ER in a foreign country. lol

On Tuesday I spent the entire rest of the day resting and relaxing and trying to force the fluids and try eating. I had zero appetite. But Wednesday I at least felt a little hungry by supper time. I had taught during the day so I didn't have much energy, but at least I was feeling better. Thursday I taught and slept the whole night through for the first time since Sunday night. That was a relief! Friday I did some work, had to run some errands, and then had Easter practice instead of Activity Night.

Saturday we dyed about 60 Easter eggs to take to church with us for after the Easter program. Then we had to be at church in the afternoon for one last rehearsal. Rehearsal went alright, but we found out that 4 of the kids who'd been practicing were out of town for the weekend. Therefore, we had to double up parts to four different kids at the last minute to make sure we had everything covered. Thankfully, they did a fantastic job!

It was awesome! Emily ran the computer and so we had music for the songs and I directed the kids. I kept things moving because people were clapping after every song and every recitation. Since they tend to start talking after that, I made sure that the next kid started right after the clapping stopped. They sang loudly and clearly and better than they had in practice. And these kids love to sing, let me tell you! Besides one kid forgetting to hold up her picture from the passion history and another kid holding hers upside down, things went smoothly. :)

I've included two videos of the program so you can see what it was like. The first one shows the kids singing part of a verse of "Jesus Christ Is Risen Today" in Albanian. The second video shows them singing a song acapella in English. I'm the one in the middle in black. Sorry I'm in the center.

After the program, Emily and I went out to dinner because were all dressed up and it was kind of a celebration that our last big event went off without a hitch. From here on out, it's just the normal events: class, Activity Nights, MMM activities, Cappuccino Club activities, and church. It was great to eat at a nice place and have a real meal after a week of feeling crappy and eating bland food.

Later that night, we met pastor at a little after 11pm to go our for another celebration. This time, we went to celebrate Orthodox Easter on the street outside the Greek Orthodox church. We lit candles and then cracked red Easter eggs at midnight. I even ate one of the eggs. I couldn't believe it! I haven't eaten an Easter egg since I was a kid. Eggs don't always agree with me. But I figured I'd try it because it couldn't possibly be as bad as Monday night. lol And guess what? Not a single problem!

Anyway, we listened to their choir sing and to their priest and archbishop read from the Bible and say a few words. It was much more liturgical than the celebration the week earlier but just as exciting knowing that the real truth of Easter was being spoken right in the middle of the street. :) Then we followed a huge crowd into the church, candles still lit (talk about a fire hazard!) and watched the priests do their thing. They brought incense around the entire church and it sounded like a long liturgy was being read, chanted, and sung. However, it was very very very crowded in there with people going in and out and trying to avoid catching fire, so I wasn't able to see everything that was going on. Then we went back outside, talked with Neda and Ledio for a bit, and walked back. Pastor bought us ice cream on the way back and it was a beautiful night, so it was nice to walk back in nice weather in the middle of the night enjoying a treat.

Sunday morning we had an Easter service in English. It was our most well attended English service with a whopping 7 people (8 including pastor) worshipping. Agron, Vitori, Dorien, me Emily, Neda, and this one little boy, Daniel. It was awesome. :) Finally, on Sunday afternoon, we got a chance to relax. We spent the afternoon watching two movies. lol We just had no desire to do anything but take a break to catch our breath. After we did that, we started cooking because we'd planned to have our Easter dinner with pastor that night before game night. Between what we made and pastor's contributions we had a feast: Chicken (from Mr. Chicken), fries (the Albanian version of potatoes at a big meal), salad, stuffing, biscuits, canned cranberry sauce, ice cream dessert, wine, and struesel cake flavored decaf coffee with dessert. It was delicious! Oh, did I mention that we had chocolate Easter candy, too? Of course! No game night with pastor is complete without chocolate. In addition to his normal supply, Emily and I had brought along Kinder eggs because we had to have some sort of Easter eggs on Easter. lol

Monday was another day off of school. Since both Easters are celebrated here, both of the following Mondays are vacations from school. We didn't get a day off though because we'd been invited to spend a day at the beach in Durres. Sara and Danja's family has a house (apartment) at the beach in Durres and so we went with them, their mom, and little brother Ani, and Neda. We packed food to eat there and then spent a beautiful day playing in the water, collecting shells, taking pictures, playing on the playground, getting coffee, and playing games. By the time we got back, we were exhausted all over again, but it was completely worth it!

We had work to do to prepare for this week of classes so I was up late last night. Then, I fell asleep without setting my alarm clock. I slept though the 10am class I am supposed to have with Dajana. Emily said she even called my phone but I have absolutely no recollection of it ringing. Then she said she called my name after I didn't answer the phone. She said I replied with, "What." She told me that it was 10 and asked if I had class with Dajana and apparently I gave a grunt. Haha! I don't remember any of that. When I finally did wake up, it was 11:30 and I was completely out of it! Don't worry though--I had one of Dajana's sister's in class later today and she said Dajana slept late too and didn't go to class. So now I don't feel quite so bad. Haha! ;)

Aida came at noon to give me an Albanian lesson. I know it seems kind of late to be starting this, but she's offered since we got here but this is the first time we have schedules that will give us a time to meet. And she really really wants me to learn some more Albanian and I feel too bad saying no, so I agreed. Therefore, I have Albanian lessons every Tuesday and Thursday now. To add to my prep work and teaching, I also have homework. And here I thought I was done being a student.....;) Hee hee!

The rest of the week will be spent catching up on prep work and teaching classes. I have Activity Night to plan, plus the MMM group is meeting on Saturday. I'll be taking care of that since Emily will be taking care of Cappuccino Club on the same day. In addition, Emily has a friend who is studying culinary arts in Italy and she is flying in on Friday late afternoon to spend the weekend with us. We'll take her to our events on Friday and Saturday and show her around Tirana. On Sunday, we plan on going to Kruja, the town where the national hero, Skenderbeg, was born and raised. It's a touristy town and apparently very authentically Albanian. I haven't been there yet and Emily really likes it so we thought that would be a good thing to do.

After that, it will be back to another week of classes. Whew! Time is just flying right past now. The longer we've been here, the busier we've gotten. It's getting to the point where thinking about going home brings a very bittersweet feeling to my heart. On one hand, I can't wait to be home again to see family and friends and to get healthy again. But then there's the opposite hand where it will be heart-wrenching to say good-bye to the people I love here. It's sad to think that this chapter of my life is coming to a close. It's making me appreciate even more the things I'm experiencing and the people I'm spending time with. I thank God for all the things I've seen, done, and learned since I arrived here.

Celebrating two Easters was really cool because even though both celebrations were very different, they were both celebrating the same single truth. He is risen! In a country that shuts down the square for the big Islamic holiday of Bajram, where you here the mosques sing out the call to worship five times a day, it was awesome to know that those who believe in Christ receive the same respect and that the square will shut down for their celebrations as well. Everyone's religious preferences and beliefs seem to be respected here. It's refreshing to know that God is working in the hearts of people who've heard his Word. It makes it easier to think about stopping my work here. I didn't get the choice to stay or go, but that's because God already knows what will happen. :) God is good!!!

Veni Vidi Vici

2009-04-11T15:51:00.002-05:00

Today was my last day in Rome. What a trip it was! I came, I saw, I conquered. That’s for sure! Even though today was my day alone and I didn’t see as much as the other days, it was probably definitely the most chaotic.

I got up to go to the train station with Beth, since she had a late morning flight. After we parted ways, I was on my own. Things started out pretty well! I got on one of those buses that give you a little tour of the city, but it’s an all day hop on/hop off kind of ticket. I rode it the whole way around the loop without getting off. It was nice because it went past two or three things we hadn’t seen and it explained about all of the things so I learned even more. The whole thing was about an hour and a half. My favorite part of it was that it was a double decker bus and I sat up on the top in the nice open air. The weather was gorgeous!

After the first loop, I got off at the second stop where I wanted to see the “Mouth of Truth.” You put your hand in the mouth and legend says that it will bite the hands of dishonest people. Since I was alone, I asked the guy behind me to take a picture. Turns out it was on video. Haha! No wonder he looked so confused while he was trying to take the picture. :)

Then I walked back past the Circus Maxiumus (the track where they held chariot races) because I wanted to see the end where they’re doing excavations. Also, this is at the bottom of Palatine Hill, so it gave me a nice view of the ruins we’d been on top of just a few days earlier. Then I walked between Palatine Hill and the hill where the gladiators trained and went to school. It leads straight to the Arch of Constantine and the Colosseum. I really liked that area, so I went back.

My plan was eat a nice Italian lunch, do a little souvenir shopping, go back to St. Peter’s Basilica to go up the dome and to take pictures of the Swiss guards. Who goes to Rome and forgets to take pictures of the Swiss guards? (“But I am Swiss.” Sabrina, name that movie. lol) I guess I do. Then I wanted to go back to the Trevi Fountain because it was probably my favorite sight, aside from the Colosseum, and write my postcards. Then I would go get my bags from the hostel and get on a train to the airport around 7pm. (My flight didn’t leave until 9:50pm)

However, I am sad to report that this is the part of the day where things changed drastically. I went to use the ATM to take out a few more Euros since I was out. The ATM had other plans for me. It decided to tell me that I needed to call my bank before I could use my card. What???? I tried 4 more machines at different banks to no avail.

Not good. Not money, a card that doesn’t work, no other cards, and no train ticket yet. I spent the next hour and a half trying to call my bank or my parents. However, with no money and a card that doesn’t work, I was left to attempt collect calls. And guess what? You can’t make collect calls to cell phones. My parents don’t have a land line. So much for that idea. In a desperate attempt, I texted Emily for the number of my dad’s school, even though they didn’t have school today because it’s Good Friday. I tried 5 times anyway, hoping that maybe, just maybe, he was working in his office. Nope. (Good! Teachers need vacations just as much as the kids.)

The instructions on the back of my card say to call collect if out of the country. So I called the number they provided. Specifically, I called the number that they told me to call collect and they they denied it. Hello?!?! How are you supposed to help customers if you don’t accept the call you told them to make?

I tried to look up a land line number but you have to pay an international operator to find a number for you. Whoever thought of that idea deserves some horrible punishment. Not. Helpful. At. All.

I spent the better part of the next hour and a half walking around trying to find a Western Union or an Exchange place. The only WU I came across was one that was only in Chinese and they were closed anyway. (Only in Chinese? I thought I was still in Italy…) Every exchange place I went to said “What currency?” When I asked if they would exchange Albanian Lek. Guess what their answer was. Yeah. So I was still stuck.

I decided to go back the hotel/hostel to get my computer out of my luggage. I thought I had a little internet time left and maybe it would be enough to contact my family and have them call about my card. I put my mom’s name on the account just in case there was a situation like this. I had about 5 minutes of internet time left and the only person I even got a message to was someone in my mom’s sister’s family but I never got to explain the message to them. Sorry guys! I don’t know exactly what help they would’ve been since they live in Grenada, but I guess I was just hoping for suggestions or maybe another way to contact my fam.

After the internet ran out, I ransacked my own luggage. I ended up finding just enough change in various pockets to cover a ticket. This was really really weird to me because I empty my pockets every night, habitually. I’m a little OCD like that. So I was shocked that there were coins there. I had enough for the ticket and had 2,50 Euros left over. At the train station, this was enough for gelato or a Coke. Well I was super parched and super starving because it was 4:30 and I hadn’t had anything except a bottle of water all day. I opted for the gelato because the cold would be refreshing like a drink and the cone would be a little teeny bit of substance. Plus, I still had to adhere to Rule #1. Hee hee! Today’s flavors: Coffee, Nutella, and Raspberry. Delicious!

I made it to the airport where the problems just continued. Still no Western Union and still no one who would exchange Lek. Actually, not even a person who knew what it was yet. I never did find one of those. (Worthless money. Psshhh. ;) Haha!)

I checked-in just fine but then when I was going through security, I couldn’t take my wine with me. You can’t carry on food of beverages here. Ahhh! No one told me that and it wasn’t posted anywhere. Grrr!!! So I was either going to have to buy something to put it in so it could count as my second piece of luggage or I was going to have to leave it all. That would’ve been a waste of money.

For about an hour and a half, I traversed the airport in search of money exchangers and Western Unions. No one could help me. I even tried to use wi-fi at the airport, but you have to pay for it. STUPID FEES!!!!! I was so discouraged and frustrated after a day of searching for help without any results or anything that I actually broke down and started crying right there. I finally went back to the counter and the guy allowed me use the computer case if I wrapped my sweatshirt around the wine bottles. So that was my second piece of checked luggage.

That means my computer and its accessories, my camera, wallet, a book, travel papers, gun, sunglasses, keys, phone and iPod were all stuffed into the plastic bag that the wine had been. This bag served as my very precious carry on. By the time I sat down at the gate to wait for boarding, it was 7:48 pm and I felt like I’d been up for more than 24 hours.

The plane boarded on time but left just a bit late because 5 other planes had to go before us on the runway. But it was a short, easy flight and I was relieved when the baggage arrived quickly. To my delight, the wine was not broken. Yay!

Emily met me at the airport with a little sign. She said she had it just incase I’d forgotten what she looked like. Haha! It was after midnight before we left the airport. When we got back, I was famished because I hadn’t eaten all day. So we had snacks and I called my family to talk to them on Skype. By the time I went to bed it was close to 3am.

This morning we had church and then Easter practice with the kids. After that I had to get a few groceries because I needed food. I came bag, cleaned up from the tornado that went through my room and spent the rest of the day doing little things and resting.

So after trip full of merriment, silliness, imagination, and wonder, I would like to thank Beth for the great times. :) And just to say it again: I came, I saw, I conquered. :)

City from a Hill

2009-04-09T16:56:00.005-05:00

Yes, this is the blog intruder, one last time. And this is us on a hill.

I have this really awesome book about Rome that my friend in Ireland gave to me at the beginning of our trip...and I am so glad she did. Usually I have a guidebook to give me a general idea about where things are, but this Europe extravaganza crept up on me so suddenly there was no time to plan for the first few weeks, much less the end.

So props to Dawn, because without her we would have not found Janiculum Hill. It had awesome views of the entire city, plus overpriced Coca-Cola sold from Indian vendors and the Finnish embassy (go figure).

I'll let Katie write something - it is her blog, after all. But first of all, here is a photo of my most favorite part of Rome:

No, it wasn't the Colosseum, nor the incredible Roman ruins that we seemed to stumble across at every corner. It wasn't even the daily dose of gelato (today: pistachio, vanilla caramel, white chocolate)...

Most of all, I liked the FREE WATER. Let me explain.

In the United States, I'm used to seeing a drinking fountain around every corner. In Europe, this isn't an option. They all are snooty and like to drink bottled water that costs 2 euros. With FIZZ. Yes, fizzy water. Fizzy water tastes like vomit.

Italy has public spigots everywhere, just like pictured here at St. Peter's Square...in case the pope gets thirsty while out for his daily stroll.

I need to write in my own journal now (the old-school variety, involving paper, pen and hand cramps)...it's been real. I thank Katie for letting me blog and for joining with me on this phase of my travels; next we are planning to journey to someplace more volatile and adventurous than Rome. I'm thinking sailboat journey cross the Pacific.

Beth, it's been grand. My blog and its readers will miss you. Oh, yeah, I will miss you, too. New places on today's agenda included a market, some churches, St. Peter's Square, and St. Peter's Basilica. I was highly disappointed with St. Peter's Basilica because we couldn't even go stand under the famous dome and look up. They had so much of it blocked off and ready for Easter. That's what we get for going duing Holy Week. Despite this greate let down, I still enjoyed it because there is just so much to see and to take in. While we were there, I asked Beth, "How do you take pictures of a place like this? " You just can't really capture it. So while my snapshots may be a nice reminder, the best images are in my head.

Beth's let down of the day was when she couldn't see the famous artwork mentioned in the book she's reading. We even went back to the Piazza del Popolo just to go to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo where it was just to check it out. Turns out that it was being cleaned or worked on or something because it was all blocked off.

Oh well. We had a great time anyway. On top of that hill Beth mentioned, there were busts of different influential men all along the road. We felt the need to either pose with them, mock their pose, or add to the whole scene. :) Aren't we creative?

Beth's flight leaves before lunch tomorrow, but mine doesn't leave until 9:50pm so I have the whole day yet to explore. I'm not exactly sure what I'll do besides buy postcards, but I do know that I won't be bored! I might go back to some places or I might try new places. Most likely, I'll do a combination.

The one other highlight of the day came very very early. Around 3am I woke up because I felt an earthquake. The town that's been getting hit hard had another aftershock last night and Rome could feel it to a lesser degree. I woke up because I thought I was too close to the edge of the bed, but then I realized I wasn't moving, the bed was. It was kind of weird. I woke up not sure if it really happened, but then once we turned on CNN, the lady said that about 6 hours ago there had been another aftershock. I checked the clock and lo and behold it was about 9am when that report came on, live. So I've now felt an earthquake. Strange. Very strange.

Over and out from here. We're tired, our faces are pink, I think I'm getting a heat rash (I'm itchy), and my feet are swollen from walking so much the last few days. And you know what? Every single minute has been absolutely spectacular. If you've never been to this city, get here, pronto! It's worth it! But don't skimp and stay for just two days. You need at the very least three days to see the biggest and best it has to offer.

Oh, and just in case you're wondering, today's gelato flavors were Tartufo (chocolate truffle), strawberry, and vanilla caramel. Yummy!

Papal Bling and More

2009-04-08T17:19:00.003-05:00

6:37 am - I wake up much to my dismay because there is an hour before the alarm is set to go off.

7:29 am - I wake up. This was weird because the alarm was set for 7:30.

9:08 am - We are stuck many stories underground on the subway with 10 zillion other people. It is really hot. My armpit is in someone's face.

9:26 am - We get off the subway and walk towards the Vatican. As we stroll down the street numerous people try to get us to buy a ticket for their tour.

9: 44 am - We skip the whole line of people because we were smart enough to buy our tour tickets online ahead of time.

10:17 am - I see a really cool statue of a serpent biting some guys butt.

10:28 am - I think to myself, "Whoa! There's a lot of stuff here!" Bright blue mosaic tiles, sculptures of everything from animals to Greek gods to Romulus and Remus, to tapestries, to painted maps. And we walk down floor that slope.

12:15-12:45 om - We sit in the Sistine Chapel gazing admiringly at the impressive works of Michaelangelo attempting to decipher the Latin names on the walls and listening to guards constantly yell "No photo!" at people who obviously couldn't understand English.

12:33 pm - I understand the English warnings not to take pictures or video and to be quiet. I blantantly disregard these instructions and take a video of Michaelangelo's The Last Judgement.

12:51 pm - View Pope artifacts such as seals, staff, rings, chariots, and cars. We determine that the Pope has much bling, coining the term "Papal Bling."

1:36 pm - Adios, Vactican.

2:08 pm - We begin lunch at an outdoor cafe.

2:47 pm - We are completely stuffed and fein interest in the invitation from our teenage Indian waiter to join him and his friends on the piazza that night for drinks, pub crawling and more.

3:14 pm - Arrive at Piazza Navona. I was serenaded by a saxophone player. Then we looked at the Church of St. Agnes in Agony.

4:08 pm - I'm on an Angels and Demons hunt but pause long enough to buy Sunflower Honey made my a monk.

4:44 pm - We ignore the call of nature to view the Pantheon, including the tomb of Raphael.

5:10 pm - We used the bathroom at a really sketchy McDonald's with plastic spiral stairs.

5:29 pm - Beth saw a sign that said "Free Tastings" so we had to go in. We got samples of wine, some sort of lemon liquor, and something with honey, grappa, and chocolate. We made purchases, talked to the girl giving the free samples, and left before she could get us drunk.

5:51 pm- Arrive at Trevi Fountain. Watched some guy get pushed in.

6:59 pm - Walked past the Spanish Steps.

7:07 pm - We are accosted on all angles by men trying to sell roses.

7:07 pm (continued) - I buy three roses. This inspires a photo shoot of "senior pictures" at the Piazza Del Popolo.

8:45 pm - Katie wins a game of Scrabble on the Spanish Steps because she scored the Q. Lucky duck.

9:16 pm - It is now time for Rule #1. Beth choses Biscotti (cookies) and Cheescake flavored gelato. I opt for Orange Chocolate and Coconut.

9:22 pm - Another stop at the Trevi Fountain. No one ends up in the fountain this time.

10:10 pm - Food time. Katie ate a Big Mac.

10:39 pm - Finally back in our room. My feet are swollen from so much walking.

11:01 pm - We get ready for bed.

11:31 pm - Time to go over the day's pictures. We're so funny!

12:03 am - Internet time for email and news updates.

12:23 am - Blog time. Too tired to proofread.

12:42 am - What a great day! Sweet dreams!

Hear Ye, Hear Ye!

2009-04-07T15:41:00.002-05:00

Where to begin for today…..Hmmm….It was so jam packed (in a ridiculously entertaining and edifying sort of way) that I might as well start from the beginning. After getting ready, we took of and sort of kind of headed in the direction of the Coliseum. Before going there we needed to make a stop at the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. It was very beautiful, of course, will all of its marble and artwork. We even saw the beginning of a mass service or devotion service in one of its side chapels. That was interesting.

And I was so amused with the confessional booths that I took a picture of someone at confession. Haha! I couldn’t help it! If a priest was in there, a little red light above the booth was on. What made it even better was that there were confessional booths lined up on both sides of the church. Plus there were signs posted on each telling what languages were acceptable to speak at that booth. This part was funny to me. And, since I would have felt awkward having hundreds of tourists gaze at me during confession, I felt it necessary to document that there were some brave souls out there who were perfectly content with this.

Then we proceeded on to the Coliseum. But not before stopping to take a picture of Beth outside an Irish pub. She started this European escapade with a trip to Ireland so it just seemed the natural thing to do to take this picture. lol Plus, it was just funny.

At the Coliseum, we joined an English speaking tour and we were soooooo glad we did! We saw the same things that we would have if we had toured it ourselves. But we got gobs and gobs of information that we would have never known without the tour. To us, this was totally worth it! Plus, we got to bypass the ginormous line of people waiting to buy tickets. And we also got a tour of the Roman Forum included with that tour purchase. So we gained an invaluable amount of information on that tour as well. Rome, unlike Athens, does not have anything marked about what the place is called or why it’s important or what happened there. Athens was detailed. Since Rome is not, we loved the tours.

Anyway, back to the Colosseum.

It was big.

Ah. I see my blog intruder is a real smarty alec. Well, no one’s ever accused me of being shy so I’ll just keep talking.

On our tour, we learned that the Coliseum had caves right across from it which is where equipment and weapons were stored. From the caves, there was an underground tunnel that led to the underground rooms or bowels of the Coliseum. Unfortunately, it is no longer in tact due to the current subway system in Rome. It really didn’t matter to me. Seeing caves where gladiator equipment was sent enough excitement through me that I could’ve burst through the roof if the Coliseum had a roof.

And actually, it kind of did at one time. There were sort of tents that came down from the top and connected with poles that were placed at the edge of the arena. This way, people were protected from the elements to a certain degree and at the same time were still able to see all the action. Pretty ingenious. Well it was for awhile. The poles at the top were eventually struck by lightening, causing a fire. The fire was so severe that that actual Colosseum that is viewable now is sort of the second Colosseum because so much reconstruction work had to be done. Hah! Bet you didn’t know that!

Here’s a few other facts you didn’t know:

1. The Colosseum was not exactly shiny white marble, the way it is portrayed in movies. Yes, it was marble. But now, the marble from the ancient sights in the city was removed and used at the Vatican and at other churches and basilicas in the city.

2. There were 76 arched entrances around the Colosseum and the numbers were painted red. In the arched on the other levels there were statues that were also painted so it was, in reality, quite a colorful masterpiece.

3. People did indeed need tickets to enter. The structure could hold 94,000 people. Keep in mind that around a million people lived in Rome at the height of the Colosseum’s life. Therefore, in addition to the full house during the competitions, there were another 100,000 people outside just waiting to hear the roars of the beasts and reactions of the crowd.

4. The emperor had his own special seat. And the only women who were allowed a special seat on the lower level were the vestral virgins. Everyone else sat according to class and followed the dress code: White for government, nobility, and the upper class. Brown or black for the plebes or working class.

Our tour guide’s name was Max. He looked like a Max. Are you ready for a gladiator quiz? Winner gets a bottle of grappa.

Which gladiator movie is the most historically accurate?
a) Spartacus
b) Gladiator
c) The Return of the Dragon

The Return of the Dragon is an old Bruce Lee/Chuck Norris movie from 1974. Apparently, it involves them running around looking for each other in the Colosseum for a very long time, and that’s the only exciting part of the movie, so you should skip to that scene.

Answer: a, Spartacus. Kirk Douglas rules.

We spent ages after our tour just wandering around in amazement, possibly attempting to pry bricks free from the columns, and enjoying the feeling that always comes with being in such a historical place. Afterwards, we had about 45 minutes before our tour of the Roman Forum, so Katie got a really disgusting sandwich masquerading as a piece of pizza, and we sat on our favorite grassy knoll to ponder life.

Soon our space was invaded by a bunch of purple-clad Italian teenage boys.

They wanted me to say I thought one of them was beautiful so I told them that I thought everything in Rome was beautiful. Apparently that was a more than sufficient answer because on kid clapeed and said, “Bravo!” Haha!

Two more Colosseum thoughts before I move on. We got our picture taken with a man dressed up as a gladiator. The fact that it was free for our group was Max’s gift to us. Also, the movie The Gladiator has the best portrayal of a slave owner who owned gladiators.

Now, moving on. After said disgusting sandwich, we joined back up with the other folks who were wearing gold dots for our tour of the Roman Forum. Forum just meant meeting place. In this case, it meant where everyone in the city meets, meaning the center of the city. Thus the heart of the ancient city of Rome became known as the Roman Forum.

From the Colosseum, it included the Arch of Constantine. Really, Constantine’s rule was the beginning of the downfall of the Roman empire. But he was very important because Constantine was the one responsible for saving Christianity in Rome. Rome was slowly being taken over by barbarians from the north and so he moved the center of Christianity to Constantinople, which preserved the Christian faith. The arch was the last of the 40 arches of Rome to be built. Today it is one of only seven (maybe six) that still remain.

Then we went to the Palatine Hill. On top of this hill is where the palace sat. It got the name palace because it sat at the top of Palatine Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome. We got to explore this area a bit. There were some very beautiful views from Ceaesar’s palace. The other reason this area was chosen is because this hill sits directly in the middle between the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Circus Massimus, which is the arena where the Roman Chariot races were held. We were able to see all the sights from there.

Adjacent to both Palatine Hill and the Colosseum sits another hill whose name I forget. But what I do remember is the important part—the gladiator school/training took place here. Now that got my mind racing. I think it would have been for sure intimidating, strangely exciting, and yet secretly scary to visit such a place during it’s prime.

The next big ticket item we came to was the Arch of Titus, which served as the entry into the Roman Forum. On it, you can see pictures of a big seven-armed candelabra, with all flames lit. There is a crowd around this fire and this image is very symbolic because it was Titus who decided to take on Jerusalem by going there with troops and burning Solomon’s temple. Also depicted on this monument you will see the Greek god, Nike. I forgot exactly why she is shown, but there was something about the Romans liking her and using her in other artwork. The tour guide said that she is always shown in Roman artwork with wings, but that she had nothing to do with angels.

Continuing here in the Forum….

There are a heck of a lot of pagan temples. Let’s say that I was your emperor. Excuse me, empress. One day I decided that I wanted to be considered a goddess. So I had a temple built in honor of myself! A temple complete with monolithic columns made of marble! Just call me Faustina.

Between the Arch of Titus and all these temples are remnants of porticos, where all the shopping stalls were located. Beyond that was the forum square. On either side of that were the basilicas (courthouses). And amongst it all was us!

There are not many bathrooms at the Roman Forum. One bathroom was located outside of the gates, so an aggravated me had to turn around and dance my way toward another one. There was a line of teenage tour participants from the Northwest Territories of Canada, and we exchanged pleasantries. Eventually I found Katie again, and we moved on to explore Palatine Hill and the palace. It was cool, and by cool, I mean totally sweet. Have you ever seen “Legends of the Hidden Temple”?

When we realized that it was 5 pm, we decided it was probably time to move on. Gelato was calling our names.

I really honestly do not think that a trip to the Roman Forum could ever be complete without making your own version of “Legends of the Hidden Temple.” That show was a staple of my childhood, and I guess the same is true of Beth. We made an awesome picture version of us playing the game in the Roman Forum, complete with the pendant of life, the shrine of the silver monkey, and a temple guard. Just wait ‘til you see the pictures. ;)

Before gelato, we took in the Capitol Square. This is located on the Piazza Campidoglio, right next to the Roman Forum. The buildings there were designed my Michaelangelo and it had a simple but beautiful fountain. It was also home to the most gigantic statues I have ever seen. After lingering there for a few moments, we set off towards the Tiber River.

We saw it, and were semi-disgusted, and changed course to go up Aventine Hill. That area was beautiful. It reminded us of southern California in many ways. What was memorable from that hill was the view through a key hole in a large door. When we looked through, we could see the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica through a long row of trees in a garden. It was amazing.

We wandered back down the hill in a direction that just looked pretty. All of a sudden we realized we’d wandered to the wrong direction of where we actually wanted to go, so we changed course and headed back towards the Colosseum. Lo and behold we went through the Piazza Albania. Ha! It was really just an intersection, but I got a picture next to a sign anyway. :)

After that we adhered to Rule #1 and got our daily dose of gelato. This time, I combined Tiramisu, Intense Chocolate (yes, that was really the name of the flavor), and Philadelphia something (Cream cheese with cookies flavor). It was heaven in a cone. Beth opted for Intense Chocolate, Nutella, and Strudel. Yummy!

We made it back to the Colosseum and began to wander back to our temporary residence. I stopped at a few souvenir shops to peek and we picked up some dinner. Beth had great ideas about dinner.

Yes, the foodie wants to talk food. Since we were both exhausted, I suggested a picnic dinner in our hotel room (by this time it was after 7 pm). After picking up a giant slab of parmesan cheese and bread, we happened upon a supermarket! Joy! Thus we completed our supper with marinara sauce, a box of Oreos (treat for Katie the Albanian) and a 2,20 euro bottle of white wine.

All this was made possible due to my pocketknife which also has a corkscrew.

Our feet are tired, our faces our tanned, we are safe and happy. Please pray for all the people of Italy affected by the recent earthquake and aftershock…that they may find their loved ones and begin rebuilding their lives. Pray also that the rest of our trip goes smoothly and we are protected from such disaster.

Tomorrow: the Vatican!

When in Rome....

2009-04-06T16:40:00.004-05:00

“Rise and shine! It’s time to go to Rome!” That would have been a more pleasant greeting than my phone vibrating in my pillow underneath my head this morning, but either way, I woke up excited.

Emily gave us a nice send off by making French toast and we headed out on time at 9am. (see photo above). Both of us were pretty sleepy, but we made it to the airport without any problems. The guy across the aisle from me on the bus decided it would be a good idea to sit sideways in his seat, with hit feet in the aisle because it made it easier for him to stare at us every 3 minutes. Don’t worry. He was harmless. He just asked me three times if I was doing well.

Our flight was delayed slightly due to the previous flight arriving late. However, soon enough we were ushered through the gate, onto a bus that would take us to the plane…the plane that was approximately 200 feet away from the airport. Yes, they put us on a bus, drove 200 feet, and we got out.

Ha.

In Roma! Katie is dragging around a duffel bag because she didn’t want to bring her humongous suitcase. Luckily for her, we are staying only a few blocks from Termini Station the whole week, so all our stuff can stay safe and sound in our room while we are out and about.

Now, let us discuss gelato.

Rule of Rome #1: Gelato must be consumed every day. You also must try a new flavor every day. If you wish to eat the same flavor as the day before, you may eat gelato twice, or even three times if you wish. This is all perfectly acceptable.

Today, we stumbled upon a gelateria on Via dei Serpenti (this side street is also awesome for another reason, which I’m sure Katie will mention…) and after much debate, I chose ananas, pompelmo, and frutti di bosco. Sweet, sweet bliss.

Let me translate for you. Beth had pineapple, grapefruit, and wild berry. My choice included green apple, cinnamon, and white chocolate. Delicious! Before you go thinking we’re completely gluttonous, let me ease my conscience. First, we walk everywhere so we can afford to eat copious amounts of gelato. Secondly, the price does not change for getting the same size cone in three flavors or one flavor. Score: Gelato 1, Ice cream 0.

Via de Serpenti was awesome despite its name. The Street of the Snakes, Road of Snakes, Snake Avenue, or whatever the correct translation may be, did not wind or twist or turn at all. It was perfectly straight. As we’re walking, I look ahead of me and at the same moment the light went on in my head, Beth said, “Hey, isn’t that the Coliseum?” It sure was! Right straight ahead of us as we made way down the street, we could see it.

I got very excited. We took pictures, and even though we plan to go there tomorrow for a tour and for more exploring, we wandered around the area, past the Arco di Costantino (Arch of Constantine), and took a seat on a nice little grassy hill next to the Coliseum. Beth did some writing in her travel journal, and I just took in the sights.

As we started walking again, Beth must have noticed how excited I was to be here because she made a comment about it. “You’re really excited about this, aren’t you…” Heck, yes, I am! I’ve always wanted to travel and see these places but I really honestly never thought I would lucky enough to do it. Even as a kid, I would dream about it and pretend, in my head, what it would be like there. Never did I even dare to think that I really could be there. I can’t believe the things my eyes have seen! :)

This takes us to supper time. I guess that means it’s Beth’s turn again, since food seems to be her specialty.

When in Rome, eat as Romans do. And I’m sure Romans sometimes eat Chinese.

After dinner we strolled up to St. Paul within the Walls church where there was a free concert put on by a couple of high schools from the States. Ha! There was a gospel-ish choir from Maryland and then a concert choir from Illinois that had six boys and about eight hundred girls. It was nice to relax and soak in some music in beautiful surroundings.

We get CNN in our hotel room and thus are soaking up all the world news. Katie doesn’t have English news in Tirana, and I have been traveling around Europe for the past few weeks, so it’s nice to get caught up on some of the things that are going on. By the way, we are just fine, and did not get caught in the earthquake in L’Aquila.

Ciao!

That sums up day one in Rome. Oh! We did see the famous Roman aqueducts from the train on our way into the station from the airport. Hopefully we’ll see more of those in the coming days.

Be prepared to hear more about gelato tomorrow as we continue to follow Rule #1. Our guidebook lists a place that claims to have over 100 flavors!

Maybe tomorrow we’ll even get to Rule #2: Must eat a scrumptious and savory authentic Italian meal, regardless of the prices on the menu.

Rule #3: Must update the blog every day. Cross today off the list!

Rule #4 could prove to be difficult. David requested a “blood-stained piece of the Coliseum.” So Rule # 4 is to recover a blood-stained piece of the Coliseum. We’ll report on the results of that search tomorrow as well.

Stay tuned and give thanks that we made it here safely.

An Intruder to the Blog

2009-04-05T16:46:00.003-05:00

The blog intruder will write in bold.

The blog owner will write in normal font.

Hello all! This is Katie's friend Beth, who descended upon Tirana last Thursday in a blaze of glory (actually, in a sweltering bus crowded with people speaking Albanian)...the past few days have been awesome! I'll let Katie take the controls for a moment. Perhaps she will tell you about the time I won Settlers of Catan.

Yes, Beth may have triumphed in Catan, the great land of settlement, discovery and trade. However, I stand on top when it comes to bowling. Beth's bowling alias, Bridget, was not feeling the love of the black lights and glow-in-the-dark bowling balls of the Spare Time bowling alley.

Enough boring stuff. Let's get to the real reason for this visit to Tirana: food. Stories of the delectable wine, qofte, sufflaqe and byrek were enough to make me jump a plane from Germany to Athens and then ride a bus 13 hours overnight on broken roads....

Qofte: spicy little sausages (I think they are made of lamb). Thumbs up for deliciousness and price.

Sufflaqe: Like a doner kebab, only with the bonus addition of french fries, ketchup and mustard. HALLELUJAH!

Byrek: Flaky phyllo dough filled with feta. Served warm and with a smile!

I may shove an Albanian cook lady into my backpack.

The only reason she's alive after consuming vast abouts of Albania's finest is because we made her take breaks between her binges and also forced her to walk long distances for extended periods of time at least once a day.

One such tour provided a glimpse into commie life. The teleferik (a glorified ski lift) took us almost to the top of Mt. Dajti where we saw bunkers upon bunkers, communist buildings, guards with machine guns (not an uncommon sight here) and government property. Naturally we had to do some off-roading. What fun is it to stick to the beaten trail? So much more invigorating to blaze your own.

After reaching some barbed wire that really didn't keep intruders out, despite signs about miltary property or soliders only, we climbed in an exceptionally large bunker to see just what these communist protections were all about.

It was exceptionally large, full of exceptionally disgusting trash.

Mount Dajti was the inspiration for the following haiku, so aptly titled "An Ode to Mount Dajti:

High upon Mt. Dajti

Bunkers burrow in the trees

Commies safe from raid.

Along with the writing of such a glorious poem, this weekend's crowning moments had to do with Albania joining NATO. Flags and banners everywhere in the city. Seriously, I am so glad that I was able to be here and share in this moment in history. We went down to the square tonight and the prime minister, Sali Berisha, was speaking! We managed to get pretty close to the stage. If this was the States, security would have kept us miles away. Here in Albania, not so much. There were fireworks shooting off the roof of the opera house, zillions of balloons released to the heavens, and people dancing and music blasting....it was amazing. Perhaps we will be able to post a video. Otherwise, use your imagination.

Ah, yes. With children on our shoulders (Sara, Danja, and Joni) we paraded around, got close to the staged, danced, ran around, watched the confetti fly and fall, and apparently came within feet of some sort of huge snake. Why someone would bring that out at a public event of this calibur is beyond me. All I know is that I did not see it or hear about it until the end of the evening. Otherwise the tale would not have been so cheerful. Neda and Ledio were also with us to experience the festivities of this once in a lifetime event.

Remember in my Greece picture how I mentioned that I can't help but feel the need to pose like a statue whenever I see a statue? I am not alone in this matter. Beth and I have mastered the skill to a degree that we can even pose as statues that are frozen in an action shot. We have pictures to prove it. But again, let your imagination take over.

Our statue posing, bunker exploring, NATO celebrating selves will be moving the shenanagins across the Adriatic Sea tomorrow as we descend upon Rome.

dum dum dee dum, dum dum dee dum dum....disturbia....

Buona notte! To Rome and beyond!

An Excuse

2009-04-03T02:52:00.003-05:00

Desperate times call for desperate measures, right? Well with our internet not fully working appropriately until last night (thank you, pastor!!!) and with my trip to Rome right around the corner, I'm going to have pull a major cop out. I will not be writing more about the trip to Greece. I know you're all just devastated. lol But I don't have the time to finish writing about that, writing about the updates here, and finishing the photo albums from Athens. Since my photo albums have relatively detailed captions (at least by facebook standards), that will just have to suffice.

So without futher adeiu, I give you the rest of Athens Day 1. Read the album description before you view the pictures. It tells you briefly where were were and what we did. Do this for each album and you will understand much more clearly why I can't take the time to continue writing about it.

Now, check out part 1 of the fun in Athens on Day two. Follow that with part 2 and then finally ending Day 2 with part 3.

I haven't finished making albums from Day 3 quite yet, but I did start on it. Here's the first one from day 3 in Athens. I'll make sure to get the rest done before we take off for Rome.

Really, I'm truly sorry for cutting it short. It's my fault for not putting more effort into dealing with our bad internet. Sorry. I had many other things on my mind though. First of all, we are on a two week break from classes. We didn't exactly know if there is a spring break here, how it works, or when it would be. Plus, not all of our students go to the same school, so they might not have it at the same time. Our solution was to just break between our second 10 week session and then start our third and final 10 week session. Therefore, we aren't having classes this week and we won't have classes next week. Since I'll be gone next week, I'm busy trying to cram all my planning and prep into one week. Plus, my friend Beth is arrived yesterday morning to visit here for a few days before we fly over to Italy. Plus, we decided to do an Easter Program with the kids for Easter. It's just like a Christmas service, but for Easter. So now we are spending extra time on Saturdays practicing for that.

It's all going well so far, but I'm starting to get a little run down. How does that happen during a break? I'm not quite sure, but I do know that I need to find some energy. I just feel worn out. Travel always gets me excited though, so I know I'll find the energy or just push though and I'll have a blast in Rome.

Oh! Before I go, I should leave you with two quick stories. The first is very funny. Many of my students live in the same neighborhood, and many of those live in the same apartment complex where our church is. These students know each other and their families quite well. So after my last class with my "Atlanta" group, one of the little students came in and was drawing on our marker board. Danja, (you should remember her because I've talked about her a lot and posted plenty of pictures of her) is quite the little teaser. She was playing with my student Eraldi and he was kind of playing jokes on her. Eraldi is about 16. Danja is 8. So she starts drawing on the board and she draws a picture of Eraldi as a girl. Haha! It was complete with a strapless gown and matching necklace and earrings. This girl is a little smarty-pants. Haha! It was too funny!

The other story is just really cute. Yesterday Beth went with me to the church to go get my bike. I'd left it there the other day because it started raining after I arrived. She went with me so she could meet whoever we would run into there. We ended up seeing Emanuela, Brisilda, Luela and Aldo. They came in the church to chat/visit with us. While they were there, Beth started playing piano and then they wanted to sing. So we sang a few hymns that they know and it was just so cute. :) We sang other songs too and spent the majority of the time talking or playing, but it was fun.

So that's where things stand with me. Today there's a 60% chance of rain all day, but we're going to meet Olsa for lunch at the beer house to get some traditional Albanian qofte. Mmm, mmm, good! Qofte are little sausages that are a bit spicy. They're very tasty! But the best part it that it will give us a chance to spend some quality time with Olsa. Hopefully tonight we can meet a few other people for bowling and then a trip up to Sky Tower. Anything else will just be on a whim. lol That's the plan. So I haven't disappeared, I've just been waiting for the internet to be fixed. Ta-da!

Patience Is A Virtue

2009-03-23T09:45:00.005-05:00

While things here continue to go well, I'm experiencing a technical difficulty. No, not that giardia thing. I'm actually feeling pretty decent these days. I really do mean a technical difficulty. Our internet has this weird way of being connected, but not bringing up certain pages. For example, if I want to sign into facebook or hotmail, I have to refresh the page about four or five times before it will even come up for me to sign in. Then, once I sign in, I have to refresh the page four or five more times just to get my account to come onto the screen. It's quite a long process to use the computer for any sort of internet related task right now. It's been acting this way for about a week and a half now and we're hoping it fixes itself because we can't really call and complain. After all, the system will just tell them that we're connected and with the language barrier, the conversation wouldn't go much past that point. So, like I said, we're hoping it just fixes itself. Otherwise, we'll just wait until next week. Pastor arrives early in the week so hopefully at the end of the week he can help us figure out the problem and the solution. He's good with that stuff.

With these internet troubles, I have had extreme difficulty in updating this blog and also adding pictures to my facebook photo albums to link on here. If the page doesn't need refreshing after five minutes, it asks me to login again. I don't know why it needs refreshing or why it automatically logs me out, both without warning. It's quite frustrating because no matter what I write, it gets deleted if I forget to copy everything so I can paste it into the new browser after I've refreshed or logged back in again. So, say a little prayer that I make it to the end of this one. ;) Oh, and for how long it takes to update this, the photo albums on facebook take twice as long, if not three times longer. I have free time, but not that much. And I have patience, but it runs thin with technology. lol

So, while I'm in the mood to keep working at this all afternoon, let me get as much of the Greece story on here as possible.

To continue with the first day's explorations, we headed out right after lunch. We decided to do a walking tour of the smaller sights that we could see in an afternoon. Our walking tour took us to Omonia Square, a main area of the city. The subway is there, buses run through there, it connects to five or six different main roads, and it is a taxi hub as well. Also, it features quite prominently on the map and was close to the hostel, making it kind of impossible to get lost.

My recollection of location names may not be the best because during one of our later cab rides, we left the map that labeled places in the cab. Oops. The only map remains is one that only shows street names. And they're hard to read because they're either in Greek or they're labeled as the English pronunciation of a Greek word, which still isn't always the easiest to read. So while this map was helpful when we were walking around, it's not so helpful now when I need to recall places. However, it is still fun to look at with all the Greek characters marking it. :)

So our walking tour consisted of stopping to see important Greek buildings, such as the National Library, the National Art Museum, and the National History Museum. (I know the first one was correctly named, but I'm not sure about the last two. One really was the Art Museum, but I'm not sure which it was, the second or third one.) We took plenty of pictures at these spots, marveled at the architecture, and raved about the fact that it was the first week of March and we didn't even need to wear coats outside. :)

We continued our walk and stopped at the Parliament building to see the changing of the guards. This was really pretty impressive! They had very traditional outfits on and it was quite the display. There was a security guard there talking to people and making sure no one got in the way of the guards. See, it wasn't roped off or anything. I could've walked right through the middle of the ordeal if I had felt like it. Obviously, I wouldn't dream of doing such a thing. Well, maybe I would picture the scene in my head, laugh at the ensuing chaos, and then the thought would leave my mind for good. ;) lol I wouldn't actually ever do something like that. But it was very cool to see and I had a few questions so I just went and asked the security guard. He told me that yes, the men were trained Greek soldiers. He also explained that they change the guards every hour on the hour, every single day of the year. Holidays are no exception. The only thing I can't remember is how many hours each crew "works" a day. I believe he said each crew stands guard for 6 hours of the day. Obviously, not consecutively because they change every hour. But they will work 6 of these one hour shifts every day. Yes, that's right because he said there were 4 crews.

After watching that take place, asking questions, taking pictures, and capturing it on video, we walked through the National Garden which took up the adjacent block(s). It was a nice quiet walk. And on such a sunny day, it was just gorgeous to be outside enjoying a garden. We took plenty of pictures in the garden. Everything on our trip was reason for a photo opportunity. We felt the need to document everything. lol And we sure did! When we combined the pictures and videos all three of us had taken over the 3 days, it took up over 2 GB of space!

Oh! Before I share more about the National Garden, I should tell you something else. This was funny at the time because it was just out of nowhere and we weren't expecting it so it took us by surprise and then proceeded to get us really excited. We were just walking down the street and--bam! Ancient ruins. All of a sudden there was just an area between a building and the street that was fenced in. We really didn't notice it except that there was a plaque and them Emily said, "Oh, yeah. Look." She said is super casually because she'd seen it already, but Andrea and I were surprised and excited by what was inside the fence. It made Emily laugh. The fenced area had "the fortification of Athens," as the plaque put it. In other words, it was part of the city boundary at some point in the city's history. Being that it just seemed to appear out of the blue as we were walking down a perfectly modern street, we were very surprised and very excited. Total tourists. lol :)

While at the garden, Emily made a friend. There are tons of stray dogs all over the place, but thanks to Andrea, we learned that many cities put collars on them to help identify them. Athens must be this way because every dog we saw during our stay was collared, except for one. So anyway, Emily petted one of these stray dogs. A nice calm black lab looking dog. It followed us everywhere after that. And I don't just mean everywhere through the park. I mean across the busy streets and from site to site. While we looked around, it just stopped to rest or sniffed at something new. As soon as we started to move, it would trot along to catch up. A few times, we even tried to ditch it and would take off running when it wasn't looking. That didn't work so we just gave up and let our new friend follow us. It's funny because we made sure to get a few pictures of him.

After the garden, we walked to the original site and original stadium of the modern Olympic games. "Modern Olympic games" means the games as we know them, where different countries are represented and people must qualify to participate. The stadium is kept up well and is still used for various events. Obviously, since it is still in use, restoration and maintenance are done regularly. But it was so cool to see the beginning of such an incredible world renowned event. I mean, the Olympics are a legendary sporting event no matter where you come from! And I love sports, so the whole time, I was just in awe. :) It was exhilarating! They even used this stadium for the end of the marathon event during the 2004 Summer Olympics which were held in Athens.

Moving on from there we walked past the Temple of Zeus. It was huge! We couldn't go right up to it, but it was still massive. We learned that it was the largest of the ancient Greek temples. There was one huge column that had fallen over, but it was cool because it allowed you to see how they built them in sections and stacked them on top of each other until they achieved the desired height. It was very impressive.

Then we kept walking down that same street. Oh, I should also mention that as we were walking all throughout the city, we kept getting views of the Acropolis. Even from down below, the Parthenon looked impressive. :) Once we got towards the end of that street, we were able to take pictures of the Temple of Zeus from a different angle. We were closer to the fallen column. But there was another photo opportunity here because we were right next to Hadrian's Arch. This is a monument that was built (I don't know when) to mark the boundary between the old and new city. Now it's just in the middle of everything and the arch itself is ancient. It's really big and then there is more to the monument that is built above the arch. But what I thought was the best part of this site was the fact that looking through the arch, you could see the Acropolis. Both sights were incredible, but having one frame the other so perfectly was so much more than picturesque. :)

On the way to these two sights, we'd passed another government building that was quite pretty. We had also noticed that there were benches and areas to sit around this building and that we could reach those areas if we walked back on the main road that went past the arch. As we walked up this new road, all of a sudden we came to an area of the sidewalk that was diverted around an enclosed viewable area. It was more ruins. They were just right in the middle of the city again. It was so crazy to me that there were so many old sights of ancient life right in the middle of our modern present life and times. People can pass these things every day. And the weird part is that they don't even bat an eye at them. Wow! It struck me how quickly and easily things change from extraordinary to ordinary when we are around them constantly. Such a shame that so many things are so easily taken for granted. I know I'm guilty of this. Growing up on the Mississippi River, I don't ever think other rivers are very impressive. I forget that my frame of reference if skewed because the Mississippi is one of the biggest rivers in the world. It was just a good reminder to always appreciate everything.

After reading the plaque we learned that this particular area had been discovered when the subway was being built. Because there is so much wind pushed through the tunnels, they build air vents so that the air can escape up through the sidewalk. You'll see these large grated areas on the sidewalks of any large city with a subway system. But anyway, when they were building the Athens subway, they started digging the air vent in this particular area but had to stop when they came across the ruins. They moved the air vent down the sidewalk a few yards and then excavated this area, enclosed it with a wall, but left it visible to the public. It's pretty interesting because what they uncovered and excavated was an ancient bath house. You can see the different rooms and such and it was sidewalk scene totally unique to that city.

As we continued walking up this street we stopped to get something to drink. All that walking will make a person thirsty. So since we were close to that government building we'd seen that had benches and such, we decided to sit there while we enjoyed the nice day and our refreshments. It was fun to just drink my Coke and take in the city as both locals and tourists passed by. The sounds were just like a US city and not much like Tirana. For example, the traffic and streets follow the same type system as the US. Since there is a very orderly process to driving there as well, there was very little if any honking. Totally opposite of Tirana.

After our little break, we decided to get a taxi to take us up to the highest point in the city of Athens. There is a little church built up on top of this high hill and Emily said the view was pretty impressive. And, of course, Andrea and I were eager to see anything and everything that we could. We took the taxi because the hill is very large and steep to walk up, plus, we weren't exactly close to the bottom of the hill, nor were were certain of how to get there. So the taxi took us up as high as he could and we walked a ton of steps the rest of the way to the visitor area and church on the top.

Emily wasn't kidding about the view! Wow! Athens was massive! It spread out for-ev-er in every direction! It went all the way out to the sea, it went all the way to the mountains, and then it just kept going and going and that's all you could see. It was gigantic! It also afforded some great views of the things we'd just seen up close. We could see the whole plot of land where the Temple of Zeus sat, we could see the original modern Olympic Stadium from an aerial perspective, and it offered incredible views of the Acropolis. We took tons of pictures from up there. It got a bit windy so we went to check out the inside of the little church. It was pretty much the same as the little chapels at the monasteries and fortresses we'd seen in Montenegro. Full of orthodox art, etc. Still the artwork was once again very impressive.

Back outside, we were thirsty again because of the wind and since there were tables to sit at, we sat down to people watch and just take in the views for a bit. We also got some water to drink and because Andrea and I were a bit hungry, we decided to order an appetizer off the menu from the visitor center/cafe to split. We figured it would hold us off until we ate dinner later. Cheese bread was listed as an appetizer so we decided on that since it sounded good. When it arrived, we were quite surprised. It was a grilled cheese sandwich with a side of potato chips. Haha! :) It wasn't a bad surprise though because we liked it. It was good, just not what we were expecting. lol Lost in translation, maybe? Hee hee!

When we decided to leave, we found that they have this little car that carries people down. Not a car like a taxi, more like a train car. It wasn't a full train, just one car with three sections. I'd say each section could fit about 8 people. The car looked more like a bright yellow box on a track though. Hard to describe, but once facebook lets me post photo albums, you'll see pictures of it. We took that down. It was about a 5 minutes ride and took us right to a souvenir shop. How convenient! lol I think I was the only one who bought anything though. Just a little something for someone at home. (No, I will not post hints on here. lol)

Then we decided to walk back since it was still nice out. We were really enjoying the weather and the air. Tirana has very poor air quality because it's quite polluted, sadly. And even though Athens is a big city, we felt it was pretty clean by big city standards. For Emily and I, it really did feel easier to breathe there. So we walked back to Omonia Square where we decided to stop at a little fast food type place to get gyros. Mmm, mmm, good! They were more a combination of gyros and quesidillas, but they were delicious!

After that we went back to the hostel because we were just exhausted! Remember, we'd had pretty much no sleep on the bus and hadn't slept at all during the day to make up for it. So we went back, but then got talking about our bus back on Friday, and thought we'd better take care of that right away. So we walked to the travel agency where our bus would pick us up and made sure everything was set for us in a few days. Once all signs were go, we headed back to the hostel and crashed. And I do me crashed. I was the last one to bed and I was in bed before 9:30pm. lol Call us party poopers for not enjoying the nightlife or making the most of every possible minute, but seriously, if we wanted to enjoy the next day at all, we needed rest and energy! I don't remember the last time I went to bed that early but it sure did help! I woke up the next morning at 8 and actually felt refreshed.

That was day one in Athens. Though my luck with the facebook photo albums has been poor because of our internet issues, I was able to manage posting two albums. One gives the pictures from the first half of our self-guided walking tour in Athens. The second album is pictures from going around and about Tirana with Andrea when she was here. I really will do my best at posting the rest as soon as I can.

In other news, again, I know you're waiting for something exciting, but there really isn't much to report. We've been teaching and having church and Activity Nights and MMM meetings. Class and Activity Nights are going quite smoothly. We're coming up on kind of a Spring Break. We gave oursleves two weeks off, but I'll talk more about that when it comes up. The latest MMM meeting was fun. We painted nails for a girly day. We sort of turned the church space into a small spa for the afternoon. Then we had a devotion about true beauty. I think the girls had a good time. Church has been a little low lately. Attendance hasn't been good. Two weekends ago it was a holiday. This past weekend was another long weekend because today is another national holiday of some sort. So please pray that people keep attending and that our regular attendance gets better or at least back to what it was.

Besides that, the only other things that have happened were more personal or social type things. On Thursday, my back was hurting so bad that it gave me such a migraine that I had to cancel my classes. I know I have back problems and I know that being here, I can't just go to the chiropractor for a good fix. I had talked to my chiropractor before coming here and he said if I started to feel really bad, a massage would be the best thing I could find here. Although it won't put everything back in place, he told me, it would at least loosen up the muscles, relieve some tension, and allow things to shift back a little on their own. So Thursday night I went to the Sheraton Hotel and got myself a full body Thai massage. It wasn't exactly cheap, but it was worth every penny! I feel a million times better than I had that morning, and my back and joints have been feeling good ever since. As if the massage wasn't good enough, I got to shower there afterwards. And, for the first time since I left the states, I got a shower that 1) was hot the whole time, and 2) had the shower head attached to the wall so I didn't have to hold it over myself. It was absolutely divine. Ahhhhhh. Such peace and relaxation....

I haven't had a shower like that because our shower head is broken and doesn't attach to the wall. Even if it did, the water sprays out the sides now because it's kind of broken, so more would go outside the shower than would say inside the shower. And though when it's just the two of us here we both usually get a fully hot shower, when we have guests that can get a little sketchy. And at hostels, it's been luke-warm for me. So I was rejoicing to have a fully working, completely hot, typically rejuvenating shower. A shower has never felt so good!

On Friday night, our friend Lori invited us to her place for some games. We ended up just playing guitar hero, talking, and muching on snacks. It was fun and relaxing. We had two new additions that night as Lori's friend Jen had her sister and brother-in-law visiting. They had a little 6 month old daughter so she was pretty much the entertainment for the evening. Nice change to have a young one in the bunch. :)

On Saturday night we headed to the other side of town to Tim and Helen's house for dinner. That couple is a hoot! We always have a great time when we're with them and I will really and truly miss them when I am home. Aida was there too. It was nice to see her since she's been in Greece for training for her new job for the past month. She left at the very beginning of February and has three 2 or 3 week training sessions there. She was home for a few days before the last training session. All in all it was a great Saturday night. The food was scrumptious, the wine was excellent, the conversation was hilarous and enthralling, and the company was engaging. Definitely a night well spent.

Yesterday and today I've used as work days to prepare for this week and to start working on things I'll need to finish over our two week break. I will only have one of those weeks to work since my friend Beth will be here for a weekend and then we're taking off for Rome during Holy Week. We'll be there for four days and are really excited. It's pretty cool because though Beth is basically a professional globe-trotter, she's never been to Rome either. It will be a great adventure for both of us.

Until next time, please keep our church attendance in your prayers and keep Beth's safe travels in your prayers as well. I miss you all and I thank anyone who continues to read this even though my entries have been less frequent. I can't do anything about the internet troubles, I just have to live with it and work around it. Patience, as they say, is a virtue.

Tirana to Athens

2009-03-13T16:19:00.006-05:00

Contrary to popular belief, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. I've actually been quite solidly on the earth. In fact, I've even been to a few new places. Let me explain. Let's rewind back to March 1.

Remember I said we had a friend visiting? Well Andrea's plane was supposed to arrive in Tirana at noon on March 1. However, due to some delays, her flight did not arrive until around 1am that night. After waiting for awhile, people started coming out with their luggage. But none of them were Andrea. We knew she was there because we'd spotted her once when the door opened to the baggage claim area, but she hadn't seen us. Pretty soon just about everyone was gone and some lady came up to us and started speaking to Dorien in Albanian. Then, in English she said, "Your friend is dying." lol Emily and I were confused, then she said, with some help from Dorien, that Andrea was the only one back there and she was waiting because her luggage hadn't arrived. It wasn't on the flight. Apparently Andrea looked frustrated since the lady described her as "dying." lol

So we got back to our house, stayed up til 5am talking and catching up, and the next day went as any other Monday normally does for me. While I was teaching classes, Emily took Andrea to the German store. It's actually just a thrift store, but it's run by some Germans and the sign is in German and Albanian and has the colors of the German flag. Therefore, Emily and I refer to it as the German store. Very original. We know. ;) Anyway, Andrea was able to find some jeans, a bit big, but some jeans nonetheless, and then Emily took her to a shoe place where she found some almost new shoes for a decent price. So at least she had that going for her since she'd just been wearing comfy athletic type clothes on the flight with some moccasin type shoes. Hey, on flights that long, comfy is the best option!

So as we were all packing for Greece that night, poor Andrea was having a bit of trouble. Her luggage still hadn't come, no one at the airport could say when it would be coming, and we were leaving for Greece the next day at 3:30pm. Emily and I scrounged around and found things for her to wear. Emily had some clothes that would work for during the day, I had extra socks, a hoodie, and then a pair of short sweatpants for her to wear as pajamas. Emily had a spare duffel bag for her to use to pack and we had extra toiletries, so that wasn't a real problem. At least she'd had a few necessities like a toothbrush and her contacts with her in her carry-on. So we packed the best we could and just said lots of prayers that her luggage would arrive the next day before we had to leave for the bus to Athens.

No such luck. We slept in, since we'd all stayed up too late again the night before, and then started the phone calls to the airport. They weren't any more helpful than they had been, except to say that when it arrived, it would be delivered to our apartment. Ok, so that was good, but we kind of needed it within the next few hours. We accepted that that wasn't going to happen and Andrea was a super sport about it all. It was kind of beyond desperation, but she just laughed it off. She couldn't really do anything else, so she said she just had to laugh. Go figure, it would happen to her, she kept saying. lol

We had to run a few errands before the bus left since we didn't exactly know when we'd be stopping or for how long. We just knew that the ride was through the night and was supposed to take 13 hours. Just to be safe, Andrea and I ran errands while Emily took care of a few other things and made one more call to the airport, just in case. We grabbed a bottle of water for each of us, the two of us also got a Coke, and some snacks for all of us on the ride. I picked up some extra batteries for my camera so that I would be prepared from the get-go this time. I did not want a repeat of the Pompeii incident! Andrea also needed contact solution. She'd had enough to get her through the flights but since the solution was in with her luggage, she was desperately in need of some contact solution. Well, let me tell you--that is a hard thing to find around here!

Most people seem to wear glasses instead of contacts. I think it's for the cost, but I could be wrong. So we checked three different pharmacies and two different stores to see if we could find any. The stores didn't have anything close and the only thing the pharmacies had were regular old eye drops. But we had a bit of luck when we ran into our friend Jeremy at one of the stores. I told him we were on the hunt for some contact solution and he suggested we call Lori because she wears contacts. Emily called her and though she wasn't home, she answered and said we could go to her place and take her travel size bottle. Whew! Problem solved!

We got everything together and walked our luggage to the bus stop. They tagged our luggage, checked our tickets, we boarded, sat there for 5, maybe 10 minutes, and left the parking space only 5 minutes late. Pretty darn good! Our first stop was in Durres, but it took awhile to get there because of traffic, an accident, and road construction on the highway. We didn't care. We were so excited that we just snapped goofy pictures and had fun pointing out the bunkers to Andrea along the way. :) In Durrs, the Banana Man got on the bus. See, when you stop at the main bus station in Durres, there's a guy who gets on your bus, walks up and down the aisle, and sells bananas. They're good and they're cheap, so we got some.

From Durres we drove somewhat along the coast to Fier where we stopped quickly again to pick up a few more people. By then it was dark. So Andrea and I, since we were sitting together, watched a movie on her iPod. Then we started listening to songs and such. We stopped at some little side of the road place for about a half hour or 40 minutes. We got cappuccinos that just tasted like hot water and tried to order a little something from the menu. However, everything we ordered from their menu, they didn't have. Wait, what? Yeah. The didn't even have the items that they listed on their own menu. Haha! I'd heard that this wasn't exactly uncommon here, but it was the first time I'd actually witnessed it. So Andrea and I just ended up sharing some plain buttered noodles. That held us over since we had snacks with us.

The next stop was at the Albanian border patrol, not too long after we drove through Gjirokastër. We stood in line to get our exit stamps in our passports. As usual, it wasn't so much of a line as it was a big blob around the guards' little stand. Andrea did a great job of not letting people budge in front of her. She caught on very quickly. ;) We got the stamps without a problem but then we had to wait with our suitcases for the guard to come and check them. For us, he pretty much just opened them, stuck a hand in, and that was it. But for other people, he moved a few things around and took a few things out to look. And for one person, he completely ripped open a box they had with them. It wasn't small, either. It was like a moving box and it was all taped shut. He just ripped it open with reckless abandon, and I felt sorry for the box's owner. After that we were able to board the bus. Then the guard got on and checked our passports again to make sure we all had stamps. Sheesh! What an ordeal! But I was glad to know that people do their job and they take it seriously.

Then we drove through no man's land. You know, the black line on the map. lol It was all of 30 seconds before we got to the Greek border control. We got off the bus quick, fast, and in a hurry! The three of us were the first to get our passports stamped so then we went and took more pictures to pass the remaining few minutes while everyone else got stamped and/or showed papers and whatnot. We loaded the bus and drove off through Greece.

The roads in Greece were much much smoother than the Albanian roads. In fact, they even had lines and shoulders and stop signs. The highways even had directional signs, exit and entrance signs and ramps, and even tolls. It could have been Illinois! Despite this fact, it was pretty much impossible to sleep on the bus because it was just ridiculously roasting hot. We really did try though, we rearranged ourselves in our seats, took off our coats, tried to block the heating vents, put on our iPods and everything, but it didn't work. We stopped someplace that seemed like it was out in the middle of nowhere. But it was nice, clean, and had plenty of bathrooms. We got ice cream as a snack because cold just sounded refreshing at that point. Haha!

We got back on the bus to continue the travels. It got hot again and the lady sitting next to Emily complained. Then it cooled down for a bit. Then it got too hot. Then the lady complained. Then it cooled down again. It went on like this for the rest of the trip. lol It got even better though around 6am. Just after it got light out, we noticed the bus was really going slowly, even though we were on the highway and there were no problems with the road or traffic. People just kept flying passed our bus. We didn't understand. From where she was sitting, Andrea could see the driver and could read that we were going approximately 30-35 miles per hour. It was like this the whole rest of the way to Athens. We got there late and had to get off the bus before the last stop because the bus didn't make it that far. It broke down. Haha! At least this extra slow ride allowed us to sleep for about an hour.

When we got off, we weren't exactly sure where we were or where to go or how to get to where we needed to go. Emily said if we could get to Omonia Square, she would know where we were and we had directions from there to our hostel. A lady who'd been on the bus with us was quite helpful and told us to get on the city bus with her because we could stop at Omonia Square. So we did. Once we got on the bus, we realized everyone else had tickets and they were putting them through the little machine to verify them. We didn't have tickets. Hmmmm... Then we saw the sign. "Riders without validated tickets are subject to a fine of 60 times the price of the ticket." Yikes!!! We started praying that we wouldn't get checked. Thankfully, we didn't.

The lady told us to get off with her, so we did. However, we weren't at Omonia Square and the bus wasn't actually going there. We saw a cab and figured we'd take that to our hostel since we had the address. The cab driver told us we were only about 3 blocks away and that about 3 blocks past the hostel was Omonia Square. Perfect! We had a great location. So we walked to the hostel, checked in, and got to our room.

We were exhausted! Our room was very simple but very clean and safe. We had two sets of bunk beds and our own bathroom. We even got lucky enough that we didn't have a 4th person in our room the whole time we were there. Not that we really would've minded, but it just meant extra space for us and an easier time relaxing. We were exhausted and felt gross from being so hot on the bus, so the first order of business was to shower. We did that and decided we needed food if we were going to function for the rest of the day. We found a little sit-down place close to the hostel and ate lunch. As we ate, we made our plan. After we ate, we went back to the hostel to grab a few more things, ask for a map, and we were on our way.

Here's where the exploration of Athens really begins. But I'll save that for next time. We were mostly in good spirits, however, after knowing our luck in Naples (the extra long ferry ride with rude men, batteries dying at Pompeii, rain the rest of the days, the museum not being open the day we wanted to go) and with Andrea's luck on this trip so far (two delayed flights, lost luggage, no clothes of her own) and now with a bus that already broke down, we were making lots of jokes about bad luck. lol

Anyway, let's quickly fast forward to today. Andrea's flight left at 6am this morning, after a very fun 12 day visit. All three of us enjoyed the time and no one, including Andrea, wanted it to end. She didn't want to go back and we didn't want her to leave. But alas, it had to happen. Plus, it was an early morning and we were all tired. We got up at 3am because we were scheduled to meet our taxi at 4am so that Andrea could check in by 5am. She knew that once she got on the plane she could sleep. Emily and I, not wanting to pay for another expensive taxi ride, waited until the shuttle busses started running around 7am. So we just sat there for 2 extra hours. She'd brought a magazine with her and I'd brought my computer to take advantage of the free wi-fi. The internet there was sooo sloooow, but at least it passed the time. We got back to Tirana at about 7:30 and decided to go to the Stephen Center for a nice hot breakfast. It was delicious! Just what we needed after such an early morning. We got back to our place between 9-9:30am and at 9:30, after being up for 6 hours already, I decided I needed a nap. So I slept until almost 12.

Then Emily got things ready for her little kids class and I got everything ready for Activity Night. We had a St. Patrick's Day Party. :) We learned a little about the history of the holiday and then played two games--Pin the Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow, and Shamrock Search. In the second game, everyone got a Shamrock with a St. Patrick's Day word on it. They had to find their match--either someone else or one of the extras strewn around the room. It was a lot of fun and I think the kids enjoyed it. We even had golden treasure for them as a treat--candy in gold wrappers. Think Werthers.

So now it is late, I am tired, but in very good spirits. It was a blast having Andrea here and it was really fun to see someone else experience all the new sights, sounds, smells, and interactions of Tirana. It made what has become ordinary seem a little more exciting for a few days. :) A nice change of pace. But if I am to continue with a nice pace, I must get some rest. Therefore, I say goodnight. Natën e mirë!

Wishin' and Hopin' and Thinkin' and Prayin'

2009-02-28T10:31:00.002-06:00

That's what I've been doing the two days. I've been wishing I could find things as easily and conveniently here as I can at home. I've been hoping that my health keeps feeling relatively normal for our upcoming trip to Athens. I've been thinking about everything I'm going to see when I'm there next week. And I've been praying that God blesses our work here.

Friday was one of those days that, even though I'm content here, I just wanted to be home. I was wishing to be somewhere else. It all started when I was trying to make a grocery list. I have such a hard time finding recipes that I can make here because they don't have many of the ingredients that I use in normal recipes at home. For example, I want to be able to find Campbell's soups here to make various casseroles. Ha! If I even mentioned that, people would look at me like I'd lost my mind.

I want to be able to find normal items like celery or mozzarella cheese. I want to be able to buy chicken that doesn't have the nasty innards or neck attached to it. I want to buy boneless skinless chicken breasts that don't have junk attached to it that I have to cut off. (FYI, I haven't bought chicken since the first month I was here for these very reasons.) I want to buy milk that I will drink. Milk here is in a box or carton and is warm on the shelves. You don't need to keep it cold until you open it. It has a very weird taste to me and is much more sour than milk at home. And milk is my favorite thing to drink. I want to be able to buy brown sugar. Nope. Unheard of here. I want to be able to find certain spices. How about Ramen, Mac and Cheese, peanut butter, or applesauce? Not even a thought here.

Then there's the whole problem of buying meat...is it kept in a freezer or cooler with a generator so that when the electricity doesn't work it still stays cold? If I ask for it, will the person actually put gloves on or change their gloves before they package it for me? Is the plastic shopping bag they put it in clean? Plus, if I want a certain cut, I don't know how to ask for it and they don't know how to explain it to me. I basically buy ground beef once in a while or I live on pizza, pasta, or soup. This is quite a change for a girl who's not a picky eater and therefore doesn't usually need to put much thought into a grocery list.

All of this went through my mind as I was just trying to make a simple grocery list. Then I started thinking about how cold it is in our church and at our apartment. I want to be someplace where the temperature inside is warmer than outside instead of our apartment being colder than outside. I want to be in a home that has central heating instead of having to use an electric heater to heat whatever room I'm in, one room at a time.

Then, after Activity Night, a nice long phone chat with my friend Sabrina, some fun facebook messages from other friends, a great church service today where we had one of our students attend for the first time (yay!), after saying a few prayers about a much needed attitude adjustment (aka a swift kick in the pants), and after our 7th sunny day in a row, those prayers have been answered. I'm no longer a cranky pants. The regular old Katie is baaa-aaack! :)

Now I'm am wanting it to be tomorrow so our friend Andrea will be here with her fun-loving self and some goodies from home. I'm wanting to do laundry and get packed for Athens. I'm wanting to start looking at hostels in Rome since I bought tickets to go there at the beginning of April when my friend Beth comes to visit. Today, after an uneasy yesterday, I'm wishing that everyone could have this experience. I'm hoping that Andrea will love it while she's here. I'm thinking that I couldn't be luckier or more blessed. And I'm praying that God continues to send me these kinds of reminders when I need them and I'm thanking him for everyone at home who lifts my spirits without even knowing it. :)

Catching Up

2009-02-23T14:22:00.003-06:00

Guess what? It's been too long between entries. Boo. This time, it's not all my fault. We didn't have internet last week on Monday or Tuesday, so those days weren't even an option for writing. Wednesday we had internet again, but I was quite busy since I teach three classes on Wednesday. Thursday and Friday our internet was out again. It's been fixed since Saturday, so now I can continue my great adventures. :)

The problem with that is that last week, there really weren't any. It was just a busy work week. Seriously. The week was spent planning lessons, correcting assignements, teaching lessions, returning homework, and assigning new homework. :) My students loved it. lol Actually, they are usually ok with homework. Some of them even like it. I was never that kind of student. I never liked homework. Not even in first grade when I'd purposely save something to do at home just because I thought it made me cool to have homework. lol The only reason I thought it was cool to have homework was because my baby-sitters always did and I loved all of my baby-sitters.

Anyway, most of my students like homework. Hence the reason they learn so quickly--they simply want to know it. I was a good student, but I didn't always want to know what I was learning. Haha! But from the way my students talk, they have subjects they don't like to study for either. I guess something aren't so different after all. ;)

We started a new group this past weekend. We created the Cappucino Club for adults. Once a month we'll meet for coffee and a game or cards. For the first time, we stayed at church and ordered drinks from the little bar kafe next door. Besides Emily, Vitori, and myself, we only had one other person. Despite this fact, we weren't disappointed because it was the one person we really really really wanted to come. It was one of the moms who comes to one of Emily's classes with her youngest daughter. I have her two other daughters in my classes. Her girls always come to everything and Fatmira doesn't miss classes and usually comes to Activity Nights with her girls, too. So we were super happy that she came by herself to something. :)

We spent about an hour chatting and playing Uno. Cards and coffee go well together. Fatmira had fun learning a new game and Vitori seemed to have a good time having another adult there. Not that she doesn't like us. lol Don't get that idea! haha :) But when we get other people at church, it's kids. So we played and chatted and drank coffee and laughed a lot. Everyone liked the idea of doing this once a month so we said, "Great! See you in March!"

I spent the rest of my weekend planning for this week and for next week. Next week my classes are only meeting once for the week because Emily and I have something super exciting coming up: a trip to Athens! :) See, one of Emily's friends from MLC is coming to visit. Andrea is flying in on Sunday. I'm excited too because I also know her. Because we lived in the same town for awhile. It will be nice to have a friend and familiar face from home here for awhile. Plus, it will be awesome to visit Greece! We're leaving Tuesday night and taking a bus through the night. It's much cheaper than flying, is perfectly safe, and was a decent price for a round-trip. We'll have three full days to spend there and then Friday night we'll board the bus and get back here early Saturday morning so that we make it back in time for church. I'm sure that on Saturday afternoon we'll be doing plenty of napping. Hee hee! ;)

I did get pictures of the MMM group's Valentine's outing posted. I really think the girls had a great time that day. Most of our students don't get treats like that very often, much less by themselves with friends. So it was really fun to be able to take them there. :)

On another note, one of my classes has been doing something fun and interesting. We've started exchanging videos with my dad's class. The first video was one that we sent them because they were learning about Eastern Europe and the Balkans, so obviously, Albania fit right in. My all-girls class introduced themselves, gave their age, and then they each told a different fact about Albania. One girl talked about Tirana being the capitol, another girl talked about the mountains, another about the dialects, another about the beaches and the seas, and so on. Then my students asked my dad's class to tell us something about their city, state, and country. It was around 2 minutes long, so it wasn't huge or anything. But they had an absolute blast making it. They were so careful to correct mistakes while we were practicing. But what makes is so great is that there are still a few little things on the video that aren't perfect. I love it because it shows how much they're trying, but that they still have things to learn and they want to learn. :) My dad said his kids loved it and now they've made a video response for us as well. I'm eager to get it because my class will be jumping out of their skin with excitement. lol :)

Other than that, it's been work, work, work, work for me and learn, learn, learn for my students. I'm extra organized right now (stop laughing--it is possible) since we have a vacation coming up in the middle of a session. That's one of the perks to making your own schedule. ;) It won't hurt anything for my students because the day off will come right after a test. Perfect timing. :) So I'm off to make a review games for each class to play later this week. Don't forget to keep us in your prayers and pray that the Holy Spirit is doing lots of work that we can't see in the hearts of our students.

The Other Day I Saw A Bear

2009-02-15T08:13:00.002-06:00

Remember that song?

"The other day (the other day),
I saw a bear (I saw a bear).
A great big bear (a great big bear),
a-way up there (a-way up there).
The other day I saw a bear.
A great big bear a-way up there."

I taught it to the kids the other week as we learned about the US National Parks at our Activity Night. We learned about the animals that live in some of the national parks and so we talked about a bear and sang this funny song about a person who ran into a bear. Never in a million years did I actually think I'd see a bear a few days later. But, alas, I did.

I am not making this up! Today, just a half an hour ago, as we were just about to get off the bus, I looked out the window and saw a bear on the sidewalk. A real, live bear. It was big and it was brown. But it wasn't wild and people weren't freaking out. In fact, most people weren't even paying attention! I couldn't believe it though because there was a bear on the sidewalk!

It was on a leash and this guy was walking the thing like it was a dog. Really, I'm not making this up!!! The bear was just walking along looking at things and sniffing at things as if it were the most normal thing ever. So obviously this bear was tamed and is used to people. Somehow, it has been domesticated. But still...a bear on a leash in the middle of a city with a million people is not something you expect to see, nor is it something you see every day. Apparently it must be more common than I think because no one else seemed to be showing any kind of reaction.

Since the bear and its caretaker were walking in the opposite direction my bus was headed, I couldn't get my camera out fast enough to snap a picture. :( Oh well. That is definitely one image that will never ever leave my head. lol We got off the bus and tried to hurry after it, but it had already crossed a busy street so we just kept walking home. Haha! I just saw a bear....on a leash....on the sidewalk.....in a city....hahaha!

Another random bus story, since I always have those, is a little different than my other ones because this time it wasn't something funny. I was on the bus and at the next stop a woman got on and sat in front of me. Just as she sat down, her phone rang. Now remember, I can't understand much Albanian at all, but I could tell this was a serious conversation because the woman (who was probably in her late 30s or early 40s) said, "Oh, mami!" and began to cry. I'm not just talking tears and sniffled. I'm talking shaking sobs and ragged breaths. She was trying not to make a scene because she put her head down and was trying to be quiet about it. But the woman next to me looked and me and said something, which I didn't understand, so I just shrugged my shoulders and tried to look as sympathetic as I felt.

I really really wanted to ask the woman if she was alright. I could have asked her if she was ok, because I sort of know how to say that, but it wouldn't have done any good since I wouldn't have understood her response and been able to say anything to it. I felt completely and utterly helpless. The woman next to me offered her a tissue and they chatted just briefly enough that the crying woman explained what had happened. I know this because the woman next to me said she was sorry and then I don't what she said except something about Jesus because she said Jezusi (pr. yay-zoo-see). I think the lady had just received news that someone died.

She got off at the same stop as me and told my seat partner thank you. I wished I could've said more. I don't think I've ever felt to helpless. At the same time, I didn't feel too awkward because I stick out as a foreigner so she knew I probably didn't understand anything. The weird thing was that even though I'm not completely sure what would have been culturally acceptable behavior in that situation, I'm fairly certain that the right thing to do would still have been to ask if she was ok or if she needed help or anything. I guess sympathy might just be the same world wide.

On a lighter and much happier note, my voice is back so I taught the rest of my classes this past week, was able to conduct a Valentine's Party for Activity Night, went to Albanian church on Saturday, did a home visit to some students who come to church regularly, took the MMM group to a pastry shop for a Valentine's treat, had English church this morning, and then went to Agron and Vitori's for lunch. Whew! Even when I'm sick I can't catch much rest. lol :)

My cold is still hanging around in the form of a cough. It's really deep and is starting to come from my chest now. Hopefully it doesn't get worse because I don't want to have to go to the doctor for this. It's been cold here, but I'd rather sit in a chilly room and have goosebumps because then I don't cough. If I'm in a warm room where I'm all cozy, I cough so much that I become miserable. This doesn't make sense to me, but whatever. I don't want to cough, so I'll settle for being chilly.

My classes continue to go very well. One of my groups made a video for my dad's class because they were studying eastern Europe and the Balkans. Since that obviously includes Albania, we made a very short video for them so they could learn a little extra about the country. My dad said his kids really enjoyed it and that they're working on making one to send back to us. :) Woo hoo! My class will love it!

I'm continuing to see significant marks in each of my classes. Some kids are beginning to see root words in larger words, others are catching on to the difference between the present continuous tense and the simple present tense, and others are starting to be more courageous about using new words and practicing their English in general. And with my most advanced group (an intermediate level) they're working on more serious speaking in front of people and are, therefore, learning that part of being a good English speaker is being a good listener and understanding what's being said. It's fun to see such marked progress because it makes me motivated to find something new and fun for them to try. Plus, it makes me feel like I'm doing a good job. lol I know I make mistakes, but at least they're learning something, right? ;) (If only I was so careful about proofreading these blog entries....Sorry! lol)

The Activity Nights are still quite popular. It's awesome because our space gets so full that we've actually had to limit attendance to just our students and their family members. Wow! When we first started this, we had about 15 people the first night and now we have to limit it so we have enough space for everyone. What a blessing!

And our MMM outings continue to be outstanding! Since they are limited to girls ages 13-17 it provides excellent quality time for us to really get to know the girls. I have all of them in my classes and they come early every day and stay late as much as possible because they just like to talk and ask questions. It's so much fun to make these connections with them because that's why I'm here--to get to know them and introduce them to the most important thing I know. I am always the happiest here when I am spending time with my students. :) Lately, I've been thinking about how I can do this more often.

So as you can see, things continue to go well here and God continues to bless our efforts, even if it appears to be in small ways. Things have to start somewhere and I have no doubt that he is doing everything he can to help many little seed of faith grow right now in Albania.

Whirlwind Italy--Last Day

2009-02-10T09:35:00.004-06:00

A cold has been going around here lately. Emily and I got stuck with it last week, it hit Pastor on Saturday night, and some of our students have had it too. Well, I got hit extra hard this weekend. Saturday and Sunday I had a bad sore throat and then on Monday I woke up with no voice! I still haven't found it. So on day two of being mute, I finally have the chance and the energy to finish this Italy story (which has dragged on for far too long--my profound apologies). It's the perfect chance since I can't teach. This is the only "talking" I can do right now. lol Just picture that! Me...not being able to talk....lol

So the next morning came and Emily and I packed up. Our plan was to pack everything up, leave it at the hostel, explore until lunch time, grab a bite to eat, pick up our luggage, then head to the train station to go back to Bari so we could catch the ferry back. Our ferry tickets were once again for the overnight ferry.

Our day went as planned. We got all of our stuff together and headed back out into Naples. We followed the same route as the day before, which led us to the National Archaeological Museum. This time, it was open. :) So we paid the admission, got a locker for our coats and purses, checked our umbrellas (it was rainy, again) and started exploring.

The museum had a lot of stuff, though it was smaller than we expected. For everything we had been told about the place we kind of expected it to be massive. It wasn't, but it wasn't small either. It was still interesting. It also seemed like some exhibits were closed for whatever reason, but we had anticipated that just a little bit since we knew we were visiting during the off-season.

Despite that, we got to see all sorts of things found at Pompeii and Herculaneum. Mostly everything in the museum was from one of those two cities. We saw tons of marble statues and busts. There were many of the gods, of course, but there were also some that depicted children or wealthy adults, though none who were named so it's pretty safe to say they didn't depict real people. Some of them were just absolutely gigantic! They were two or even three times the size of a real life person. I couldn't believe it! How do you make something that big and still have the proportions be correct? How long did it take to make them? What if you made a mistake?

There were some absolutely incredible mosaics, too! I love mosaics because I do not have that kind of vision at all. I know they laid them out beforehand, but I can't think how to do that. I don't know how to make a picture in my head become a picture in reality. My stick people don't even turn out the way I see them in my imagination, let alone a whole wall mosaic! lol Some of them were made with teensy-weensy tiles which made them seem extra intricate to me. And the way they know how to place lighter colors or darker colors in certain areas to create shading and imitate shadows is a complete mystery to me. That's probably why I admire such art--I have no idea how it's done so it simply amazes me.

We also saw plenty of paintings. The thing that struck me about the paintings is that they survived in such a preserved condition that they were still able to be restored and transported for display in a museum. Keep in mind, the eruption happened in 79 A.D. That's a long time ago!

There was also a "Secret Room" that was only for adults. That being said, you can probably guess what was there. Nothing horrible or anything like that. It was just the room where the more sexual art was displayed. Naked paintings and statues and things like that. It wasn't any worse than such paintings at any other art museum. In fact, I'm pretty sure the Art Institute in Chicago would be considered way more risque than the small room which housed these works. The part about this room that was a little strange though was the emphasis that was placed on the male form. Much of the art emphasized the phallus by either enlarging it or making it the sole item in a sculpture or other piece.

When we read about this, we found out that there was a reason for this. During that time, the phallus was considered a symbol of good luck. People placed these shapes/symbols in the houses or over their doors with one that was almost like a sconce in that it came out from the wall. Also, people wore this symbol for good luck. We saw chains and bracelets with this symbol that were even small enough for babies to wear. Overall, it was actually a very interesting history lesson and a good look into the trends and superstitions of the time. Though Emily and I were both thankful that good luck symbols have changed since then. lol We'll settle for a four leaf clover or a rabbit's foot. ;)

We saw exhibits of coins and jewelry from that time in addition to everyday items like vases, jugs, jars, dishes, cooking utensils, measuring scales, pots, and tables. There was a miniature replica of the city that was built to scale. Even this made it look like a large city.

But the coolest thing of all was a special exhibit that had just opened there and it was the first time this exhibit was showing. Guess what it was called? The Gladiator. I was so excited!!! As if seeing a real arena hadn't been exciting enough for me, I saw items that were actually used by gladiators in real competition. Real gladiators. Equipment used to fight and defend against human or beast in front of thousands of people. Worn by courageous men. There were spear tips, small swards, large knives, a shield, leg protection, and many different styles of helmets. The helmets, as it turns out, had different designs based on where the gladiator was from, where he was fighting, how successful he was, and whether he fought beast or human battles. Some were a simple design, others had intricate moldings. They also had the big horns that were blown before the competitions to announce the start and to call the gladiators into the stadium. It was awesome!!! I know that if I had lived during that time, I would've loved these competitions. They would've captured my attention, my competitive streak, and my admiration.

After the museum, we spent some time in the gift shop where they had tons of books. I bought two. :) Good thing I like to read! Then we got our stuff out of the lockers, planned our next stop and headed out.

We walked back the way we came because it had good window shopping. :) Plus, it led straight to where we wanted to go. We headed back to the Plaza Plebiscito because we wanted some daylight pictures there. The ones from the night before were good, but we wanted some in the day too. Plus, one corner of the plaza led right to the sea bay with awesome views across the bay to Mt. Vesuvius. Obviously the first thoughts in our head were about photo opportunities. lol We got the pictures as it started to sprinkle and then headed to lunch where we had to stop at the place that had delivered such amazing pizza just a few days earlier. We ate in the tented area outside to keep out of the rain and we ordered a Margarita Pizza to split. We also had a little chat with the table next to us. It was a mother and son who were from Colorado. They were on a cruise that was stopped in Naples for a day. It was nice to chat with new people and catch up on life in the States a bit. The son was studying to be a teacher so he had a few questions for us about how we ended up where we were. It was a perfect opportunity to share our story and mission.

After that deliciously authentic Italian lunch we went back to the hostel to get our bags. By now it was raining rather heavily so we decided to take a taxi to the train station. The walk was easy but a little long and we didn't want to get wet because it would've meant being wet for the rest of our travels, most likely.

We got our train without any problems, made it to Bari, and we were both hungry. Remember what we'd seen in Bari but had only taken pictures of? That's right--McDonald's. :) We stopped. It was quick and cheap. lol (Have you noticed that theme at all during this trip? lol) Then we had extra time before our ferry left so we walked, with our luggage, through the shopping area of town. Again, it was excellent window shopping. And it gave us a chance to stand and stretch our legs again before being stuck on the ferry all night. We weren't sure how to get to the port from the train station or how far it was, but luckily, train stations are an easy place to catch a taxi. So we got to the ferry, ate a snack, and boarded the boat.

Fortunately, this boat was much newer, much nice, and practically empty. We had real seats this time. They were like bus seats or airplane seats in a big room with a few TVs. There were about 100 of them in there and only 4 people. Emily and I didn't have anyone bothering us on that trip. It still rocked a bit, but that didn't bother either of us. We talked and laughed for awhile, Emily did some word searches while I read, and we slept. The only bad part was that in the morning, I saw someone puke into a bag. Ewww. That made me a little nauseous for the last hour, but I knew it was only because I was grossed out.

The boat docked, we got off, walked a little ways to the entrance to the main highway and caught a fergon to Tirana. A fergon is basically a glorified minivan. It's not quite a huge 15 passenger van, but it's not quite a minibus either. It holds about 12 people and isn't as expensive as a taxi, but is more expensive than a bus, but makes better timing. It was a good way to go. So we made it back safe and sound by 10am.

You know what happened after that. We began planning for classes, they began, and I've been working every since. And, might I add, loving every minute of it. :) It really is a blast to teach these kids because every day makes me motivated. I see when things click and it's exciting to me that they've understood! And if they don't quite catch on as quickly, it's a fun challenge for me to think of a fun and exciting way to explain it to them again, a different way, for the next lesson. Some of my classes are really starting to catch on to things, too! I'm so proud of them for how hard they work at it! :)

Activity Nights have been getting record attendance, which is good, but makes it difficult because we have such a small space and with that many people, there's no room to move or do anything really active. lol But they love to sing and learn knew songs and that can be done with a big group or a small group. The other day, when they learned about U.S. National Parks, they saw pictures, learned new things, and then I taught them The Bear Song. You know, the one that goes, "The other day (the other day), I saw a bear (I saw a bear)." And so on, and so on. They had a ton of fun with that one. My kids even asked if we could sing it again in class. lol I promised them we could. But, then, I lost my voice. That made talking, singing, and teaching out of the question yesterday and today. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to be understood so I can get back at it.

Other than that, things are going quite well here. We even have two girls, both age 13, who are interested in taking some classes with Agron. See, once a week Agron gives a devotion after each class. They were learning about the baptism of Jesus the other week and then that weekend at church, we had communion. After the MMM group had a meeting that day, two of the girls who come to church pretty regularly asked me what that was that we get when we go up there. So I got to explain it to them a little bit and then they wanted to know who could have it. I told them that people who were members of the church--people who'd been baptized and confirmed--could have it. So I asked them if they'd been baptized. They said no, but explained to me that other people in their families were. Anyway, it was a good conversation that led into asking them if they'd be interested in learning more about the church and getting baptized. They said yes! :)

Of course I relayed this information to Pastor and Agron and they've begun making plans to start another course like the one they used when Olsa, Neda, and Ledio started. They were around that same age so the same materials would be appropriate. There are also two other girls we want to talk to about it a bit. It's so exciting! Keep this in your prayers, please!

To finish up the Italy details, here are the pictures from our first day of explorations in Naples, followed by our second day of explorations and finished off by the trip to the museum on our last day. :)

Whirlwind Italy--Exploring Naples, Part Two

2009-02-03T13:16:00.003-06:00

After our self guided tour of Il Duomo gave us sufficient time to admire the many different artistic talents that went into creating such a magnificent place, Emily and I couldn’t hold back our curiosity about the Underground Naples thing. We checked on the map to double check that we were still close and found that we were indeed. The walk to the start of the tour was short—maybe two blocks. But the start of the tour was hidden, sort of. There was a sign that said something about Napoli Sotterranea tickets so Emily went to go check it out. Turns out that place just directed us to the actual entrance, which was around the side of another church (big surprise) and tucked in this little corner that wasn’t even noticeable from the street.

We got our tickets for an English speaking tour and were given some extremely interesting pamphlets that gave us some history of what we were about to see. We chatted for a few more minutes with our tour guide, Alex (Alessandro), and a few of the other tour-takers. Then, the fun began.

First of all, I have to tell you right now that Alex was by far the best tour guide of all time. I love tours and I’ve been on a lot of them during my travels in the US (thank you, Lakeside), and not only was he funny, informative, and generally entertaining, he was downright animated. I’m serious! He acted things out and had wild gestures and expressions. But he wasn’t doing it to be goofy or anything; he was just genuinely that kind of person. He was a complete extrovert and it made the tour a blast! :)

First we went around to the other side of the church and followed the narrow street for almost a block. Then, we entered this little teeny, tiny home. It was on the street level and the Neapolitan word this kind of traditional house is basso. So we entered the basso and we told that based on ancient records and historical documents, archaeologists knew that old cities like Naples never expanded outside their city walls. Therefore, as they grew and built new things or were conquered and the new ruling party built new things, the old things were just built over if they weren’t destroyed. Such was the case with this house.

Archaeologists knew, based on Greek and Roman records and documents, that there had been a large theatre here at one point. The family that had lived in this house had a typical entrance to a cellar from inside their house. Little did they know that what they had thought was just a cellar was really one of the backstage rooms to one of the largest most important Roman theaters of the first century A.D.

The family was paid such a large amount of money to sell the house to archaeologists that they took only their clothes before leaving. The house was still furnished as it was, complete with a picture of Mussolini on the wall. As Alex said, “You want to know how much money they got for their house? Let me tell you like this--they heard the amount and left so fast it was like a cartoon. The door was still spinning!”

Anyway, this theater seated 8,000 people but because of costs, only a few of the backstage rooms have been uncovered. Because there are large buildings built over this and because it’s in one of the oldest most important parts in the city, the costs to uncover and open up the whole theater would be astronomical. There would be too many people to relocate. Those costs alone would be staggering. Then there would be the costs to tear down all of the buildings that are standing on top of the theater. That process would include closing streets and would be painstaking so as not to damage any of the theater. Then there would be the excavation costs. Plus, there is not even a reasonable estimate of how long something like would take if, by a series of earth-shattering miracles, the money could be raised.

It was really fantastic to see such a place! Again, the tufa stone (And yes, it’s tufa, not tufla like I’ve been writing all along. Oops! I re-read the pamphlet as I was packing it away with other souvenirs.) was used in sections of the walls and pillars so that when there were earthquakes the shock would be absorbed by this porous stone and the structure would not crumble.

The thing that impressed me most about the theater though was that the Emperor Nero himself performed there on three separate occasions. All of these instances were well-documented, as were many other performances there as well. Even though Nero was the Roman emperor, he never performed in Rome because he preferred the arts scene in Naples over Rome despite that Naples was almost a Greek city.

Oh, I just love history when I can learn about it firsthand! I could picture everything in its glory as it was being described and I could only try to imagine what it must have been like for the people who sat through Nero’s performance even though there was a pretty nasty earthquake. What kept them from getting hysterical? Nero because he said that it was just the gods applauding his performance. Ha! What an ego! What was going through the people’s minds that they believed this enough to stay? lol This is no joke. The incident was recorded by one of Nero’s personal scribes.

Anyway, after our encounter in what has to be the oldest place I’ve ever been, we went back to where we started and split the group. See, Alex had been explaining all of this in Italian, Neapolitan Italian, English, and French because there was one lady in the group who spoke French and didn’t know Italian or English. Lucky for her, Alex happened to know French. So anyway, back at the starting point, the French lady left. She just wanted to see the theater part of the tour. The rest of us split into an English tour and an Italian tour. Alex stayed with the English group.

We proceeded to go down underground once again. This time we were headed into the Greek-Roman aqueducts. The history of these aqueducts begins with the Greeks. They carved out the tufa stone to use in building the city walls and temples and then creating underground caves to be used as graves called hypogea. There are even some graffiti markings and symbols carved in the stone walls of these quarries that match the graffiti markings and symbols on blocks that were used to hold up some of landmark buildings that are still standing. Wow!!!

When the Roman Empire took over Naples, they continued digging quarries but also decided to connect the quarries by digging out tunnels. They also created a 400km long aqueduct. But in 1629 the aqueduct had to be expanded because the city was growing. A Neapolitan nobleman solved the problem by designing a new aqueduct that was built.

After the stone was carved out, huge cisterns remained to house the water. Well holes to these cisterns were left open in public places as well as at the private homes of some of the elite. This system of aqueducts and cisterns was used until 1884 when they had to be closed because a cholera epidemic spread through the area. The porous tufa stone allowed the disease to spread though and infect the entire water supply.

However, this was not the end of usage of the massive underground space. During WWII, Naples was heavily bombed and the aqueducts were used as air-raid shelters. As such a shelter, the aqueducts protected just over 3,000 people at a time during.

It was so awesome to see all of this while hearing about it. It was amazing because you could see the marks in the stone walls where the chisels had been used to cut out bricks. And you could see along the sides where the armies of WWII had built cement benches so people could take turns sitting. They even had pictures of Naples during WWII up on some of the walls in the aqueducts. They also had other WWII items down there for display.

Though the aqueducts are lit with electric lights for the tours now, there was one long very narrow passage where we had to use candlelight to guide our path. It was 80m long but 7m high. At some points though, Alex warned us we would have to “walk like an Egyptian” (and of course Mr. Animated had to demonstrate. :) lol). We did indeed have to walk sideways, like an Egyptian, to get through sections of it. But it took us to a small Greek cistern and then to a very large Roman cistern that are filled with water (by a hose). It was awesome!

Emily and I were at the back of the group while we were going through the candle light part of the tour. Emily was behind me and all of a sudden I heard her say, “I don’t like being at the end.” I was confused so I asked, “Why?” To which she replied, “Because there’s no one behind me!” Haha! I hadn’t realized that but she most definitely had when she looked back and saw pitch black. She was a brave soul!

At the very end of the tour we ended up in a little room. It turns out that it was the wine cellar of a church. It was where the nuns made and stored the communion wine. They even had an area of porcelain circles in the wall to provide the right ventilation and temperature control. We learned that because the tufa stone is so porous, as the wine sat in the bottles to ferment, the air flow and small pressure changes are enough to actually make the wine naturally sparkling. There was also a small cistern down here where the nuns got their water. Pretty interesting!

We went up about 1,000 steps and were in a little shop next to where we’d started the tour outside. We were able to sample some of the wine made there and we toasted in 4 different languages. English and Italian, of course, then Emily and I had to toast in Albanian, and there was a nice guy in our group from Japan, so we toasted in Japanese, too. :) The wine was very tasty so I had to buy a bottle to bring back with me. What a great souvenir! Plus, I bought a candle holder like the ones we’d used for our candle light part of the tour. They were all ceramic and were hand-painted by a local artist. It was cool because none of them were the same. So I definitely found myself unique reminders of my trip to Naples! Yay! :)

After all this excitement, we were starving! It was close to 3:00 by now and we hadn’t eaten lunch yet! So we walked a short ways down the street and found a place that looked cute so we went in. The menu was all on a little chalkboard and was all Italian. Emily asked what I was going to get, and I told her. And then I asked what she was getting. She said, “I’m just going to try something new because I like anything!” This didn’t surprise me because she’s not a picky eater at all, and it’s fun to try new things in a new place. Just after she said that, the waiter came and took our order. When he brought out the food, he sat an octopus salad down in front of Emily. As soon as he left, she said, “I don’t like this!” Haha! I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud, on the spot. Emily didn’t think it was that funny. But the one thing that she doesn’t really like ended up being what she ordered. We had no clue what it would be! I told her to order something else and I’d split the cost of the octopus salad with her because I was curious and wanted to try it since I’d never tried octopus before.

Well, I’ve tried octopus now. The weirdest part was looking at it as it went into my mouth. You could see the tentacle and where the suction things should be. It’s not skinned or anything, just cooked as is because it’s all just fleshy. The flavor was actually pretty good. The texture of the meat was kind of like crab to me because it was chewier than other seafood, but not quite as chewy as something like clams. The flavor was its own though, and I liked it. The texture of the tentacles was weird though because you could feel the bumps from where the suction parts were. That was the only kind of bad part. Otherwise, it was an interesting experience, and obviously, it didn’t harm me because I’m here to tell about it! :)

After that, we spent the rest of the day walking around snapping photos left and right of more statues and fountains and awesome buildings. All day long I was continuously impressed with the architecture! Not once was I disappointed with a building I saw. I just had to be careful to only take pictures of the ones I really liked. Hee hee!

We did stop for a coffee break and I got a real chocolate. Not a hot chocolate. I mean real melted chocolate in a cup. Yum, yum! Now that’s my kind of hot chocolate! :) It was very good and provided the energy we needed to continue walking and window shopping and picture-taking.

We didn’t feel like doing anything special for supper since we went to a local place for lunch so we just went to Burger King. Haha! Aren’t we adventurous? lol Actually, it was practically next door to our hostel, it was a reasonable price, and Emily wanted a sundae and I wanted a burger so we went inside and had it our way. ;)

After that, we went back to the hostel and just relaxed. We were tired! Two days of all day walking with more to coming the next morning! So after checking email and facebook, doing word searches, and reading, we hit the hay to rest up for another big day.

I’ll stop here before I begin the next day’s adventures. The next day was our last day in Naples as we had to start the journey back to Albania. Rest assured that it is not the end of the excitement. Oh, no! Not at all! The first thing on our agenda for the next day was the National Archaeological Museum. :)

Whirlwind Italy--Exploring Naples, Part 1

2009-02-01T09:35:00.003-06:00

Yes, I am back to the Italy story, just like TV shows don’t air new episodes from Christmas until February. Haha! :)

So… After getting a good night’s rest after a long but phenomenal day at Pompeii, we had planned to go back after we ate breakfast and showered. After all, we had a lot of picture-taking to catch up on! However, a look out the window made us question that plan. It was raining. Turns out that it was supposed to rain all day. We decided against Pompeii since it was all outdoors and much of the walking would have been on wet, slippery stones, and also since who knows what rainy pictures would’ve turned out like.

I was really really disappointed about this at first. I had pretty much had my heart set on going back to Pompeii for pictures and to see all the stuff we’d missed. Plus, I don’t exactly get excited about walking in the rain no matter where I am. But Emily made the suggestion that we check out the National Museum of Archaeology since that is where the majority of the artifacts discovered at Pompeii are displayed. We made that our plan, and though it made me happy to think about seeing that, I was still let down.

We began our walk in the light rain, and Emily tried to console me. Neither one of us was feeling the best that morning, so it’s kind of humorous now to look back and think about the two cranky tourists. Haha! It wasn’t that bad, we just had to see something to be excited about before our moods would improve. And guess what? We only had to go three blocks!!!

Castle Nuovo is a huge old castle right on the bay of Naples. It was visible from three blocks beyond our hostel. We had to walk a little further so that we could actually get there, but I got excited quickly because it was the first real castle I’d ever seen. I have always loved learning about castles and I love stories and movies that take place in castles or during the times when they (and the people who lived in them) played very important roles.

When we got closer, it just got even more enormous. We got to walk through the doors and over what used to be the moat. Now that a city has been build around it and it’s on a hill, the back part of the castle moat (that part that faces the sea) was torn away and the moat is a parking lot. Haha! I guess that works when it’s built on a hill and modern advancements begin to take over. ;)

We got to walk in the doors and look around a bit. We could look into the courtyard but we couldn’t really go anywhere. It said there was a museum tour, but we didn’t know what was in the museum or if they had an English tour. So we took some pictures, I marveled at everything, and decided to continue the long walk to the museum because there was much more to see.

All along the way I couldn’t help but be captivated by all of the architecture. It was so amazing! Every building looked so cool! And there were many fountains and statues and arches and paintings on or around buildings. Wow! Truth be told, we didn’t talk a whole lot because we were just taking everything in and pausing to snap pictures.

We passed the Gallery of Umberto I, which is full of shops, but it’s enclosed with a glass roof. It covers about 4 blocks and the inside gallery part would be the “roads” which have marble floors, incredibly details architectures, arches, details, and just everything that makes you say, “Wow!”
We also passed the Opera House, which was quite tricky to get a picture of because of its size and the strange way the road curved just there. I didn’t get a picture of it, but I did stop to take a mental note of the setting. As we walked we passed the Piazza Dante that had a big statue and then was open in front of a very long building that cured in almost a half circle. It was so unique! There were people selling things, people waiting for the bus, other tourists snapping pictures, and other people shopping, walking with brief cases, or just going about their daily business.

When we got to the National Museum of Archaeology, we found out that it was closed. Just our luck. It pretty much fit right in with how things were going on the trip. The extra long ferry ride, batteries dying at Pompeii, the rain changing our plans, and now the museum being closed. We stopped and got a good laugh. Now everything was just beginning to be funny and we were just happy to see whatever we could because it was all new to us anyway.

The guy who ran the hostel was an outstanding host. He’d given us tourist maps with places to see, told us the easiest ways to get there, and told us what roads would show us the most. He also gave us a suggestion. He’d said if we got the chance, we should take the Napoli Soterranea (Underground Naples) tour. He said a lot of people miss it but it’s only two hours and it would be completely worth it. Well, we had heard a little about this from the Europe guidebook Emily bought and from my internet research and had wanted to see it any way. So since all the other advice he’d given us had been right on, we decided to go for it. Why not? It wasn’t possible that everything in Naples was closed on Wednesdays. Haha!

There was one other main attraction listed on the map between the museum and the tour. It was labeled as Il Duomo. It was a massive and intricately ornate cathedral. We were so happy we stopped! It was called St. Gennaro Cathedral because St. Gennaro is buried there. First, I have to tell you that there were no pictures allowed in the cathedral. This was too bad because there were many photo-worthy things in there! But it was also good because I probably would’ve run out of room on my memory card. Hee hee! :)

Not only was there the main cathedral, there were two other large side chapels that were just as, if not more, ornate and detailed than the cathedral itself. There were also many little areas where people (priests and saints) were buried. And there were, of course, relics, since it was Catholic, after all, and it was very large important church in the city. In the front, there were steps leading up to the altar area, but on each side of those steps, there were steps leading down through a door. There was a sign that said the tomb of St. Gennaro was that way. So we went down there. It was pretty impressive. His tomb was there, in a room under the altar, and there was also the tomb of a cardinal. It was interesting.

Overall, we were very happy that we stopped here. It was absolutely spectacular! There was artwork everywhere! On the walls, on the ceilings, on the domes, on the tombs…there were paintings, statues, moldings, and when it was all put together just made your jaw drop in awe. I can’t even imagine the time it took to build all of that, and then, there was a big sign that had talked about the re-design of the building under the order of some cardinal. So then, it had been changed, some things had been saved, and others had been created.

Of course, the process of keeping up a building like this must be massive, and there is also a restoration process to go with because of the age of the work and items. So in some spots, you could see where they were doing work. That was fascinating because you could see doorways that were covered up to create walls in the re-designed part. There were small window that were the same way. And then, you could see where chunks of the wall had been removed or fallen away and parts of a fresco were missing only to expose another, older, fresco underneath. Crazy!

Throughout the entire day, I couldn’t help be enthralled with the history of the city. I would go back again if I ever got the chance. Though it’s not the cleanest city and though its reputation isn’t much (thanks to the mob), the history and culture of the Neapolitan life is fascinating! The city went through a major World War. Not only did it make it though WWII, but it was a place that was hit hard. Their life and history were drastically changed forever because of it. Yet, they made it. It is an area that has survived earthquakes and massive volcanic eruptions. It is an area known for strict Catholic faith, and yet a ridiculous amount of superstition. Everything about that city made me want to learn more. My curiosity wasn’t just piqued, it was on overload. lol :)

Anyway, let me pause there because that was the first half of our day of exploration in Naples. We explored more in the afternoon and continued our adventures in the city the next day, but this is long enough and I’m at a good breaking point. Now I’ll work on the photo albums so that when I continue I can post those links. It’s always nice to have pictures to accompany a story if you ask me. :)

Stay strong, stay safe, and until next time, keep the updates and comments coming. I love them! They always bring a smile to my face. :) My life here is so exciting on a daily basis and knowing that everyone is safe and happy at home is a blessing that only adds to my joy.

And Now....For Your Viewing Pleasure....

2009-01-22T16:26:00.006-06:00

May I present....Some long overdue pictures! ;)

Come on, I know that made you smile. :)

But really, I have tons to update about (including finishing the Italy business) but it will have to be put off for two reasons. 1) A very busy first week of session 2 has left little time for computer activities. 2) I'm not feeling so great tonight and will be hitting the hay once I put these pictures up for you.

So...without further adieu, here we go.

Photo album number one takes us all the way back to 2008. December 19, to be exact. It was Emily's Birthday and it was a blast. Food, friends, funky shoes--it doesn't get much better than that!

Round two of this photo frenzy recaps December's every day adventures. Watch out for the guy with the gun! Hee hee! :)

For those of you who are afraid of heights, be glad you weren't with me when I took the pictures in the next album. We rode the teleferik (pr. tell-eh-fer-EEK), (aka gondola, cable car, or glorified ski lift) up Mt. Dajti (pr. DIE-tee) to check out the views. It was cool to actually see how big Tirana and the surrounding villages really are.

And finally, we get on to the two albums (thus far) from Italy. The first details our first day of travel and I also included the pictures of the hostel even though I took them later in our trip. It seemed like the most appropriate place for them. The second album shows all the pictures I got at Pompeii before my camera died and I found out the back-up batteries were worthless. lol I got more than I thought though, which makes me feel a little better about it. :)

So, let's continue this pause in our regularly scheduled programming. I'll call this an infomercial. ;) I really will finish the story. I promise. For now, enjoy the sights!

We Interrupt This Broadcast...

2009-01-17T18:05:00.002-06:00

...to bring you a public service announcement: I've been crazy busy!!! I'm very sorry for the commercial break right in the middle of my Italy stories, but I just need to explain why I've had to put that on a brief pause.

With our second session of classes starting on Monday, Emily and I held two days of registration this week and two days of orientation meetings. All of our spare time was used for creating schedules, sending students messages about meeting times and class times, preparing materials, prepping for lessons, and just generally getting organized for another session of classes.

We had 16 new people register for classes and it looks like we'll be able to fit all but one into the schedule. And only two people couldn't return to classes so we're still up 13 students. We even had to create two new levels. We will each be teaching 4 different classes. That means I have 8 classes a week. One of Emily's groups is the very young children, 7 and 8 year olds, so they will just meet once a week. So she will teach 7 classes a week. This is in addition to continuing our Friday Activity Nights, our MMM group meetings, starting a Coffee Club for those 18 and up, getting the Children's Choir started again, and just generally doing what we do. I have a feeling that time is going to absolutely fly during this session because we'll be so busy. But I'm super motivated right now and have been working non-stop today on making sure every detail is ready. I'll be doing the same tomorrow. You know me--everything has to be organized in an overly meticulous fashion. lol I can't help it! ;)

During our last session we needed to give each group a name so we could keep them straight and had a way to label them on a schedule. We took the easy route and went with colors. Simple enough. Or so we thought. Many of our students kept asking us this week if they got to move to a certain color group now when we start our second session. They had no idea which really came next, so they guessed. It was funny to Emily and I because we didn't name them based on their level. We just assigned colors at random. lol

So this time around, in order to avoid any confusion, we chose to use U.S. cities as the name for each group. We figured this was appropriate because they're learning American English, so we should pick a place that speaks American English. Plus, they ask about American places sometimes so we figured it is a good way to help them learn a little about the good ol' U.S. of A. :) We ruled out Chicago and Milwaukee, since those are the places we lived before moving here. Then we made a big list of ideas and just picked the ones we wanted. It worked out well because I'm pretty sure we didn't "fight" over any cities. lol There we plenty of interesting places to choose from. Emily chose Honolulu, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Nashville. I chose Seattle, St. Louis, Boston, and Atlanta.

For my classes, I'm going to do a few new things this semester. To limit the walking around (not that it was anywhere close to bad before) and getting in little competitions to ask who can help me with things, I'm going to have a schedule of classroom helpers. There will be one person, or helper, for each class period. We'll draw numbers during our first class to make it fair. I'm going to let them keep the American names they picked last time. I only have 2 new students, so they'll just pick a name right away. I'm also going to have a big attendance chart for each class. In general I didn't have problems with poor attendance but I got sick of kids always asking me how many they'd missed or if they were late, etc. This time, we'll make it visual. They'll get a sticker if they're on time, a "T" if they're tardy, and an "A" if they're absent without telling me. They know the attendance policy and were pretty good at following it last time.

The other new thing I'm doing is having a "Word of the Day" (WOTD) in each class. Just fun words that I use but they don't know. For example, I told one girl she was being silly and they didn't know what that meant. Guess what their first WOTD is going to be? ;) Hee hee! With my intermediate level class, we're just going to use bigger words. For example, we're going to learn "bashful" instead of "shy". And we're going to learn "adequate" instead of "good enough". Also, with each section, I'm going to be working much more on actual speaking practice. Not just repetitive speaking practice, but where they have to stand in front of everyone and say something, even if just means telling us two things they "will do" (practice with the future tense) this week.

Besides getting all of this ready to go, we resumed church services this week, now that Agron and Vitori are back from visiting their daughter in the U.S. I have to admit, it was nice to have that part of the weekly routine back. :) That should catch you up on what's been going on since we returned from Italy. I'll continue the Italy saga tomorrow.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program.....

Whirlwind Italy--Pompeii Day

2009-01-12T13:08:00.004-06:00

So we arrived at the hostel. Ah, yes. It was a bit humorous when we got there. The taxi driver let us out, got our bags, and we paid him. Bing, bam, boom. We opened the door to the building which looked like either and office building or an apartment building, we couldn't tell. Turns out it was both. Anyway, we only had the address of the place but no details about where to go in the building or even what floor. So we're looking around and all of a sudden we hear a honk. I looked out the glass doors and the taxi driver was motioning for us to keep walking straight ahead. Haha!

I found a sign that said the Bella Capri Hotel & Hostel was on the 6th floor. We got in the elevator and rode up. Things improved drastically from there. The desk manager was awesome. He was so helpful throughout our entire stay, but especially that night. He gave us a map of the city and showed us where things were and how to get there from where we were. He even helped us order pizza, which was super cheap and amazingly delicious. There's nothing like a real Neapolitan Margarita Pizza. Mmm mmm good!

We settled in by making our beds in the all girl dorm that we'd reserved. It was just a big bedroom with six beds and a bathroom, but it was clean, safe, and relatively warm. We were happy to just relax. We chatted a bit with some of the people there and decided to hit the hay. We were exhausted from our extra long travels and the little ordeals we'd encountered along the way. So after decided to check out Pompeii the next day and deciding on a time to get up, we crashed.

The next morning did not get started as early as we'd planned, but that turned out to be a big blessing in disguise. We got up around 9 instead of 8 but we felt more rested which was very important since Pompeii turned out to be incredibly massive. We had not predicted that. But I'm jumping ahead. Let me back up.

While we were eating breakfast, we started talking again to two of the guys we'd chatted with the night before. Vince and Edmund were brothers it turns out, and were originally from New Zealand. Though Edmund still lives there since he's in school, Vince now lives and works in England. They were traveling together and stopped in Naples just to go visit Pompeii. It was decided that the four of us would go together.

After walking to the train station, we figured out where to buy tickets for the commuter train that went to the Pompeii stop, found the right platform, took the right train, and got off at the entrance to Pompeii. We bought our tickets and also paid for the little electronic gadgets that act as a self-tour. Those things has so many time wasting sound effects that we started mocking them after about the second recording we listened to. lol Don't misunderstand me, they were very informative but it was just a little cheesy at the same time. :) They really were vey informative and I did enjoy the detail the voice provided.

Before I get to all of the good stuff about Pompeii, I just have to say the two downsides first. I warned you that there were ups and downs on this trip. We didn't realize how big Pompeii was and therefore should've planned another day to really see it all and take everything in. But since our time was limited, we did as much as we could during one day. Also, the maps that they give you when you buy your ticket have places labeled, which help you. However, the places have numbers on the map and on the side are only described by their names. (ie. Temple of Venus, House of so-and-so, Large Theater, Villa of so-and-so, etc.) What the information does not do, however, is tell you what you will see at each of those places. So there was artwork that we missed and sections of town that we missed, and most importantly, the people that Pompeii is known for. Since there was no time for people to flee, they were buried as they were and died doing whatever they were doing. We did see a few of these, but not the ones that are shown in textbooks. You know, the ones that make every kid either fascinated or repulsed. For me, I have been fascinated with it since I first learned about it in second grade.

That being said, we did get to see some absolutely incredible things! When Mt. Vesuvius erupted and wiped out Pompeii in 79 A.D., it wiped out one of the leading and most important cities of the Roman Empire at the time. In fact, Pompeii and it citizens wanted to rival Rome for the most important city in the empire. (See? I really did appreciate the self-tourgide gadget.) Because of this, everything we saw absolutely captivated me. There were many very large homes that had atriums and gardens and fountains and frescoes and mosaics and other interesting features which made it obvious that the people who had lived there were important and quite wealthy.

We saw the bath house and were able to tour the men's side where we learned about each different room and why it was designed the way it was. We saw temples for the different Roman gods--Venus, Apollo, etc. We saw the marketplace area, and the court. We saw the large theater and the small theater, which were both outdoor amphitheaters, complete with backstage areas and under stage areas as well. We saw the arena (aka a colosseum) where actual gladiators competed.

I think that was my favorite part of everything we saw there that day. Go figure, I like the sports related part the best. lol :) But gladiators are so impressive! The fought not just other men until the death, but beasts, too! No one dares to do that today. And not just because PETA would throw a fit, but because it's crazy to fight a ferocious live animal. I got to see the seats where people sat to watch that. I got to walk through the same entrance where the gladiators walked, to the chants, shouts, jeers, and cheers from spectators. I can only imagine the things going through their heads at the time. They must have had pure ice water running through their veins. Or irregularly high levels of adrenaline coursing through their bodies. The pure guts and determination it would have taken just walking into that stadium knowing you could die a terrible painful death with thousands of people looking on, cheering it on. It really honestly gave me chills. Such competitions took place on the very ground under my feet! It was awesome!!!

Right behind this stadium was the athletic area for the rest of the men in the city to use. It had a swimming pool in the middle and was surrounded by grassy areas used for wrestling, archery, and other athletic and military training. The two went hand in hand because one provided a means for a man to do the other. For example, if a man wanted to be in athletics but wasn't the sort people thought to be athletic, he could join the military for his chance to be athletic. And for the man who had athletic ability but wasn't thought to be disciplined enough to join the military, he could use his athletic strength and ability to show his physical toughness for military activities.

Around this area was a colonnade. People could walk around this area (though for us it was roped off) and it was used as an area where people basically trash talked or promoted their favorite gladiators and politicians. They would leave messages about who they liked and why or who they didn't like and why. They way I pictured it, it was a graffiti area for the public to discuss the events of the day. Now we call them "discussion boards" and the internet is full of them. On these walls there were even inscriptions from gladiators about how they were so great and women couldn't refuse them and the fans adored them. But if I were a gladiator (especially if I were a good one), I think my ego would get pretty inflated, too. lol

The one other big downer of the day was that Emily and I both had bad luck with our cameras. Our batteries died and the extras we'd bought the day before didn't work. Can you believe it? They died in the cemetery of all places. Oh, the irony. This devastated me for awhile. I was so upset that I literally fought back tears. I was in Pompeii and saw world history at it's most impressive and would have only a few pictures to show for it. Nothing to show people, nothing to visually explain the amazing sights. This is one of the reasons why it ended up being such a huge blessing that Vince and Edmund were with us--they said we could have their pictures. So they added us to facebook and said that when they post their pictures, we can copy whatever we want. Wow! That was awesome! Plus, it was a blessing because we could travel in a bigger number and had more people to share the experience with and discuss it all with.

The thing that surprised me was that even as we were walking around, Mt. Vesuvius wasn't that visible. In some places it was, but back then, with the city completely built up--multiple stories on building, with roofs and all--it still would've been hidden. Granted that with volcanic eruptions the volcano changes shape. It spews itself over the surrounding earth, burns paths down its side, and some of it sinks into its own crater. So Vesuvius, since it has erupted other times as well, looks much different today that in did way back then. And even though it's smaller, it still makes a big impression when you see it because it stands alone. It is not part of a mountain range. It looms over everything around it as this single solitary imposing presence.

One thing that amazed me was the brilliance of the Roman architects. We think things are so advanced today, but these people built huge stadiums that can seat thousands and are still standing. We replace stadiums after a few decades for safety reasons. But these buildings were built out of stone. A much more sturdy and less destructible material than some we use today. At the same time, stone is material that is slow to build with. They had raised sidewalks along the sides of the streets so that the streets acted like aqueducts to carry the water through the city and to keep the walking areas drier when it rained. To cross these mini street-rivers, they had raised stones to step across. It kind of puts the curb-and-gutter philosophy to shame, huh?

When we'd either felt we had seen all we could or felt we couldn't walk any more, we left to go back to the hostel. We were utterly exhausted after all day walking in the sun. It wasn't hot, but it wasn't cold either. For what we were doing, it was perfect weather that day. That, however, would be the only day of ideal weather for the entire trip. lol We got back, ate pizza, watched a movie with those guys and a few others (with our feet up, of course!) and went to bed early.

I can't believe I've been to Pompeii! I read a book about it in second grade (thank you Scholastic book orders!) and have wanted to see it ever since. In all honesty, I hope I will be fortunate enough to go back some day with people who haven't seen it so that I can explore it in more detail, but also to share the experience with a first timer. :) It's just so impressive that it just makes me stop and think how though times were different then, they're very much the same now. People were going about their daily business when that happened. They were working, laughing, talking, crying, arguing, caring for children, learning, shopping, and trying to get by. They had families and friends just the same as we do. They had road systems and entertainment. They had business and court records. They had temples and baths. When it comes down to it, the basics haven't changed much. And we call ourselves "modern."

This visit in itself would have made a fantastic trip. But we had the good fortune to be able to afford a longer stay. So you'll have to wait for the rest of adventure. :) Stay tuned! And excuse the lousy proof-reading all the time. Most days I just spellcheck and that's it. Hee hee! ;)

Whirlwind Italy--The Beginning

2009-01-10T07:15:00.003-06:00

On Sunday at around 9pm, Emily's phone rang. That signified the official start of our trip to Italy. The voice on the other end was Dorien who was calling to say he was on his way to pick us up. Bring on Italy!

Oh, Italy brought it on alright. We had no idea about that when we first started out. Dorien picked us up and drove us to the port where we got the printed version of our ferry tickets that we'd purchased online. Our plan was to take the ferry from Durres across the Adriatic Sea to Bari, Italy. From there we'd catch a train to Naples. We should've known how things would go before we set foot on that boat.

Clue number one that things would be a little crazy: As we were approaching the first set of guards upon entering the port, Dorien says to his friend who was riding with us, "Get out your money. Maybe we should give him money. That will help." Turns out we didn't need any money. There was very little speaking and then we were allowed through. Seemed simple to us but Dorien seemed a little surprised.

Clue number two: At the first passport check, they didn't even open ours, let alone touch them. They saw the words, "United States" on the front and just said "American" followed by a smile and a wave through. That thing is more valuable than gold here in Albania, I swear. Well, really its powers have been quite impressive every place we've gone. They see that and no one gives us any trouble. What a HUGE blessing! I wonder how Albanians feel when they see that happen? They have to have passport clearance and visas and everything which is super hard to get just to go to a teeny tiny neighboring country.

When we got to the "line" to have our passports stamped at the exit point before stepping on the boat, things continued to be crazy. I used the word line in parenthesis because Albanians don't really stand in lines. It's just a huge crowd and people push their way, eventually, to the front and have their turn. This is how it is done at the market. This is how "lines" work before the cashiers at stores. This is how you have to do it to buy movie tickets. Even going to the opera things progressed this way. They just aren't organized at all. It would've taken half the time to get our passport exit stamp if there had been lines.

The guys ahead of me were pretty interesting though. There were three of them, but about half way up to the front one of them, the one who was a little older than the others, reached deep into his coat and pulled out three passports. After observing what happened next, I became fairly certain (and I remain fairly certain) that they didn't belong to the other two men at all. I say this because the other two men opened them and immediately began looking through them and appeared to be memorizing information because they'd look at something, close the book, say something to the other, then open the book again to look at it. They made it through with much questioning. And though I couldn't understand any of it, I think the guard lady with the stamp was questioning whether they were legit because even after she stamped mine and a few others, the quizzical look remained on her face.

So we're at the port, we have our luggage, our passports are stamped and we are heading to the boat. As you stepped on, there was one more person checking tickets and passports. Again, he saw the words "United States" on the front of Emily's, let her though, and didn't even bother to glance at mine. He just let me pass with her since we were together. That made me feel secure. lol

We had just purchased deck seats because getting a sleeping room was a little more pricey than what we wanted to spend. However, as hindsight is 20-20, we should have splurged. I try to be positive, but that ferry ride was the worst bit of travelling I have ever encountered. We sat in hard plastic chairs at a table all night, couldn't sleep, and the boat rocked so much that both of us (who don't get sea sick ever) felt jittery for hours even after getting off.

If it had just been those three things, we could have just chalked one up for uncomfortable travel. But no. First of all, the ferry was jam packed with people traveling back to places after their New Year's travels to be with family. We were supposed to leave at 11pm. No. We didn't leave until 12:50am. The ferry travels across the sea during the night and you lands at the next port in the morning to make traveling from there easier. Ha!!! I'm pretty sure everyone who hand another form of transportation to catch other than their own car had to change all their plans. Arrival time was supposed to be 7am. We left so later that Emily and I added the extra two hours and assumed around 9am. Nope. We didn't get off that stupid boat until just after 11:30am! We were on that stupid boat for over 12 hours!!!

The changes in schedule, as annoying as they were, weren't even the worst part. The worst part was all the skeezy men on that boat. Like I said, I try to be positive, but I just have to be honest about something. Before I say it, just remember that the truth isn't always kind or pretty. Here it is: Albanian men have absolutely no respect for foreign women. They are skeezy and call out "hey baby" or "hey lady" or click their tongues to get our attention, yell to us in Albanian, etc. etc. etc. Even our female Albanian friends have said that most guys have limits and values that they look for in Albanian girls but when they seen foreign women, they throw it all out the window. Albanian men stare (at anyone, all the time, because it's not considered impolite or rude for men to stare at stuff here, but it's rude if women do it) all the time. We couldn't get any sleep all night because they were knocking on the windows by where were sitting, they sat across the room staring at us (one guy for over 2 whole hours!), clicked their tongues every time we moved in our chairs, tried talking to us, even telling us we only had a few minutes left to "see their room" as the boat was pulling into the port at Bari. I don't think either of us as ever been so eager to depart a mode of transportation in our entire lives. lol Oh man, was it a relief to be off of that boat and to be able to find food. We were starving since they'd closed their "cafeteria" at 1am right after the boat took off.

Things went a little more smoothly after this. We went through Italian passport control without anything crazy happening. (Score one for a European Union country.) We got food there, used a clean bathroom with toilet paper and even soap (woo hoo!!!), and went outside to see Bari. Well, we didn't get to see a lot of it. We went outside to find a taxi to take us to the train station. :)

It wasn't a long ride, but we got to drive past some of the old city and then through shopping areas. It looked just like any American big city, which felt very comforting after the ferry ride. We got to the train station, got tickets for our train ride to Rome, and then we spent a little time walking around that area of Bari just to stretch our legs and take in the fresh air and see a little of what Bari has to offer. We saw a McDonald's and I was so excited, the first thing I did was take out my camera to get a picture! Hahahahaaaaa!!!! I didn't even get food. In fact, I didn't even go in. I just wanted a picture. :) Then we walked to a little park with a really pretty fountain and sat on a bench to people watch for a bit.

We did that, then decided to grab a cappuccino before going back to the station to find our platform and wait for our train. The caffeine boost did us a decent amount of good because we were so tired from not being able to rest peacefully on the boat. (Have you ever tried to sleep knowing someone is staring at you? I don't recommend it.) Then we found out platform, waited for our train, and hopped on when it arrived.

The train had little compartments that fit 6 people each. For most of the ride, we share it with one girl, and then for the last bit, a guy came in and sat down too. We didn't talk to them. I don't really know if they spoke much English. Emily and I chatted a bit, did some word searches, looked out the window, I listened to music, Emily slept a bit, and we chatted some more. Some of the ride was very close to the coast so it was pretty. I didn't realize how flat that part of Italy was. We passed some fields and even when it got hillier, if you couldn't see any buildings--just the fields--it would've looked just like parts of Wisconsin. :) We had to get off the train in Caserta to switch to a commuter train that would take us to Naples. We got on there and about 45 minutes later, we arrived at "Napoli Centrale" and got off.

Admittedly, we were tired and cranky by this point, and had has a little disagreement about reading the board at Caserta to find out what platform the commuter train would board from. So at this point, our moods weren't the best, but we were both trying to be patient and figure things out. We knew we weren't mad, just exhausted. lol So we lugged out suitcases through the station and out to the front to grab a taxi. We found on fairly easily after walking around the corner and got in. He knew right where our hostel was located so we didn't have to try an explain anything to him. Whew! By this time, it was around 8pm. What a day!

This would be a good place to stop. I can continue with the rest later, but hopefully after reading this, you have a good idea of how we were feeling and why we felt that way at this point. lol As if this hasn't been exciting enough, there is more to come. Not quite as crazy, but just as jam packed. Just you wait! :)

Welcome, 2009!

2009-01-03T10:07:00.007-06:00

Hello for the first time in 2009! I'm sure you all passed the New Year in many different ways. Mine passed with flying colors. Literally. Let me explain.

Remember how I said that New Year's is the main holiday here? Well if you would've been here with me, you'd have no doubt about that! The first part of the tradition includes turkey. For weeks, since the beginning of December, all the markets have been full of turkeys. Live, dead, in trucks, on the street, in parking lots, or hanging over the shoulders of those who bought them. Unfortunately, these spots were so crowded the whole entire time that the only thing in the picture would have been people and not turkeys. So I apologize for not being able to give you a solid mental image of this. It was really something though!

The reason turkey plays a big part in this holiday is because it's their main holiday and so they spend much time with family. People gather together and have a big meal and turkey is their New Year's meal like it is for our Thanksgiving. They also cook a massive, and I'm talking gargantuan meal in addition to the turkey because they stay up all night to celebrate. This way, they have food to last them all night. We were fortunate enough to be invited to the Huna's house (Olsa, Neda, and Ledio's family) for dinner where everyone's plate was piled high with turkey, beef, proschute (It's a type of ham/sausage that I think is very good. They put different forms of it on pizza too. Yum! ), a hot dog sausage, traditional qofte sausage, tomato slices, sliced cucumber, pepper slices, a hard boiled egg, olives, and two types of cheese (feta and something else that was white). Then there were also small cookies, potatoes, and bread to add to the meal. And wine and soda. And cake for dessert.

See, what many people do--because it's tradition--is this: They gather with their families and start eating this huge huge meal. Then, at midnight, they ring in the new year with toasts and tons and tons of fireworks. Then people go out to bars for drinks or coffee or dancing, etc. until all hours of the morning. Usually at least until 5am. Our landlord's son didn't get home until 8am. The next day is still a holiday and most places are closed. So people stay at home and just do nothing but spend time with their family or they go and visit other friends or family together.

I took pictures of our night but the most amazing part was the fireworks. First of all, understand that Tirana has over a million people. Second of all, you need to know that the big dangerous kind of fireworks that are illegal for everyone except licensed professionals in the U.S. are perfectly legal here and can be bought on the side of the street. Therefore, everyone buys their stock and lights them off at midnight. This means that at least a tenth of the city (100,000 people) are lighting a supply of dangerous explosives at the same time. Some were doing this from the ground, some from rooftops, and some right from the balconies of their own homes (apartments). It was crazy!!! I loved it! :)

You could hear fireworks going off all day, but from the time it was getting dark around 4:30 until 2:00 in the morning (at least), there was a constant rumble and blast of fireworks. It sounded like gunfire. Now I know why war sounds are described like fireworks with flashes of light in books and movies. In fact, Mrs. Huna was joking during dinner by saying that on this day, Albania is like Afghanistan. She meant with the noise and flashes of light from the fireworks, it's like war. And honestly, if you didn't know it was a celebration and the explosions of light weren't designed with such festive appeal, it probably would have been very similar.

We ended up watching the show from a 7th floor apartment balcony thanks to our friend Lori. She had been planning to watch the fireworks with us but then one of her co-workers, Gretchen, mentioned that she was pet sitting for some people who are back home visiting family right now and they said to use their balcony for anyone who wanted to watch fireworks. It was perfect! It was at a high enough place in the city and was a tall enough building that we could see it all. Thanks to the balcony that went around 3 sides of the building, we just about had a 360 degree view of everything. It was easier to take video instead of pictures, so that's what I did. Watch closely and you can see some of the fireworks whiz right past the balcony. I did it in a chronological sequence in a span of about 10 minutes before I just had to stop and watch and take it all in.

At 10 to midnight things really started to get loud so we bundled up because it was cold (low 20s) and made our way to the balcony. The first video was taken at 5 minutues to midnight. Then I took one again at 2 minutes to midnight. The next video is at midnight. And the last one I toook was at a few minutes after midnight. (They can be viewed, in order, at the bottom of this post.) I was just in awe of the craziness and reckless abandon at which people fired them off. Wow!!! It sure was a sight to behold! :) I know I have never seen anything like that before and I feel certain that I never will again. It was outrageous and spectacular all at the same time. And I loved it! :) We literally passed the New Year with flying colors. ;)

After the majority of the fireworks displays seemed to have calmed down to a less deafening level, we ventured out again and went our separate ways to continue with the night's plans. For Emily and I, that meant walking over to the Block area to meet Aida and wish her "Gezuar Vitin E Ri!" (pr. geh-ZOO-ar VEE-ten EH REE = Happy New Year!) She had made reservations at a bar kafe where she was spending the rest of the night with friends. We turned down the invitation because the reservations cost approximately $15 per person and we were not willing to shell out that much to sit in a ridiculously smokey room (Have I mentioned that Europeans smoke like chimneys?) listening to blaring folk music that we don't understand and don't know how to dance to, especially since we're travelling in a few days. Our money will be better spent on that. :) Then we walked home to call our families and remind them that we're so far in the future that we were in a different year! ;) We were still up late but not as late as most other people around here. lol

I have a few more photo albums to share of other things, but that can wait until tomorrow or Sunday. We went up Mt. Dajti yesterday so that story will wait until the pictures can accompany it properly. Until then, I haven't heard any bad news, so I assume you all had a safe, happy, and healthy new year! Welcome to 2009! I will leave you with a little message from Ledio and myself. (The very last video on this post.) We were playing with the camera and this was the best we could come up with. Hope it makes you smile. :)

P.S. For those of you who are missing me, this is the year I will see you again. ;) lol

P.P.S. A huge shout out to Andrea for telling me how to make clickable word links to my photos. Why I never thought to google the topic myself, I'll never know. I google everything! lol :)

The Time Has Come

2008-12-30T15:22:00.002-06:00

The time has come for one last blog post in 2008. I sounds crazy to say it, but 2008 has already come and almost gone. Wow! What a year it has been, huh? :)

The time has also come for me to talk about Christmas. Our children's service went smoothly, for what it was. It was by no means orderly or well-rehearsed like all the programs I've seen and the ones I participated in as a child. But, it went ok and everyone who came seemed to enjoy it. I'll admit that personally, because I'm ridiculously organized and because I love order, I wasn't all that happy with it. But as it finished and the kids were happy and as people were talking about how much they enjoyed it, I felt a little better.

People clapped after every song and ever reading/recitation the children did. I kept thinking, "Just wait 'til the end, people." lol But it was reassuring for the kids and they did do well. But the thing that was strange was that Laura (Agron's great niece, the one who plays violin) played two songs at the end of the service. She hadn't come to any practices, hadn't rehearsed with us at all, but Vitori told her she could play. So um, we just kind of let her at the end of the service. But only once it was completely finished because she wasn't playing sacred songs. She played Jingle Bells and We Wish You A Merry Christmas. So overall, it was by far the weirdest Christmas Service I have every been to, or probably will ever go to, but it was good because I will always remember it.

For Christmas Eve we stayed at our place and had our own festivities with Aida. She came over and we had some snacks--bruschetta that Emily made, sausage, mandarins, kiwis, and wine--followed by cheesy potato soup that I made. Then we had a Christmas devotion so we could explain the advent wreath and candles to Aida and then we read the Christmas story. It was very nice. Simple and definitely not fancy, but very nice.

Then we opened presents. :) We took a bunch of funny pictures to capture our reactions to everything. lol Aida did lots of picture taking and even more laughing at us. The funniest thing of the whole night was that Emily and I both got each other long green necklaces. Haha! We are definitely related!

After that was over, we got out the cookies and chocolate and played Ticket To Ride. Of course that was fun, too. But then we quit so that Emily and I could take some time to call our families and since it was late, Aida went home.

On Christmas Day, we hosted Olsa, Neda, and Ledio in the afternoon. They also decided to bring two extra people. We weren't exactly prepared, but we arranged things to make it work and found a quick last minute gift for each of them from things we had at our apartment. lol The two extra guests were Sara and Danja, two of Emily's students. They are just so darned cute. They also have an interesting story because their dad was/sort of it Muslim, but their mom isn't, and they don't appear to live that way or really follow any of the traditions. Sometimes they even come to church with Neda, but they always come to Activity Nights and always stop in to see Emily and I, even when it's not their class time.

So we kind of pretty much repeated the same activities as the day before with left over snacks, soup, and cookies. They opened the presents we gave them, we put on some Christmas music and danced a little, and then watched a movie that was on TV. It was very fun and I'm pretty sure a good time was had by all. ;)

Since then, I've just been doing a lot of relaxing because I know that once the New Year gets here, things will start to get busier again. We have plans to have dinner with the Huna family (Olsa, Neda, and Ledio's family) and then we're meeting some friends in the city center for the fireworks. Then we'll see where the night takes us. It will be interesting because here, most people stay home until it actually reaches midnight and the new year, and then they go out and celebrate. It's typical for people to be out until 5am or later. Oh, man. I'm not so sure how I feel about that, but Emily and I are both thinking that 3am sounds late enough for us. lol :)

After that, we're leaving at 11pm on the 4th to go to Italy for a few days. We're taking the ferry across the Adriatic Sea from Durres, Albania to Bari, Italy. The ferry ride is overnight so that we have a larger portion of our day the next day to spend checking things out. From Bari, we'll take the train to Naples. We've booked a spot at a hostel in Naples, near the center but right on the coast. We're planning on taking a day trip to go to Pompeii and see the ruins left from Mt. Vesuvius. We'll also spend another day and a half in Naples before we head home. I'm so excited!!! I'm just praying that I feel good because with this dumb giardia business, I never know how I'll feel from day to day, even though I usually just feel kind of generally yucky overall.

Once we get back from Italy on the 8th (or maybe the wee hours of the morning on the 9th), we will have to start some serious planning for classes. It will be good to get lessons planned out for the first few weeks and we'll have to start calling kids and reminding them about registration and orientation. I'm sure we'll have a few more days to relax and such, but it will be time to get back to work as well.

Oh! There's one other noteworthy thing we've done. We went to another birthday party. Sara turned 11 and we were invited to her house for snacks and cake and a little party with just a few kids. Her mom was explaining to us that last time (at Danja's birthday) things got too crazy and there were too many out of control kids, so Sara's party was smaller. But she kept telling us she was so happy and it was a very good birthday. Awww. :)

So...without further adieu and because I've had time, here are a bunch of photo albums for you to look at. :) One I get more savvy about this link business, I'm hoping that I'll just be able to type the name of think album for you to click on and be taken directly to the pictures. But we'll see. I may not have enough time to figure that all out. lol Anyway, enjoy what I have to share for the time being.

Here are the pictures of events leading up to Christmas:
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=125600102&k=52C42ZQ3443M5FCGYK23RW

These are the pictures from when we baked cookies with the girls in the MMM group:
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=125600102&k=54ETYYPXU24M5FCGYK23RW

Sara's birthday party was fun. See for yourself:
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=125600102&k=65ETYX56R22M5FCGYK23RW

The Christmas Eve photos can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=125600102&k=54AXX5R44V6M5FCGYK23RW

And the pictures for Christmas Day can be seen at:
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=125600102&k=Z6LUZZT4P4YCUC1GVJVXQWR

Christmas Letter 2008

2008-12-24T09:03:00.001-06:00

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever." Hebrews 13:8

I admit, it's not usually a verse I think about at Christmas. But, being here, it has been the one that has come to mind the most often during this Christmas season. Day to day life, traditions, cultural norms, and socially acceptable behavior here are not the same as they are at home in the U.S. And Christmas definitely isn't the same. In fact, here it's just another regular old work day. But as I helped children prepare for a program, as I shared my Christmas plans with those curious inquisitors, as I did some Christmas shopping, as I taught people how to make Christmas decorations, as I baked Christmas cookies with first-timers, and even as I drank coffee, I have realized that though so many things about my life are different this Christmas, one thing--the most important thing--remains the same: the reason for celebrating.

The story of our Savior's birth is timeless. Unchanging. Enduring. The baby born in Bethlehem was born in a simple place to common people. His first visitors were regular people, shepherds in fact. But here's where things are different. His birth announcement was spectacular! I don't know about you, but I certainly don't know anyone whose birth was announced twice by angels. First the angel Gabriel came to tell Mary that she would give birth to the Savior. Then, when he made his appearance as a baby on that night in Bethlehem, an angel told the shepherds the good news and was then joined in chorus by a whole host of angels. WOW!!!

For me the biggest joy this Christmas is knowing that around the world there really are people celebrating for the same reason. I think of Emily, myself, and our friends here. I think of my parents and David and the rest of my family at home. I think of my aunt and uncle and cousins in Grenada. I think of a high school friend who now lives in Zambia, Africa. I think of college friends who are in China. I think of other friends in England, Thailand, and Australia. I think of friends and family around the United States. All of us are celebrating the same thing no matter what time zone we're in or what culture currently surrounds us. The news of our Savior, his birth, and his work will never ever change. Not in my lifetime nor throughout eternity. What he did started when he was born a tiny baby, just like you and me. Praise God for that little life born to Mary on a silent night in Bethlehem!

So to all of you around the world, I send my love and wishes to you all for a very merry Christmas from Albania. :)

Brand New Vocabulary

2008-12-18T16:54:00.004-06:00

Now that I am officially done with teaching classes until January 19, I'd like to take time and recap some new words I have learned from my classes. That's right--I have a brand spankin' new (but limited) Albanian vocabulary. Get ready for a random list. :)

1. ulu (pr. OO-loo) = sit down
This comes in very handy. I had no idea how useful this word would be when I first learned it.

2. një minutë (pr. NEE mee-NUTE) = one moment, in a minute
I say this all the time because students really like to interrupt me while I'm helping another student. lol Sound familiar to anyone else?

3. pritje (pr. PREET) = wait
No other word is as useful as this. Hands down, it is the best word I have learned yet!

4. patatina (pr. pah-tah-TEEN-ah) = potato chips
I really don't have any use for this word, but I learned it when one of my groups had "potato chips" as one of their vocabulary words. It is my favorite Albanian word because it's just so fun to say. :) Patatina!

5. gezuar krishtlindjet (pr. geh-ZOO-are kreesht-LEEN-deeyet) = Merry Christmas
You had to know I was going to learn this one, right?

6. gezuar ditëlindjen (pr. geh-ZOO-are deet-LEEN-dyen) = Happy Birthday
This was a must-learn as well, but I'm sure you suspected as much. ;)

7. dasmë (pr. DAZ-may) = wedding
You didn't see that one coming! Haha! Again, it was a vocabulary word. I know all sorts of wedding words. Here's a few more:

8. nuse (pr. NOO-seh) = bride
Vocabulary word.

9. dhëndër (thain-DARE) = groom
Vocabulary.

10. fustan (foo-STAHN) = gown, wedding dress
Thank you, wedding lesson.

11. kostum dasme (KOS-tume, DAZ-may) = tuxedo
Ok, enough with the wedding words. But thanks to the yellow and green groups for helping me learn them.

12. mesatare (pr. mess-ah-TAR-eh) = average
I learned this one in a lesson I taught about sports and the future tense.

13. papritur (pr. pah-PREE-tur) = suddenly
Don't remember how or when I learned this one, but I know it was with my blue group.

14. albitër (pr. al-BEE-tare) = umpire, referee
Another sports word, obviously. Hmmm, what are the chances I'll use this in every day conversations? lol

15. vesh (pr. VEHSH) = to wear
This was a popular vocabulary word in all of my classes. Our books like to talk about fashion.

That list doesn't include all the words I've learned, it's just a sampling of what I can remember off the top of my head. You know--the ones that just stick in my brain. I also know the days of the week, months of the year, numbers, and other daily words (Hello, goodbye, thank you, see you later, please, you're welcome, etc., etc.).

As my classes ended, I held off on the little speech about cheating and copying. I figured I should end on a positive note and add some consequences of those actions to my list of rules which I will review at the start of the next session of classes.

On another positive note, I got all the cookies baked for my classes, I'm ready for Christmas practice and activity night tomorrow, and am looking forward to the Christmas Service on Saturday. Plus, Emily and I had time to go see a movie tonight. Nights of Rodanthe was cute. We liked it. :) One step closer to vacation and all's well. Except the never-ending rain. lol But that will change eventually.

For now, natën e mirë! (pr. NAH-ten eh MEER) "Good night!"

Surprise, Surprise

2008-12-16T06:55:00.003-06:00

Surprise! It's me again. I'm back so soon. I was making myself frustrated by only updating once a week. How boring is that? So I'm going to change. Simple. Look at my good efforts lately. *Pats self on the back.* lol

First of all, Christmas practice on Sunday was not so hot. The kids must've eaten pure sugar for breakfast because most of them couldn't sit still and/or be quiet. The best behaved was the youngest one--an adorably cute just turned 6 year old boy named Rinaldo. Seriously one of the cutest kids ever! He comes running past the door to the church when we're there working, stops and looks in, and as soon as we look up, he waves and runs away. So adorable!

Anyway, I got off the track. Little kids are so fun but distracting. ;) It didn't help that they were getting their costumes two at a time with Emily while the rest of them were practicing the songs with me. Then once everyone had their costumes, they just couldn't focus or listen or anything. So we had to plan time for one more practice. We're going to do it Friday before Activity Night.

We were at church until 3 or 3:30 that day. Got there at 11:30 so it was a long noisy few hours. We hadn't eaten and were so hungry that we decided to go out for an early dinner. We went to Gloria Pizza, which is really an Italian restaurant not just a pizza place. It's really really nice and very fancy. They take off your coat for you, set your purse down for you, pull out your chair, put your napkin on your lap, pour your drinks for you, and by our standards, it's totally affordable! Emily had soup and a salad and I had soup and pasta and then we both ordered salep after we were though and the total wasn't even $20. CrAzY!!! When you finish eating and stand up to leave, people race over to you to help with your coat and bag. Wow! And, like most places here, once they realize we speak English, they try to practice with us or immediately tell us how they've learned English. lol It's funny. Every. Single. Time.

Then we came back and I had a very late night writing tests. I did as promised and wrote different versions of the same test for each student. But I didn't even get to give the tests on Monday. About an hour before I had to leave, I was suddenly bombarded with a bout of giardia. It was so out of the blue. I hate this stupid parasite! Luckily, Emily is a gem, and since I was prepared, she volunteered to hand out my test and then sit through it. I haven't corrected the tests yet, but I did glance at them. Since I know handwriting, I can see who cheated. They are not going to be too happy with my little speech next class. Honestly, they didn't cheat that much, but they still cheated. Not good! Just because their teachers in school may let them get away with it doesn't mean I'm going to. No way, Jose!

Last night I was feeling better than in the afternoon so Emily and I went on with our plans. We met at the Stephen Center to grab a bite and do some planning. It was our version of a "lunch meeting." We were actually very productive and got everything decided regarding registration and orientation for our second session which starts in January. We'll have all the papers, notes, and details ready for our students this week so we can give it to them on their last day of class. Then we can remind them again at Activity Night and again after the Christmas program when we can also talk to their parents. Whew! Chalk one up for productivity. ;)

There's still plenty to be done this week: tests to be corrected, Christmas cookies to be baked for my classes' Christmas parties, music to practice for the Christmas program, Activity Night to prepare for, Christmas Practice on Friday, the Christmas Service on Saturday and then comes the best part.......BREAK!!!!!! I'll update you on those plans later, but right now, it's looking pretty jam packed considering it's a break. Fun stuff though--don't worry! :)

I wish I knew how to make my blog look cool. I know other people who use this site to blog. That's how I decided to make mine here. But their blogs all look way better than mine. More fun and interesting, nicer backgrounds, better links to photo albums, more pictures, different fonts, etc. etc. If anyone knows how to do these things and can teach me without actually being present at my side (since that would be kind of impossible right now) please share! I'd love to make this more exciting for the readers. :) Plus, this is the sort of thing I love to putz around and play with. Help a sister out, would ya? lol

Fun, Fun, Fun

2008-12-13T14:41:00.002-06:00

"And we'll have fun, fun. fun 'til her daddy takes the t-bird away." Ok, so I don't really have a t-bird and my dad isn't here to stop my fun. Just kidding, Dad! :) You wouldn't do that anyway. So in light of those circumstances, we had ourselves a good ol' time with a visitor from down under.

Let me back track a week. Last Saturday we met our new friend Nicola. She found me on a site called couchsurfing.com which is specifically for the purpose of finding people to stay with while traveling. You literally surf their couch. Hee hee! So she asked if she could stay with us while passing through Tirana. We said sure! It's always fun to have extra English speakers around. It makes our lives more entertaining and it's quite amusing to hear other English comments on daily life around here.

So we met Nic in the city center and went back to our apartment. That first day we didn't do anything too awfully exciting around town for two reason. First, it was raining (of course!). This must be like monsoon season around here or something. December has been soooo rainy! Aaaaahhhh!!!! But I digress....Reason number two was that Nic was tired from all of her traveling. She's been traveling for four months and has three more to go, but the last few days had been continuous traveling with only overnight stops. She was looking forward to spending two nights in the same place. Well, the two nights turned into four because we all had so much fun. :)

That first day we took Nic out for a quick lunch of sufllaqe because we wanted her to have something authentically Albanian. She liked it. :) Then we spent the rest of the afternoon watching a James Bond movie, Golden Eye, that was on TV. Then we went down to Pastor's apartment and had game night. We ate tons of snacks--trail mix and mandarins--and chocolate (because it wouldn't be game night without chocolate), and then ordered pizza. We taught Nic how to play Ticket To Ride and just had a fun night. We didn't stop the games until 12:40am.

Sunday we took her to the Christmas Bazaar held at the Sheraton hotel here in Tirana. It's put on by the international community here so it's not really something Albanian, but they did have some students singing Christmas songs. It turns out they were students from our friend Lori's school so we listened to that with her for awhile, then browsed the tables, bought small orange chocolate torts to sample, and sat down at a cafe to introduce Nic to the goodness that is salep. I mentioned this drink in an earlier entry and I really do love it!

After that we went to Sky tower for an afternoon dessert and tea, but mostly to enjoy the views of the city during the day. You can really see all of the city from there and it's quite enjoyable. I'm still amazed that it's free to go up there. It's one of those places that if it were in the States, you'd have to make a reservation and/or pay a cover charge before going.

We stayed there for about an hour before heading back to our place to get ready to go to the Opera. As I've mentioned, Agron's niece is an opera singer who sings in operas in Albania, Italy, and France. She got extra tickets for Agron and he gave them to us. So Pastor, Emily, Nic and I ended up sitting in the front row! I kid you not--the front row! We ended up enjoying the show immensely. It was like a three in one opera. That's how Agron translated the title for us. lol The actual title is Il Trittico (The Triptych) by Giacomo Puccini and, as most operas are, was in Italian. The only translation there was in Albanian. Pastor knew this, so before we went, we read an online synopsis so we would understand it better.

It was three shorter shows combined to make one long performance (4 hours with intermissions between shows). The first show was called "Tabarro" and was lovers on a ship that was docked and being loaded. Basically, two guys love the same girl and one guy kills the other. It ends with the killer guy making the girl look at her dead lover. It was good.

The second one was much more slow moving. Entitled Suo Angelica, it was set at a 17th century convent and was about a nun named Sister Angelica. Agron's neice, Eva, played this role. So she was the star of this show. And star she was! It was a slower opera, much more somber than the first, but it was a perfect show for Eva's voice! Wow, can she sing! So clear and brilliant! Nothing screechy or sounding like real effort to reach a note. She sang smoothly and effortlessly and it was a joy to listen. The story goes something like this: Sister Angelica is a very fervent nun, she never has any visitors, she is very private and no one knows what caused her to take the vows. It's kind of the big secret around the convent. One day, very suddenly, her aunt comes to visit her. Angelica knows what's coming--news of the son she'd given birth to seven years earlier. It turns out the boy had died and Angelica is overwhelmed with grief. She commits suicide but she realizes the error of her ways just as she finds that heaven is closed to her, but then a miracle happens (thanks to the virgin Mary in the show, of course) and then she's let in with a welcome from a chorus of angels.

The third one was the best because it was the funniest. It was called Gianni Schicchi. It's about this old guy named Buoso Donati who has died. His family is pretending to grieve while they are really looking for his will to see what they each get. The nephew finds it and agrees to let them see it on the condition that they allow him to marry the neighbor, Gianni Schicchi's daughter. They agree. The will states that all the rich dead man's possessions are to be given to convents and monasteries. No one likes this. Plans change when Gianni comes in and has the bright idea that one of them should pretend to be Buoso Donati, then call the notary in, change the will, and all get the inheritance. This seems well and good to everyone since those in the room are the only ones who know he's dead. Gianni takes the place of Donati in the bed, the notary is called in, and Gianni proceeds to leave everything to himself! After the notary leaves, the relatives are furious so they steal what they can and run off. But Gianni, seeing the nephew and his daughter together, gives them the property. It was hilarious and was very well done. We all enjoyed this one a lot and couldn't stop laughing!

That was a fun night. The only two bad parts were that before hand, the four of us (Pastor included) were going to go for dinner at the crepe place Aida had taken us to a few weeks ago. But when we got there, it was closed! So we opted for a sufllaqe again since we all like it. :) And afterwards, we were going to go to Behari to get ice cream, but it was closed too! Some luck! So we ended up just going home. But it was still a fun night.

Monday was a holiday here (the small Bajram celebration) but didn't really seem any different than a normal day except that there was no school. We all slept in and then started watching movies on TV. Around 3:30 or 4 we decided we should take a walk and at least get some fresh air. We decided to walk to the French pastry shop in the block area. We got treats and tea and had a few laughs. On the way back, we decided a movie marathon was in order so we bought some snacks and wine and rented four movies. We watched three of them (because one that they gave us was not what we wanted) and then we watched two of my movies. We were up til 3am but it was a blast! Nic was so relieved to just be enjoying some down time relaxing and so were Emily and I.

Tuesday Emily and I cancelled our classes because for the last two Mondays there have not been classes due to holidays. We need our groups to stay at the same level and the Tuesday classes were starting to get ahead. We cancelled that day to keep everyone at the same place. It worked out nicely because it gave Nic another day to relax and time to figure out when and where her bus was leaving the next morning. I made chili for dinner that night and we just stayed inside because it was cold. We also taught Nic how to play Settlers Of Catan. :)

Wednesday morning Emily made pancakes for breakfast, we hopped on the bus, and bid our new traveling friend adieu. It was fun having her around but Emily and I needed to get some work done, so before our classes that day, we did some prep work and then got back into our regular routine.

I told you I had interesting stories to share. ;) I'm not a liar. lol I did take an extra day writing this though, so I broke a promise. Sorry. I was exhausted yesterday and crazy busy and honestly just didn't have time to do this.

Activity night last night was really fun! The pictures went over really well and some of the kids really colored them beautifully! Then again, there is an angel with blue hair and orange wings and a Mary with blue hair. lol But they tried their best to make them beautiful so I put them all up on the wall. We added some homemade tinsel to the tree and made a red and white paper chain that was long enough to stretch around the whole room! And Agron bought some balloons that turned out to be birthday ballons so we put them up anyway since Christmas celebrations are kind of a birthday party for Jesus. :) This morning as Emily and I were finishing putting up the paper chain, Agron told us with a huge smile, "Our church center has never looked so beautiful." Well that just warmed my heart! It made me feel so good about what we're doing. And then, church was so full today we had 4 people sharing 3 seats in two different rows. :) Many of the kids came before Christmas practice so it was really nice to be in a full decorated church. :)

Christmas practice went well and Emily has done an awesome job teaching them their lines and the songs. They are also getting pretty good at singing one verse of Silent Night in German. I did a lot of echoing with them to help learn it. lol I've got the music all figured out: I'm going to play Silent Night and Joy To The World, but then for O Little Town of Bethlehem and Away In A Manger I'm just going to play the melody because we split the kids half and half. Then for the two hymns where the congregation joins in, Oh Come, All Ye Faithful and Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, we'll use the computer program that plays the hymn because for the last verse of each, I will join in and play the descant part on my flute. Tomorrow is our final big rehearsal to test out the costumes (We have Mary and Joseph and the rest are divided into shepherds and angels. Think pageant style.) and work out the final kinks.

On an unrelated note, I have made one more Christmas in Albania observation. Here in Tirana, I would say that at least 90%, maybe even at least 95% of all the Christmas lights I've seen displayed or for sale are blinking or moving lights. Just as the colors and patterns or designs painted on building here, I guess they like their Christmas lights to be extra stimulating, too.

The great cookie bake with the MMM group was today at our apartment. We had 5 girls that came! Woo hoo! Neda had some problems though, but we're working through those. Thankfully the other girls are much more mature and handled it well. But overall everyone had fun. The cut out cookie dough I made yesterday wasn't chilled enough to roll last night. So instead of frosting them, the girls rolled out the dough and cut out the cookies and sprinkled them with powdered sugar. Well, we thought it was powdered sugar at least. Emily bought it and checked out one of the little packets. It was indeed powdered sugar. However, the rest of the packets she bought, which were right behind the one she checked that was on the shelf, turned out to be baking soda. Hahaha! It tasted gross! So I got the idea to make a little assembly line to save the cookies. Some girls used water and paper towels to wipe off the cookies and the other girls took the damp cookies and sprinkled regular sugar on them. It worked and they tasted just fine. Too funny though!

Then we made the kind of cookies where you take a bite sized piece of candy bar and put it inside the dough. Well, the dough wasn't cold enough to form a ball with and we didn't have extra time to wait so we just stuck the candy bar in the middle and baked them. They tasted awesome! But the girls hadn't quite put enough flour in the dough so they spread out a lot but luckily I noticed before the first batch was burned so we just baked them for a minute less than the recipe said. It worked perfectly. They look like a mess but they really do taste awesome!

After that we made chocolate dipped pretzels. But the only chocolate squares we could find were ones that Laura's parents had sent last year and were unsweetened. So once they were on aluminum foil to cool we sprinkled sugar on those too. Now they taste just fine. :) I figured at home people dump sprinkles or colored sugar on things like that for fun so why not use what we have here to do the same. So, since regular sugar is pretty much it, that's what we used. The girls had a lot of fun and are so excited to get their plates of cookies tomorrow. It's nice to be able to have this small group time with them. We really feel like we're getting to know them!

I had fun too, but I'm exhausted! Emily and I just relaxed tonight after cleaning up. We ate some cookies and Em made some dip for the pretzels so we munched on that while we played two games of Ticket To Ride. Then she worked on some last minute things for the costumes, I started writing this, and it's already 11:20pm! I can't believe it. And I still haven't started writing my tests yet. Oh boy. Tomorrow is going to be jam packed. I'm seeing a late night in my future tomorrow....Good thing I can sleep in on Monday! :)

We're having a good time here and now that we've baked Christmas cookies it's really starting to feel more like Christmas. :) I'm actually getting excited about the Christmas program and I'm really excited about having a break to travel, relax, and do some planning. The first day of our break, Monday the 23rd, I've already decided I'm going to make it a pajama day and spend the whole day in comfy clothes, relaxing by watching movies, reading, playing games, listening to Christmas music and surfing the internet all day. You know, just relaxing stuff. A real, true, day off to do nothing in particular. :) I can't wait! Til then, it's going to be a week of fun, fun, fun as we get ready for everything .

Not So Winter Wonderland

2008-12-11T16:06:00.003-06:00

From what I hear, everything back at home is really starting to look like a winter wonderland, just as the song describes. Well, I've been listening to that song and other Christmas music a lot lately, but it's just not quite as picturesque here. There is definitely something to be said for a white Christmas. It just adds so much to the holiday. I miss it. There are more signs of Christmas here than last time I wrote--Christmas trees are up in some stores, businesses, and homes, and some of those have Christmas lights as well--yet I have not heard of any real Christmas traditions or plans. In fact, most people just tell me it's pretty much a normal workday like every other day. That is depressing to me. But then again, no one does Christmas quite like America! :)

Emily and I are making an effort to emphasis Christmas and celebrating the Savior's birth. We've been meeting with the kids to practice the Christmas Program, we made invitations to the program with the MMM group, we put the advent wreath (thanks again for the candles, Mom!) up at church, we added the manger scene to the alter (thanks for that, too, Mom!), and put up the Christmas tree. This Friday we'll add to that at Activity Night. We're going to have a whole hour (or a little more) just for decorating. :) We've got pictures to color, cut out and put up including angles, the nativity, and a maze that helps the shepherds find the baby Jesus. We will make a paper chain to put up and we'll also put up some garland. All this will be done while listening to some sacred Christmas music. I'm telling you, Santa is waaaayyyy too important to society. When we said we were going to have a Christmas program one little girl, Doris, told us she has a Santa costume and asked if she could be Santa in the program. lol Funny, but it shows how important it is that we celebrate the real emphasis of Christmas.

On Saturday, we're teaching the MMM girls a true American holiday tradition--baking Christmas cookies! They're coming over to our apartment after the program rehearsal. We'll decorate cut-out cookies that Emily and I are making tomorrow, and then we'll make candy bar cookies (the one with candy bar bites baked in the middle) and chocolate dipped pretzels. Then each girl will be able to put a little collection of cookies together to take home and share with her family. We'll also have a devotion of course. I'm thinking one about love and generosity, but I have to see what ideas Emily has yet, too.

Our Christmas plans aren't set in stone yet, but we know that on Christmas Eve we'll have a "family Christmas" with the two of us, and probably Aida. We're planning to make a big dinner. I guess we gained some courage and confidence in the kitchen since Thanksgiving turned out to be a success. :) We haven't made our menu yet, but we're aiming for something somewhat impressive. That's our goal at least. Now we just have to decide what would fit those qualifications....Hmmm......Anyway, for Christmas Day we're planning to be a bit more active. We invited Olsa, Neda, and Ledio over for a game night/movie night where we'll have Christmas cookies and other snacks. During the morning and early afternoon we'll probably go to a smaller town with them and view a very old but beautiful church. It's very well known here in Albania. It's popular for both locals and tourists to see and is apparently extra beautiful at Christmas.

The part of our upcoming weekend that isn't consumed with Christmas activities and preparations for church will be consumed with preparations for our last week of classes before the holiday. Next week is our last week and so we have final tests to write. Since my classes decided to be truly Albanian and talk to each other and ask for answers all through their last test, they are each getting an individual test this time. They will all have the same sections to the test, but the actual questions will be different. This time we'll see who actually studies. *Evil laugh!* Just kidding. I'm not the mean teacher, I just need to know who, if anyone, is learning anything. ;)

Also since our last classes before our second session starts in January are next week, it means that we have to plan our our registration and orientation for January already this weekend. Then we have to put all the information together so we can get it to kids and their families next week. Lots of planning and calendar-checking and forms to prepare. Think we'll be busy at all this weekend? lol

Oh! I have some more crazy bus stories to share. There are just so many interesting situations on the buses here. I never have a clue what will happen. The first crazy story took place on Saturday on my way to church. The bus had to stop twice because of arguments. Not dangerous ones or anything, but it's never stopped for conversations before. The first stop was because a man was trying to use a bus pass that was expired. It started as just a conversation between he and the ticket-taker guy. Then the guy next to me joined in. Then two more other guys did. Then the girl in front of me wanted to see the pass. In the end, the guy ended up paying the 30 Lek for the ride like everyone else. The second stop was because a man wanted to bring two live chickens onto the bus. People can buy live chickens from the market so it's not unusual to see that. What's unusual is that he wanted to bring the live chickens on the bus. People have brought dead chickens on the bus before, but after the argument ended, the guy was allowed to bring his two live chickens on the bus. He was holding them by the feet (or ankles, if chickens have ankles. Anyone know?) and every time we went over a bump or stopped quickly, they flapped around and squawked loudly. What a ride!

Then on Sunday as I walking to the bus to come home after English church, there were a bunch of kids lighting firecrackers in the bus lane. They'd light them right before a bus came and then run off. Or they'd light them really close to the street. As I got on the bus, I saw the kids getting ready to light some for our bus. Their timing was perfect. They went off just as our bus went over them. I thought the bus was going to explode or something because after that, it smelled like fire smoke the whole ride. I'm telling you, these bus rides are insane some days! Haha! Never a dull moment!

Then, another funny bus ride happened yesterday. I was riding home after class and there was an old drunk guy on the bus. You don't see people drunk in public all that often here. Well, I'm sure if I was out late at the popular bars I might, but all in all, it's not nearly as common here as it is in the States for people to be drunk in public. Anyway, this guy was. He wasn't annoying or anything, but he was singing. lol Everyone was chuckling at him even though he didn't know it. He was signing the Albanian hymn (aka national anthem) and some other songs I didn't know. And then he couldn't remember the words to the song he had in his head so he just started singing "Bum, bum bum..." and looking at the guy next to him for help. As if he hadn't provided enough entertainment, we all had to switch onto a different bus because the driver of our bus was done with his shift. (Weird way to end a shift. Why not just have the driver get out and a new one get on? But whatever. lol) So when we got onto the new bus, there was a whole new set of people who chuckled in amusement.

I have much more to tell, but as it is late and the story is long, I will save it for tomorrow. Yes, that's right, two blog entries right in a row. It's been so far between them that I bet you thought I forgot about this thing or abandoned it completely. Not the case, my friends! I've simply been super duper extra busy, as you can tell. I'll give the rest of the report tomorrow. It involves a four day visit from our new Australian friend, the Opera,game night and a movie marathon. :) Don't you love my life? I do! :D

It's Raining, It's Pouring

2008-12-04T03:56:00.003-06:00

Literally, it's raining and it's pouring. It has been raining with very few breaks since around 11pm on Tuesday. Everything is wet, making the air damp and chilly. The thunder storms are really loud here because cement walls and tiled roofs don't provide any sort of sound barrier or buffer the way insulated walls and ceilings and attics do in the US. Normally I sleep through thunderstorms. Not here though. I lie awake trying to sleep, but if that fails, I've been using the time to read or listen to my iPod. Anyway, right now we're in the midst of a break from the rain. How long or short it will be remains to be seen.

When it rains here, many events or activities are cancelled. If they aren't, the attendance is usually poor. Why is that? Because people have to walk in the rain to get to the location of the activity or event. Yesterday, when it was pouring all day, Neda told me her teachers asked the students why they even came to school at all that day. The teachers proceeded to tell the students that if tomorrow was the same, don't come to school. Most kids have a decent length walk outside, which means they'd get soaked, then spend all day at school in soaked clothes only to have to walk back home again in the rain. That makes it way to easy to get sick.

My classes still had good attendance yesterday, even though the weather was crappy. I found out that next Monday is another holiday here. It's the other Bajram celebration so they have off school. They have more national holidays here than they know what to do with! lol It's funny because that's one of the things Albanian was told by the European Union that they have to fix before they can become part of the EU: reduce the number of national holidays. Too funny!

On Tuesday we received an invitation from Agron. His great niece, Laura, is around 9 or 10 years old but is an outstanding violinist. Her mother, Eva (Agron's niece), is a relatively well known opera singer in Albanian as well as Italy. Her father is an orchestra conductor. As you can see, Laura's musical inclination comes naturally. Anyway, she had a recital that evening and Agron invited us to attend with him. So Pastor, Emily, Agron and I all met at the Opera House a little before 7pm for this recital concert.

I had no idea how impressive this would be! There was a small string orchestra to accompany those giving recitals. We learned from Agron that this orchestra was made up of music teachers, mostly from the School of the Arts, which Laura attends. The father, Agron's neice's husband (nephew-in-law?), was the conductor for the recital. They played one song and then Laura came out and played her violin. She played the first part and performed all of the solos. She was incredible!!! Lady Catherine from Pride and Prejudice would have called her "a great proficient." I mean, they were playing actual symphony type pieces! I couldn't understand the names of the songs because they were written on the program in Albanian, but the three composers whose work was performed during the recital were Bach, Vivaldi, and Hayden. That right there tells you how amazing it was!

The interesting thing was that people kept talking and whispering throughout the performances. That must not be a no-no here because the people in Durres talk and whisper all through church, people at the movies do the same thing, and kids talk about constantly talking and whispering through tests at school. Despite the distractions, I enjoyed the little concert immensely. It took about an hour and was a truly excellent performance. Laura looked like nothing phased her at all. The other girl who was a violinist, probably around 15 or 16, looked the same. Cool as a cucumber. Then, this one girl, probably 16 or 17, came out to play the piano. Holy cow!!!! WOW!!!! She even looked bored, if I can dare to say it! When she had rests in her music, she'd look out at the crowd, flip her hair out of her face, or fidget. But you could still tell she was counting and when she played, her fingers just flew across the keys! The whole thing was awesome!

I've been busy planning for classes this week and for other activities this week including Activity Night and Christmas Practices. But I have had a little free time which gave me the opportunity to put all of my random fall fun pictures into an album. So, for your enjoyment, here is the link to view some Fall Fun In Tirana:

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=125600102&k=XXL3P3PSWVWM5FCGYK23RW

It hasn't started raining again (yet!) and I'll even be bold enough to say that I think it's gotten lighter out. Hopefully it won't rain any more today! I have to teach later and then this evening we're meeting Lejda for coffee. It would take a lot of the fun out of it if we have to battle the rain to make it from place to place. Luckily, I have rain boots! :) They're wearing out already though because I've used them so much. Crazy, right? But they still keep my feet warm and dry.

I think that's all there is to report for the time being. Don't worry though--I will continue to keep you updated on anything interesting that happens. Please feel free to do the same. Don't be a stranger to my inbox. :) Thanks to everyone for keeping it fairly full!

Holiday Weekend

2008-11-30T14:27:00.002-06:00

Well, our 5 day weekend has turned out to be more work than relaxation. lol :) Thursday we were pretty much busy all day. First we had to run a few errands to make sure we had everything we neede for cooking the Thanksgiving meal. Once that was taken care of, we got right down to business.

Well, sort of. See, we were going to shower in the morning to start our day like normal, but since our water works a little differently here, we had a complication. First of all, when we're not in the shower, we have to turn the hot water heater on so that the water gets hot for when we do need to take a shower. Then, when we need to take a shower, we have to turn that switch off and turn on the switch for the water pump so we have enough water pressure. When both switches are on at the same time, it uses too much electricity, which causes problems later on. Anyway, when Emily went to shower in the morning, she realized she's forgotten to turn the pump back on after her shower the day before. So we had to turn it back on and wait a few hours until we had some hot water. To pass the time, we started cooking instead.

Emily made pie crust while I peeled potatoes. Then she finished the whole pumpkin pie and I was still peeling and cutting potatoes. lol But by the time the pie was completely cooked, all the potatoes had been cut and peeled, ingredients for the next items had been set out, our dinner clothes had been laid out, we washed some dishes to be ready for round 2 of cooking, and had a snack to satisfy our tummies until the feast. :) After that was all done, the shower was ready. So we showered, and got mostly ready, then went back to the cooking.

I made the mashed potatoes, from scratch, made my right arm stronger than my left in the process. Haha! :) I also made stuffing (of the Stove Top variety, straight from the Sates thanks to Pastor) and then I made gravy from scratch. Emily made biscuits froms scratch and then heated up the green beans and got the cranberry sauce all set. In between all this cooking we took things down stairs to Pastor's apartment where we'd be eating. His apartment is right below ours but it has a different layout. It's more open so it has more room for socializing. We took down wine, water, juice, wine glasses, dessert plates, whipped cream for the pie, napkins, and a few other little items. Then we came back up, finished the cooking, finished changing clothes, and took all the food down to the other apartment.

It looked so good and smelled so good, too! We didn't have turkey because of the hassle it would have been, so Emily made a run to Mr. Chicken to pick up 3 small rotisserie chickens. They were quite tasty! Aida was with us and helped us set up everything so then all we had to do was wait for Agron and Vitori to arrive. When they did, we poured wine and water or juice, sat down, gave thanks, and toasted to Thanksgiving. We had an excellent meal and excellent company to share it with. Emily and I are truly blessed to have an Albanian family to celebrate our American holiday with us. What a gift to be thankful for!

After wards, our kitchen was a mess and so was Pastor's. Emily headed up to our place after the guests left and we took everything back upstairs. She started in on our kitchen while Pastor tackled his dishes that we'd used and I started in on the floors, counters, sticky spots, and linens. Amazingly, the clean up process went quite quickly! But after it was all said and done, Emily and I were ready to just relax for what was left of the rest of the night. (We ate around 6:30 since our non-American guests still had to work that day as Thanksgiving isn't a holiday here.)

I promised to document the process and document I did. Here are the pictures: http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=125600102&k=RVE35WV5T54M5FCGYK23RW

The best part of me though was that I got to talk to my family on Skype. :) Mom, Dad, and David were all home so I got to talk to them and see them all at once. What a hoot! We are so funny sometimes! I'll admit it. I think my family is funny. :) We had a good chat and had lots and lots of laughs. It was like we were all in the same place. I'm so thankful that I can still communicate with them from so far away!

So far our 5 day weekend has flown by! No joke. It's like we blinked and now we only have one day left. Friday we did some work around here during the day and then met Aida because she wanted to take us to this place she likes that makes crepes. So we went there and they make every kind of crepe imaginable. There were dinner ones with "real" food fillings. Think of an omlette but substitute a crepe for the egg. Then there was another gigantic assortment of dessert ones. We all opted for the dessert ones. Aida got chocolate with crushed cookies, Emily got chocolate, crushed cookies, and Bailey's Irish Creme, and I got white chocolate, hazelnuts, and Kahlua. They were all quite tasty! We also played a game of Settlers of Catan while we were there because we'd brought it with us. I won again. :) That board really is lucky for me! lol

Saturday was church, followed by Christmas practice with the kids, followed by our first MMM. The MMM (Mary and Martha Meeting) went well. We only had two girls who came, which was a little disappointing, but it was a good start. The weather was rainy and that always makes attendance low. Most people have to walk, bike, or bus here so when the weather is yucky no one really goes out unless they have to. Emily did a little devotion about Mary and Martha help explain whey we gave our group that name. Then I got them started on the project. We made invitations to the Christmas Program. We made enough for each student's family to have one, plus a few others to share with people. It was fun! We talked while we did the craft and listened to Christmas music and ordered salep from the bar kafe next door. So we even had a warm drink to enjoy while we worked. :) Salep is something that we do not have in the States but definitley should! It's a white drink that's creamy, well thick really, that is best "drank" with a spoon. It tastes a lot like rice pudding and has a very warm and cozy effect. We finished the project, cleaned up, and let the girls pick their favorite invitation to take home to their families.

After that, we went back home and crashed. We curled up on the couch and watched movies from 4pm until around 8pm. Then we did a little facebooking to check people's Thanksgiving pictures, and decided it was time to decorate our apartment for Christmas.

It's not what you're thinking. Albanians don't observe Christmas the way we're used to. It was a communist country for many years and during that time, people couldn't celebrate Christmas. Celebrating the New Year is the most popular and important holiday here. That is the time when everyone gets together with family and that everyone goes out to celebrate. They even have two full days off--New Year's Day and January 2. From what I understand, there really aren't any Christmas traditions here. That seems so sad to me! Emily said that last year it seemed like any other regular day with people working and going about their business like a normal working day. Kids don't have school and I guess some families celebrate with a meal at their house. But I'm told people don't have Christmas trees. I have no idea about Christmas presents. I'll keep you posted on whatever traditions (or lack thereof) I come across as the day draws near.

Therefore, our Christmas decorations are rather limited. We have a teeny tiny fake tree that we put up and added our 4 ornaments to. The only reason we had any ornaments is because Mrs. Ahlers left them for us. I also added a the keychain that Dorien gave me upon my arrival in Tirana. Then I got the bright idea to use earrings as ornaments! lol :) They were the perfect scale for our tiny tree and I won't wear them over the break. Then we put out some Christmas cards Emily had saved from last year. We also put out a Christmas tin that she had and an advent calendar that my mom sent us. Emily had an advent calendar that Laura's parents had given them last year. Since it's magnetic, we put that one on the fridge. Then we found a little snowman snowglobe and put that by the tree. Emily also got a mini Charlie Brown Christmas tree and the pocket sized versioin of the "A Charlie Brown Christmas" book in her care package from Laura so we put those out too. We have a set of lights but have yet to figure out where or how to put them up. Cement walls really make decorating a challenge! Nailing is such a pain because the wall chips away.

Anyway, that brings us to today. We are now having English services on Sundays at church during the weeks that Pastor is here. So we did that this morning, even though it was just me, Emily and Vitori. I playing the piano. Mostly, that just means that I plunked out the right hand part of the liturgy songs and the hymns. But Pastor let me pick the hymns for this service. :) He just said to pick advent hymns so I picked, "Lift Up Your Heads, You Mighty Gates," "On Jordan's Banks The Baptists Cry" and "Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel" because I like those ones alot. :) That was fun to pick the hymns!

After that, we again had Christmas practice with the kids. It was a little hectic, but they are starting to get pretty good at the songs. They rush them a bit, which makes playing along a little difficult sometimes, but they'll get it and so will I. I even practiced piano for an hour when I got home. If I have to learn 5 new hymns, I need to practice!!!

Tonight we had game night again downstairs at Pastor's house. This week we played Ticket To Ride. No one else was in the mood to play Settlers after my 3-peat last week. Hee hee! ;) But this week Pastor won all three games. Poor Emily! lol I guess next week will be her lucky week.

Tomorrow we're planning to do some Christmas shopping in the morning. We want to get our friends here something little. It won't be anything expensive and we're going to split the costs so it will be fun to browse. However, Albanians shop differently than Americans. Whereas Americans go into a store and browse until they find what they want, or simply go in a store just to look without buying anything at all, Albanians are quite the opposite. When you go into an Albanian store, people ask you what you want. And they follow you around. You can't really just browse and look. Albanians only shop when they know what they want. It's annoying to me and Emily because for one, we don't always know where to get things so we need to look just to find out if they even have what we want. Secondly, we don't know how to tell people we're just looking. Thirdly, sometimes we don't even know the Albanian words for what we're looking for. And fourthly, sometimes we really just want to look around and browse and enjoy seeing everything. But just as the culture here seems to be generally blunt and to the point, so shopping is here as well.

After that, we plan to grab a bite for lunch and once again hit up the Monday 12:30 matinee at the movie theater because it's the cheapest movie of the week and it's a good quiet 2 hours of downtime during the middle of the day. The new James Bond movie "Quantam Solace" is playing. See? We're not too awfully far behind the States. However, the movies here are pirated, but I didn't do it, so it makes no difference to me. lol :)

Then we'll just finish up the day getting ready for the rest of the week. Mostly we'll be planning lessons, but I think we might manage to end the 5 day weekend by playing a game or curling up with some tea and watching a movie. Maybe we'll even go to bed early since it's been such a busy "vacation" from work! lol I'll let you know how that turns out. ;)

Thankfulness

2008-11-26T18:24:00.003-06:00

Tonight is the beginning of a 5 day weekend for Emily and me! As I mentioned last time, we cancelled classes for tomorrow so we can celebrate Thanksgiving. (There will be more about that, along with pictures later this weekend. ;) Keep your eyes peeled!) Friday is Albania's Independence Day, Saturday is Liberation Day and when a holiday here falls on a Saturday, they observe it on the following Monday. Woo hoo!!! Lot's of time for fun and relaxation! There will be plenty of work done, too, but I'm excited for 5 whole days to plan according to my every whim. :)

Being that it's 1:30am here, it's technically already Thanksgiving. One of the things I am most thankful for is my family. Without their support and unconditional continuous love, moving here would have been a lot harder and I would be super lonely right now. But I know that they think about me, just as I think about them. I know they love me and that I love them. And every time I talk with them or get an e-mail or note, I am reminded of their continuing support through the encouraging words they send my way.

My Thanksgiving started with a "visit" from family too. I got to Skype with David!!!! I was sooooo excited! I still am, which is why I'm wide awake and writing this instead of in bed sleeping. It was the first time I have seen his face since the day I bid him adieu, August 9. I've "visited" with my parents via Skype, but since David's computer has some audio issues, he can't Skype. Now that he's at home for Thanksgiving, he called me on Skype. It was fun! He said they'll call tomorrow too when their all at home. :) Oh, how I wish I could be there with them! But no matter where I am--Wisconsin, Albanian, Timbuktu, Antarctica, or wherever--I love them the same and they love me the same. :) God is good!

I have many things to be thankful for this year. The obvious include God, family, and friends. But I also have new Albanian friends and surrogate family to be thankful for. I have had no serious health issues this past year (things could be a lot worse than giardia). I've had safe travels here and been blessed with the opportunity to see and experience new places. I'm thankful that I am able to observe a new culture. I'm thankful that I have gained understanding and respect for people culturally different from me and that I've gained a new found pride in and respect for my own country and culture. I am thankful that God is using me and Emily here in Albania to be an introduction to his word for people. And I am even more thankful that it's up to the Holy Spirit, not us, to cultivate faith in people's hearts. I am thankful for everyone who has sent an encouraging word and/or kept me in their thoughts and prayers. Our Heavenly Father truly is a loving God!

Tomorrow (or later today, if you want to get technical), I will get to celebrate all of this with a feast! God has given me everything I need, even when I'm far from home. Emily and I are thankful for having people to celebrate with. We're thankful for having so much food to cook, but are a little nervous about how it will turn out. ;) We've never tried something of this proportion or importance before. lol Wish us luck! There is no doubt that we will document the day with pictures. Whether the food will appear appetizing or burnt is the million dollar question. ;) Just kidding! There will be so much that if one thing isn't so appealing, we'll eat more of another thing instead! Haha!

But until those pictures come around, here are a few others to keep you occupied. Remember way back in October when we took a sunrise drive through the mountains with the Ahlers? Well, I've got pictures from the road to Elbasan. Here's the link:

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=125600102&k=X21434TX34YM5FCGYK23RW

There are only a few pictures, but the scenery really was quite beautiful, especially at that time of day. The problem was that because the road was so narrow and was right, and I mean right, on the edge of the mountains that there weren't many spots to pull over for photo opportunities. Anyway, enjoy them! The sights reminded me of Bible stories. :)

The Wheels On The Bus

2008-11-24T15:15:00.002-06:00

The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round according to the song. But here in Tirana, they stop at the strangest places. Like the other day for example. I was riding home from church after my late class. It was around 7:30 and we were about half way between church and the stop where I get off. We had been creeping at a snail's pace, no joke, the whole ride. All of a sudden I realized: the bus is stopping and it's not a regular stop. We weren't even at a stop light or at a stand still because of traffic or anything. We stopped so the bus driver could get out and run into the bar kafe. He came back out with some sort of drink for himself and a macchiatto for the ticket guy. He then proceeded to drive even slower so he wouldn't spill his drink! lol Then, all of a sudden, right when we got to the corner where we turn onto the street where my stop is, the driver floored it and started honking at everyone and everything in sight! I had no idea what was going on. I was just relieved that my stop was next. That was one crazy ride! lol Only in Tirana. :)

See? I told you every day here is a new adventure! Haha!

Our activity night on Friday was a good one. It was rainy that day, and rain here always means lower attendance for events. However, this one was fun because we had another parent come! Yay! One of the moms who has started coming with her son to one of Emily's beginner classes showed up with her son and her young daughter. It was good to see them there. We had a little Thanksgiving Celebration. I gave a very brief story of the origin of Thanksgiving. Then we all wrote a list of things we were thankful for. The catch was that they had to start with the letters in Thanksgiving, as I had written that word down the page. We shared a few of the things on our lists.

After that, Emily told about the Thanksgiving meal and we handed out cranberry sauce (the typical goodness in a can :) that Americans love) for people to try. Most of those in attendance liked it. Except Danja. She was funny. She made a nasty face and told Emily "Ewww!" Hee hee!

Finally, I taught them how to draw turkeys by tracing their hand. So we made Thanksgiving pictures to give to the people we're thankful for. Emily and I got many pictures. lol So sweet! Sometimes I feel like the kids forget about everyone else when they're at Activity Night. They just swarm us for attention, but it's cute. They are always so excited to be there and in class they're so excited to learn English. It's just fun to be around them!

I let my small class choose American names during class. I now teach Ruby, Natalie and Jasmine instead of Xheni, Enxhi, and Sasha. lol They are so silly! It took them so long to pick the names because they were so happy they got to pick their own that they wanted it to be just perfect. I remember being like that in Spanish class in high school. lol Some things never change. :)

Pastor came back this weekend and brought some goodies with him for Emily and I. (Thanks, mom!!!!) I now have a replenished supply of Ramen noodles. Is is sad that I could still live off of those even though I'm out of college? Haha! Anyway, she also replenished my chocolate chip supply, sent some peanut butter, brown sugar, sent advent candles and a nativity for church, sent my flute back so I can play in church, piano music, an advent devotion book, an advent calendar, Christmas cards (not to be opened until Christmas, of course!) a Thanksgiving card, candles for our smelly bathroom (the pipes don't quite drain as quickly as in the US so some days it smells like sewer), and a few other great odds n ends. Then, Sunday night when we went downstairs to Pastor's apartment (he's living underneath us when he's here) for game night, he had an early Christmas present for each of us from he and Mrs. Ahlers. Emily got the game Ticket To Ride and I got the game Settlers of Catan. We were so excited!!!! It was perfect because it gave us a much better game supply to chose from for game nights now. lol I'm telling you, it was like Christmas came early! We were so excited! What made it even better was that we played three games of Settlers and I won all three! That board likes me! It's lucky for me! Hee hee! ;)

This week we're having a meeting to catch Pastor and Agron up on our future plans for English class and to talk more about outreach and home visits. We're also having our first Mary and Martha Meeting. That's the group we're starting for girls ages 13-17. We'll do devotions and an activity. This week we'll do a craft. We're making the invitations to our Christmas Program. Should be fun! We're also continuing our Christmas Program Practices. I need to start practicing the piano a lot because I'm accompanying the songs. I volunteered so I better be ready. :)

We cancelled our classes on Thursday so that Emily and I can celebrate Thanksgiving. We invited Agron, Vitori, Dorien, Pastor, and Aida to come here for a Thanksgiving meal. Turkey is hard to get this time of year since that's what they traditionally eat for New Years. Plus, even if we did find one, we'd have to buy it live, kill it ourselves, and pluck it ourselves. Um, no thank you. I've never even made a frozen turkey before so I somehow think it would be even more difficult if I had to start with a live one. So we're settling for rotisserie chickens instead. They can be found easily around here and are quite tasty. So Thursday will be a busy but fun day off.

There is no Activity Night this week because Friday is Albanian Independence Day. Then Saturday they celebrate Liberation Day, or Nata e Bardhe (pr. NAH-tah EE BAR-the) which means White Night. It's when the Albanian flag was first raised to show their independence. It was raised in Vlora, a city in the south of Albania, so the biggest celebration is there. But everyone everywhere stays out all night to celebrate. Ay ay ay. I'm counting on some interesting observations. ;) And when a holiday falls on a Saturday here, they observe it on the following Monday. Therefore our students don't have school on Monday so we don't have English classes on Monday either. Emily and I have a five day weekend! Woo hoo!!!

Christmas isn't a huge holiday here like it is in the States. Being a communist country for so long, people couldn't celebrate Christmas. That's why Albanians go all out for New Years like we do for Christmas. So there are no Christmas decorations up here, no Christmas lights, no candy canes in shops, and no bell ringers. I can't lie....I don't miss those bell ringers. It always gives me a headache. lol In absence of this Christmas spirit, my iPod has become my new best friend when I'm out walking around town or riding the bus to church. I listen to Christmas music because when it is combined with the crisp chilly air, it makes me feel a little closer to home at this time of year. :) Emily and I are planning to decorate our place for Christmas though before Thanksgiving. We want our apartment to look festive when our dinner guests arrive. :)

Despite a long weekend ahead, I have plenty of work to do! I have worksheets to make for my classes, "bulletin board" stuff to prepare (mostly things to cut out so they can be taped to the wall), words to translate, piano to practice, meeting notes to prepare for tomorrow, supplies to gather for making the invitations, and I need to come up with an idea for a Christmas gift to my students. So if any of you have ideas for that, please share! I'm most definitely open to suggestions! As you can see, I have plenty keeping me busy. ;) Hope you're not getting overwhelmed back at home. This time of year always seems to start piling on the stress. Be sure to enjoy it a little extra for me, ok? ;) Thanks!

Older And Wiser

2008-11-18T13:27:00.002-06:00

Isn't that how the saying goes? Another year older, another year wiser. Right? Well in the few days since I turned 25 I haven't had any major catastrophes so maybe it's true. :)

My birthday was a blast! In the afternoon I baked cookies to take with me to Activity Night. Once we got to church I was totally stunned when kids started giving me gifts. I couldn't believe it. We'd never told them we'd be celebrating my birthday, but it was on the calendar so they knew when it was. They gave me gifts and I was so touched! People here have much less than Americans, but they are so genuinely generous with what they have. I was a little overwhelmed because I hadn't expected anything. It wasn't necessary either.

We had a game night that night so the kids played games and colored pictures and ate my cookies. They even sang Happy Birthday twice! lol Then they watched me open my gifts and started to clean up. As they were leaving, something kind of strange happened. They all asked me to write my name and my sign (aka signature) on their hands. Then they asked me to write my birthday too. So I did. Then they started asking Emily to do the same thing. I honestly have no clue what this was about. We still can't figure it out. Maybe they were trying to ask for our autographs? Maybe it's a tradition? Either way, we found it quite amusing.

After that, we headed out to meet some friends at Sky Tower. We went up to the top and had a drink while we waited. We chatted and enjoyed the views of the city. And then we saw some fireworks! You can probably find fireworks somewhere in this city on any given night of the week, but I've never had fireworks on my birthday! :) I love fireworks so I was very excited. When the rest of the gang got there, I was serenaded with the song again before we headed out to our final destination.

We went to this place called Flares Bar for karaoke. It was so much fun! They played songs in Albanian, English, and Italian. We sang along regardless of the language and even took our turn singing a song. We went with a classic artist, Neil Diamond, and sand "Sweet Caroline." Except we forgot how low some parts of the verses get but who cares. It was loud in there and other people were singing along anyway. lol :) After a little while Emily and I went up to pick another song (which we never ended up singing) and right as we got back to the table, Emily started saying, "We have to go back up to the front! We have to go back up to the front!" Just as we got back up there, I simultaneously heard it and saw it: Everyone in our little group was up at the front singing Happy Birthday to me. lol The whole place joined in and when they finished singing in English, they sang in Albanian. That made a total of 5 times. lol

The next day we had church and it was the first time the children's choir was going to sing. Well, Agron forgot about it so at the very end, Vitori interrupted him to remind him. lol So they got to sing at the end of the service instead of the beginning as they had been promised. But they did really well! I was proud of them. They got up there and sang even though the naughty boys came to church just to see what was going on with this group of kids. I'm pretty sure they were surprised that they ended up sitting through a church service instead of being rowdy during an activity. Haha! Joke's on them!

Later that day Emily and I met Olsa and Neda at an ice cream place called Behari. It's supposedly the best place to get ice cream in Tirana. Considering Emily and I have been there a few times already, I'd have to agree. :) We met them there to celebrate my birthday since I hadn't gotten a chance to see them the day before on my actual birthday. We decided that while we enjoyed our ice cream we needed to take at least 25 pictures since I turned 25 years old. lol We took all sorts of ridiculous shots. lol All of my birthday photos can be seen at the following link:

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=125600102&k=X3BU2XP64X5M5FCGYK23RW

Emily has a bunch too so maybe I can get those from her to post on here as well. We'll see.

After the ice cream festivities, we met Aida. Then the three of us went to meet Xhuli for coffee since we hadn't seen her for a long time and so she could practice her English with us. We had a good time with her. We always do. She's so sweet. And this time, I got to meet one of her boys, too. He was there because he had English class at a place next door.

After the coffee, Emily, Aida, and I realized we were hungry. Aida mentioned a qofte (pr. CHOF-tay) place that she knew of through a friend from work. Since qofte is cheap and filling we decided to go there. Qofte are little sausages that are kind of spicy but really really good. Probably not so healthy, but it's a good thing that they're so filling. That way you only need to eat a few. So anyway, we got qofte and bread from this place. It's so cheap! And yummy! While we were there, Emily decided that I needed to try Raki. It's some sort of alcohol that is apparently quite potent. It has a kind of strong effect on the mouth, sort of like whiskey, but it goes down smooth. And it's clear like vodka and has a faint smell for how potent it's supposed to be. It came in a little glass and the portion was about the same as two shots. You sip it though. I'm not the biggest fan, but if it was a special event and someone said, "Let's go for a glass of Raki," I would. lol

On Sunday we did a home visit for church. We went to visit the home of two of my best students, Kesi and Klea. Agron is friends with their uncle and he knows their father well, too, because when their father was a student at the university, Agron was his professor. :) We had a nice visit. Agron, Emily, and I went, and Olsa went too as an Albanian representative of the church. We were there for a little over two hours! We had tons of snacks from pretzels, to candy, to desserts (I tried a new one that was amazing!), to cookies, to fruit. I couldn't believe it! Every day I find myself amazed by the generosity of the people here. While we were there we talked with them a bit about family and class and then we saw a bunch of their family photos. It was fun to get to know the parents of my students. They are an awesome family! They really are. The parents care about the kids and watch out for the kids and the mom and dad were friendly and they all were so sincerely happy to have us there. They gave us a parting gift--homemade prune jam--and invited us back whenever we want.

Other than that, the week started out like normal with classes and they went really smoothly. At least so far. ;) The week's not over yet! Just kidding! Monday afternoon Emily and I hit up the cheap matinee movie. It was Get Smart. We liked it. It was funny. On the way to the movie, I passed a car on the road in the far right lane that started to make a U-turn. Since the road was two lanes in each direction, I thought to myself, "That's going to cause problems." Sure enough, just then we heard the crash. I looked behind me and sure enough, he'd caused an accident. Good thing I was past him when it happened!

After the movie we had extra time so we went to visit Aida at her new job since it's close to the theater. After that, we went for a treat at a little pastry shop for a snack. On our way to the pastry shop, I saw a girl probably a little younger than me who was about to cross the street. She wasn't paying attention and didn't look in any direction. She was doing to run into me, so I stopped and put my hand out so she wouldn't hurt herself on my bike. She looked startled but kind of laughed and then walked away as I said, "Me falni." (Which translates as both "excuse me" and "I'm sorry/My fault.") It was funny though because I'm pretty sure she'd totally been daydreaming and was embarrased after it happened.

That's been the excitement for the week so far. Well, except that we didn't have electricity all day today. lol Anyway, once there's more to report, you'll hear from me. :)