Life's a Beach

Summer in Albania means the beach.

Just because I live up in the mountains 5 hours away from the nearest ocean does not mean that there is still not a mad dash for the beach starting on the first of June. For many Albanians, this means beach vacations for much of the summer and for those people close to the sea, daily or weekly trips to the water. Up here in the mountains we don't have a seaside, but we do have a nice cold river and last week I made a trip there with some of my friends.

Since returning from my vacation with my parents, I have been settling back into life in Peshkopi. This summer I am planning on not traveling too much, but when my coworker offered me a free trip to the seaside for a three day training (and then the weekend) it was hard to pass up. So here I am relaxing . . .

Even though I'm glad I came and am having a lot of fun, I'm missing Peshkopi a little bit. Peshkopi is nice and cool and every time last summer I went to other parts of the country, I was relieved to come back to my nice cool apartment. I know that I complained a lot about the cold over the winter, but I think that in general I deal better with cold than I do with heat. Luckily, this summer has not been as hot (so far) as last summer. Cooler temperatures and more rain mean a few things- besides more comfort, it also means more electricity because most of the country gets power from hydroelectric dams. I think that I will be traveling again this summer anyway- in a few weeks I'm planning a trip down to Istanbul, but I know that I'll be happy when I get home . . .

MUN video

I don't talk in this, but I do show up for a few frames when my friend Tienmu is talking about the role of the PCVs in the project.

Naptime

It’s never been any secret that I like to sleep. One of the major issues that I had with my job as a substitute teacher was the fact that I had to wake up at 5:30 every morning. I just think that is cruel, and studies have shown that teenagers do not function as well that early in the morning (and neither do I). One more of the unexpected perks of Peace Corps is the amount of sleep that I have gotten over the past year. I think that if you were to take a poll, you would find that PCVs as a group (at least in Albania, but I hypothesize that it is similar in other places) are very well rested compared to our counterparts in America (or even our previous selves). I just sleep more here. I go to bed early (not much of a night life to speak of) and I wake up later (work starts at 9:00) and I often take an afternoon nap. I don’t think that I’ve been this well rested since elementary school. This has a lot to do, of course, with the slower pace of life in countries like Albania. Naptime is part of the culture here. The first question that is always asked is “are you tired?” (the correct answer is usually ‘a little’). You don’t hear about sleep deprivation here like you do in the US. I think this is something that we can learn from the rest of the world . . . and now it’s naptime!

serisously, awesome

It’s All Greek to me

It’s a cliché, but it’s true. I don’t understand a word of Greek. It has been a really long time since I arrived in a country without any knowledge of the language. In Peace Corps, I think we take it for granted a little bit that our language training starts right away so that even by the time we get to our host families we can mumble a few key phrases. Unlike Athens, where at every turn you heard people speaking any one of ten or more different languages (my mom described the crowds at the Acropolis as the Tower of Babel), in Thessaloniki, you hear Greek. I know that many people speak English and I have so far had no problems getting directions, ordering food or finding a place to stay, but the people on the street are speaking Greek and I’m not understanding a word of it.

I also realized that this may be the first time that I am traveling alone in a country where I don’t speak the language (my parents got back on a plane to the states this morning and I took a train to Thessaloniki). This evening I went out in the city to find some food and found the life of the town. This is a young city with several universities; at 10:00 many of the streets were still buzzing with people and I could tell that the night was only just getting started. As I walked with my sandwich towards the seaside, I thought about traveling alone. Tonight, I am staying with a couch surfer host. They are a Spanish girl and a German girl, my age, living here and going to school. I get the feeling that normally, these girls would be all about showing me around and hanging out, but this week happens to be exams and they are both justifiably busy. It is lovely that couch surfing exists, I’m glad I found it and it makes traveling much easier, cheaper and I think more interesting. But at the same time, there is strangeness in couch surfing- you enter someone’s home and life. When I am a host, I often feel the need to make my guests feel comfortable, but when I am a guest, I never want to impose on my host. I guess I make a good guest and a good host . . .

Out of Albania

And into Greece.

From Kruja last week we headed down south to the touristy heartland of Albania- Gjirokaster and Saranda. I spent nearly a week in Gjiro for this past Christmas, so I already knew about its cobble-stoned charms. But as it is the beginning of summer and the busy tourist season and I was traveling with my parents, this was a completely different visit. First, I noticed how many tourists there are. I mean, we get a few way word souls that decide to get off the beaten path and go to Peshkopi, but nothing like the south. When we went to Saranda and Burtrint (ancient Greek ruins- really cool), there were even more.

And then we came to Greece. I won’t even talk about the touristy-ness of Greece- you already know all that. I’m joining in on it- doing a double-decker bus tour with my parents, climbing up to the Parthenon, wandering through museums with my nose stuck in a guidebook.

What I’ve been thinking about a lot since I got here is the contrasts. You hear a lot about how Greece is a county of contrast- old and new- but for me, I see the contrast in another way. I see Greece as a major contrast to Albania. Albania has the old-new contrast too, but the new has been hard to come by and isn’t really working yet. Greece on the other hand is truly modern (at least the little bit of it that I’ve seen- Corfu (directly across a short channel from Albania) and Athens.) Athens is this crazy, busy, full city of course with amazing history. And it is so very different than anything in Albania. The thing is, that it is easy to imagine that 1000 years ago, 500 years ago, even 100 years ago, that wasn’t really the case. The Greeks and the Albanians have a lot in common historically and culturally (more than most Greeks would probably be willing to admit, probably). Maybe it’s not fair to compare modern Albania and Athens (for one, the city of Athens has more people in it than the whole country of Albania). Maybe I need to go out into the Greek country side to find the “real Greece” of villages and small towns and maybe these are still not so far removed from modern day Albania, but at the moment I’m really struck by the contrast between these two neighboring countries and amazed at the effect that some choices can make on a whole society (like what if Albania had gone in a different direction after WWII?).

Shi, Shi, Largoheni

(rain, rain, go away)

Today was another rainy, cloudy day. It was actually not bad because we were inside the museums in the Kruja citadel for most of the day and the clouds and fog were really beautiful for all the pictures that we took at the top of the mountain. Kruja is the one place that I have been to in Albania that really has it together as far as touristy things. The history museum is very well done (very Skanderbeg-y, shume mire!), and the ethnographic museum was great. The man running the ethnographic museum is simply adorable. Kruja also really has it together for souvenir shopping. I decided to go ahead and spend some money while my parents are here and buy some things that they can take home with them, so I bought a nice hand woven rug. I also bought myself a necklace and my mom bought me some hand made silver earrings (did I mention it's my birthday?). I really can't imagine a better birthday then exploring a castle in Albania with my parents . . .