I tried to post pictures, but to no avail. I dont understand. I think that it takes a while, but I dont have a while.
Puke was a lot of fun. It was really fun to hang out with John and joey again for a few days. I went on Sunday, and came back on Wednesday. This was all for business leave to watch a class of John's on Tuesday morning. This is your tax dollars at work folks. It was a lot of fun though.
I may have already said this, but I think that people here view the north like we view the South in the United States. Totally backwards with weird people, but most of them have never actually been there. When I told people that I was going to Puke (in the north) they were usually pretty suprised or shocked and asked why I would go there. Most of them have never been there.
The only one who was really excited was my host mother, who was born in tropoja (sp?) which is even farther north than Puke. That is blood feud country up there. I wont get into blood feuds or cannon law here, mainly because I dont know much about it. You can always look that up somewhere else. Peace Corps volunteers arent even allowed to go to Tropoja though because it is kind of dangerous.
Anyhoo, the north kind of reminded me of Colorado. It wasn't the furnace that is Kucove or the central region where I live. There were a lot of pine trees and mountains. I miss that smell. The town itself was really nice. It wasn't like the typical Albanian town, there was a different character to it. The buildings were more old poor Europe than the brick communist style buildings that you usually see in other towns.

Saranda!

I spent this past weekend in Saranda. It was really great. Saranda is a town in the south of Albania, really close to the border with Greece. There are a few places here where you could be convinced that you aren't actually in Albania... the beach at Saranda may be one of those places. It was a lot of fun though and there were about ten people sleeping on the floor of someone's apartment there. Two of them were Austrians that were staying with another volunteer.

We took a trip to a place called Butrint. It is a really great national park about 30 minutes from Saranda. Origins date back to the 1st or 2nd century BC, and the place has kind of evolved from there. It was originally dedicated to a Roman goddess of health, then turned into a Roman colony, then it fell apart, then it kind of turned into a farming type community. There are Roman ruins, ottoman ruins, and more modern christian ruins. It is really an interesting place with all of the different influences that all circulate there.

I didn't realize at first how close we were to Greece while at Butrint. From Saranda you can see Corfu, the Greek island. I will have to try to make it there sometime in the next two years. Apparently there are ferries (I heard between 20 and 30 euro) and it could probably be done in a weekend. I have to get permission from the Peace Corps to leave the country first, but I think it can be done. Corfu calls.

This next weekend I will be going to a town called Puke (pronounced poo-ka). It is in the north, and all jokes aside, it is supposed to be a pretty place. Most Albanians who live in the south (I am considered the south. Anything on this side of the Shkumbini is the shouth) have never actually been to the north. People from the south also generally have negative opinions of the north. There is no real reason why, but I think that it is one of those prejudices that has just kind of developed with time. People from the south are called the Ghegs and from the north are called the Tosks (I may have this backwards). There are supposed to be subtle differences in the language, but the volunteers in the north say that they haven't really noticed any.

Joey should be coming tomorrow from Billisht and spending the weekend in Kucove/Berat. We will leave for Tirana on Sunday and meet John in Lezhe in the afternoon. I will be there from Sunday till Wednesday, and return then. It should be a lot of fun. I will be observing John's English class. Hopefully picking up some tips for my own English class.

Sorry I never really post pictures here. I think that the connection here is really slow and it would probably take a few months to load a photo. I will try to load a few while I am in Tirana at the Peace Corps office maybe. For now I will give you my friend Katie's website with lots of great photos. She is from Berat so she lives fairly close and I see a lot of her. It may be a different perspective on my life. Beware though, there are a few bad photographs of me so dont laugh.

www.katherinesilus.com

Ready for something to do...

Summer is rolling along. It is interesting to get here without much to do in the way of work. I am a teacher, and I dont have anything to do this summer. Summer is going by quickly though. Kind of living for the weeked, not because I am busy but because that is when I can travel. I didn't really travel this weekend just went to Berat. It is like 30 minutes away so it doesn't really count. I think that next weekend I would like to go to Puke (a town in the north, halarious all the same). I will have to coordinate this trip with a few other people though so we'll see how it goes.

Not having a job makes things a little more difficult because I live without much sense of purpose (this isn't on a grand purposeless life sort of scale, just a professional one). I know that when school begins I will have days when I will yearn for the summer again, but for now I usually have to find reasons to leave the house on a regular basis. It just makes the days a little longer. The heat doesn't help. It actually rained quite a bit though last night. It was really nice to wake up at around 1:30 or 2 in the morning and see rain off of my balcony.

Samantha asked me if I were to go home tomorrow, would I come back? I think that I really would. I think that it is important to remember that even though there are things that I miss, I would end up falling into a routine if I were to go back (or when I go back I guess) and things would be kind of the same that they were when I left. There are a lot of little things that I miss including (I will try to include my entire list right here):

- SJ
- Jags
- My family
- My friends
- 24 hour water (I only have it for 6 hours a day which gets frustrating because it dictates when I have to shower, brush my teeth, sleep habits, etc)
- 24 hour electricity
- Variety of resturants
- Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich
- Target (out of convience)
- Starbucks
- Grocery stores
- Insulated houses and central heating
- Readily available internet access
- drivers who have some concept as to what they are doing

And a few other things I'm sure. But as you can see, with some obvious exceptions, they are generally little things. It also makes me appreciate when I can have some of these things. There is a real honest to God grocery store in Tirana (we had to take a special bus to get there) and I dont think that I have been that excited to actually see a grocery store before. Finding things like Cyanne pepper (even though it was $6 and I didnt buy it) and peanut butter. Also in Tirana there is a Mexican resturant, a few chinese resturants, and a place where you can get an American style breakfast with coffee. These places are all pretty much amazing when you can actually get there. I really like the fact that I am able to appreciate them as much as I do.

I also like this whole "living abroad" thing. There is something that I really like about sitting in the Stevens Center (the place with the american breakfast) with mainly other foreigners and there is a collective appreciation of the situation in the room as I eat my Mexican omlette and drink my coffee. Of walking down the street and hearing somebody speak english and doing the double take, or vice versa. Or people assuming that I am a tourist and being suprised when I can speak Albanian to them. There have even been people who have asked me if I was Albanian, and if I am not why am I able to speak the language. This is flattering because I can barely speak the language.