Gjirokastër

Checking out the mountain view on top of the Castle

I spent the first night at our hostel in Gjirokaster rolling over, not wanted to get up out of the warm bed to pee. To say I was a bit chilled would be an understatement. Yes, I was freezing almost the whole night, which is quite a different feeling for Albania where I am usually sweating. We decided to set our alarms for 8:00 to get a usual start on the day. The guy who runs the hostel also happens to run a café, so the first thing we wanted upon waking up was a warm coffee from his café. It was the perfect start to the day, a double macchiato, and a bit of raki. I mean, we are in Albania, after all, and Raki is part of the local breakfast.

Courtyard

Then we headed to the huge castle, filled with gorgeous views and mossy stone. The castle was first built in somewhere around the 12 century, and was added to many times, but the most famous renovation was made by Ali Pasha in the early 1800’s. There were many large tanks from the days of war, along with an awesome airplane and beautiful clock tower. There was a sign when we entered that told us not to stray from the path because parts of the castle were dangerous. We, of course, completely ignored this sign and went wherever we wanted.

The Italian aircraft that was forced to land in Tirana was brought here as communist propaganda. This reminded the city of the threat to their lives.

During this time we paused several times to take some contemplative pictures of each other looking at the misty mountains. Honestly, I took way more pictures of the mountains than I needed to, but I just can’t even believe how gorgeous they are, and can’t fathom how I ever lived somewhere so far away from mountains.

The clock tower

5 minutes of our time was spent trying to take a timed picture of ourselves jumping. We failed and eventually decided we were hungry enough to head to a local restaurant to eat what was probably some of the best pizza we have had in Albania.

Our jumping picture

Then we took a quick break back at the hostel, and quickly headed out to explore the other parts of the Old Town. The walking included constant trips up and down the stone paved road, several tries at finding Ismail Kadare’s* house, and a trip to a very abandoned house that Corntey and Scott decided to purchase and make into a starter home/bed and breakfast. Along the way one nice man put on his shoes, left his house and showed us to the path directly leading us to what we assumed was Kadare’s house. Another nice man stopped and offered Brain and I a ride to wherever we wanted to go. These are just a few of the many examples of Albanian hospitality. 

Ismail Kadare's house

We kind of wanted to go see the aqueducts, and noticed that our time of daylight was running out, so we headed up the mountain once again. The aqueducts must have been a lot further than we thought, because part way up we turned around and decided we wanted some coffee. Since good food is so hard to find here we decided to head back for a second round of pizza and beer, which was once again delicious and cheap. We stopped briefly at an internet café, and got an earful from the owner about communism, freedom, and some sort of speech about how everyone is a dog. It is quite possible that he was drunk, but this was okay with us since he allowed us to use the internet for free.

Exploring the streets of Old Town 

Every time we went back to the hotel it ended in a bit of cuddle time. For some reason it was colder inside than it was outside. Eventually Cortney and Scott were able to convince me to put back on my boots (not my bra though) to head out for a whiskey. I quickly noticed that me and Cortney were the only girls in the bar, but I sipped my whiskey, and may have led Cortney to become a bit intrigued by the flavor. We had a nice talk and decided it was time to head back and push our beds together so we could cuddle for the night. On our way out the door we ran into the man who kindly showed us to Ismail Kadare’s house earlier in the day. We offered to purchase him a drink and headed to a bar just down the road. Once again we were the only girls in the bar, and when I ordered a whiskey I got a very confused look and a few questions. We talked to Bledi and his cousin about the history of Gjirokaster and they showed us a video of some traditional Albanian singing. They also, of course, insisted on purchasing our drinks for us. After mentioning we were interested in seeing Enver Hoxha’s ** house Bledi agreed to meet us for a morning coffee, and to show us where it was. After arriving back at the hotel we did push our beds together and snuggle, but I still didn’t get much sleep because Cortney and Scott are blanket hogs.

cuddle buddies taking a nap

The next morning we were able to see the house of Enver Hoxja and still head out by about 10:00am to make it home by around 2. At one point on the trip I thought back to my road trips in MN and missed my crappy gas station coffee and chips. Then after thinking about it I decided when I go back home I’m going to miss my macchiatos and Albeni bars.

Enver Hoxha's house

*Ismail Kadare is a famous Albanian author. We love his books.

**Enver Hoxja was the Communist Leader of Albania for 41 years.

Through a new set of eyes

The majority of this post will be in the form of pictures. Today me and my fellow teacher Scott decided to walk around some parts of Tirana we hadn't really visited. We began with a little morning croissant, and coffee from one of our favorite bakeries.

Breakfast: chocolate filled croissants and espresso/machiato

As far as tourist and sight seeing goes, Tirana has little to offer. It can almost all be summed up in the Qendra (center) where the famous statue of Skenderbeg, the clock tower  mosque, museum, and opera house all reside.

The opera house is decorate with our banner for our 100 years of freedom, celebrated in the end of November. This view shows the opera house, the clock tower, the mosque and Skanderbeg Square all in one picture. Behind me is the museum. All in one area.

But there are of course, many strange and beautiful things to see around the city if you open your eyes and explore. We walked to the center and continued down a road we had never traveled on. This road gave us many interesting pieces of art in the form of graffiti.

Interesting, to say the least

Distorted double headed golden eagle.

Now that is what I call art.

The music lover in my loved this one.

The further away we got, the more strange things seemed to get. We saw many markets run by chinese people. Perhaps there is a china town in Tirana? We also saw some christmas trees for sale and I saw the first black person I have seen since I arrived here. There was also a very large, crowded market full of clothing and shoes for sale. This market reminded me of the markets we visited when I was in Honduras.

Christmas trees and the first black person I've seen in Albania

Market

After getting a little lost we ran into the man made river. This is probably the stinkiest river I've ever smelled in my whole life. We've always wondered where it started, and as it turns out, it starts at a huge pile of trash and a sewage dumping area. Oh Tirana.....

These random uncovered holes are everywhere. You have to really watch where you step.

The start of the river

The day ended at 1:00 when we decided we were finally hungry enough to split a burger at Stephen Center. I took several pictures of interesting buildings along the way as well:

The "manners building." I named it that because Je Lutem is please, Faleminderit is thank you, and Me Falni is I'm sorry. It was covered in "Kind words and actions" as we say at school. 

This is some famously old bridge, over grass. Why?

Loved the clouds today. Here is the clock tower on the way home.

Meridian and my typical weekend in Tirana

I started a second job this week. I work for Meridian language center teaching English to other teachers. I work 1 night a week for 90 minutes and don't have to do any prep for the class. It is a TEFL course (or they use TEFL methods) and they were so desperate for teachers that even though I'm not certified to teach they asked me. I teach 10 females, who are all Turkish or Albanian and are older than me. The youngest is 23.

Basically I go into the class and we practice school phrases such as "please have a seat" and "why are you late." They repeat after me and I correct any pronunciation errors. They I read a passage out loud to them stopped at the end of each sentence to answer vocabulary questions. This weeks questions were about words like implicit, rebellious, and notoriously to name a few.Then they each read a few sentences of the passage stopping to clarify pronunciations. Then I read the passage through one more time. We also take a 10 minute break.

I think it is a fairly easy job and it pays well enough to cover my water, beer, ice cream, and machiato consumption each week. I think the thing that makes it so easy is that they are all so eager to learn. I mean they know enough to understand these long passages, and yet they still feel it is necessary to learn words like notorious. When I tell them the meaning/give them examples, they all talk until they find the turkish and albanian precise words to match it. I'm glad they are able to help me out in this way. At the end of the class I told them to please bring me and questions they had next week, on either pronunciation or vocabulary.

During break time they were nice and sat and talked to me about my move here. Jeff (my principal) said I should prepare myself to be invited out to a lot of coffee meetings and dinners with them. He said they are very cliquy  but also really want to practice english as much as they can.

I feel like my first graders are finally starting to learn :) they are getting incredible at addition. Also, they are starting to recognize sight words when they see them on worksheets. I taught them all how to spell/read more and less through a game (these words show up in our math books a lot.) One of the kids had a girl in our class translate for him about two weeks ago. This week he translated for another boy in my class. I'm also enjoying my new social studies time with the kids and used it to teach them manners this week. English is improving :D On Friday our word of the day was "whine" and I told them if they didn't whine all day i'd bring them a treat. I only had to give 2 reminders, so the kids are getting chocolate tomorrow. This week we are going to start nutrition lessons during my social studies time. Eating habits are terrible.

I spent my weekend hanging out with my co-workers in Tirana. Friday night we headed to Hostel Tirana to hang out with our friend Joe (he works there.) I had a great walk in the pouring rain (wet season is here!) had a few beers, and got a nice leg massage from Joe (he is also a certified masseuse.) Typically the weekends here consist of us searching for food that isn't Italian or Qhofte. This weekend we headed to the Stephen Center (missionary based restaurant) for burgers and Dr. Pepper. They also have Mexican food (2 weeks ago I had chimicangas) and America breakfast (last week I had pancakes and eggs benedict.) It's wonderful except for the service. They are very busy and we often feel ignored.

In the afternoon we hiked to the American favorites food store, which really isn't a store, but a room in a christian home stocked with processed American food. I purchased some Ramen (in case I get sick) some tomato juice (for bloodies) taco seasoning, taco shells, maple syrup, wild rice, and Reeses.
The store wasn't at all what I expected it to be. I thought it would be on a major road. We headed out for the 6KM walk and ended up on some curvy, muddy, hilly, back roads. By the river (still on the main road) Cortney was taking some pictures of building and some men thought we were taking their picture. They started shooing us away and came aggressively after us a bit, trying to get us to leave. I yelled at Cortney that we needed to go but she didn't even notice. I was seriously nervous one was gonna whip out a gun and start shooting us. Some sort of illegal something was going on. A little further on we past some sheep and wild chickens on our way. At one point we thought we were definitely lost, but they we spotted a ginger girl with a disney princess shirt on. He mother kindly pointed us in the right direction and then an old Albanian man did the same. We shopped and on our trip home we ran into the couple who run the market and printing press (that is why they originally moved here) and gave them our e-mails.

Today I did some lesson planning, and we out for Pizza and brownies/a machiato. Now I'm gonna veg out and relax before the week starts. Next week we have Friday off for Mother Teresa day (god bless her) so we are heading to a new country. We will be spending the weekend at Lake Ohrid in Macedonia. Hiking, biking, and fresh air here I come. Whole weekend should cost about 100-120 dollars, including hotel, car rental, entertainment and food. It will be fantastic! Also...they are playing oldies instead of pop today :)