Experience Albania: Travel, Pictures, History, Culture

I’ve written about this excellent vineyard just outside Berat a few times already, so I’ll leave it at this:
My family loved seeing the Cobo family’s business in full swing, with a tour by the owner himself and plenty of wine and tasty traditional foods to go around the table. We sat and talked and enjoyed [...]

This was one of the first questions one of my students asked my father on the day I brought my family into school. A sincere question, as they couldn’t believe he was 60, still working and looking so young! He revealed his excercise and eating regemen and it was on to the next student who [...]

On our way to their house.

I knew this was going to be one of the highlights - it was a given.
Zaku and Julia, Anila, Esti and Teri plus Anila’s sister and her family. Add five from the Silus/Menne party and it was a party, indeed!

We sat in the ‘company’ room for an hour or so, [...]

My house gained four people this past week and it passed with flying colors.
The laundry machine was going most days …

And there were a few dishes to be done …

But with all of our coming and going throughout the day, my Albanian apartment did just fine.

How did the guests do, might you ask?
They did more [...]

Vali and Katie

Originally uploaded by treenie.

Listen, think, speak.
Rules of thumb: make good eye contact with all involved, be quick, and learn how to gracefully make something up for your awaiting English speaking audience when you haven’t understood the Albanian.
Here I am in a moment of ‘Ah … ‘
But for the most part I did [...]

(Below: My family and I with Diana, my very excellent TEFL program director. They got to meet her first thing in Tirane. The perfect first person to introduce to my family.)

Just spent quite the week with my parents, sister and brother-in-law. The photos and comments won’t do justice to the good times we had, but [...]

 I have a full schedule these days, which is how I like it. These students are part of one activity that has recently arisen over the past month. James and I are working with these students to prepare for a mock Model UN conference in September. We’ll be representing Peru and our job (more the [...]

Lauren
Originally uploaded by nicollet.
 
Congratulations, Lauren, on your graduation from pharmacy school!
Your hard work and dedication, along with your passion to improve the lives of others is highly commendable.
I’m so proud of you! Wish I could have been there … but we’ll be celebrating on the first night you are HERE in ALBANIA - just a [...]

  Cantina Cobo (Cobo Vineyard) is a beautiful vineyard, surrounded by mountains and fields and views like the ones above.
 
James and I were invited by our friend Irene (the event planning extraordinaire of Berat) to attend Cantina Cobo’s celebration of the new grape leaves that are now out and thriving. With an invite list of [...]

 
Maybe it’s because I have more time on my hands. Or maybe it has to do with living in a different country, speaking/hearing/reading/ a different language 24/7, integrating into a new culture.
It takes a lot of energy to conjugate verbs into the future tense (jam to jem, punon to punoje). Lots of brainpower and concentration is [...]