We've moved! Chris and I returned to the US for one week before shipping back out again-- this time for a two year+ three month stint in Albania! We're serving in the Peace Corps, which means that Chris will be assigned to work in a bashkia and his goals include Community Development, while I will be implementing health programs within the Public Health Department. For the time being, we're stationed in Elbasan, the third largest city, where we do technical training with all 37 volunteers twice a week. However, all of us trainees are living with host families split amongst 8 [View Full Entry]

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The Iron Curtain is border that seperated the Soviet Union and the communist countries of Eastern Europe from the Western European countries. the first use of this word was in 1920, by Ethel Snowden, in the book Through Bolshevik Russia. But this term was not largely used until 1945 when Winston Churchill made a speech. Cold War was important. And this is still important in many parts of Europe. TIC was most obious sign of Cold War. So TIC is important too. Most countries of west of Iron Curtain- with the exception of neutral Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Sweden, Finland and [View Full Entry]

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Venice was the "Vacation of our Vacation." Here we met up with our friends, Pete and Fallon, who were honeymooning in Italy. In Venice, we enjoyed the pre-Lent festival of Carnevale. We spent the time strolling the streets, shopping for masks, admiring the amazing costumes, and eating fantastic Venetian seafood. The festival ended with a huge reggee concert in St. Mark's Sq. (Kirstin felt like she was back at the Bob Marley festival in Ethiopia!) Saying goodbye to Fallon and Pete and Venice, we took the train back to Ljubljana, where we continued on to Zagreb, Croatia. After having a blast [View Full Entry]

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We woke this morning with the intention of getting a croissant from the patisserie on our road however when we got there it was less of a patisserie and more of a bar. I wanted to see the "Grand Park" which is located right behind our hotel. From reading about it we believed it to be not too dissimilar to the park in Chisinau except we hoped it would better looked after. Inside the park we were confronted with a multitude of directions to go and settled for the grassy path up the hill. At the top was a small graveyard [View Full Entry]

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Amazingly we both got up when the alarm went off and we found ourselves sitting in Pasticeri Francaise. We both had freshly squeezed orange juice and a Pain Aux Raisin which was might impressive. It looked almost too good to eat and though very yummy I couldn't eat it all. We began to walk to one of the many bus stations and during a picture stop we met a really friendly guy. He was from the town we were going to visit, Kruja. One thing I really like about Albania is that people assume you are American but when you tell [View Full Entry]

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Last night was horrible and the journey took about four hours longer than it should have done, fourteen hours in total. We drove through the outskirts of Tirana around sunrise which was breathtaking. Tirana is surrounded by mountains in every direction so the scenery is beautiful despite the houses being rather primitive. The bus dropped us near the national opera house which is in a square that is surprisingly picturesque. To find Hotel Endri we had a simple map and address. We found the street without difficulty however we could not see the number or a sign. We asked someone who [View Full Entry]

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Mire! Albania is a hard country to peg having only been there four nights. The people are friendly, but an ex-pat Englishman I met in Sarande gave me his take on the people: friendly, but always looking to see how they can benefit from your friendship; difficult to really know with a hard inner core. I suppose 500 years under the thumb of the Ottomans is bound to make you tough. The country itself is in dire need of strong leadership. Sounds like another country I know. The infrastructure is pretty much none existent in most places. Garbage is chucked willy-nilly, [View Full Entry]

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Woke up and then headed to find a minibus to Kruje! Kruje is the most touristy setup town so far I see in Albania!!! There is this old bazzar that sold all these touristy gifts and stuff...some are coool....esp. the instrument here......but.....argh...didnt get it. The castle was another hilltop ruin.......not very interesting inside...but nice view... Besides this, really not much! haaaa. Theres a museum, but we decided not to go in...... We sat down and had some lunch and then took the bus back to Tirana. Short but pleasant day=) now I just need to find my way to the port [View Full Entry]

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Stroll around Gjirokastra in the morning...walked into this big old house, with an old lady and asked to get inside to see the interior......very Turkish style.....nice big house, too bad its vacant and not carefully maintained....... lots of stray dogs in town and this one was jumping on us and bitting us!! ARGH!!! so scary...and the bit actually hurts...+( Anyways, then went down to take the bus....asked around and a minibus said he goes to Berat! so I hopped on and went.........it stopped at Fier! and asked me to take a taxi to Berat!!! too expensive...so I took the minibus from [View Full Entry]

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Woke up early to catch a bus to Gjirokastra. On the map, it wasn't far..but it was a 7 hours bus ride!!! OMG.....so tired.. Albania has some of the worst roads!!! and they were all winding roads in the moutains! I see a lot of construction going on, so I guess the situation will improve. People are very helpful as well. You just stand at the bus station and ask someone for the destination, and they will somehow get you there. I like it in the city that they don't rip tourist off, which is nice. Only people at the port [View Full Entry]

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