and a day and a half in Corfu, etc.

Corfu is a Greek island about two miles from mainland Albania & Greece. It's a large island, very green, and usually a big tourist destination. Tourism has suffered a lot this year because of the economy, so it wasn't as busy as normal. We re-entered Greece through Corfu with a bunch of tourists on a boat. :) Nicole has friends there as a result of her time in Albania (from the occasional weekend in Corfu) so again we got good treatment, cheap lodgings, and really fun people to hang out with. It was Saturday night when we arrived, so we had the whole of Sunday to explore and relax before heading back to Athens Monday morning.

It has been nice being back home in Athens this week...the weather has been really nice and I have been doing lots of fun things with friends in the off time - outdoor movie theater, coffee, beach, etc. I went to my first Nea Zoi staff meeting last week, and I'm looking forward to more involvement with them (outreaches, etc.), and there are a couple others I'm hopeful to begin working with. We'll see. I also just got approval to enroll in a three week intensive/immersion Greek language course in July/August. It's here in Athens and it will be 4 hours a day of class/instruction/discussion, etc. I'll enter into level 3, that's kind of exciting for me. :) My brain sort of already hurts in anticipation, but I am looking forward to and hopeful for the improvement with my language. [I hope I used enough slashes in this paragraph for you.]

Ok, here are some pictures from Corfu:

more from saranda...

So, it's not your average tourist destination, but these parts of Albania are really beautiful and I think tourism is on the rise. The second day we were there a huge boatload of (mostly European) tourists came over from Corfu for the day, and they loved it. Tell your friends! :)

About 40 minutes outside Saranda is Butrint, a national park (and a UNESCO world heritage site - woo!) that is a city dating to the 8th century BC. I was fully alert and feeling great after sitting upright on a bus for 9 hours the previous night through windy mountain roads (ha ha).
Nice views from the site and the castle on the hill above.Another friend of Nicole's met us for lunch by the sea, a FABULOUS fish meal. The fish we ate is really expensive in Greece, so we enjoyed it that much more - caught hours before in the sea we were looking at, and SO CHEAP. Fish, mussels, calamari, etc. The next day we tried spaghetti (Rocco, being Italian, knew of this great pasta place) made with the black ink from squid. Interesting!
The next day we drove out to Ksamil to swim. They brought the sand here to make this beach. There are three small islands that you can swim between, all gorgeous (though obviously not camera-friendly). It was wonderful and the weather was great. This is where my paddle-boat moment took place. :) Rocco and I got by ok, with his Italian and my Spanish, as we paddled out to the farthest island, avoiding the currents that he said would take us straight to Italy. (Would that really be so bad?)
Saturday afternoon we caught the ferry (barely - they had to hold the boat for us as we were obviously having too much fun to be bothered with being there on time) to Corfu...

Agioi Saranda (40 Saints)

It was time to exit again, and Albania is one of the closest and cheapest non-EU destinations. I went with two friends, one of whom lived in Albania for five years, so she arranged most of the trip, which included a stop-over in Corfu (more on that later). It was such a wonderful weekend, minus the 9 hour overnight bus ride...we didn't want to come back to Athens. :(
Saranda is a small city right on the sea across from the Greek island Corfu. Nicole lived there for two years (after three years in the capital Tirana), so we spent lots of time seeing friends of hers for coffee and seeing what there is to see outside the town. It was interesting visiting Albania knowing the issues between Greeks and Albanians (largely based on experiences with Albanian immigrants in Greece), and it was fun to find warm, welcoming, friendly people - who love foreigners! That is always a welcome change. :) Since the fall of Communism in the '90s, Saranda has tried to become a tourist destination, with loads of hotels popping up along the coast that have yet to see much business.
Nicole was there when the waves of Kosovo refugees came in 1999. 4000 people came to this town, farther south than they wanted to come and too close for comfort to Greece, but there were so many people that the other cities were overwhelmed. They lived in bombed out hotels and other destroyed buildings (left over from the war in '97 that are still there today). Along with a handful of missionaries, foreign aid workers, Nic and a few locals, about 20 people total, worked with this population during their stay in Saranda.

Rocco (see previous post!) is an Italian there who works with the Catholic nuns running a center and school for kids. He has a car, so we spent most of our time with him. :) We visited the beautiful center where he works (the Catholic church is not short on funds!) and talked with the head nun there.

As our conversations usually do, this one turned to trafficking, which is an enormous problem in Albania. Not only are the girls lured away -- there are no young women in Saranda; they all leave for better-paying jobs elsewhere that can often turn into trafficking situations -- but the young men are also easily tempted into the life of the traffickER. With so few work opportunities in this poor country, the ease of smuggling women across the borders and the lucrative paycheck that comes is very alluring. As we see with women who have spent any time at all in the industry, the money becomes addicting for the men as well.

Ok, too long, more later. :)

I had a moment...

Ksamil, outside Saranda, Albania

Do you ever have those moments where you suddenly take an outsider's look at your current circumstances and are struck by the hilarity and/or unlikeliness and/or strangeness of it all?

Saturday afternoon, around 1:00 pm (who knows really) ...
I found myself on a dolphin-shaped paddle boat ...
on the sea ...
in Albania ...
with a hairy Italian man in a speedo ...
named Rocco ...
who spoke no English.

Ha! I had to laugh. :)

gotta love it...

...when you walk through your city's center and suddenly your eyes are stinging and you are having mild choking sensations from residual tear gas.
...when you step outside and the stale hot "breeze" that hits you smells like days-old body odor.
...when you know you're in your own neighborhood because you can hear the strange little old man who wanders the streets shouting barely intelligible obscenities in Greek.
...when the vegetable man parks his truck right outside your window with his loudspeaker announcing his daily selection.
...when people's ideas of "personal space" do not conform to your own...must take care in walking as sudden stops could result in being plowed over by the person who is walking 2 inches behind you.
...when you pass 8 couples making out in the street and on benches in the three minute walk between your metro stop and your house.
...that it's perfectly acceptable to make comments about one's weight and ask how much they pay for their apartment or how much they get paid.
...when cigarette smoke doesn't even faze you anymore because you're so used to everyone smoking in cafes, restaurants, taxis, etc.
...that you have to plan ahead when you are going to shower, because the water heater must be turned on 20-30 minutes in advance.

But also...
...I can hop a ferry and be on a beautiful Greek island in an hour or two.
...I walk past the Acropolis every day.
...I live in a neighborhood with innumerable cafes and coffee shops and local artists who set up stands and sell their homemade stuff (awesome jewelry, anyone?) along the wide pedestrian street that overlooks aforementioned Acropolis.
...I can buy fresh, delicious fruits and vegetables from my local laiki (street market) every week.
...My adopted country is known for CHEESE...and what is better than cheese?! (Besides chocolate, but I also live in Europe and can find excellent samples of this as well!)
...It's never too late for a coffee or a drink in the city that doesn't sleep until 2 or 3 am (and that's just on weeknights).
...The beach. The ocean. Floating along under the hot sun. Maaaarvelous.
...My darling apartment manager doesn't speak a lick of English but loves me to death, chatting at me happily, saying I'm cute, making sure I'm ok, as I smile and nod ("I have no idea what you're saying...")
...I can run!
...New friends.

It all evens out.

oh, this makes me laugh so hard

Smooth Criminal, Saudi style :)

oh hey, didn't someone want to see my house??

I finally got organized, took pictures, and uploaded them onto the computer (all major accomplishments) so you can see my house! I've gotten my basics down, and even a couple things on the walls, so I feel ok now about showing you more pictures from where I live. :) Woohoo, aren't you excited!!?

Let's begin with the view from the front door into the entry way:
I have this open space and I don't really know what to do with it. Doesn't matter too much anyway; having no money really helps answer some decorating/furnishing questions! :)

Straight ahead is the "living room" or Tiny Odd Shaped Room #1. You've seen this before...

I got those posters in Paris and just got some cheap frames at IKEA and hung them up! (Don't you wish you could actually tell what they are? I can pretty much only see the pictures at night when it's dark outside.) :)

To the left, you will see Tiny Odd Shaped Room #2, or the dining room-slash-office-slash-I am still completely uninspired by this room:

To the right, you go through another door to find the bathroom, kitchen, and bedroom. Here is my bedroom:
I just got that bed delivered this afternoon and I think it was the most labor-intensive thing I could have chosen. Perhaps that is why I found the frame on clearance at IKEA last week!? Anyway, thank you to my church back home for sending some $$ for a bed - was able to get that frame and mattress. The thing I was sleeping on is now folded in half under the bed (yes, it was that comfortable). On the wall opposite the window are some great closets that are nearly the size of the entire wall. Well, I guess they are the size of the entire wall.

Kitchen:Teeny tiny bathroom:
Notice the hose in the sink from the washing machine (your washing machine hookups are always in the bathroom here, not so space-efficient). This is demonstrating what I am SUPPOSED to do with that hose when I do laundry, for all the dirty water to have a place to go. Unfortunately, I have forgotten to do that three times in the last few weeks, resulting in a flooded bathroom, soaking wet (not to mention nasty with dirty laundry water) rugs, and a good mopping job to do. Ah, international living.

Here is a little cafe/bar right below Tiny Odd Shaped Room #2:
Can you please come visit me now?!

blah

yep.

outreach of a different kind

Spent some time with a friend on one of the college campuses today, talking to students about human trafficking. We had several good conversations, and I was glad to hear that a lot of them have heard of it and know it's happening. Many had questions. We're looking for a few students who are interested enough to get involved in spreading awareness on their campuses. I have many ideas for this, and I feel like we're laying groundwork for the fall. Just a few! That's all I want. :)

here we go...

We're breaking 40 degrees this week...that's over 100, and counting. Quite normal to have 120+ on a daily basis for the better part of the summer. Woo! Bring it on!

(Yeah, not really, not at all. I don't have AC in my house.)

What can I post about without having to think too hard?

Ah! I'll tell some of the places I want to go - dream vacations, if you will.

1. Croatia:

Dubrovnik
Split

2. Morocco

Casablanca, Tangier, Marrakesh

Camel ride into the desert

Ouarzazate

3. Thailand
Oh, I guess I've already been there.

4. Petra, Jordan

5. Peru
Macchu Pichu

6. Namibia Desert

Ok, that will probably never happen, but it looks so cool...

Of course I need to go to Italy while I'm here, and a few other places in Europe. Not sure how much of that will happen on my salary, but I can dream, right? :)

May is over

My collage from our first beach day in SoCal last summer :) Ah, the memories.......

.

Thank goodness, too. What an awful month that was. I struggled again through feeling the acute lack of community as others were so busy with end-of-the-year events, and all my travel led to some major exhaustion and let-down. I decided I had no good friends here, no one cared about me, and that I couldn't keep bothering people without flying my "I'm desperate and lonely, please be my friend" flag. :)

Ok, a little dramatic, but we feel what we feel. Already June has been better - three friends this week have told me not to be stupid, call when I need to, and feel free to wave the flag because everyone goes through that here.

June has always been a good month - end of school, beginning of beach trips, and welcoming of summer - good weather, barbecues, late warm nights, etc. So even though I don't have some of the familiar June stuff around me, I'm still welcoming the new month and the summer, this time with new things that will represent June for me. May is over. Summer is here, with all the new things that that will entail.