Farewell, Albania

Our last few weeks in Albania were spent wrapping up my teaching year, spending time with friends and visiting a couple of our favorite spots in this wonderful country we called “home” for four years.

A group of teacher friends participated in a “Sip and Paint” which was new to me but (I have come to find out) a fairly common friend activity around the world. I am not artistic in the least but I could follow the step-by-step directions that the teacher provided. It definitely exercised a different part of my brain!

One last view from our apartment complex as I headed out on an early morning run.

I never tired of the random pieces of artwork that seemed to pop up throughout Tirana. These sculptures were made by French sculptor, Richard Orlinski and appeared during French Culture Week in Tirana. As I may have mentioned before, the prime minister of Albania, Edi Rama is an artist. You can see the artistic influence throughout the city: in the architecture of the buildings, in the many murals and in displays like the one pictured.

This was my favorite fruit and vegetable market. There were probably 7 or 8 markets similar to this within a 5 minute walk of our apartment. The produce was always inexpensive, fresh and seasonal. You can see the cherries in the left foreground of the photo. Cherries were the seasonal fruit in May and June. Later it will be pomegranates, then figs, then citrus and so on. In America, I often think it is harder to eat healthy because of the cost of produce and the easy access to processed and fast food. In Albania, eating healthy was easier.

A view of Albania’s national hero (Skanderbeg) from the 1400’s. This statue overlooks the square in Tirana. In the background is my favorite skyscraper in Albania. It is green, blue and brown to represent the sky, water and ground. If you got up close you could see the recycled colored glass used on the outside of the building.

We took one more trip to Kruje to visit the castle, museum and bazaar. My cousin, Ann was one of many visitors we took to Kruje because of how it helps explain the history of Albania. Plus it is a great place to buy souvenirs!

A friend and I took an Albanian cooking class before I moved back to the States. There were eight people in the class from the UK, Germany Canada and the US. It was a fun group to talk with. I especially liked hearing their comments about taking a holiday in Albania. The cooking class ended with our host serving us some raki as seen in the photo. Raki is a traditional fruit brandy that is typically as strong or stronger than vodka or whiskey with an alcohol content of 50%. It is a staple of Albanian culture and is often served with coffee. Also, it is very common for it to be homemade. You can even buy a home distillery kit at the local hardware store.

This is a dear friend of ours who taught art at Albanian College. Dan is an excellent teacher and a gifted artist. The two pictures he is holding are pictures he painted for me as a good-bye gift. The painting on the left is titled Shqiperia which is what the Albanians call their country. We call their country Albania while they call it Shqiperia. In the same painting Dan included views from my two favorite cities in Albania; Berat and Theth. You can see the photo of the mural above on the right. Tirana has lots of murals and this was my favorite one and is called “A Mother’s Love”. I took many photos of the mural over the years we were in Tirana and said when we returned home I was going to frame one of the photos to hang it in our home. Unbeknownst to me, Dan painted a picture of the mural as a gift. I will treasure both paintings for a very long time.

When Randy returned to Wales to take a weekend timber framing class, two friends and I took an overnight trip to the Albanian Alps in the northern part of the country. Here we are on our way to the small village of Theth to do some hiking. This was probably my fifth or sixth time to take this trip. I truly do love the mountains!

Can you see the almost perfect reflection of the mountain in the water?

The second day we hiked to Grunas Waterfall, passing by this charming stone farmhouse on the way.

My lovely travel companions are from Japan and the United States. One of them teaches kindergarten and the other teaches first grade.

Wandering around the village of Theth…

Some of the kids even wanted to stay in for part of their recess so they could ask more questions. So cute!

One last picture before the last day of school. I definitely miss these sweet faces and my amazing teaching assistant.

As the kids were going to their buses on the last day, a few of them hung back for one more hug. 🙂

The day after school let out our niece, Lois (Jeanette’s daughter) and her husband, Andrew arrived in Tirana for a short visit. Coming to Tirana was their first stop of a six month international travel itinerary. Lois is a traveling nurse and Andrew works remotely in website development. They both resigned from their jobs after saving for several years so they could go on this adventure. Right now they are in Nepal for a month as they do some mountain hiking in the Himalayas. Amazing!

Andrew is an avid chess player. After watching for awhile these men invited Andrew to play chess with them even though they did not share the same language.

One of the days that Lois and Andrew were with us there was so much rain that many of the streets flooded and we could not get to where we were going. Lois said that was no problem because she was wearing water shoes and could give me a piggy back ride. Ha, ha, ha, it was a hoot!!!!

We are now on our way to Berat, another favorite Albanian city. We stopped at a beautiful winery (Cobo) on the way. We have been to Berat at least a dozen times during our four years in Albania. You may remember from my other posts that it is called the “City of a Thousand Windows”.

Exploring the Berat Castle where Lois bought a rug.

We are now walking amongst the thousand windows as we make our way to Lili’s for dinner.

Lili serves traditional Albanian food that is absolutely delicious!!!! Plus Lili is a very engaging host who welcomes guests into his home to enjoy the food his wife prepares.

Enjoying some gelato after dinner as we stroll through Berat’s promenade. You can see some of the thousand windows in the distance on the hill. You can also see part of the castle at the top of the hill.

A beautiful sunset silhouetting Lois and Andrew as they stand on the Berat Castle wall. Good night and good bye to Berat, you will be missed!

Randy at his favorite coffee shop. He started each day in Albania with a 65 cent espresso and occasionally a brioche. This coffee shop was a two minute walk from our apartment. There are more coffee shops per capita in Albania than any place in the world. They are a part of Albanian culture that involves sitting daily at a coffee shop for up to a couple of hours with the same cup of coffee as they visit with family and friends. What a wonderful tradition!

This is my good friend Edlira who was my teaching assistant the first year I taught at Albanian College. She not only helped me in the classroom but also did so much to help me understand Albanian culture. We met up with Edlira and her family a few days before leaving Albania. She is holding her son who is not quite three in this picture. You may remember from an earlier post that we helped Aled celebrate his first birthday a couple of years ago.

As you may know, I adore sharing children’s literature so whenever I had the opportunity I brought Aled a book. Here he is examining the newest book with his dad, Aldo.

Recently, Edlira and Aldo welcomed a baby daughter into their family. I was so glad I got to meet her before we moved back to the States.

Randy and I are definitely missing this darling family who we become attached to over our years in Albania.

I took this video of our apartment to share with the teachers at my school. I thought one of them might want to rent the apartment after we left. It was a great apartment! This video is really long so you might want to skip it.

We have now arrived at the Tirana Airport with our ten suitcases. We checked eight of them and none of them arrived in Rochester with us. Stress!!!! Six of the suitcases arrived three days later. Two of the suitcases did not arrive for close to three weeks. As we unpacked we discovered that several pieces of my clothing had been taken from one of the suitcases. More stress! The good news is that we arrived safely and survived another long (not quite 24 hour) travel day.

Boarding our Air Albania flight to Istanbul where we will catch our flight back to America. Good bye to the Tirana Airport, it served us well over our time living abroad. When we moved to Albania the first time in 2018, the airport had five gates. It now has 14 gates and is currently expanding the runway so that it can accommodate direct flights from New York City to Tirana. That is just a couple examples of how quickly the tourism industry is growing in Albania.

Good bye, Tirana! We miss you and look forward to the day we can come back to visit.

Many years ago when I found out about a teacher exchange between a Dudley teacher and a teacher from the UK, I never dreamed that it would end with Randy and I living in Albania for four years. When I first applied to be an international teacher I only wanted to do it for a year but quickly learned that almost all international teaching contracts are for a minimum of two years. Of course, we ended up staying for four years because we liked the experience so much. Another thing I never anticipated was being able to travel as much as we did. We have visited over 50 countries and feel very, very fortunate to have done so. Visiting many different places has helped me to become more open minded. Although I would not want to live permanently anywhere but America, I can now understand much better the positives of other cultures. For example, the way health care is delivered, the use of transportation, the way societies take care of the very young and the very old, the prison system, the value of just sitting and enjoying the moment without constantly having to be on the go. Also, all the geographic beauty we saw from mountains to beaches to volcanoes to caves to lakes and rivers. Becoming more familiar with other religions has taught me that no matter what religion a culture practices, we all want basically similar things: treating others kindly, taking care of family, belief in a higher being.

Living abroad has also taught me so much about the privilege of being an American. We can travel to many places without a visa, English is our primary language which often makes communication easier, our standard of living allows for most of us to have a phone, an education, cutting edge health care. The stability of our dollar stands up well against many other currencies. Also, as an American I can express my opinion without fear of retribution.

Enough of all my philosophical talk! As you can tell we loved our time living abroad and if you ever get the chance (even for a month or two), GO FOR IT!

Thanks for taking the time to read this last blog. I love reading your comments and listening to your thoughts about our experiences. All the best to each of you!

October, 2024

Visiting Switzerland With Our Son

Our son, David wanted to meet us somewhere in Europe at the end of May for a long weekend before we moved back to the States. We wanted it to be a direct flight for all of us so after some discussion we settled on a trip to Switzerland. We had been avoiding Switzerland because it is so expensive there but since we were only going for a short time, we felt we could swing it.

We have been fortunate living in Tirana where there are so many direct flights to so many good locations. It was a two hour flight to Zurich.

We arrived at our Zurich hotel and met David around lunch time. He had made arrangements for us to eat at a Michelin Star Restaurant for lunch. It was a new experience for all of us and a huge treat! Thank you, David!

Of course, the food was delicious but for me the best part was how beautifully the food was presented.

We stayed at a hotel located on a river that feeds into Lake Zurich. The hotel was called Hotel Storchen. Storchen means stork in English. You can see a statue of a stork on the hotel to the right of this photo.

In and around our hotel…

This musical clock plays everyday at 11:00AM and 4:00PM and is located above the door of Kurz Jewelry Shop in one of the Zurich shopping districts. The music it plays is traditional Swiss music and features hand carved figures that dance, wave and ring cow bells. It was charming!

Walking around Zurich after our first dinner in Switzerland.

Views from a couple of morning runs…

Do you see the very tip of the house to the right of the tree in the distance? That is one of the houses Tina Turner owned while living in Zurich. The other house is directly on Lake Zurich. She moved to Switzerland in 1995 with her German partner Erwin Bach, a record producer. She passed away there in 2023. Tina Turner gave up her American passport in favor of a Swiss one. One of the reasons she liked Switzerland is because it allowed her to have a more normal life. In Switzerland it is against the law for the paparazzi to take pictures of someone without their written permission. This law is strictly enforced.

Zurich and the lake are in the background.

Taking a boat ride across Lake Zurich to visit the Lindt Chocolate Factory and Museum

This huge chocolate fountain greeted us at the entrance to the chocolate factory/museum. We spent a little over an hour taking a tour which included lots of information about the history of chocolate plus we were able to taste lots of chocolate.

This is how we tasted some white, milk and dark chocolate. All the chocolate tasting was unlimited.

At the end of the tour we were invited to take many pieces of chocolate with us. Yum! We enjoyed the tour and would recommend it if you visit Zurich.

We have now arrived at the Zurich train station so we can take a two hour train ride to Interlaken in the Swiss Alps.

Lots and lots of bicycles at the train station.

I took this video simply because I loved all the activity and hubbub of the train station.

When we arrived at our hotel in Interlaken, this was happening in the lobby. So traditional, loved it!

When we were walking to dinner we came across one of many traditional looking Swiss Alps homes.

We started our day in Interlaken by taking a cog railway up to Harder Kulm which is the closest mountain to Interlaken.

Looking down on the City of Interlaken, breathtaking!

The cows with their bells are one of my favorite things about Switzerland.

This is Staubbach Waterfall located next to the small village of Lauterbrunnen. Can you see the people hiking up to the falls? It was about a 20 minute walk up the hill and through a short tunnel to get behind the falls.

Behind the falls…

The next small village we visited was Murren which is not accessible by car so we took a cable car to get there. Here we are looking for a place to have lunch.

We found a place with a gorgeous view. It almost does not seem real, more like a postcard.

I love these signs which tell us which direction to go and how far it it to the next town. The yellow signs are how long it would take to walk there since there are no cars in Murren.

This sign was at the beginning of the trail to Gimmelwald. As you can see, it is a 35 minute walk or a 15 minute sled ride in the winter.

As we were hiking out of Murren, we came across this cemetery. Having a small private garden for each deceased person seems lovely to me.

As you can see, it was a beautiful, beautiful hike to Gimmelwald. This was not our first trip to Gimmelwald. When our daughter, Elizabeth was a junior in college she studied in Luxembourg for a semester. When we came over to visit her, the three of us traveled to and stayed in Gimmelwald for two nights and spent a day skiing in the Alps. We loved this charming small village at that time and loved it this time too. The idea of coming to stay in this mountainous area for a month is very appealing. The cost would be prohibitive but it is still nice to think about it.

We have now arrived in Gimmelwald, a small farming village of 100 people. Once again, no cars are allowed here. The road is for farm equipment.

Charm, charm and more charm! I absolutely loved Gimmelwald!

The next day we said good bye to our fun and crazy son as we took the train to the airport to fly back to Tirana. It was easier to say good bye this time because we knew we would see David in less than two months. Loved, loved our time with him!

The last week of school, Albanian College celebrated International Day. Each class chose a country and then come up with ideas about how to teach other classes about the country they had chosen. My class chose China primarily because one of my students is from China and he is very well-liked. The children decorated our classroom door, made a Chinese flag and made up some games to learn about China. Some of the parents sent in Chinese food (and some Albanian food) for the children to enjoy. It was a wonderful way to teach children about other cultures.

This is the last blog about our travels. The next (and final) blog will be about wrapping up our time in Albania. Thanks so much for your interest in reading this blog.

September, 2024

Lots of Visitors and One More Trip to Italy

It was a real treat to have several visitors during our last three months in Albania. There were few things I liked better while living abroad than introducing Albania to friends and family. We encouraged people to visit and they did. Yay!

This is my friend, Dana who I met the first year I taught at Albanian College. She and I traveled together many times. Dana invited Randy and I to her apartment for Hot Pot on many occasions when she lived in Tirana. Dana is originally from China but is currently teaching in Cambodia. In April, she came back to Albania for a week to visit. I invited Dana to come to my class to talk about living in Cambodia. She wore traditional Cambodian clothing to class and explained the culture including showing a video about Buddhist life in Cambodia.

Our next visitors were my friend, Ann and her husband, Brian and daughter, Claire. Ann and I taught together at Dudley School in Fairport. While they were in Tirana we went out for traditional Albanian food and later Randy introduced Claire to Albanian coffee.

A friend of Randy’s from the fire department, Michael and his wife Bernadette, came to visit in early June. Of course, they came for a tour of my classroom/school which is always fun to show visitors.

My cousin, Ann was on a trip to Kenya and then came to Albania on her way back home to Texas. Here we are ready to enter the Kruje Castle.

The last week we were in Albania our niece, Lois and her husband, Andrew came to visit. Lois has done a lot of international travel but Andrew had never been out of the States. We loved having them with us for a couple of days.

Before we moved back to New York, I wanted to take one more trip to Italy. Randy was getting tired of traveling (understandably so) which meant that three friends and I went to Rome for a three day trip in early May.

After landing in Rome, we made our way to a food tour that afternoon.

After the food tour we wandered around parts of Rome including Trastevere which is a somewhat less touristy neighborhood in Rome.

Continuing to wander… It was wonderful to take Rome slower and to not be rushing from one iconic highlight to another.

We felt almost like we were being intrusive as we happened upon this wedding with many tourists going in and out of the back of the church.

The Trevi Fountain is one of my favorite sites in Rome. However, it was SO crowded that it almost was not fun to visit. The fountain is located in a very small square and gets 35 million visitors a year. The Italians are considering charging tourists to see it, as a way to control the crowding.

My travel companions are Dan who is a primary art teacher originally from England and now teaching in Cambodia. Lucy was a secondary art teacher who has moved from teaching art to creating art in Arizona. Rawand is a grade two teacher from Canada who was a good resource on international teaching for me. They are such good people who I feel fortunate to call my friends.

The walls are 39 feet tall and approximately two miles around part of Vatican City.

I am continuously amazed when I watch an artist work. We were at breakfast when Dan started tracing on a placemat. He then took the placemat with him and added color to it when he got home. Wow, so impressive!

Checking out the gelato as we wandered through the streets of Rome.

Mamertine Prison was built in 7th century BC and is said to be where the apostles Peter and Paul were imprisioned.

I took this picture because the white structure on the left are several pickle ball courts.

This video shows how the pickle ball courts were placed right in a beautiful square. The whole place had a fun vibe as we walked through.

Within St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican is a statue called “Angels Unaware”. It is a life-sized statue of 140 immigrants on a boat. The immigrants shown are from different parts of history. For example there is a Jewish man escaping Nazi Germany, a Syrian fleeing from a civil war, an Irish boy fleeing the Irish Famine and Mary and Joseph. The artist is from Canada and unveiled his art in 2019. The name of the sculpture, “Angels Unaware” comes from the Bible saying, “Be welcoming to strangers, many have entertained angels unawares.”

Breakfast before heading off on our final day in Rome.

Can you see the men scaling the Vatican Wall? They are removing the plants that tend to grow in the cracks of the wall.

We found a rooftop restaurant next to the Colosseum to enjoy lunch. The weather was perfect, the company was perfect and the view was perfect. Another of the many times I felt so fortunate to have all these experiences.

Once again the artists in our group were drawing but this time there were enough supplies for all of us to draw. I definitely was not in my comfort zone. 🙂

Our server noticed the drawings. Dan and Lucy ended up giving their artwork to them. The servers were quite pleased.

Good bye, Italy! I am already looking forward to the day we can return for a visit.

In May, the children were working on collecting data and doing research on a habitat of their choosing. They then presented information about how people have negatively impacted the habitat and what can be done to keep the habitat sustainable.

I am slowly getting caught up with my blogs. Thanks so much for reading!

September, 2024

A Spring Break Trip to Morocco and Gibraltar

We have been back in America since early July and are feeling more and more settled. Our trip home was uneventful with the exception that it took us ten days to get all of our luggage back to Rochester. We had Air Tags in several of the bags which helped us track our bags. I will make a post at a later time about wrapping up our time in Albania.

As usual, I am behind with my posts but I keep telling myself better late than never. When I asked Randy where he would like to visit for my school break he mentioned Gibraltar as a possibility. He has read several books with the setting of the Rock of Gibraltar and was curious to explore that part of the world. I have always been interested in visiting Morocco so since the two countries are so geographically close to each other, we decided to make a trip to visit both of them.

We started our trip by flying into Marakesch. After our taxi driver picked us up at the airport, he dropped us off along a busy street close to our riad. Then the man above picked up our bags, put them in his cart and started walking towards the medina, a very crowded city square. Because of the language barrier, we did not understand what was happening at first. We even thought our bags were being stolen for a few minutes. Everything turned out well despite our initial concerns.

In the bottom center of this photo, you can see the man’s cart with my black suitcase and Randy’s green backpack. We were increasingly grateful for this man with the cart as we made our way through the very crowded streets full of people and motorcycles on the way to our riad.

The stairs to our room and our first introduction to Moroccan tile work.

After we settled into our riad, we went out exploring.

This video shows how absolutely crazy it is to walk through the streets of the medina. A medina is the old city center of a city in Morocco or northern Africa. They were originally built for protection against invaders and bad weather. There are very few cars in the medina because of the narrow alleyways but there are lots and lots of people and motorbikes.

This is a classic restaurant, hotel and cafe located in the middle of the medina and has been there since 1912. We were intrigued because the word France was in the name of the business. We later figured out that Morocco was a French colony until 1956. The most common languages spoken in Morocco are Arabic and French. French is a second language for 30% of the Moroccan population.

On our first day in Morocco, we enjoyed some fresh squeezed orange juice which is very common throughout the country. We also had our first mint tea. Mint tea is served throughout the day at breakfast, lunch, dinner, mid-morning, mid afternoon and in the evening. I don’t think we had a single meal that did not include mint tea. It is believed that mint tea helps with stomach ailments and heartburn and improves focus and intellectual performance. We did get used to having frequent servings of mint tea and missed it when we left Morocco.

I have included this map to better understand where we visited in Morocco. We flew into Marrakech, spent one night and the following morning left on a three day tour to see the rest of the country. I have circled the cities we visited. We had a choice when choosing a tour, to visit these cities or go out into the Sahara Desert for two nights. We only had time to do one of the tours. If we ever go back to Morocco, I definitely want to sleep in the Sahara Desert.

This is what much of the countryside looked like as we drove along in the tour guide’s car towards Casablanca.

Of course, I know that there are Starbucks throughout the world but I still find it a bit startling when we saw this in a remote area of Morocco.

Casablanca is one of Africa’s largest cities and is the economic and business center of Morocco. It also has one of the largest ports in Northern Africa. However, as a tourist destination there is not much to see. We spent a few hours in Casablanca visiting the beautiful Hassan II Mosque.

The Hassan II Mosque is the second largest mosque in Africa and was built in 1993. The tall tower part of the mosque is called a minaret. The purpose of a minaret is to call to prayer. This minaret is the second tallest in the world, it even has an elevator inside of it.

Before a Muslim prays in a mosque they are required to wash their faces, hands, arms and feet. This is the beautiful spot where people wash in this mosque.

The men pray in this huge beautiful room.

This is just a small sample of the beautiful artwork/tilework in and around the mosque.

We have now left Casablanca and are headed towards Fes. Along the way we drove through the Atlas Mountains which is populated by these baboon monkeys.

It was rainy so we only stopped briefly in the small town of Ifrane which is known as “Little Switzerland” because of the architecture. Randy is pictured here with our tour guide, Kamal. Lions symbolize strength and power and are the national animal of Morocco.

When we booked this tour of the Imperial Cities of Morocco, I assumed it was a small group tour. Instead it was simply Randy, me and our tour guide who drove us around in a very nice car. The tour included two nights accommodation, breakfast, transportation, Kamal and two other tour guides in the other cities we visited. It was extremely reasonably priced and allowed us to experience many different aspects of Morocco. When we visited Morocco it was during Ramadan. Because of that Kamal did not eat or drink from sunrise to sunset. When the sun set, he was ready to eat as shown in this photo. He even had an app so he could track exactly when he was allowed to eat. As you can understand , sunrise and sunset are different every day so that is why the app was helpful. Notice the fresh orange juice and mint tea as part of Kamal’s meal. Whenever we visited a restaurant between sunrise and sunset, the only people eating there would be tourists.

Observing so many Muslims celebrating Ramadan over the week really caused me to gain even more respect for their culture. Everyone seemed to be practicing their religion but at the same time not being pushy about it. Unfortunately, many Americans seem scared or uncomfortable when thinking about Muslims. Our experience has been nothing but positive when interacting with people whose religion is Islam. Of course, there are Muslims who cause problems but I do believe that the vast majority of Muslims are good people with very similar value systems to my own.

This is a really long video that I made to share with our kids. I wanted to share it with you so you could see the gorgeous riad we stayed in when we were in Fez. Staying here helped me understand how prolific tilework is in Morocco.

This was our breakfast the following morning. Isn’t it beautifully presented?!? Each of the small covered bowls had a different food i.e. olives, honey, jam, etc. The mint tea has not yet been served in this photo.

We are now in Fes which is considered the cultural capital of Morocco. Fes is a UNESCO World Heritage Site best known for its walled medina called El Bali. The medina is believed to be the world’s largest car-free urban area.

Here we are at the entrance to the Medina of Fes which was founded in the year 700.

These pictures were taken as we wandered around inside the medina. The pictures show a few different mosques, the labyrinth of narrow alleyways and artwork found on the walls of the medina.

I wonder what this cat might be thinking.

These pictures add to the Old World charm of the Fes Medina.

Lunch is served and consists of beans, carrots, beets, rice, eggplant, olives and chicken.

One of the stressful parts of going on a tour is that the tours often involve being taken to various shops and then being given the hard sell to buy some merchandise. This situation has happened to us in Egypt, Turkiye and Morocco. Many of these shops have beautiful merchandise which can make the visit more enjoyable. This pottery and tile shop is named Art Naji and was fascinating. You can see the tiles being made and then turned into intricate mosaics. The colors in the pottery were stunning.

Next we visited the Chouara Tannery which is the oldest tannery in the world at a thousand years old. The tannery operates almost the same as it has for centuries. In the picture on the right you can see the large stone vats that are filled with a white liquid that softens the hides. The yellow hides get their color from saffron. The products from this tannery are sold all over the world.

We are now leaving Fes and driving further north towards the town of Chefchaouen. I took this picture to show how prevalent orange trees are throughout the country. They are even growing in the middle of a divided street!

As we drove through the various Moroccan cities there were many stops where the police would ask a few questions and then we would drive on. This happened three or four times on our four hour drive to Chefchaouen. Kamal did not seem bothered by this and said it was the usual protocol for his country.

At one of the stops, a police officer asked Kamal if he could drive him to the next town. Kamal leaned into the car to ask us if we were okay with it. Of course, we said yes. So for the next 45 minutes the officer rode with us and chatted with Kamal in Arabic. Kamal did not think anything was unusual about the situation. It is always SO very interesting to learn about another country’s way of life.

We have now arrived in the city of Chefchaouen also know as “the blue city”. This is the hotel where we spent the night. Chefchaouen is a quiet, peaceful city unlike the chaotic busyness of the other Moroccan cities we visited. There are many stories about why the city is blue. A common story is that it was painted blue in the 1930’s when many Jews fled to Morocco to escape Hitler. The blue came from the Jewish tradition of weaving blue into their prayer shawls to remind people of the sky, the heavens and God’s power. Most of the Jewish population in Morocco immigrated to Israel in 1948. Today Morocco and Israel are on friendly terms with many Jews visiting Morocco annually as a pilgrimage or to visit the homes of their forefathers.

Look at the henna I got while in Chefchaouen! I have always been interested but never done it. The designs used in this henna are Berber. Berber are the indigenous people of North Africa and pre-date the Arabs arrival in Morocco. You probably know that henna stays on your skin for about a week. It is typically used at weddings, festivals and to celebrate life. I loved my henna and will readily have it done again when the opportunity presents itself.

Overlooking Chefchaoeun with a population of 60,000 people. You can see the Old Town to the right at the base of the mountain. That part of the city has all the blue color.

Two things were interesting to me about this sign. First, it speaks to the Jewish history in Morocco. Second, Spanish is part of the sign. Geographically, Chefchaouen is located very close to the country of Spain.

This is where many of the local women bring their laundry. Washing it in the cement tubs and hanging it on fences to dry.

This is a bride carrier used in a marriage ceremony to move a woman from her parents’ house to her husband’s house. This tradition still exists in smaller cities like Chefchaouen.

Visiting a small bakery where these delicious cookies are made.

We have observed several weavers in our travels but never one as fast as this man.

The yellow on the left is the Berber alphabet. As mentioned earlier, Berbers are the indigenous people in northern Africa, arriving before the Arabs. It seems to be like the Native Americans are in the States. On the far right is our tour guide whose brother owns a rug shop.

We loved Chefchaouen. It is a place I would like to return to someday. We are now driving four hours south to Rabat, the capitol of Morocco. I saw this sign so I just had to snap a photo.

We are now in Rabat visiting the thousand year old Hassan Tower. It seems that it is best known for being unfinished. This minaret was originally planned to be twice this tall. At the time construction stopped in the year 1200, it is thought that the mosque was used both for religious reasons and as a fortification since it has protective walls surrounding it.

I like this photo because of the contrast between old and new in Rabat.This is Kasbah des Oudaias ( a UNESCO World Heritage Site) which was a former seaside fortress on the Atlantic Ocean. It is now a residential area with lots of shops. The modern building in the background is Mohammed VI Tower and is the third tallest building in Africa at 55 stories high. It is used for offices, retail and residences. The billionaire who financed the building of the tower visited NASA at Cape Canaveral and was then inspired to make the building in the shape of a rocket.

I saw this cross next to the Kasbah des Oudaisis and wondered if there is some history of Christianity being in Rabat.

I took these two pictures to show how much the Moroccan people love their king. His picture hangs everywhere; in hotels, restaurants, coffee shops, retail shops. His name is Mohammed VI and he has been king since 1999. Our tour guides and riad hosts always had positive comments to make about him. In Morocco, the king has ultimate power over the armed forces, and anything having to do with religion and foreign affairs.

Do you see the orange colored, cone shaped pottery on top of the green serving table. That is called a tagine and is the most famous meal in Morocco. They are sold by street vendors (as pictured here) and in almost every restaurant. When the lid is removed, the picture on the right shows what the food inside looks like. A tagine includes meat, vegetables and couscous. They were really quite good.

We arrived back in Marrakech from our three day tour and when we checked into our riad, it was dark. Thankfully our guide led us to where we were staying. I must admit that I was very concerned that I had made the wrong choice of places to stay as we wound our way through the alleyways. Everything ended up being perfectly fine and the riad was a beautiful place to stay. This video shows the route to our riad during the day.

We were never sure why the entrance to the riad was so short.

We spent a morning exploring the shops in the medina. Most of these shops were geared to the tourist not the local Moroccans.

Later in the day we took a 30 minute walk to Jardin Majorelle which took us out of the tourist area and into the local area. We felt perfectly safe but it did have a different feel.

This gorgeous garden is located outside the medina which means it is a much calmer, less congested part of Marrakech. The garden is named after the French artist, Jardin Majorelle who created it in the 1920’s. He spent 40 years of his life developing the garden but by the 1960’s he could no longer afford the upkeep which caused the garden to fall into disrepair. In the 1980’s fashion designers Yves Saint-Laurent and his partner, Pierre Berge purchased the garden and worked to restore it. After Yves Saint-Laurent passed away in 2008, his ashes were scattered in the Majorelle Garden.

Beautiful, beautiful gardens!

There must have been at least 25 different posters displayed similar to the ones pictured above, I captured a very few of them. The posters gave me a glimpse into Yves Saint Laurent’s personality. What a lovely gesture to send yearly greetings to his friends.

These are a few photos from a run through Marrakesh. Later in the day we took a flight to Malaga, Spain.

Even though Morocco and Gibraltar are very close to each other geographically, it was not easy to travel between the two. We needed to fly from Marrakesh to Malaga, Spain and then take a two hour bus ride to a small Spanish town next to Gibraltar arriving at 10:00 at night. We then walked across the border into Gibraltar.

As soon as we walked across the border we knew we were in Gibraltar because of this sign. My photography skills were not at there best at this point.

When we went out on the balcony of our rental apartment this was our view. We have definitely arrived at the Rock of Gibraltar.

Wondering exactly the meaning of this memorial. Obviously it is a tribute to British soldiers who died in WWI and WWII but did they die in Gibraltar? Were there this many different parts of the world involved in conflicts here?

Although Gibraltar is not an integral part of the United Kingdom, it is easy to see the British influence. Gibraltar is considered a British Overseas Territory. The 30,000 people who live in Gibraltar hold British passports. Spain has pressed for sovereignty but it is repeatedly rejected by the UK and the residents of Gibraltar.

The green part of this map is where the actual Rock of Gibraltar is located. You can see several roads on the Rock but access to these roads is limited to residents and tour companies.

Here we are with a tour group heading up the Rock overlooking the Bay of Gibraltar. The bay connects to the Strait of Gibraltar which then connects the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. About 300 ships (mostly merchant ships) pass through the Strait of Gibraltar everyday. It is one of the busiest waterways in the world.

It was recommended that I take my glasses off because the monkeys have been known to take them and run.

There are 34 miles of tunnels within the Rock of Gibraltar. They were made over the course of 200 years and were primarily constructed by the British Army. They were used most recently during WWII to protect British soldiers as the Germans and Italians tried to force their way through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean. The young man in the photo is a German we met on our tour who was very personable and knowledgable.

Overlooking the Gibraltar Airport runway

When we were walking down the hill after visiting the tunnels we came across this tower that dates back to the 1300’s.

As we continued walking down the Rock we came across this. You probably already know this from previously reading my blog that I love murals. Look at this octopus that winds itself around the building! Amazing!!!

The next morning we started making our way back to Malaga, Spain so we could then fly home to Tirana. The only way to leave Gibraltar is to walk (or drive if you have a car) across the Gibraltar Airport runway. Of course, this crossing is very well regulated and allows you to only go at particular times.

Telling us which way to go to walk over the border.

Now all we need to do is wait a few minutes and then we will board the bus for the two hour ride to the Malaga Airport.

After spring break our next IB theme in Grade Two was called Sharing the Planet. As a provocation, to get the kids thinking I collected some trash and then dumped it in the classroom while the kids were at recess. You can see how they reacted when they returned to the class. The trash got the kids talking and thinking about how to protect the Earth. We spent six weeks reading, writing, researching and doing a science experiment on the topic. The unit culminated with a field trip to a recycling center. It was a fun and interesting unit to teach.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I am behind with writing these blog posts. I still have a couple more to do before I close down the blog. Thank you for reading them and your ongoing interest in our international experience.

Currently, we are enjoying reconnecting with family and friends. The first month we were back in Fairport, our daughter along with her husband, four children and two dogs lived with us after moving out of their Virginia home and before their move to Thailand. It was a crazy month but we LOVED every minute with them.

Thanks again for reading my blog!

August, 2024

Visiting Cinque Terre, Italy and Corfu, Greece With Our Daughter

In March, 2020, our daughter, Elizabeth had made plans to visit us in Tirana. Our plans included visiting Cinque Terre and Corfu. As we all know March, 2020 is really only well known for one thing, Covid. The trip was cancelled and we were all sooooo disappointed. Fast forward to March, 2024 when we were finally able to make the trip happen. Of course, we dearly love our son-in-law and grandchildren but it was a real treat to get to have our daughter all to ourselves for 10 days. A big THANK YOU to Ben for managing life in Virginia while his wife was in Europe.

We met Elizabeth in the Pisa Airport where I took this photo because I thought the colors were so beautiful and vibrant.

Standing on the inside of the tower and looking up.

Close=up of the detail on one of the seven bells in the tower.

The lawn on the grounds of the tower is being mowed.

Elizabeth and I saw this man and his dog walking in the area. We thought they were so adorable that I asked if we could take their picture.

We walked along this river on our way to dinner.

I am not a huge meat eater but the variety of meats and cheeses on this charcuterie board were quite good.

The next day we took two trains on an hour long trip to get from Pisa to Cinque Terre.

Cinque Terre is a series of five small fishing villages in the northeast part of Italy along the Ligurian Sea (which connects to the Mediterranean Sea). Until the late 1800’s, when the train was built, the five villages were only connected by a footpath. Today these villages are not accessible by car, only by boat or train. We chose to spend two nights in the village of Manarola because it was described as a small, quiet village. We were not disappointed with our choice. As you can see, the main street is lined with covered boats because that is the only place to park them. They were originally used as fishing boats but are now used for recreation. Elizabeth is sitting on our favorite part of our small apartment, the balcony.

Wandering around the village of Manarola

Looking back at Manarola as we start our climb up the hill.

This is a cemetery (or mausoleum) we saw as we climbed. What a beautiful setting!

Arriving in the small village of Volastra where the family owned winery is located.

The guide (on the right) for our small tour group was an American married to an Italian woman. He has lived in Italy for 20 years but still has to pay U.S. taxes. I was surprised by that.

After finishing at the winery, we decided to hike to the next small village called Corniglia. You can see the village perched on the top of a cliff.

It was about a three hour beautiful hike to Corniglia.

After eating lunch and exploring Corniglia a bit, we climbed down the 400 steps to the train station to take the train back to Manarola.

In the late afternoon, we noticed lots of cameras set up to capture photos of Manarola with just the right amount of light on it during sunset.

That night we went to eat dinner in the village of Riomaggiore. Unfortunately, this was the only photo I took of this charming village known for it’s night life.

Vernazza was the final village for us to visit. From the little bit we saw of it, we thought it would also be a good place to stay.

I asked the two of them to put their heads together so I could get a photo. This was their response. 🙂

We are checking out of our AirBnB in Manarola. Our host, Gianluca, is pictured with us here. He was a wonderful host!

This is just a random photo taken as we left the Pisa Airport. I had never seen a Lego vending machine!

We have now flown back to Tirana from Pisa. Our first stop back in Tirana was dinner at our favorite zagara.

It was such fun to have Elizabeth go on our walking mural field trip which ended with lunch at Burger King.

Elizabeth spent an afternoon at school playing Sorry with small groups of children during our center rotations. They loved having her there and continuously referred to her as “Isabella”. 🙂

One evening we went to dinner with Edlira, my teaching assistant from 2018-19 and Alba, my current teaching assistant. Both women are hard working, kind, smart people. I felt fortunate to work with them both.

The following weekend, we drove to southern Albania on our way to Corfu. Here we are having breakfast in Saranda, Albania before taking the ferry to Corfu. You can see the ferry terminal on the right in the background.

Here come the ferries. In the far distance, you can see the island of Corfu.

Arriving in Corfu and finding our way to our apartment rental.

Visiting Saint Spyridon Church, a Greek Orthodox church with the highest bell tower in the Ionian Islands.

In my next life, I think I would like my mode of transportation to be a Vespa that is exactly this color. 🙂

As we wandered around Corfu we often had the feeling that we were either in Italy or Great Britain. After going on the tour we understood why we had these feelings. Corfu is the only Greek island that was not conquered by the Ottomans. Corfu was under Venetian rule for 400 years followed by rule by the French and British government. That helps to explain the varied architecture, food and traditions of the island. During WWII, Italy invaded Corfu in an attempt to resurrect the Roman Empire. When Italy surrendered to the Allies in 1943, the Germans massacred thousands of Italians and sent 5,000 Corfu Jews to Auschwitz.

We came across this lovely shop owned by a Greek couple. The wife made hand-painted scarfs and jewelry while the husband ran the shop. The husband is pictured in front of a huge photo of his grandfather during WWII in Greece.

A perfect example of Corfu being formerly ruled by the Venetians. The winged lion is a symbol of Venice.

One last photo of Corfu before we board the ferry the next morning and head back to Albania. Loved, loved, loved time with our daughter. It was hard to say good bye after our time together.

One more March outing… This is my friend, Dan who teaches art at Albanian College. While Randy was back in the States for a few weeks, we took a two hour road trip south to spend time in the charming city of Vlore. We both had lots of school reports to write which is always easier to do as you look out over the sea.

Walking around and exploring Vlore… Thanks to Dan who shared several of these photos with me.

Once again, I’m behind with my blog. I have not worked on it for a couple of months simply because life can get very busy as I am sure you can relate to. My very last day of teaching was two days ago on June 21st. I am not questioning my decision to retire but at the same time it is hard to give up something that I have loved so much. On to new adventures, right? Randy and I move back to New York on July 1st and look forward to connecting with family and friends. A bit of family news is that Elizabeth and her family will be moving to Bangkok for three years at the end of July. Ben has a new position so they will start their own new adventure soon. I am happy for them but a bit sad for me because I will continue to miss them. The good news is that since I am now retired, I will easily have the time and opportunity to visit. Yay!

Stay tuned for a few more blog posts to update you on our last months in Albania. Hopefully, I will now have more time to work on it.

As always, thanks for reading my blog!

June, 2024

A Visit to the Arctic

I had a week off from school in mid-February so Randy and I decided to go to Finland to experience life in Lapland and to try to see the Northern Lights. After researching lots of different options we decided to fly to Ivalo, Finland which is 120 km north of the Arctic Circle to stay at Kakslauttanen. They offer several types of accommodations including glass igloos which sounded intriguing.

There was lots of de-icing of the airplane as we prepared to fly from Helsinki to Ivalo.

I thought it was interesting to see five different languages on the Helsinki Airport signage. I think the languages are English, Korean, Chinese, Russian and I don’t know about the fifth one.

This picture was taken as we took off from Helsinki and headed towards Ivalo.

This picture gives you an idea of how far north Ivalo is.

Arriving in Ivalo, the weather was cold but since we are from Rochester, NY we have experienced cold temperatures like this in the past.

Randy called the entrance to the igloo a hobbit door, very appropriate!

Inside the igloo was the Aurora Alarm which sounded if there was an Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) sighting. Unfortunately, the alarm never sounded while we were there and we never did get to see the Lights. 😦 Randy had an app that helped to predict our chance of seeing the Lights.

On our first morning in the Arctic, we went for a dog sled ride. We had brought a lot of our own cold weather gear from home but they suggested we add another layer of warmth. As you can see, they had every size and piece of clothing you could imagine: coveralls, boots, mittens up to your elbows, hats, balaclavas, etc. The only part of me that got cold on the sled ride were my toes.

Here were the directions we were given for driving our sleds.

We had always heard that dogs preparing to pull a sled will howl with excitement and wanting to move. This video proves that to be true.

Being out in the calm, quiet, beautiful forest combined with the novelty of being pulled on a sled by dogs was exciting and was worth the anticipation.

I loved interacting with the dogs at the end.

The following day we took a nighttime Aurora Hunting Reindeer Sleigh Ride. Once again, we did not see the Aurora but enjoyed the experience. Halfway through our sleigh ride we stopped at a structure called a “kota” which is a traditional reindeer herder’s (Sami’s) home to enjoy some hot berry juice.

The sleigh ride above was led by two Sami people. The Sami are the equivalent to our Native Americans. There are an estimated 80,000 indigenous Sami people who live in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. All the reindeer in Finland are owned by the Sami people. Each reindeer, whether it is domestic or living in the wild is earmarked. In order to own a reindeer not only must you be Sami but your parents or grandparents must have had reindeer herding as their primary occupation. There is a maximum set number of reindeer that can sustainably survive in the wild so each year the herd size is culled to allow for newborn reindeer to survive. The culled reindeer are then sold and eaten.

We have now arrived for a two night stay in Helsinki. This is the view out our hotel window.

Walking around Helsinki…

The Oodi Library was built six years ago and is the most interesting library I think I have been in. There was such diversity of what you could do other than check out books. There were sewing machines, 3D printers, a cinema, live trees, robots delivering books, musical instruments to check out in addition to the usual individual and group meeting rooms. It was impressive!

We have used Fiskars products for years but never knew they originated in Finland.

We took a walking tour of Helsinki and our guide showed this picture as a good description of how Finnish people feel about being too close to others. He also shared a common saying that says you can tell an introverted Finn from an extroverted Finn because an introvert looks at his feet while an extrovert looks at the other person’s feet. 🙂

Saunas are a huge part of Finnish culture. It is seen as both relaxing and therapeutic and is a place to socialize. From what we understand, most hotels and private homes have saunas. In the winter it is common to go back and forth between the sauna and a sea pool or the snow. Randy and I wanted to try all of this so we went to the public Allas Sauna. We could not take our phones so I got the picture on the right from their website so you could see what it looks like. Obviously, when we looked out the vista window, we saw lots of snow and ice, not the beach that you see here. Everyone was moving between the three outdoor pools and five saunas. They were walking barefoot on ice covered sidewalks to get back and forth. We walked barefoot out to the sea pool and could only stand getting in the water up to our knees. It was painful! I have great admiration for the Finns who dipped into the icy pools and back to the saunas without seeming to flinch. Amazing!

Salmon soup is another Finnish tradition that I LOVED!!! When we move back to the States, I am going to figure out how to make it.

When we were walking through the Helsinki Airport we saw our first Moomin Shop. We then saw several more of these shops as we toured Helsinki. The shops were always full of people so I became very curious about what Moomin meant. After asking our guide and then doing some reading I found out that Moomin are a family of characters created by the Finnish author Tove Jansson starting in 1945. The characters look a bit like white hippopotamuses and are a sweet, peace and nature loving family who go on various adventures together. The series was made into a cartoon which has become very popular in Japan. I got really caught up with the charm of the Moomin books and ended up buying our granddaughter two books and a few of the stuffed characters for her upcoming seven year old birthday. I wonder why they have not become popular in the States.

We asked our hotel for a dinner restaurant recommendation and this is where they suggested. When we arrived at the restaurant the server said there was no menu, this would be a surprise meal. He asked if we had any food allergies. Soon after, the food started arriving at our table. It was delicious and so beautifully presented.

The baptismal font is in the foreground.

One more interesting story I want to share before leaving Finland is a conversation Randy and I had with our guide. I asked the guide how the Finnish people felt about joining NATO. I am definitely not a political person but since Finland joining NATO has been in the news lately, I was curious. The guide said that about 20-30% of the Finns (including himself) felt that Finland should not have joined NATO. He said his country has shared a border with Russia for a very long time without issues. He did not want to risk antagonizing Russia by having his country join NATO. Also, there is a such a dense forest and many lakes along the border which would make it very difficult for Russia to invade Finland. Finally, he said that Finland does not have anything Russia would want i.e. natural resources, so what advantage would it be for them to invade? He said it would be like Russia getting more of Siberia with no resources.

Before flying back to Albania, we decided to spend two nights in Oslo, Norway. We signed up to take a small group tour but it ended up being just Randy and I which was nice. Our guide, Olav was a 25 year old university student studying history and economics. Here, Randy and Olav are standing in front of the main entrance to the University of Oslo.

This is the Norwegian Parliament Building which is the center of political debate and decision making in Norway. The small gray tents in front of the building is where protesters camp for many days at a time. It is similar to what happens in front of our White House in Washington D.C. When we were there most of the protests centered on the wars in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine.

Look at the beautiful containers of heather poking up through the snow. The containers were everywhere in the city center. It was refreshing to see a bit of floral color in early February.

Isn’t she adorable!?! The statue was standing outside of a hotel.

When Olav suggested that we visit City Hall on our tour, I must admit I was not very enthused. Wow, were we surprised. It is full of beautiful artwork plus it is the location where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded each year.

You may or may not remember seeing these brass sidewalk blocks in some of my other posts. We have seen them in many European cities. They are a stark reminder of the atrocities the Jews suffered during WWII. The blocks are outside of locations were Jews were taken and deported to concentration camps. It is always startling to randomly come across them. The blocks give the name, birthdate, deportation date, where they were deported to and the date they were killed. A simple reminder of the horrors of war…

We visited the Nobel Peace Prize Museum where we learned about this yearly award. The inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel, donated 150 million dollars so that the peace award (along with four other awards) could be granted each year. The recipients are awarded one million dollars that they are to use to further peace in the world. I bought several postcards of the individual winners to take to share with my students. We spent one lesson talking about the Nobel Peace Prize. The children had excellent questions and comments about it all.

Yum!!! This blueberry pie was our favorite thing to eat in Norway.

These four babies are symbolizing the emotions of childhood: anger, happiness, sadness and fright.

I am sure I have added way too many sculpture pictures but I found them fascinating and had a hard time leaving some of them out. Vigeland made all the figures naked because he wanted them to be timeless. Our guide also told us that Vigeland wanted to show many of his figures having fun and playing with their children because he felt he had neglected his own children by not spending enough time with them. He wanted his sculptures to show all phases of a person’s life from childhood to old age.

One reason Randy and I like going on tours is to see the important sights. Another reason is because it is interesting to learn about the culture of the places we visit. During our Oslo tour we got onto the topic of prisons. Our guide, Olav shared with us that the recidivism rate in Norway is 16%. Wow! The States have a recidivism rate of 75%. When we asked how the Norwegians kept the rate so low, Olav explained that his country wants every citizen contributing to the welfare of the country. If someone is sitting in jail doing nothing then they are not making contributions. Norway works very hard to teach job skills, provide counseling, etc. to help the prisoners be successful when they return to society. They are more interested in rehabilitating their prisoners than punishing them. Another interesting fact is that if someone from another country commits a crime in Norway, they are taken back to their own country and Norway pays for them to be incarcerated in their own country. This is done to discourage criminals from coming to Norway.

One more interesting cultural bit of information is that in the late 1960’s oil was discovered in Norway. This caused Norway to go from being a relatively poor country to one of the wealthiest countries in the world. When we asked what happens with the oil income, Olav said it is invested to be used to fund the pensions for the Norwegian citizens. Because of this, Olav does not need to save for his retirement. The government is very generously doing it for him.

From the little bit we were able to learn about Norway, it seems that Norway would be a wonderful place to live.

As you know, I often like to end my blog with a bit of news or info about Albania. One of the many things I will mis about Albania are the pharmacies. We have approximately five pharmacies within a 10 minute walk of our apartment. Each pharmacy is quite small and is staffed by one or two pharmacists who speak excellent English. This week I was experiencing some allergy symptoms so I looked up what the active ingredient was in Claritin, went to the pharmacy and explained what I needed. With no waiting, they provided the medication shown above for the cost of 100 lek (one dollar). The States are way ahead of Albania when it comes to providing care for serious health issues but it seems Albania is ahead when it comes to treating day-to-day medical needs.

The name of our last IB unit was called How We Express Ourselves. My assistant and I took the children on a walking tour of Tirana to visit nine murals. The kids made a quick sketch of each mural, wrote a few words about it and then rated it with one to three stars based on whether or not they liked the mural. It was fun to hear the children’s varied opinions about the artwork they were viewing.

Thank you, thank you for taking the time to read my blog. I really do enjoy reflecting back on our lives abroad but I simply don’t have as much time as I would like to work on putting it all together. It only took my two months to get this blog written. Oh, well. I have a few more posts to get caught up with, we’ll see how long that takes. 🙂

I am down to a bit more than two months left in my teaching career. The feelings of excitement, fear and a bit of sadness are all mixed in as I anticipate the next step. We are looking forward to settling back into our life in America starting in July.

A Weekend Trip to Puglia, Italy and Home, Sweet, Home

In early December, we had a three day weekend and a friend asked me if I would like to go to Italy. Of course I answered, yes, I never want to miss a trip to Italy! Randy was not in Albania at the time because he was hunting back in New York. There was a 41 euro round trip flight to Bari so we booked our tickets and made some plans. Bari is a 50 minute flight from Tirana.

As we all know, Italy is in the shape of a boot. If you look at the spiked heel, that is where Puglia is located. Puglia is one of the 20 regions of Italy and is known for producing 60% of Italy’s olive oil and having the longest coastline of any of the mainland regions in Italy. From my perspective, Puglia is known for having one charming small town after another.

We spent two nights in Polignano e Mare a small, seaside town of 18,000 people. Here you can see the city by day and by night. Gorgeous!

The central piazza of Polignano e Mare looking very festive for the holidays.

It seems that every Italian city (no matter the size) has at least one gorgeous church. I never get tired of the peacefulness and tranquility that comes with visiting them.

The name of this restaurant is Nobilnonna which means “noble grandmother” in Italian. Since my friend and I are both grandmothers we decided it was the perfect place to enjoy dinner.

Different regions of Italy are known for different types of pasta. Puglia is known for orecchiette “little ear” pasta.

After checking out of our hotel in Polignano e Mare we drove our rental car 40 minutes away to Locorotondo, another small, charming city in Puglia.

You may or may not know that I enjoy collecting nativity sets from the various countries we visit. When we were winding our way around the narrow streets of Locorotondo, we stumbled across an artist with a very small shop that was attached to where she and her husband lived. She spoke no English but encouraged us to enter her shop, enjoy a bit of wine and a cookie. Suzyn speaks some Italian so they could communicate a bit. The artist shop was full of beautiful, beautiful art. The nativity sets I purchase are usually quite small but I absolutely fell in love with the one pictured here. You can also see the artist signing the back of the artwork for me. The whole experience is a treasured memory.

After leaving Locorotondo, we drove another 20 minutes down the road to Alberobello. This small city is known for it’s trulli, the cone topped, cylindrical houses that were originally used in farming and as homes. I visited here in the spring of 2019 and loved our overnight stay here. Unfortunately, it has become overpopulated with tourists to the point that we were walking shoulder to shoulder with people for most of our short visit. It simply was not enjoyable. I felt like the town had been overrun with tourists and had lost it’s charm.

On the 16th of December, I flew home for three weeks. I am continuing to enjoy living and teaching in Albania but at the same time, I could not wait to get home for awhile. I started my trip home by flying into Dulles in Virginia and spending two nights with Elizabeth and her family. They borrowed my car for the fall since I was not needing it. After staying with them for a short time, I drove home to Fairport.

Juliet is wearing a dress that her Mama wore as a flower girl at my sister’s wedding many years ago.

Randy and Jacob lit the candles at the Christmas Eve church service and then snuffed them at the end of the service. I am so glad that Jacob could be part of this tradition that his grandaddy, mother and uncles have done many times.

This is my favorite picture from my trip home. Juliet holding a candle as we sang Silent Night.

Christmas morning wearing new Christmas pajamas and Christmas sweaters.

I do NOT enjoy listening to me laugh on this video but I did love the dancing grandchildren!

A Few years ago we bought some land about an hour and a half south of Fairport, close to the small town of Scio. Randy loves hunting and the outdoors so this gives him plenty of space to enjoy. The property had no improvements on it so we had a small pole barn built. Randy has portioned off part of the barn to make a living space. All the wood you can see here has come from trees Randy and Josh have cut down on the property and then made into lumber to enclose the space. Randy has spent hours on this project which brings him great satisfaction. As you can see, the ceiling is still a work in progress.

A walk through the woods at Scio on a rainy afternoon.

Juliet (age 6) and I went to her all time favorite restaurant for some Juliet and Nana time. Jacob (age 13) and I headed to Starbucks to share a bit of time together. Love, love these two sweethearts!!!

We went for Hot Pot and BBQ one evening which was a really different and enjoyable experience.

It was fun to see David get rid of their Christmas tree. Of course, after he threw it off the deck he went around and dragged it over to the trash can.

I like to end my blogposts with something that is happening in Albania. One of the Early Years teachers is also a yoga instructor. She teaches a class once a week for those that are interested. So glad to have the opportunity to continue my yoga practice in Albania! Our teacher sent this video to us a few weeks ago so I decided to share it here. I am in the back, on the left. :)

As always, thanks for taking the time to read my blog. I have a week off from school coming up in February. Randy and I are headed to Finland and will be spending three nights 120 km north of the Arctic Circle in the small city of Ivalo. We are hoping to see the Northern Lights but if we can’t see them we are still looking forward to spending time in an Arctic setting.

January, 2024

A Visit from Our Son and a Trip to Egypt

In early October our son, Josh, and our Irish son, Daniel, visited us for not quite a week. Daniel lives in Belfast and spent a few summers with us as part of the Irish Children’s Program many years ago. When Daniel found out Josh was coming to Albania, Daniel decided to come visit at the same time. We loved hosting both of them and as I have said before, there is nothing better than spending time with our adult children.

Josh has visited many places in Albania so he wanted to explore something close by and different. They decided to travel to Kotor, Montenegro which is a three hour drive from our apartment. Randy, Daniel and Josh spent two nights getting to know this beautiful city.

Following the usual routine, Josh and Daniel visited my classroom and met my second graders. It was fun to watch them all interact,

Our weather was wonderful during our stay in Egypt.

We spent two nights in Cairo at a lovely hotel that was very reasonably priced.

As we travel, I always find it interesting to see the different car license plates. Of course, everything is written in Arabic in Egypt.

The view when looking up the Great Pyramid.

Here you can see the sarcophagus in the background. Can you tell that we are not great at taking selfies?

Here is a diagram of the inside of the Great Pyramid. You can see where we entered the Pyramid and then how we climbed to the King’s Chamber. Loved this experience!

I think one of my favorite experiences in Egypt was riding on a camel. I know it is a very touristy experience to have but I still loved it. The camels seemed to have such personalities and going out in the desert while riding one of them was amazing!

Before riding on the camels we asked our guide if she thought the camels were mistreated. She said she did not think so because so many Egyptians depend on the camels to make a living. If they mistreated their camels it would negatively impact their income.

The human looking part of the Great Sphinx of Giza is said to represent Khafre who is entombed in the second largest Pyramid of Giza.

After visiting the Pyramids, our guide took us to the Egyptian Museum back in Cairo. This museum houses the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts in the world. We were glad to have our guide with us to show us the highlights.

I took these two pictures of some Egyptian money shown with the matching Egyptian artifact. On one side of Egyptian bills everything is written in Arabic with images relating to Islamic heritage. On the reverse side of each bill (shown here) the writing is in English and it shows some figure or monument of ancient Egypt. Also, the currency in Egypt is called pounds. All of this is rooted in Britain’s colonization of Egypt from 1882 to 1956.

This ivory statue measures not quite 3 inches tall. It is the only portrait of the Pharaoh Khufu (builder of the Great Pyramid) that exists.

These statues are life-size and are of Prince Rahotep and his wife Nofret. It is believed that Rahotep was the brother of Khufu. When the first excavator found them underground with only a candle for light, he was frightened because they look so realistic. Rahotep’s skin is painted reddish-brown while his wife’s skin is painted a much paler color. The pale color suggests her sheltered life.

Our next and final stop with our guide was the Old Cairo Bazaar which has existed since the 14th century. We were advised that tourists need to have a guide with them when they visit a bazaar like this because the shopkeepers can be so aggressive. That was good advice. It was difficult to really look at much of the merchandise because we were being approached to “buy this, buy that” so much that it simply made you want to move away from the shop. Another interesting part of buying anything in Egypt was that the shopkeepers all wanted us to pay in American dollars. Of course, we did not bring any with us because when we travel we usually use the local currency. The shopkeepers would take Egyptian pounds but they much preferred to have American dollars. I am not sure but I think this is because the rate of inflation in Egypt is over 40% and they see the dollar as a more stable currency.

Just a few of the beautiful mosques surrounding the bazaar.

After our very full day in Cairo, we took a cab to the airport the next day. I loved all the decor this cab driver had added to his taxi. The driver spoke nearly prefect English. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit with him as he shared the ups and downs of living in Egypt

I added this map of Egypt with the green circles to show where we traveled. To give some perspective, Egypt is a bit larger than the state of Texas. It took us an hour and a half to fly from Cairo to the southern city of Aswan.

Flying over Egypt includes a lot of brown desert plus Cairo is such a big, busy city that it was a pleasant change of pace to land in the very green city of Aswan.

Our three night, four day cruise on the Nile River was very reasonably priced. As always, you get what you pay for. The ship was clean but quite dated. The food was okay but not great. The best part of the cruise was seeing all the sites along the way.

After the cruise company picked us up at the airport and before our ship left Aswan we visited the Aswan Dam which was built in the 1960’s. The dam controls the flow of water on the Nile River and protects the people from both floods and drought. The dam was initially funded by the UK and the US but then both countries withdrew their financial support when Egypt made several moves that appeared to be friendly to the communist block. The Soviet Union ended up providing the funds to build the dam.

The first temple we visited was Philae. It was built in the middle of the Nile River 2,000 years ago and can only be reached by boat. The temple is dedicated to Isis, the goddess of birth, healing and magic. The temple is also known for being one of the last places that the ancient Egyptian religion survived before Christianity swept through in 550AD.

I have circled two of the symbols we saw whenever we visited any of the ancient Egyptian temples. The symbol on the left is the “eye of protection”. The belief was that this symbol would protect you from evil spirits, disease and harmful animals. The symbol on the right is called an “ankh” and symbolizes eternal life. This was the first of many times seeing these symbols on the walls of the temples we visited.

After we returned from visiting the Philae Temple we boarded a small boat to travel up the Nile River to visit a Nubian Village. The two pilots of the boat looked to be about 13 or 14 years old. They knew exactly what they were doing and they seemed happy doing it. I kept wondering if this was child labor and if so, was it okay? I also wondered about their schooling or perhaps lack of it. The small boats had nice artwork drawn on the inside of the boat.

Here we are arriving in and then walking around the Nubian Village. As you can tell, the Nubian Village is full of color. The village started roughly 8.000 years ago when the Nubians moved from Sudan. Their skin color is darker than the average Egyptians plus they have their own traditions and language.

One of my favorite activities while visiting Egypt was getting to see this school in the Nubian Village.

When we went through the gate into the school’s courtyard we saw many painted murals including the ones shown here.

This is the inside of one of the classrooms. The man pictured is one of the actual teachers at the school. He answered many of our questions including telling us that this classroom was for 6 to 8 year olds and about 30 children went to school in this room.

Here we are seeing a typical Nubian home. Love all the color!

When we reached the roof of the house, this was our view. The colorful tower in the distance is a minaret from a local mosque. We were served some traditional Nubian food and tea. I took a picture of the paper cup that the tea was served in because I liked the saying printed on it, “Take Your Time, take your dreams seriously”.

We are now getting ready to head back via boat down the Nile River. It was well worth our time to visit this unusual, colorful part of Egypt.

Our home base for three nights was the cruise ship as mentioned earlier. We chose to take the cruise because it provided so many opportunities to visit several iconic sights in a fairly short period of time. As we came and went from the ship each day we boarded various buses that looked like this. As the bus drove us to visit places we were continually stopped at checkpoints like the one pictured on the right. The bus driver would get off the bus, talk to the people seated at the desk, show some paperwork and then we would be off again. Often times, these stops would take 5 minutes but at other times we would be waiting up to 20-25 minutes. I never understood why we were stopped and what the people at the checkpoints were always writing in their books.

On our first full day of being on the cruise ship we woke up at 3:30AM so we could drive three hours south to visit the Abu Simbel Temples. We drove within 30 km of the Sudanese border. This picture was taken out the bus window when we had been on the road for about an hour. Driving through the desert at sunrise was a different, beautiful experience.

We have arrived at the temples in the village of Abu Simbel which is still part of the Aswan region of Egypt. The temple on the left (The Great Temple) was built by Pharaoh Ramses II in roughly 1200BC. The temple on the right (The Small Temple) was also built by Ramses to honor Nefertari, the favorite of his 200 wives.

If you remember earlier in this blog I showed some pictures of the Aswan Dam. One negative part of the building of the dam was that it would flood the Abu Simbel temples. It was decided in the 1960’s that they would need to move the temples in order to preserve them. An international team of engineers and scientists moved the temples about 200 feet to preserve them from the rising water of Lake Nasser. The moving of the temples was paid for by more that 50 countries contributing to the project. In 1979 the temples were designated as UNESCO Wold Heritage Sites.

Another interesting part of these temples is that they were buried until 1813 when a Swiss researcher rediscovered them.

The four huge statues in front of this temple are all of Ramses II. He built the temple to intimidate his enemies and as a place for the people to worship him after his death. You can see several smaller statues around Ramses which represent some of his 100 children and 200 wives.

We thought that by traveling in mid-October we would miss most of the crowds. Unfortunately that was not true.

The second temple we visited was built as a tribute to Hathor, the goddess of love/music and as a tribute to Ramses’ favorite wife, Nefertari. I am standing next to a statue of Ramses, just to give perspective as to the size of the statues.

There was not as much to see inside this temple. We did see several cartouches on the walls.

On the drive back to our ship, we saw lots and lots of trucks like this. They were all headed south which made me wonder if they were headed to Sudan to help relieve the hunger in that country.

After spending the afternoon cruising the Nile, we toured another temple in Kom Ombo. I was so glad we could see it at night because of how beautiful it is.

Kom Ombo Temple is located right next to the Nile River and was built in 180 BC. It is called a double temple because it was dedicated to two gods: the crocodile-headed god Sobek and falcon-headed Horus.

Can you see the ankh and eye of protection in amongst all the other heirglyphics?

Since this temple was partially dedicated to crocodile-headed Sobek, there was a small museum with mummified crocodiles in it. The crocodile was said to be the god of water and a symbol of power and strength.

The next morning we were up at 4:30AM to visit the Edfu Temple which is dedicated to the falcon-god Horus. It is well known as the best preserved temple in Egypt and was built in 237BC along the Nile River. It took 180 years to construct the temple.

Since this temple is dedicated to the falcon-god Horus, we saw lots of falcon depictions throughout the temple.

Look at the smiling child in the front seat of what I am guessing is a school bus.

How many children can you put on a motorcycle?

After visiting Edfu Temple we spent several hours cruising to Luxor and enjoying the sights. It was good to have a few hours to relax since we have been busy visiting sights nonstop since boarding the ship.

We even went through a lock. It made Randy and I think of the Erie Canal even though there is big difference between the canal and the Nile River.

I mentioned earlier in this blog how aggressive the shopkeepers were, to the point that it made me not want to buy anything. While we spent the afternoon cruising there were several small boats following our ship to sell their goods (primarily tablecloths and beach towels). They would yell up to the passengers and then throw the goods up onto the ship.

Our next and final stop on the cruise was Luxor. These posters sum up our impression of Egypt, a country full of hospitality and history.

We had a short, picturesque walk from our cruise ship on the Nile over to visit the Luxor Temple.

We arrived in Cairo on October 14th, one week after the Israeli War began. Before arriving in Egypt we did hesitate about the safety of making the trip. Randy did some reading on the U.S. State Department website which said Egypt was still a safe place to travel. We never felt unsafe except for when we walked to the Luxor Temple. We walked by the pictured protest which we found to be very intimidating. The protestors were screaming words in Arabic. Since we speak no Arabic we had not idea what they were saying. I expressed concern about safety to our guide. Our guide said this was the first protest in Luxor in the past five years. He said there was no need to be scared because Egyptians highly value the tourist industry and would never do anything to a tourist. Nevertheless, I would have been happy to skip this experience. These pictures were taken later when we drove by the same location in a bus.

The Luxor Temple was built in 1400 BC and unlike most temples is not dedicated to one god or pharaoh. Instead it was a place where many pharaohs were crowned. The obelisk was built by Ramses II and has hieroglyphics showing his military victories. This obelisk is one of a pair. The other obelisk is in Paris.

If you look carefully you can see some frescos on the walls of the temple. These are remnants of when the Romans converted the temple to a church in 350. In 640 the temple was converted into a mosque.

This is the 2.7 km road that connects Luxor Temple to Karnak Temple. It was built 3,400 years ago. It is called the Avenue of the Sphinxes or the Road of the Rams because there are hundreds of sphinx and ram headed statues along either side of the road (see below).

The road was built to celebrate many different occasions like feasts or coronations. The boat like structure is a recreation of the transport used by the pharaohs between the two temples.

A hot air ballon ride was included in the cost of the Nile Cruise so we were up at 4:00 AM again so we could get to the balloon launching site.

Posing like an Egyptian pharaoh and his queen. 🙂

Although it may have been hard to get up so early, it was well worth it to experience this beautiful sunrise in a calm, quiet ballon.

You could easily see the results of irrigation as we flew over such varied terrain.

We are now headed to the Valley of the Kings which was Randy’s favorite spot that we visited in Egypt. It is hard to believe when looking at these barren hills that there could be such beauty hidden beneath them.

The Valley of the Kings contains 65 tombs varying in size from a simple pit to a tomb with 120 chambers for Rameses’ II sons. These burial sites were used over the course of 500 years from the 16th to the 11th century BC.

Walking down, down, down into a many chambered tomb.

Another common Egyptian symbol is the scarab beetle which stands for good luck and good fortune.

And more ankhs, a cartouche and an eye of protection. They were everywhere at the Valley of the Kings.

I have probably overdone it with the pictures but I simply could not get over how absolutely beautiful the painted scenes were inside the tombs. What I found to be the most fascinating was that these are the original colors. They have not been enhanced. They are so far under the ground that they are protected from the sun and do not seem to fade over time. These paintings are more than 3,000 years old. The paint was created from natural resources like plants and rocks.

Even today there are archeological digs happening at the Valley of the Kings, as can be seen in this photo. Archeologists from around the world regularly come to discover new tombs and learn more about ancient Egypt.

Here we are approaching the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut. A mortuary temple is a temple built close to a royal tomb. Valley of the Kings is only 5 km away. Hatshepsut was the only woman to have full power as a pharaoh during the 3,000 year old history of ancient Egypt. Hatshepsut is considered to be one of the greatest pharaohs (male or female) because she brought great wealth to the region by having many trade expeditions with other parts of Africa. These trading expeditions brought back gold, ebony and incense. She is also known for the many building projects she oversaw. She reigned for more than 20 years and during much of that time she portrayed herself as a male by wearing traditional male clothing. This was done as a way for her to establish herself in the Egyptian patriarchy.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, the surrounding area is continuously being excavated in search of more information about Ancient Egypt. These stones were laid out with number labels outside of the Hatshepsut Temple.

Karnak Temple was the last temple we visited. I must admit that by this time of our tour we were actually getting burned out on seeing one temple after another in the space of three days. A friend had told me that Karnak Temple was her favorite but we did not see it that way just because we were tired.

This model of Karnak Temple shows it’s immense size. It is considered to be the largest temple complex constructed anywhere in the world.

This is the other end of the road that begins at the Luxor Temple and ends at Karnak Temple. As mentioned earlier, it is 2.7 km long and is 3,000 years old.

Ancient Egyptians believed that the obelisk could guide the souls of the dead to the afterlife. One of these obelisks was built for the Pharaoh Hatshepsut.

The small rounded object on the top of this stone block is a scarab beetle. As mentioned earlier, they were thought to bring good luck and good fortune. I found it interesting that people visiting Karnak Temple believed that if you walked around the scarab beetle several times you would then have good fortune, hence you can see people walking around and around.

Some friends had suggested that we consider staying at the Winter Palace after we got off of our Nile River Cruise in Luxor. We looked into it and tried to make an advance reservation for one night but their was no availability. We did end up getting a room at the last minute because several tourists had canceled. The Israeli War had made them decide not to come to Egypt. Of course we were glad to get to stay but sad for the reason.

The beautiful gardens were by far the part I enjoyed most about our stay at the Winter Palace. This hotel was built by the British in the early 1900’s to host English nobility. Although Randy and I thoroughly enjoyed our stay we felt that the experience did not seem authentic. We felt like we were not in Egypt but instead visiting a lovely British hotel.

On our last day in Egypt we made arrangements for a local guide to take us on a two hour tour of Luxor. We said we were interested in getting to know more of the culture of the city rather than seeing anymore tourist attractions. Our first stop was a local market where we saw no other tourists. 🙂

Next our guide took us to an Egyptian Coptic Church. The Coptic Church has similar beliefs to the Orthodox Church. Our guide pointed out that Christianity was part of Egypt before Islam came to Egypt. He also said that there are Copt schools in Luxor to help preserve the Copt language.

Our local guide also took us to get falafel which is a traditional Egyptian food made from chickpeas and fava beans. Delicious!!

It seems that most of the world is seeking peace.

We loved our time in Egypt and found it to be full of so much history that it was hard to take it all in at times. The people were friendly and welcoming, the sights were amazing and cruising on the Nile River was majestic. Personally, I would rather have had more time to spend but I only had a week off from school.

Just a few extra points that we found interesting about Egypt were some of the tight government control that we were unaware of most of the time. For example, VPN’s are not allowed in Egypt. It seems that the government wants total control over communication. One of our taxi drivers told us that he had taken a family group of four Israelis to tour the country for a week. As a result, he had some government officials at his home questioning him. I asked if he would be allowed to communicate with the Israeli tourists after they returned to Israel. He said that would be forbidden by his government. Also, when we were checking out of the Winter Palace we had made our own arrangements for a taxi, we did not do it through the hotel. When we were waiting outside the hotel, our taxi arrived and asked if we were staying in room 361. How did the taxi driver know what room we were staying in? It turns out we were being tracked the whole time by what is called the tourist police. It felt a bit “1984ish”.

Flying through Athens on the way back to Tirana. This is how Randy and I both felt…

It had been a long time since I had run more than a 5K so I decided to run the Tirana Marathon 10K. I started training in early September but had always told myself that I might not do it if I was too tired after our trip back from Egypt. As it turned out, I ran the 10K because if I did not do it then, then I would never get the chance since we will be moving back home in July. There were more than 4,000 participants (in several categories) from a total of 47 different countries. It was such fun to be part of it all!

One quick update about my class, I no longer have 24 students! My class was split when the school hired another international teacher. My teaching life and my students’ learning life has become much, much more productive. Yay! This Halloween photo was the first one taken after the class was split.

Well, it only took me two and a half months to get this blog update published. I thoroughly enjoy reflecting back on our adventures using this blog but I often don’t seem to have the time to actually sit down and work on it. This post seems especially long because there was so much to share as we visited Egypt. I am going to try to do a short blog about December. Hopefully, it won’t take as long to get it published. 🙂

Thank you so very much for allowing me to share our experiences with you!

Getting Started on my Fourth Year of Teaching in Albania Plus a Saturday Morning Run in Tirana

I have been slow in writing a new blog post. As my teacher friends know, September is always a hard month as the students and teachers get back into the school routine. I am glad October is here! Randy and I arrived back in Tirana without an issue in mid-August. We have the same apartment which makes life much easier. We have finished five weeks of school. The primary part of Albanian College has gone from 300 to 500 students this year. That means every part of the school is overcrowded including the cafeteria, classrooms and the playground. There has been a shortage of everything from desks to chairs to drinking water. I have 24 students which is about twice as many as I have had in the past. Having 24 students is not unusual in many American classrooms but for an inquiry-based international classroom, 24 is a lot of students. In the previous three years of teaching at ACT I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about and implementing the international baccalaureate curriculum. Unfortunately, with 24 kids, it is much harder to use the IB. I have gone back to much more direct teaching. 😦 Many of the parents have expressed concern about the overcrowded classroom so the school is working to split my class and a few more that have too many children.

Here are the usual silly and serious photos of my class of 24 children. My assistant this year is a young woman named Alba. She has her Master’s degree in teaching but this is her first teaching job. She has been delightful to work with. She will make an excellent teacher!

In mid-September, Randy was asked to be a witness at the marriage of two teachers from ACT. Corey has been a biology teacher at the school since it opened 8 years ago. He is originally from Philadelphia. Mikela has been a teaching assistant at the school for the last two years. Her family now lives in Greece but she is originally from Albania. They are a lovely couple! Randy was honored to be a witness at their wedding.

My sister, Kim, who is 18 months younger than I am, has four children with her husband, Phil. I missed her first child’s wedding because we were in Albania. We missed her second child’s wedding because of Covid. When her third child announced that he was getting married in late September, I decided I did not want to miss another of her kids’ weddings. As a result of that decision, Randy and I made a very quick trip to Cleveland, Ohio for the wedding of Andrew and Jessie. Andrew and Jessie truly love the outdoors and did not want to have a traditional wedding so they rented out a summer camp for a weekend. We were altogether from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning. Our children and grandchildren were there along with all my siblings. It was wonderful!!!!

I missed three days of school plus it was an exhausting trip but well worth the effort.

On most Saturday mornings I like to go for a run. Since much of my blog centers on us traveling to different places I thought it might be a good idea to show several pictures from our temporary home of Tirana. I then decided to take a bunch of pictures of the places I run past on Saturdays.

I frequently start my run by taking a bus to the park. It costs 40 lek (40 cents) to take a bus anywhere in the city. There is no schedule for the bus, you just go stand next to a bus stop and wait until the bus you want comes around which is usually every 10 minutes or so. The picture on the right is the entrance to the park. Throughout Albania trash is a problem. People think nothing of throwing trash on the ground. However, at the park, there is no trash which is one reason I like it.

The centerpiece of the park is a large artificial lake with a walking/running/biking path around it. As you go around the lake you will see mountains, tennis courts, an amphitheater, a football (soccer) field and coffee shops. It is never boring, always lots to look at.

These two monuments are also part of the park. The picture to the left and above are a nod to the informal alliance between China and Albania in the 60’s and early 70’s. The picture on the right is a tribute to the Albanians that sheltered Jews during the Holocaust. There were 11 times more Jews in Albania at the end of the war than there was at the beginning of the war. Most of those Jews immigrated to Israel at the end of the war.

At times, I run back to our apartment from the park instead of taking the bus. I pass an Orthodox Church, a Mosque and a Catholic Church. About 60-70% of the country is Muslim, 10-15% is Orthodox and 10-15% is Catholic. One of the many things I love about Albania is it’s religious tolerance. Many other countries around the world could learn something from the Albanians about the lack of judgement they have for religions other than their own.

The blue and green building is one of my favorite skyscrapers in the city. Love that it is so different and colorful. The yellow building is the new Intercontinental Hotel that is replacing the original white one in front of it. There are lots gorgeous florists in the city.

I usually end my run with a cucumber, celery, apple and ginger juice from here. Yum!

That is the update for now. We are looking forward to our son, Josh, visiting next week for five days. Our Irish son, Daniel, will also be visiting from Belfast at the same time. Can’t wait!!! Our week-long October break is coming up in a couple of weeks. We have done a lot of exploring in Western Europe so we want to try something different. Many of the teachers here have said how much they like Egypt so we are heading that direction.

Thanks, as always, for reading my blog.

October. 2023

Family, Family and More Family

We were fortunate to have several family visitors during May and June. Our apartment has three bedrooms and two bathrooms which makes hosting visitors an easy and enjoyable thing to do. It is a real treat to introduce family and friends to life in Albania.

In mid-May our son, David, and his boyfriend, Kevin, came to visit for six days. They arrived on a Monday so our first stop was to school…

…which included the usual meeting and talking with my second graders.

At the Square with a staue of Skanderbeg who is the national hero of Albania.

On one of the days that David and Kevin were in Tirana, they came back to school to give the children some hands-on experience with what they do in their careers. David (who is a heart surgeon) went to a local butcher and got a goat heart and lungs. He showed the children and then let them feel the various parts of the organs and used a straw to blow air into the lungs. Kevin (who is a physician’s assistant working at Sloan Kettering in cancer reconstructive surgery) brought some tools with him to let the students practice giving stitches. Of course, the children were highly focused and full of questions during this experience.

On the weekend we took a two hour drive to Vlore, Albania and spent the night at Hotel Liro. We love this hotel that is built into the side of a cliff and offers beautiful views of the Adriatic/Ionian Sea.

This area of Old Town Vlore just opened up and is full of charming restaurants and shops.

I did not take this picture but wanted to include it to show the boardwalk and island.

The next day we drove to Berat. I am not sure why but I find murals very intriguing. They often appear with some kind of message or perhaps are simply open to interpretation. This mural was just recently completed in Berat. Here is the translation for the words on this mural: “A woman with freedom and a pen has the power to move the nation. A woman with a mind and a voice has the power to change the world.” This message is especially appropriate in Albania because the country does not yet consistently embrace equality for women.

As has been true of our other guests, I made arrangements for us to stay in the Berat Castle. This castle has had people living in it continuously since 400BC.

A trip to Berat is not complete without dinner at Lili’s. Lili and his family live in the same house that his great grandfather did. The restaurant is part of their house and is tucked in amongst the 1,000 windows of Berat. The restaurant seats up to 10 people, Lili’s wife does all the cooking and he and his adult children serve the food and interact with the guests. As you can see the menu is very simple and includes homemade wine and raki. It is a wonderful experience to eat at Lili’s!

On our drive back to Tirana, we stopped in Apollonia which was founded by the Greeks in 500BC. At one time, it was a center for Greek learning with a renowned school of philosophy. One of the students who studied here was Caesar Augustus.

This last picture of David and Kevin’s visit was taken at one on my favorite restaurants in Tirana. Look at the fun cocktails they ordered!

One of our final international baccalaureate units was called “Sharing the Planet”. We took the children to an aluminum recycling center, a plastics recycling center and then to the park for a picnic and playground time.

One of the other international teachers celebrated her 40th birthday by hosting a Disney themed party. She LOVES Minnie Mouse and wanted all her guests to dress up in Disney-themed costumes. In case, you cannot tell, I am Mary Poppins. 🙂

End-of-school farewell dinner with the team of second grade teachers I worked with over the school year.

In mid-June two of my sisters came to visit Albania. My sister, Kim on the left, lives in Johnson City, Tennessee. My other sister, Jeanette lives in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. The statue of Mother Teresa is a beautiful new addition to the Tirana airport. Mother Teresa’s parents were born in Albania. Albania is only one of many countries that claim Mother Teresa as being from their country. Tirana has a Mother Teresa Hospital, a Mother Teresa Square and the airport is named after her.

As with everyone else that visits, I took my sisters to see the school.

Once again, I took our guests on a free walking tour of Tirana. The stained glass window is in the Catholic church. About 15% of Albanians are Catholic.

Visiting the markets which are full of beautiful, inexpensive fruit. As you can tell, Jeanette loved the fruit markets too!

On our way to Berat we stopped at Cobo Winery. The young man in one of the pictures is the 17 year old grandson of the original owners of the winery. The painting is of his grandparents.

Chatting while overlooking the city of Berat from the castle.

Spending the night in Vlore on the Adriatic Sea.

I am so honored and blessed that my two sisters took the time, expense and had the interest to come visit us in Albania.
We loved hosting them!

Look who came to visit in Albania a couple days after school ended. The last week of June our daughter, Elizabeth and her husband, Ben along with their four children visited for five days. This restaurant is a 5 minute walk from our apartment and with the pool for the kids was a good first dinner location.

An ice cream treat after a big day of flying to Albania from America.

Every late afternoon and evening a neighborhood group of children play football in the community space outside of our apartment. Even with a language barrier our grandson, Bennett (in the blue jersey) was brave enough to ask if he could play with them.

The following day we visited Kruje Castle where the Albanian hero Skanderbeg was born in the 1400’s.

Elizabeth had the children pose in front of a statue of Skanderbeg in the same way they posed in front of the statue back in 2019. Four years really makes a difference! Look how our grandchildren have grown!

…a trip to the fruit markets.

The Chervenak Family, Randy and I took a four hour drive north for a two night visit to Montenegro. Our first stop was one of the most popular coastal cities, Budva to see the bronze sculpture of a ballet dancer. The sculpture is the main symbol of the city.

My favorite two ballerinas: Elizabeth took ballet classes for years and Juliet is getting ready to start her second year of ballet.

Our final destination was Kotor, Montenegro which has a charming, medieval town dating back to the 5th century.

Yummy, mussels were a favorite in Kotor.

Cats, cats, cats all over Kotor. The grandchildren loved them!

We took a two hour speedboat tour of the Bay of Kotor that was SO much fun!! Prices in Montenegro are similar to Albania which means tours like this are very reasonably priced.

One of the stops on our boat tour was Our Lady of the Rocks which was built on an artificial island in the Bay.

We also stopped briefly in the beautiful town of Perast where the grands went for a swim.

We even found a fire station where Randy checked out some of the trucks. He is a volunteer fireman back in New York so he is always interested in checking out other department’s equipment.

Enjoying our last meal in Kotor before making our way back to Tirana on the following day.

On our way out, we drove by one of the nearly 500 cruise ships that arrive in Kotor each year. As is true in many parts of the world, there are too many cruise ships arriving in places that have a hard time handling the huge influx of tourists.

The day after this picture was taken the Chervenak Family headed for Denmark and Sweden where they visited friends that they met while living in South Africa.

Randy and I felt very grateful that Elizabeth and Ben brought their family to Albania to visit. We seem to never get enough time with all of them.

After the Chervenaks returned home to Virginia from Europe they came to stay with us in Fairport for three weeks. Elizabeth works remotely which made the extended visit possible. Ben was able to came up and spend time in New York on the weekends. LOVED having them in our home!!!!

As much as I have enjoyed teaching in Albania, I am having a hard time thinking about leaving Fairport to head back across the ocean. Our flights are on August 19th and school starts on the 28th. I know once I get back into the swing of things it will all be fine. I had these same feelings at the end of every summer before going back to teach in Fairport and in the Midwest. I am sure my teacher friends can relate. 🙂

Thanks for reading my blog!

August, 2023