Photo Friday: the view from my "office"

So, you may (or may not) know that I've been filling in at a school in eastern Tirana. The kids and staff are great, but the absolute best part of the job is the view I have of the Dajti National park from my balcony. Happy Friday everyone!

Photo Friday: Vlore, Albania

Last weekend I went back down to the coastal city of Vlora to check out a couple of fun spots - specifically the village of Zvernec is Saint Mary's Monastery... 

...and the ruins of the castle at Kanine.

Happy Friday everyone.

Photo Friday: Ljubljana - Tirana (the other long way)

This time -in returning to Tirana from Ljubljana, I went the slightly more inland route through Zagreb, Sarajevo, and Pristina. Here are some pics for your viewing pleasure:

Zagreb:

Sarajevo:

Pristina:

That's a library!!!! (I know!)

So, happy New Year from Tirana.

Merry Christmas from Zagreb

I'm on my way back to Tirana via Zagreb, Sarajevo, and Pristina. I thought I'd make a little video for Christmas. So wherever you are this year, have a Merry Christmas!

Movie Monday: Ljubljana Organ Grinders

http://youtu.be/jLZRj0UzyVU

Ljubljana's streets are decked out in lights, ribons, wreaths, and street musicians for the holidays. Go to the old town to hear jazz, rock, traditional, classical, and yes - even the music of the organ grinder or street organ.

Photo Friday (it's Friday somewhere right?)

I'm 

Christmas in Ljubljana: so I'm up in Ljubljana Slovenia where The city celebrates Christmas by building nativities from straw, drinking hot wine, and hanging space-themed lights. The firs picture is of the Slovene tree my parents picked up this year.

Movie Monday: The Sea Organ in Zadar

Last week my mother and I took an amazing trip down the eastern Adriatic coast. From Ljubljana, Slovenia to Vlore, Albania - the official end of the Adriatic Sea.

One of the highlights of the trip was the Sea Organ - a pipe organ played by the waves - in Zadar, Croatia. Here's how it sounded:

Movie Monday: bottling wine at Bled castle

Ok this one is a couple of weeks old: for my birthday this year, my parents brought me up to Slovenia to visit them. Their gift has led me to nickname this year as "the year of the endless birthday." On our first weekend we went out to Bled, walked around the lake and up to the castle where we paid to learn how to bottle souvenir wine. I made dad do the bottling while I took the video.  Happy Birthday to me!

And a pic of dad with the funny man himself!

A trip to northern Albania in pictures

There is so much I have to say about last week's trip to the mountains of Northern Albania, but I find that words aren't enough to express the peace of village stargazing after an day of hiking and walking in the spectacular scenery. I'll post pictures and say that even that won't be sufficient to express the warm hospitality of the farming families I stayed with and the richness of that experience.

Around Lake Ohrid - day six

I began my walk from the gradishte camp to the Ljubanishta camp early since I wanted to avoid traffic on the main road. I was largely successful and had the road to myself for the first two hours. The walk was beautiful and largely un-eventful until I reached the village of Trpeca. 

Trpeca is a small town situated on a rather steep hillside with steps for streets that all terminate at a narrow pebble beach. The town boasts a 1.5 km nature trail and a cave church and sits above lake Ohrid's deepest point. I walked down the steps to the beach, and sat on a narrow cement ledge watching the activity if the morning routine unfold - a fisherman preparing his boat, a woman swimming in the clear water, a man washing down the patio of one of the beachfront coffee shops. Peaceful and beautiful, I added the sleepy little town to my mental list of places to revisit if I can before picking up my pack and heading back up the steps to the highway.

The information boards for the Galicica National Park showed an "easy" hiking trail linking Trpeca with Ljubanishta camp, and always anxious to stay off the highway, I figured I'd see if I could find it. Finding it wasn't a problem (it was clearly marked from the main road), staying on it was. 

The trail led through grassy meadows, golden from the heat of August. Golden is the way they looked, but they felt itchty and prickly an tiny spiky burs stuck to me socks and tormented my ankles, the path, though waymarked, disappeared in the meadow and it wasn't long before I'd lost track of the markings and found myself making my way "in the general direction of" the road, tired if the thorns and itchy grass.

Once back on the highway I spent more time fighting with cars for two feet of the narrow road than I would have liked, but the spectacular views of the mountains that separate Lake Ohrid from Lake Prespa to the south made the road worth the hassle.

At the top of a long pass, another National park sign indicating the hiking trail appeared and I decided to give it another go. The straight path cut through the tight, dark forest of small oak trees. It was wide and markings appeared frequently enough until I stopped noticing them, and then stopped seeing them. I must have missed the turn that took the path down the steep hillside to the campground, because the one I was on narrowed and then re-joined the highway. 

As I made my way down the now busy mountain pass I pressed up against the guard-rail to allow cars to pass. I tried reminding myself that I was nearly to the camp but that didn't do much for my quickly sinking morale. Of course, the fact that I had not yet had a cup of coffee didn't help either.

When I finally made it to the camping area I was in definitely feeling pretty grumpy. I went into the reception office to make my inquiry: person, a small tent, one night, how much?

Maybe it's because I was grumpy, maybe it was the long walk or the caffeine deficiency, but when one man asked the other 350 (about 7 Euros) in Macedonian, and then the other said something back to him before quoting me 10 euros really rubbed me the wrong way. Up to this point, most of the people in Macedonia had been very honest with me, and paying one or two euro extra for being a foreigner doesn't usually bother me except for when the discussion happens in front of me. So even more grumpy, and without a clear plan, I walked away from what looked like a nice camping area and toward Saint Naum.

The Saint Naum monastery complex sits right on the border between Macedonia and Albania and is a huge tourist sight for the region. As I approached the monastery on the main road, traffic leading to the monastery came to a standstill as people paid for and searched for parking. The complex itself was teeming with tourists from all over the world. I found a not-yet busy cafe and spent my remaining dinars on lunch and a cup of coffee and came up with a plan, I would ask about camping at the site near the monastery, and if that wasn't possible, I'd walk on to  Pogradec. Today instead of tomorrow.

I found the camp and inquired: no luck - it's a military camp for Macedonian border officials and their families. So I set out to see the monastery, pack and all, before walking on to Pogradec.

The monastery was too beautiful to describe in a paragraph.  Though the most beautiful part for me was the natural beauty of the grounds - the emerald springs of the black drim and the quiet, tree-sheltered paths that led to other tiny chapels and churches were more impressive to me than the elaborately painted interior of the more famous main monastery church.

After thoroughly exploring the monastery grounds (and sheltering from an afternoon thunderstorm), I made my way back to the main highway, accross the border, and into the outskirts of Pogradec where I found a pretty little private campground "Arbi camping" where I socialized with the owner's kids, sampled the homemade wine and Raki, and enjoyed a goodnight's rest.