Suffled as it Gushed

So I arrived safely in Albania. It's really a great country. We flew into Tirana and jumped immediately onto a bus to go to Elbasan. Elbasan is about two hours away from Tirana. We spent two days of orientation and then were split into groups.

I'm staying in a small town outside of Elbasan with my goup. I really like it here. I live with a very nice host family who are dedicated to teaching me Albanian. There is a lot of pointing and smiling. Not a lot of nodding because Albanians shake their heads differently which makes for some very mixed messages from me, the volunteer. It works out better for me to say yes or no. Except when I mix them up which creates more confusion. I'm waiting for the moment when po and yo flow easily.

We are in training all day. Some language training, some technical training, and some group activities. It's a lot of work and a lot to stuff into my brain. Everyone here is great to work with. The language teachers are very patient and repeat things a lot for me.

Lots of small funny things have happened, but the main thing that happens is that I'm never entirely sure what is going on. I'm supposed to be cooking some American food on Sunday, but I had trouble explaining that I'm not used to making anything from scratch. If anyone has any suggestions for something that contains pasta, tomatoes, cucumbers, meat, olive oil, bread, or potatoes that would resemble something American let me know. I explained what spaghetti sauce was and they suggested that I make that, but I have no idea how to make spaghetti sauce from scratch. I'm scared i'm going to end up with a salad with chopped meat on top. I do have the entire day to cook so your helpful suggestions could involve hours of preparation!

Albanian food is really good. All of the vegetables, fruits are really fresh. I apologize to anyone who grows tomatoes at home, but PA tomatoes can't even touch the Albanian ones. That's all for now.

Keep emailing. I love getting emails!

Goodbye to All

This is my last post from the states. I fly out tomorrow to head to Albania. The last few days I've been in Washington DC in staging. We trained on a whole bunch of different topics and got a lot of information about our flight and the first few weeks in training in Albania.

I wanted to say my last goodbyes to everyone. I'm sorry that I have not kept in better touch, but the last few weeks were extremely busy. I visited my very dear friend Liz and also spent some quality time with my sister.

The next few months will probably be sporadic as I might not have access to the internet, but everyone is in my thoughts as I start on my adventures.

Love you all.

Baby Shower

Yesterday was my sister Katie's baby shower. I was an awesome time, but unfortunately I didn't take a single picture. I'm hoping to get a few from her mother in law. This is a picture of Katie and Ryan from Christmas.

Carla and I made a whole bunch of onesies using iron on transfer paper. It was awesome. There was one from each family memeber -- mine said "My aunt loves me all the way from Albania" and had the Albanian flag on it. It was awesome. Too bad I'm leaving; we could go into business because they were a hit!

We had great food too including my famous chocoloate fondue and red velvet cake from my mom. yummm.

Katie got a bunch of stuff; we got her a car seat and some clothes.

She's due April 20 and is having a little boy named Bennettt Aaron. Congratulations Katie.