Tuesday was my last day of class. The teachers are organizing their registers and calculating grades while I've been packing my bags for a trip to the south of Albania. Today was the first day that I haven't cooked since arriving here. I cleaned my apartment for five hours yesterday and didn't dare to make a mess again till I've come back.
I don't have anything particularly exciting to talk about but took a few pictures today that show a little of what I'm doing in Peshkopi.
One of my biggest accomplishments of today was that I bought a new rug. If you look at my last post, you can see the beige rug that I have in my living room. In Albania, it's customary to take immaculate care of your home, and I've found that the rug is a primary symbol of this virtue.
Since clearing the furniture and cleaning a giant beige rug is something that I'm unwilling to do every week, I bought a used rug today. The rug charmingly reminds me of Mexico and, vis-a-vis, Los Angeles. Also, since it was purchased from a used goods store, its smell reminds me of Los Angeles thrift stores (as I imagine all thrift stores everywhere have the same odor of age and dust). I'll take a picture of it once I wash it.
Besides the photo of the volleyball court, the pictures below are of a soon-to-open backpacker's hostel in Peshkopi. A new friend of mine will be one of the managers there, and I'm terribly excited to help out there over the summer. Who knows what I'll do. Clean, weed, man the desk, wait the cafe. All of it sounds wonderful. I'm hoping to play music at the cafe and plant some flowers.
None of my photos come anywhere close to conveying how cool this building is and how wide the landscape. It's a mansion perched above Peshkopi with a beautiful view of the rolling green hills of Northern Albania. During the communist era, the building was reserved for politicians and other influential guests. So, within the bullet proof doors of this building, there's a lot of history and enormously high ceilings in each room.
Today's title comes from a song that I came across last week ("Here Comes Summer" Jerry Keller). I'm not sure if this titling system will be a persistent feature of this blog but I felt like pointing out a song that's been stuck in my head lately.
The court where I play volleyball
The entrance to the hostel
If you move inside the gate towards the right (from the last picture), this is the veranda. This is where they plan to build a cafe.
The rear end of the hostel. The door on the bottom right leads into the kitchen.
This is a view a little to the left of the picture above. Again, that's the veranda where the cafe will be.
A view of the second floor hallway. The veranda ahead faces the front gate. It's where famous politicians (e.g. Enver Hoxha) would deliver speeches to Peshkopi.
The living room and future common room. In the bottom left, those are vinyl on the shelf. The first solid collection that I've found in Albania. Maybe 40 or 50 records, mostly traditional Albanian music and Italian instrumentals. Sadly, no Italo-Disco.
