Albania? Seriously?

So, I guess it’s about time to resume my blog. Here’s the one sentence, readers digest version of the last month: we were evacuated to Armenia, where we did nothing.

Of course there are notable exceptions: the “Georgia South Refugee Olympics,” the Sadie Hawkins dance and last but not least, the swearing in of the G8’s in Tsaghkadzor. But, as a general rule, I caught up on a lot of television and read a lot and on our last night I was crowned Grand Master of Didi Michaeli’s new card game, aptly titled “Grand Master.”

Oh, and I also received my luggage! On our last night in Tsaghkadzorr, the PC vehicles pulled up with ALL of our bags. One of the boys in our group walked in and exclaimed “It looks like a Nordstrom blew up in here!” That’s how we roll. With lots of clothes. The bad news was that since we were flying within Europe, only 20kg of baggage was allowed with us. We should be getting the additional 20kg in about a month. In other sad news, I forgot that I had done laundry (in the tub, naturally) the night before we left and left it on a balcony. I now have significantly less underwear than before. But, it’s the Peace Corps, we deal. And, well, frankly, you’re not going to feel sorry for me when I tell you about where I’ve moved to.

I’m now in Albania, my new home for the next two years. Albania is amazing…and I almost feel guilty telling everybody what an amazing time I’m having. Didn’t I sign up for the Peace Corps in hope of a life of misery? Unfortunately this isn’t exactly panning out. First, Albania is beautiful (not to compare, but…its not quite as pretty as Georgia, but refugees don’t complain.) Second, the Albania PC program (staff, volunteers, the whole population of Albania) has gone over and above to make us feel welcome. On our first night we were treated to an amazing lunch that included pizza without…and brace yourself for this one…mayonnaise. That night we had dinner at our country director’s home, met his family and played with his adorable puppies.

On day two we were taken to the beach. Yeah, a white sand beach on the crystal clear Adriatic. How jealous are you now? On a scale of 1-10, seriously. After the beach, one of our program directors took us out to dinner in Tirana (the capital of Albania and where we’re staying for 5 weeks while we learn Albanian) and then we walked around downtown (In dark-time, kids…we’re allowed free range even after 8…unthinkable in Georgia) and while we were looking for a certain wine bar that apparently serves 100 lek (about 1 dollar) wine. We didn’t find the bar we were looking for, but stumbled upon a wine distributor who invited us into his show room and kept bringing us gigantic carafes of tasty Spanish wine and plates of cheese. We decided to buy a few bottles since, well, this is the first real wine we’ve had in quite awhile and he then gave us a discount on the wine we bought. Georgian hospitality is great and everything and I’m used to the wine flowing like water, but this was out of control.

Satiated on good wine and cheese, we awoke this morning to our first language classes, lunch with our program managers and a meeting with the US Ambassador to Albania.

So, yeah. I have no complaints about life right now. Things are of course going to get harder and my next two years won’t be like these last two days, but I’m going to enjoy it while I have the chance. I think we’re going to pretty much get to live like ex-pats in Tirana for the next five weeks. We’re so lucky to get so much individualized attention from all of the PC staff and the American community at large in Tirana.

I’m going to stop bragging now, I’m sure, dear readers, you’ve had enough. I’m going to hold out hope that things get worse and that you’ll have a whiny, bitter post to read next time.

But, I wouldn’t count on it…