Vlora and Rome

Hello! Hope everyone is doing well! The summer is just about here!!! I'll be coming back to the States on June 21st, but won't be back in Texas until the beginning of July. I'm roughin' it with the family - going on an Alaskan cruise!!

I thought I'd write about some of the travelling that I've been doing. Two weeks ago I went with Susan to Vlora, a city about 3 hours south of Tirana. Vlora's on the coast, and it is very beautiful! We went down to see some of Susan's friends (and mine too now :)) and to see her teammates that are there. The weather was great, and it happened to be the "Opening of Beach Season" weekend, so it was packed! We made it to the beach for a total of about 45 minutes, just before we ate at a restaurant on the beach....and wouldn't you know it, in that short period of time, I got burned! Typical!!!

Last weekend, Susan and I headed to Rome to meet Stephanie and Kent (friends from Denton)! We went on Friday afternoon and Stephanie and Kent joined us on Saturday morning. We stayed at a bed and breakfast outside the center, and it definitely was, outside the center! From the airport it took us 2 hours to get back the hotel via train, walking, subway, bus, and then walking! It was definitely a long day!

We couldn't have planned it any better, it happened to be the end of the culture week in Rome, so all the civic museums were free! Usually, when you pay 12 euros to get in somewhere, you feel like you have to stay for a long time to make it worth it, but in our case it was nice to go in and have a look at a lot of different places! We saw the Colosseum, the Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, the Arch of Constantine, and St. Peter's Square....all in a day and a half!!!

The Colosseum was the most amazing to me! It is such an architectural and engineering wonder, and remains as a standing proof of both the grandeur and the cruelty of the Roman world. Outside the Colosseum we saw some men dressed up as gladiators, so of course we (well, I) wanted a picture with them! Kent was just going to take it of us girls, but one of them came over and told us all to get it and that he would take the picture. I thought that was nice until after he took the picture he told us it would cost each of us 5 euros!! We couldn't believe it, so we fought them on it (not literally of course, they had weapons), and didn't end up paying. Crazy!

We enjoyed a nice Italian meal at a restaurant close to the Pantheon. And of course, the meal wouldn't have been complete without me spilling red wine on my shorts! Haha

Everyone had a great time, and I was glad to be able to see Rome with such great people!!!

May Already!

These pictures are of (from left to right): View from hotel room in Macedonia, with some of the children on the team, and with some students after the basketball game (yes, I am in jeans because I wasn't planning on playing!)

Hey everyone! Can you believe it's May?? It's official now...I'm wearing a skirt today!

I went to Macedonia for a conferene a couple weeks ago, and besides being sick, it was fun! I had a great view of the lake from my hotel room (which is nice considering that's where I spent the majority of my time!). The president of Christar, Steve Coffey spoke, and it was a good time of refreshment.

School is plugging along....currently my class is working on an assignment for geography where they are (theoretically) building a car plant in Brazil. Each group is made up of four people: personnel manager, transport manager, production manager, and sales manager, and they have to determine the best place to build that plant. They are making up company names and logos as well, and are doing a great job!

We have Sports Day this Friday when all of the students at GDQ as well as the home schoolers will participate in a lot of different activities. Some of the activities include crab soccer, obstacle course, three-legged race, etc. I'm excited about it, I don't know about the students!!

I went to my first movie in Tirana, Spider Man 3! The movie was really good, but it was definitely a different kind of experience. The movie was in English with Albanian subtitles, and since most of the people there were reading the subtitles the volume was fairly low and there was a lot of talking! It was a nice movie theater, nice than I expected, that's for sure! Not quite the seats that can lean back or the arm rests that lift up, but comfortable! I'll definitely go back if there is another good movie!

My school (GDQ) played the Tirana International School in basketball this past weekend, and not to brag, but we crushed them 41-25!! The director said that he thought I could maybe pass for 8th grade and play in the game! Hopefully not!! They had a lot of fun, and after the game some of the students played against some staff/board members! Again, not to brag, but we beat them!

Things here are going really well. I appreciate all of your support - emails, calls, prayers, everthing!