Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Meeting Albania

Well today was my first full day here in the bustling city of Tirana, Albania. The flight over was smooth and I was able to relax and watch a movie, eat some interesting airplane food (quite good considering) and get some sleep before landing in London and catching my flight to Tirana. But before I left London I figured I needed a taste of the place before I left, so I grabbed some Coffee and a "Full English Breakfast" as they dubbed it.
 
The coffee was really good and the English muffin had eggs, tomatoes, slices of sausage and bacon. Talk about a big sandwich!! It was good but I couldn't finish it! 

One of the things I had heard about Albanians is they like their coffee and they drink it often. Well I experienced this Albanian hospitality shortly after arriving. I was taken to a cafe called Villa 135 by Matt and Cindy Wright who are acting as my host family, they are missionaries who work primarily with an organization called Albanian Encouragement Project. (I'll get into those details at a later time, thats where I will be working most of the time). So we sat down and I had a cappuccino, and I enjoyed it. Then in order to keep me awake and fight jet-lag I was walked around the city and Matt showed me many of the places and told me some history of the buildings. I walked on Rruga George W. Bush (rruga means road), so that was fun! Saw the house of the communist ruler (Albania was under communist rule until the late 1980's). 

I've begun practicing my Albanian language, which is called Shqip (pronounced sh-cheap) so we will see how brave I get and hopefully I will start using it soon. But now I need to get some sleep and fight that jet-lag. Thank you all for listening and I cant wait to share again soon!