Black Diamonds

I have a story, over a month old, that is still begging to be told. In late February, Sarah, Florian, Tracey and I piled into Florian's Jeep and drove over to Macedonia for a skiing weekend. I hadn't skied since I was 14 years old, so I was a bit nervous. We arrived in Mavrovo late Friday night, accompanied by rain. The hotel service was beyond wonderful. I have never stayed at a place that made you instantly feel like family. A yummy meal was whipped up for us, followed by dessert crepes. We went straight to bed anticipating a day full day of skiing.

Saturday morning came. We all bought our lift passes. I was told that the easier hills were at the top of the hill, which alone was odd. Being the Balkans, we received no map of the area. The four of us climbed on the single chair lifts and headed up the hill. I literally fell out of the chair lift instead of gliding off gracefully and immediately thought, "Oh boy! I'm off to a great start!" The man at the top asked if I was a beginner. I said, "How did you guess?" He exchanged worried looks with his fellow ski patrol. I asked, "So, where are the beginner slopes?" The man pointed off in an ambiguous direction. I took that to mean, "You're on the bunny slopes."

I earnestly prayed that whatever skills I had learned in ski lessons 16 years ago would suddenly surface. At first, I was amazed by what I remembered and even thought, "Gosh, it's all coming back to me." Sarah was snowboarding along side Florian and Tracey and I were a bit behind. Suddenly, the path became narrower and the hillside steeper. I lost control and went crashing into a snowbank. I dug myself out while Tracey took pictures, both of us laughing uncontrollably. It only got worse. At one point I resorted to taking my skis off and sliding on my rear end. By the end of the run, I was ready to turn in my skis. We finally made it to the bottom only to discover a different chair lift that was off to the side. Sarah was already on and yelled to Tracey and me, "The bunny slopes are at the top of this hill; come on up!"


We were all safely at the top and found some friends from Tirana enjoying a break in the lodge. I said, "So this is where they are hiding the beginner area?" Sarah said, "Um, yeah. You just went down a Black Diamond run." Holy smokes, even thinking about it now, I'm grateful to be alive! The rest of the afternoon, I spent with Mary, Violeta and Florian relearning how to ski and getting my confidence back. By the end of the afternoon, I was actually excited about skiing.

Sarah's new friend! This was seriously the cutest puppy I've seen in a long time.


The four of us returned to the hotel. We, once again had a lovely dinner with a lovely Macedonian wine. We played card games and enjoyed the fire in the lobby, with our clothes drying.



Game Night!

The next morning, I was more optimistic about a day on the slopes. It was a beautiful day, with a gentle falling snow and a semi clear sky. We got to the hill, only to learn that the slopes at the top were shut down due to wind. On that note, I flat out refused to ski the Black Diamond slopes, turned in my skis, and spent the rest of the day playing in the snow and drinking hot tea.

Was my time wasted? Not hardly! I'll always look back on this trip as an enjoyable experience with my enjoyable friends. I just know for certain that I'll never amount to much of a skier... Sarah and Tracey are heading to Slovenia for a spring break ski trip (they'll also be skiing in Italy and Austria too!). I'm heading the opposite direction to the Greek Isles. It's probably for the best!

*Note: These are all Tracey's pictures. I was too busy trying to stay alive and didn't have the time to take any shots at all!

Budapest

These last three months have been rather busy. Twice a week, the swim team has been traveling the 30 minutes to the only competition built pool in Tirana. It was a huge time commitment, but it was worth it. The swim team, this year, was made up of 5 middle school girls, 2 middle school boys, 1 high school boy, and 1 little 5th grade boy who is too young to compete. Swimmers, usually, are a focused, motivated group and this team was no exception. The swimmers worked extremely well together and responded to Florian and me respectfully. That's why, when their parents asked us, we did not hesitate to agree to stay an extra day in Budapest and chaperon the team. Not only did we have an excellent meet, but we had an excellent time seeing the city too!

Thursday night, we arrived in Hungary and drove the hour to the school. And what a school. The green eyed monster certainly stirred within me. Not only does Budapest have a pool, but they have state-of-the art computers (everywhere you turn) and an amazing library that's at least 4 times the size of the Tirana library. Impressive. The athletic director said that he went cross country skiing in the back field just a few weeks ago. No wonder I got a form letter back saying, "Thanks, but, no thanks," when I applied to this school. Florian and I left the swimmers in the hands of exceptional host families, who truly treated the kids as their own. We proceeded back to an awesome hotel on the Buda side of the city.

We met up with two parents from school who had decided to come along and cheer on the team and to see the city. Christie and Alan remind me of my own mom and dad. We went to a pub down the street from our hotel that served Hungarian food and Belgium beer. You can't go wrong with either! It spooked me when, for an instant, I could feel my brother's spirit lingering next to me saying, "You came here without me?!"



The next morning, I had as many butterflies in my stomach as our most nervous swimmer. (This girl was swimming three events in a row and was terrified!). We are a small school swimming against huge schools like Moscow, Warsaw, Budapest and Prague. I naturally wanted to be around the coaches from Bucharest, Kiev (though Bucharest and Kiev are much bigger than Tirana) and Zagreb. Less intimidating that way. We had three swimmers entered in the first event, the 200 Freestyle. To everyone's delight and joy, all three made the finals. And it just kept getting better. Over the two days, we had three swimmers earn bronze medals in the 50 meter freestyle, 100 meter butterfly and the 100 meter freestyle. Most of our swimmers swam in the finals, earning us lots of points. One young lady took 40 seconds off of her 400 meters free event! We ended up in 5th place out of 8 schools. This may seem low, but we knocked the socks off comparable teams. (The other four schools were competing with 20 swimmers as opposed to our 8). We were so proud of our team. They were so proud of themselves too. It's hard for small schools to compete against powerhouse teams, but they did it and were amazing to boot!




This swim meet became about seizing opportunities. One of our middle school boys seized the opportunity and swam a 50 free against a Hungarian Olympic swimmer who attended the meet as an exhibition swimmer. Needless to say, our student swam his best 50 time ever, even beating his 50 time that had earned him the bronze medal. I also seized an opportunity and swam on a female coach freestyle relay team. We came in last (swimming against two male coach teams and two incredible high school teams) but I had so much fun competing. I was the second fastest coach on our relay team, which was really surprising. All those Sunday afternoons that I spend with Tracey and Sarah at the pool have kept me in swimming condition, apparently. At the close of the meet, many students began jumping into the pool. I had just swam the relay, so I didn't mind jumping back in too. Before I knew it, two of our girls had jumped in fully clothed. Florian, fully clothed, jumped in right behind! Soon our entire team, but one student was swimming blissfully in the water.



Sunday was our full day in Budapest. We had a tour of the Castle Hill in the Buda side of the city, and of Gellert Hill. The story associated with Gellert Hill is quite dramatic. The king who converted the country to Christianity sent for a monk from Rome to teacher his son and his subjects their new religion. The subjects were quite hesitant to leave their pagan ways. They captured the monk, for whom the hill is named for, stuffed him in a barrel, hammered long nails around the barrel and sent him rolling down the hill into the Danube River. Ugh.

Quick story about this statue: One of my boys said, "Look Miss DeKorte, Skanderbeg!" Skanderbeg is THE national hero of Albania, famous for holding back the Ottomans from the rest of Europe. Well, it turns out that this stature was also of a general who defended Hungary against the Turks. That's how we say ironic.


We ended the day at the Szcheny Baths, swimming outside in the snow! Truly, this was the best experience for a bunch of water people! The warm waters were relaxing and soothing. We went to one of the cooler pools to swim some laps and race each other. The kids were in heaven in the whirlpool area. I must admit that this pool was the most fun; you could be caught up in the whirlpool and just glide along.


We all stayed at a hostel outside of the city. Luckily, one of our girls in Hungarian and could interpret for us at the lovely family run facility. Literally, no one spoke English! Mean Miss DeKorte made the rule that the boys were not allowed in the girls' rooms without a coach. So after we took a snowy walk in the woods to the nearest market, we piled in a room and played charades and 20 Questions. Then it was lights out for all.

I absolutely loved working and traveling with this group. The swimmers kept me laughing and busy all winter long. I'm glad that I have my Monday and Wednesday afternoons back, but oh how I miss the team already!

Birthday Wish

My twelve incredible students asked me, a few weeks ago, to name my birthday wish. I didn't want to go into details about wishing for future employment, so I told them that my birthday wish was for snow in Tirana. It only snows in Tirana once every few years; I wasn't expecting this wish to come true.

I looked out my window, this morning, and saw rain, not an unusual sight. Two minutes later I looked out again. My surprise knocked a book off the table and sent Sarah running into my apartment. Mixed with the rain was a bit of snow. About this time, I got a text from Egla, my assistant. It read, "Look outside your window." I wrote back, "We finally have our snow day!" I quickly got my camera, thinking that the snowish rain was going to be the only snow I would ever see falling in Tirana. Before my eyes, it started to rain/snow harder. That's when I lost my mind. I raced outside and over to the school. Why I ran there, I have no idea. Maybe it was to take pictures of the snow falling around my classroom, or maybe it was just because I needed a place to run. Standing in the middle of the campus, I was shocked when snowball sized snowflakes began falling. I raced back over to the playground area and found Flutra, our weekend guard. We took pictures in the snow and exclaimed over the beauty of the morning, both in English and in Albanian. Then I danced back to our apartment building and raced up to Amy and Travis's apartment. I knocked loudly on their door and Travis came to answer. "How do I look?" he asked. "Like you just woke up," I answered. "Sorry, I forgot that it's only 9 in the morning, but look!" Luckily, Travis wasn't angry with me when he saw the snow. "Amy get out here now," he yelled. By that time Stephen and Valbona were outside enjoying the snow too. Oh, what a beautiful morning!

Allow me to reflect for a moment. Do I believe this very unexpected snow was a direct birthday wish granted? No. Do I believe this snow was a gift from God? Yes. I think God delights in giving us good gifts. He brought snow. He will bring me a job and the other desires of my heart. In his time. I love it when theology comes to life.



The beginning... Views from my balcony


The evidence! We have this thermometer hanging outside of my classroom for scientific purposes. I took a picture to show my students.





The snow queens... I loved having free rein of the campus this morning. It became my playground. But I was so glad to run into Flutra. It's more meaningful when you can share the joy.

Well, what do ya know? Snow!



I know that I got a bit carried away with the pictures. This is just a small sampling of the 40 that I took this morning. Believe me, I want to remember this forever.

Burns Ball!

It's that time again! Tomorrow, in Scotland, people will be celebrating the birthday of their favorite poet, Robert Burns. We celebrated here in Tirana with the second annual Burns Ball. I was looking forward to the night with eager anticipation, but also I was concerned that the second annual Burns Ball wouldn't be as great as the first annual Burns Ball. It wasn't as great as the first ball.... it was better! A little piece of me (ok, a big piece of me) is glad that the job fair didn't work out. If I had gone, I would have missed out on the best night of the year! (In the big picture of things, it's not so great that I didn't go to the job fair, but I'm so thankful that I could go to the ball. Geeze, now I'm sounding like Cinderella).


Sarah and our good friend Claudia


My best friends

We had a wonderful table, filled with friends from school and two friends who work for the US government. Once again, everyone had to follow the rule and try the haggis. This year, I cleaned my plate. I still can't believe that I ate it all. The British Ambassador and the American Ambassador both had some speaking parts and of course there was poetry and Scotch. Funny how the two seem to go hand in hand. The dinner course was much better than last year, serving a tender steak. I have also realized that I'm a big fan on the deep fried egg. Sounds disgusting, but it is actually very tasty.

Our colleague, Wayne, and Tracey sampling the Scotch whiskey, while Entela looks on.

The dancing began before the dessert course. People who had been attending the Scottish dance classes lined up for the "Gay Gordon." After the demonstration round, Tracey and I went to dance. Luckily, our good friends, the Bergs, came to our rescue. Diane made me lead the first round (she said that leading was easier with this dance) while Tracey danced with Dan and then we switched and I got to dance with Dan. Of course, there was plenty of laughter. After dessert, they started another dance, "Strip the Willow." Amy and Travis joined in that dance. There were too many people and it ended up being rather chaotic.

The music was absolutely amazing. The fiddler, Lisa, was a 21 year old Scottish Lassie and the bagpiper was the son of the bagpiper from last year's ball. Connor, one of my students, and the youngest son of the organizers of the ball, had told me all about the fiddler and the dancing and how he wished he could go dance at the ball. (This child is beyond adorable.) He had built up my expectations, and I wasn't disappointed in the Scottish music.

Allan, the piper, with his wife and Lisa the fiddler

There was an Albanian band that played regular dance music, and they were a little disappointing. People began leaving. Sadly, those early departures missed the best part of the night. The rest of the evening was mostly Scottish dancing, with just a few breaks for the musicians. I really, really wanted to dance, but of course partners are few and far between (especially when some single young men leave early, but that's another story). Little John, Connor's eldest brother, was walking past me, when I grabbed his arm and begged him to dance with me. (John is volunteering at the school as Florian's assistant. He's in his gap year). I love dancing with authentic Scotsmen! I expected him to have one pity dance with his brother's teacher, but not six in a row. We were an awesome team! At the very end of the night, big John (Connor and little John's father) taught me how to spin without falling or getting sick. My first attempt nearly resulted in disaster. Then, Hilary (Connor's mother and big John's wife) demonstrated how to keep one foot still and focus on the face in front of you. Her demonstration made all the difference. It's as close to flying as you can get, with one foot on land.

John with the four single teachers... what a lucky boy.

I'm so infatuated with Scottish culture, that this morning, I officially applied to the International School of Aberdeen. The website said that they value teachers with a sense of humor, so I tried to make my email as entertaining as possible. That might just come back to bite me. Maybe next year, I'll be dancing in Scotland.

Living a Story

Donald Miller is one of my favorite living authors. Every singe one of his books has inspired me in some way. His latest, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, has helped me to think of myself as a character in a story. Don makes the point that we are all living a story, one that God is writing, but we characters have free will. The characters can live a rich, epic story or... sit on a coach watching movies. I was thinking back to my life before moving to Albania. Was I living a good story then? Am I living a good story now? If I return to the states, will I continue living the exciting, road-less-traveled, story?

These questions are coupled with my current focus: looking for a new job. Albania, though I've absolutely loved my experience here, is a closing chapter. It's time to move on. I have my sights set high on three good schools in three incredible locations: Barcelona, Prague, and Budapest. Unfortunately, these schools also tend to hire at job fairs, which I won't be attending. The chance for a position is very slim. My friends are encouraging me to look beyond Europe. What, or what, will this character do?

In the meantime, I want to make these last five months memorable and meaningful. Yesterday was a beautiful day. Four of us hiked up to an ancient wall and then around a mountain. You could see all of Tirana and the neighboring mountains, dusted with snow. We walked through an olive grove and Sarah related a story she had heard. In the old days, when an Albanian girl got married, the family planted ten olive trees.
After the hike, we celebrated Travis's birthday. Is this living a monumental story? Maybe the events are simple, but the relationships are what makes this story great. I think that is what I will remember the most about my time here: my friendships which have become some of the deepest of my life. Ok, next five months, let's be epic.

My Kind of Town

Well, what can I say. I have fallen in love... with Prague. Snowflakes falling softly, violin street music floating through the air, cinnamon bread and warm mulled wine for sale at the Christmas Markets, cozy bookstores, majestic churches, holy synagogues, romantic bridges. Give me a minute. I'm tearing up. Seriously, I'm not exaggerating. I'm crying right now. Beauty does that to me. Two days in Prague were enough to convince me that, despite the expense of living there, I really need to apply to the Prague international school. I went to Prague with four of my friends, colleagues and fellow believers, who I dearly love.

On Monday morning, Stephen, Valbona and I headed out on a quick tour of Prague, while Amy and Travis went back to the airport to pick up luggage. The tour bus drove the three of us past the important buildings and then up to the Prague castle. The views from the castle were lovely. You could see all the red roofs spreading out through the city.


Our guide took us through the cathedral and we had a brief look into the palace (where in the Middle Ages, horses and knights would have tournaments). The tour was just an overview of Prague, so it didn't include all of the castle. Seriously, we could have spent all day on top of the hill. There were different museums to go to (like a toy museum and a design museum) and the Golden Street (where the jewelry stores are), but we were pressed for time.




The next stop was the astronomical clock. The clock made me think of my Uncle Ed who is a clockmaker in Sisters, Oregon. (Shameless family plug: if you are ever in the central Oregon region you absolutely must visit the clock shop, around noon. It's such a magical place. Uncle Ed's clocks are incredible works or arts which he builds from inside out.) Back to the Prague clock. Every hour, the twelve apostles pass by the top window. There are other statues surrounding the clock itself. We went back the next day, just to watch and listen again. I love simple pleasures.



We met back up with Travis and Amy just as a light dusting of snow began to fall. I kept looking at my coat sleeve where beautifully detailed snowflakes were gathering. We all headed back to the Christmas Market for mulled wine and "street treats."




Amy, Travis and I went to a small cafe and warmed up with more hot wine. Then, they went back to the hotel and I went on to the Mucha Museum. I really do like art nouveau. It's romantic and wispy. (Mucha died during Nazi interrogation). Then I went to a Kafka bookstore. I have never read anything by Kafka, but the few passages I did read made me feel like I had found another favorite author. Art in all forms makes me appreciate life. I walked around by myself for awhile, (It's very fun to be the mysterious solo traveler. Especially when cute Czech men come to talk to me. Too bad I only speak English.)and then met back up with Amy and Travis for dinner. I can't say I'm a huge fan of traditional Czech food. The dumplings were done well, but just weren't my favorite.

Tuesday, we started off with more snow (this time falling faster). Our plan was to wander to the Charles Bridge and then around the Jewish Quarter (called the "Pride of Prague" by our tour guide the day before).



There were so many charming alleyways and buildings. Prague makes me think of a fairytale. I want to live in a fairytale.


We passed by this church right before we came to Charles Bridge. I took a picture of it. Look carefully. Do you notice something unusual? Amy pointed it out to me...


Yep, there was an icicle hanging out of the gargoyle's mouth! In fact, the fire department came out to remove the icicle before it could drop on a passing tourist or motor vehicle.



And then, the bridge! The beautiful, beautiful, beautiful bridge. I am taking my husband (whoever he is) back to the Charles Bridge one day. I don't think you can possibly get the full effect of the romance unless you kiss the one you love on the bridge. This is why I encouraged my four friends to engage in some public displays of affection! (And why someday I'll go back).





After a stroll on the bridge, we found a restaurant to warm up in. Amy and I both had the French Onion soup. It had delicious croutons and goat cheese. I don't think I've ever had such a decedent French Onion soup.

My four friends walked with me to the Jewish Quarter. (They all are in Prague for a longer time, so they were savoring it, I was devouring it.) The Jewish Quarter leads you through amazing synagogues and the Old Jewish Cemetery. It's hard to process it all. My first stop was in the synagogue that displays the names of the Czech Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis. The names are written floor to ceiling, on two floors, in alphabetical order with the date of birth and the year of death. Then, there was an art display that is very difficult to see. A Jewish art teacher taught the children art while they were displaced. The art work managed to be saved, unlike the teacher and most of her children. God. Mankind is vicious. Each synagogue was a museum devoted to keeping the memories alive. I was lucky enough to be following a Rabbi and his student from synagogue to synagogue, so I learned more than I would have just by reading the signs. Basically, the Nazis required the Jews to catalog their religious relics, and then sent them off to their deaths. Only two of the eight people who worked on the "museum" managed to survive.

After this sobering experience, I rejoined my friends for dinner, then went to the Municipal House for a concert. (The Municipal House is the first picture on this post). We were expecting to enjoy the concert in the Great Hall. Imagine our surprise when we were instructed to go down to the Art Nouveau Hall. It was an intimate setting for some world class chamber music. And yes, I cried. Mozart, Vivaldi, the greats. During the concert, I was struck that I really do love the life God has given me.




I'm glad that I was able to share my first Prague adventure with friends with artistic souls. This is a city to come to for inspiration.