My bags are Packed, I'm not ready to go...

Tomorrow I have to move out of my apartment. It would have been fine if the camp was still happening from the 1st to the 5th but now its the 5th until the 9th. Not only does that mean I don't get to go, it also makes me homeless for my last week. Tonight I'm taking pretty much everything down to Nikolla's and then I'll be floating around for my last little bit here.

I am also going down to Cerrik tomorrow to see my host family one last time. It will be good closure. They were a great family and I feel bad that I haven't gone to visit them as much as I probably should.

This last week was Dile's 50th birthday party and my good-bye party was on Monday. Dile's birthday was awesome. We circle danced, drank and ate... the usual as far as Albanian parties go. My going away party was also very nice. A lot of friends, co-workers, and "family" came. The first picture is of my girls that I taught English to and the second is of co-workers from the bashki, Red Cross and the center for children with disabilities.




The 3rd picture is of Dile and Nikolla. They have been awesome to me for these two years. They pretty much have adopted me as their own daughter and treat me as such. I'm gonna miss them and their two boys, Lisenko and Luis. It's going to be so hard to leave Lezha. It still has not set in that I'm going to be leaving this place in a week. I think I say this all the time now-a-days but really, it will be so weird to not have lunch with Nikolla or to say hi to the barbers as I walk by their shop on the way to work or go for 5 coffees in a day. I'm excited to go home and see my family and friends but it will be sad to leave this place where I've made a second home.

Even though it is going to be extremely hard for me to leave Lezha, I will always have the memories. I know that when I come back next summer (inshallah!) for a visit, I will have many people to visit and go to the beach with. For now, I just have to enjoy my final days by going for coffees with all my friends and take lots of pictures!!

It's the Final Countdown!

Days left in PC Albania: 18
Days until PC Morocco: 56

Ok, so not really the final countdown but it's getting so close! This past week, I went down to Corovode. One of the only cities I had yet to travel to in Albania. It was beautiful and a lot cooler than Lezha! Another PCV, Aida, showed me around her site and we went to the canyons and swam in the river most of one day. It was awesome and probably my last leisure trip outside of Lezha. Now I only have 2 weeks left in Lezha and then 4 days at my summer camp before I head to Tirana to COS. Where does the time go??





Crazy kids jumping off the cliffs - no worries, they lived :)














MMMMMM, watermelon!!





















Yes, this car really is parked right in the middle of the road.

Is there such a thing as too much watermelon??

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!! Ok, so I'm a day late but internet has been terrible here lately and I haven't been able to use it in my office for a week now. We celebrated on the 3rd here in Lezha with about 15 PCV's and some Albanian friends. It was a great 4th. We grilled hamburgers, ate potato salad, coleslaw, jello, cake and of course watermelon. Watermelon here is dirt cheap and we were expecting more people to come so we bought 10. Yes, 10 watermelons. We ate 2. But they were really good!!

The rest of the party was watching the Spain-Paraguay game and then we headed to Shengjin to camp out for the night. We found fireworks, which is strange because Albanians only use fireworks for New Years Eve. Our fireworks may not have been Rhythm & Booms or the Big Bang like I always enjoy going to in America but it settled my urge to see fireworks on the 4th. It was nice to camp out on the beach but there were so many mosquitoes!! I had one in my sleeping bag down by my feet that would not die! Trying to squish a mosquito in a sleeping bag does not really work for those of you wondering. We all woke up early (around 5) and decided to try to head back to Lezha to get some sleep.

When I woke up again I realized that I lost my phone somewhere. I decided I must have dropped it in the furgon. I went to Nikolla and told him what happened and he drove me to the furgon station to see if we could find it. The furgon that we had come back to Lezha in was not there so we started driving to Shengjin. I saw the furgon about 2 km outside of Lezha and told Nikolla and he did a U-turn in the front of lots of cars and started chasing down the furgon like a mad man. Luckily, the furgon pulled over and I asked if he had found a phone. He said no but said to check where I sat. I went all the way to the back and luckily, there was my phone :) Thank God it was there!! I went back into Nikolla's car and we went to have a nice lunch to celebrate the 4th before returning to Lezha. I spent the rest of the day relaxing/sleeping but it was an enjoyable 4th.

Only one month left......