Welcome to Albania: Starting PST

Welcome to Albania! I have been here 3 days. The journey was not nearly as challenging as expected, but I did not sleep at all for about 32 hours. We arrived in foggy, rainy weather which, according to Albanians, blessed our arrival. While my cohort was bused to a nearby monastery, I remained at the airport involved in a slight luggage fiasco (shout out to AirTags). That 45 minutes of trying to get my luggage from Vienna was my first major exposure to the Albanian language. I caught on to a few words/phrases such as "Korpusi i Paqes" (Peace Corps).

As of tomorrow morning, we have stayed about 3.5 days in the monastery before meeting and moving in with our first host families. Here are some observations I've made so far:

• The monastery is beautiful. It was dark and rainy the night we arrived, so the scenery wasn't visible until the morning after.

• Learning Albanian has been incredibly enjoyable. The classes have been fast paced and, for the most part, the teachers avoid speaking English in the classroom.

• At least at the monastery, the plumbing does not handle toilet paper. Instead of throwing the paper in the toilet and flushing, the paper goes into a trash bin next to the toilet.

• We were given three massive 1.5 L water bottles. The drinking water here should be filtered or bottled just in case.

• I now understand how something can be cold and damp simultaneously. (One night, the humidity was 90%!) If you come to Albania, bring slippers and a snuggie. So far, they have made life much easier and comfortable.

• There is so much fruit in this area. Two orange trees are growing and producing outside my room.

Here are some photos of the food with explanations, however.

This was one of my favorite meals. Vegetable soup, rice with meat and tomato sauce, salad, and a yogurt cake. I don't know what kind of juice this is.

Pumpkin ginger soup, potatoes, mustard and rosemary pork chop, cucumber, and tomato.

Lentil soup, salad, cake soaked in syrup. So far, we've had bread with every meal. Also pictured is a kiwi. The kiwis here have been fantastic. I've eaten 6 in the past two days.

Breakfast was strawberry juice, cucumber, tomato, olives, sausage, bread, and blueberry tea. The stars of the show were the cucumber and sausage.