Happy Holidays

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays. It's hard to believe that we are about to begin another new year. That means that I have been here for over 9 months. That's hard to wrap my mind around. I'm hoping the new year will bring some new changes to life here. Mainly in the work department. Everything else is good. The weather here has been unusually warm over the past week, which has been a really nice break.

I had a great time for my birthday. About 15 of my closest Peace Corps pals made their way to Durres and we had a good time in spite of the torrential rain that caused some problems. Katharine and I have found a restaurant that uses a wood-burning oven, it is always nice and warm inside, so we went there for dinner. I don't think the restaurant was quite prepared to have all 15 of us. Somehow whenever a large group of PC volunteers go anywhere together something always ends up getting broken. Don't ask me why. We've been back since, though, and seem to still be welcome.

Christmas was very low-key for me. I ended up staying in Durres instead of going to celebrate with friends in Fier. It didn't really feel too much like Christmas here. The big holiday for Albanians this time of year is New Years. So I plan on celebrating with friends down in Vlore. People have been shooting off fireworks every night here for the past 3 weeks, and supposedly everyone just goes insane with fireworks after midnight. Somehow, having fireworks around here just doesn't feel quite as safe as in the States. Maybe it's the guys that chain smoke while selling fireworks. Or the kids that shoot Roman candles directly at cars and people. I don't know.