October 27, 2011

Alright, well, it’s been over 2 weeks, so I should probably update you on a few things. The biggest thing I did in the last 2 weeks was I went to Macedonia. Here’s the story of that trip…

A group of about 12 of us teachers decided to take a trip to this really beautiful lake, Lake Ohrid, in Macedonia. The lake is very deep—the deepest lake in the Balkan region, and one of the deepest in Europe. It was a very beautiful place, and reminded me a lot of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.

Anyway, we had Monday off for Columbus Day. We really think we had it off for Canadian Thanksgiving, since our principal, Charlie, is Canadian, but either way, we didn’t care. We had a 3-day weekend! So we left Saturday morning around 7 am. It was about a 4-5 hour drive, which wasn’t too bad really. We took 2 vehicles—there were about 8 of us in the van, and then 4 in a car. Some of the notables in the group were Scott, Joe, Courtney, Mark, Fellanza, Charlie, and about 4 or 5 others that most of you don’t know cuz I’ve never mentioned them.

We arrived in the early afternoon, but it was raining. It pretty much rained all day that Saturday. It kind of sucked actually. Plus it was cold. Like, 40’s for temperatures. Ugh. Anyway, we made the most of our time there. The first day we went around the city, did some shopping, grabbed a coffee (like always—getting a coffee is a VERY popular thing to do here. I do it sometimes, but usually only on vacation), and visited a few museums. The first museum was a paper museum. Yes, it may sound boring, but I thought it was really neat seeing how old paper was made. First, they grind up wood into teeny tiny little pieces. Then, they mix it in water. They take a rectangular screen and collect the tree/water mix from a tub, then place it onto a drying rack. Initially, the “piece of paper” just looks like a really thin piece of some sort of slimy yellow snotty mix, but after it dries for 21 days, it’s a pretty solid piece of paper. Much thicker than today’s paper, but nonetheless, it’s amazing to think that someone ever thought of this idea on how to make paper. They also had an original printing press there, from like the 1700s or something, which I found really interested.

The next museum was full of old Roman and Greek artifacts. There were stones, knives, coins, trinkets, and many other types of artifacts. Some of these things were from B.C. times! Wowza! Growing up in the US, you don’t usually see something over 500 years old, let alone 2000 years old. My favorite part of this museum, though, was when the tour was over, another teacher, David, and I hung around and talked to our local tour guide for awhile. First, we were asking him history questions, about the Balkan region. All I have to say is WOW. I never realized how complicated a region’s history can be. Everyone claims that every part of this region used to be theirs. It’s madness. And a lot of them still hold a grudge today over this—examples: Serbia/Kosova, Macedonia/Greece, Macedonia/Kosova and Albania. Then he started telling David and me about his personal feelings on all the local issues. I won’t go too in-depth on them, but basically it opened my eyes and made me realize that all the stuff I hear from local Albanians about the rest of the region is definitely their opinion, because this guy made it sound like a lot of people don’t really care for some of the Kosovars and Albanians… I like to hear both sides of the story, and there’s really no way of ever hearing someone’s opinion unless you talk with them one-on-one, so I was really glad I talked to this guy for awhile. He was very polite and respectful to us—I have a feeling he wouldn’t have been as open or nice if an Albanian would’ve been along with us…

Anyway, we all went out for dinner together that night, then had a few beers at a few bars, and then called it a night. I think it was about midnight when we went to bed. The next day we got up and decided to travel about an hour down the lakeside to the Monastary of St. Naum. St. Naum was an Orthodox Saint and built the monastery himself in the year 905. Yes, that’s right—905, not 1905. Like I said, it’s so cool here cuz everything is so old! Anyway, Sunday wasn’t very rainy, but it was WINDY! And being on the edge of lake, when it’s cold and windy out, it’s not a very fun experience. We tried to make our visit here quick. The scenery was cool, but you had to pay to go into the church, and I can’t remember what it was, but it was more than I wanted to pay, so I didn’t go. We just walked around for a little while, had a coffee, then left.

That evening, once we got back, Joe, Courtney and I decided to hike up this huge hill in the middle of town where there is a castle. As we walked up, we passed a really old amphitheater. Once we got to the top, the sun FINALLY peaked out from the clouds, which was the perfect time to see it. The castle was really cool! It had towers and long walkways, going from tower to tower. Not sure how old it was, but I’m sure it was like 1,000 years or so, since everything is that old over here. After we got done exploring the castle, we went for pizza, Joe, Courtney, and I, then met back up with everyone else. The Brewer game was on this Sunday night, and since Joe had his computer with him and our hotel had Wi-Fi, we just sat the rest of the night and watched the game in Joe and Courtney’s room. The game was played in Milwaukee, so we won of course. Looking back, I think it was game 1 of the Cardinal’s series… we won’t talk anymore about that series.

The next day (Monday) we got up, got some breakfast, and I went and bought a Macedonian soccer jersey, since that’s kind of my thing to do when I visit new countries. Then we left around noon, and started heading back to Prishtina. It was a really nice trip overall, even though the weather was kinda crappy. I will definitely go back to Ohrid again, hopefully in the summer when it’s warm and you can actually swim in the lake.

Since that weekend, nothing too crazy has been going on. We decided for Thanksgiving break we’re going to go to Turkey (how fitting, eh?). We’ll be going there for 4 nights, 5 days, a group of about 10 of us. Should be a blast, although I don’t think it’ll be very warm, and I recently read that Istanbul gets more rain per year than London, and November is the 2^nd rainiest month in Istanbul, so yeah, we’ll see how that goes. Last week we went to trivia—we only got 4^th though… grrrr! But we got the most right in the music round, so we got free shots… yay!

The weather's been getting a little chillier lately--nights are in the 20's and 30's, and some of the days have only been in the low 50's or upper 40's. However, this week the weather was nicer--only 40's at night and 60's during the day. So I wear a jacket in the morning, but when I go outside later in the day, I really don't need it. I don't think this weather is going to last for much longer though--it'll start getting very cold. And apparently some people said there were little flakes of snow falling last Sunday morning. I didn't see it, but it was cold enough where they could've been there...

Last weekend I didn’t do too much. Friday night I felt sick, so I just stayed home and relaxed. Saturday night we went to a fundraiser event, drank some beer, then at 2 am I went to my friend Drew’s house to watch the Badger game. I didn’t get home until 6 am on Sunday morning, since the game went really late. That’s all I’m going to say about the game. I’m still heartbroken over it…

But at least the Packer’s are doing awesome! My Badgers and Brewer’s have been faltering or are done, but the Pack is kicking butt! I’ve been watching almost every game this year so far. I think the only one I missed was the first one, vs. the Saints, but that was at like 3 am on a Friday  morning so that wasn’t an easy one to watch. This week they have a bye, so no biggie. This weekend (tomorrow night, Friday) we have a party at our principal’s house. Saturday night I heard the US Embassy is having a costume party, so I might have to go out on the town and find something creative to whip up. Anyway, that’s all I have for now. Oh, about school—once again, I love my students, but the rest of the school has been quite unorganized, and there are a lot of teachers, including myself, that are getting quite frustrating with some things, including our class load. We signed a contract for 5 out of 7 periods to teach, then we get here and they’re making us teach 6 out of 7. 45 minutes a day for planning is pretty short—I find myself staying at school most nights from 2:30 (when school is done) until 5 or 6 pm. It sucks. But anyway, I hope it will only get easier. Oh, and I finally got my x-box live account working, so now I can play x-box with my cousin Andy back in WI. Granted, the time difference is difficult to deal with, and it’s a little laggy sometimes, but we still have fun, and it’s nice to talk to him for a few hours here and there. Ok, seriously, that’s all for now!

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

Ok, let me pick up where I left off last time. If I would’ve just caught you all back up to the last 3-4 weeks in one post, it would’ve been too much for you all to read. So here’s my life story for the past 2 weeks:

Saturday, September 24^th, we took a trip to Pejë (pronounced Pay-ah). It’s one of the bigger cities in Kosova, towards the west, right on the edge of the mountains. We went through this city once already, but didn’t stop. It’s famous for making the national beer, also with the same name, Pejë.

This trip was for free, which was cool, AND it was on a train, which was even cooler! Ben found it online somewhere, so we all signed up for it. I think it was some sort of way of expanding tourism in Kosova. Either way, we couldn’t turn down a free train ride. The train was only 2 cars long, but it was still fun. It took us about 2 hours to get there. Ben and Allison decided we should drink mimosas on the ride over, so that was fun. I only had 2, so I didn’t get drunk at all. We also had a kick-ass acordian player on the ride over. Apparently he was hired by the company to play and entertain people for the train rides. I didn’t know any of the songs, but it was still fun to watch him play.

We got there to Pejë, and we mainly just walked around for awhile. We went into another mosque, which was cool again to see, but it wasn’t nearly as nice as the one in Prizren. We then visited a bathhouse, or hamman and it’s called locally. Once again, just like the one in Prizren, it was neat, but not THAT exciting. Once you’ve seen one hamman, I think you’ve seen them all. Sure, they’re all old and neat to be in, but I’m just not that into them.

So then we went for lunch at a restaurant right on the river. Lunches here take over an hour, and it’s definitely not like the US. We met a few other people that were on our tour—a couple from England, and a judge from Minnesota. They had various jobs over here—mainly working for the government or some big business. Anyway, after lunch we visited an old Serbian Eastern Orthodox church. Uh oh…. Wait a minute—is that right? Did I really say “Serbian?” I thought you said the Serbs HATE Kosovars and vice-versa. Well, yes, that’s mainly true. I’ll tell you why that church is here, but first, a quick history lesson:

Hundreds of years ago, Kosova and Albania were settled by Illyrians. Essentially, that’s what Albanians are—descendants of these people. Anyway, first the Turks took control of this region, and so it was part of the Ottoman Empire. Then Serbia took control of it. Then it was Yugoslavia (basically still Serbia). Now it’s independent. Anyway, while the Turks had control of this region, they made it Islamic. When the Serbs had it, they tried to make it Eastern Orthodox. However, once Yugoslavia fell, the wars in the 90s took place, and most of the Serbian churches were destroyed by the Kosovars. So any that are left are either left in ruins, or are heavily guarded. This one was heavily guarded. Check facebook for my pictures, but you can see there are KFOR guards surrounding it, with big, bad, assault rifles.

This particular church was in very good shape still. It’s considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which is something only certain places can get. I’m not really sure what that means, but I know it has something to do with that it is a site rich in culture and history. Anyway, this church normally doesn’t allow Kosovars or Albanians in. At least, that’s what a few of the local teachers told me. I read that you have to bring your passport to get in, so we all did. Fellanza was the only local in our small group that went—it was me, Julie, Ben, Allison, Natalie, and Fellanza. Ben made the point that if one of our friends isn’t allowed in, then he’s not going in. And I agreed. As much as I wanted to see this church, if they’re going to still discriminate by race, that’s just not cool. So I was prepared not to go in. But when our tour bus went in, they didn’t check anything. Normally, like I said, they check everyone that goes in, probably to make sure they don’t have bombs or guns or anything of that sort, but apparently because we had a legitimate, organized tour, with guides, and translators, we didn’t have to get checked. So that was cool.

We got in, and saw the inside of the church. It’s similar to a Catholic Church, except the art at these churches seem so… different. I don’t know, I can’t describe the word. Almost scary. They looked very old, and there wasn’t a lot of color. Anyway, if you’re really interested, look up Eastern Orthodox Art on google images and see what I’m talking about.

Our tour guide there was an old lady of Serbian descent. She could speak English, Serbian, and Albanian. Now, we had translators with us that could translate Albanian into English, so it made a lot of sense just for the lady to speak Albanian, while the 8 or 9 of us English speakers would listen to the translator, and the other 20 or so people could just listen in their native language. Well, once again, because of this feud between Serbia and Kosova, the lady refused to give the tour in Albanian. She said she would only talk English or Serbian. So the lady spoke in like the worst English I’ve ever heard, while our translator translated into Albanian for almost the entire group.

At first I got yelled at for taking pictures, but then everyone else started doing it, so I snapped a few of my own. It was very dark, musty, and damp inside. I can’t remember how old the church was. I wanna say it was like 800 or 1000 years old. A lot of times these buildings are old, but only because they used to keep rebuilding the foundations. If a building was destroyed, they’d use whatever was left on the ground and rebuild, so technically, the building is still the same, hence it’s very old.

The tour was going ok, but then one of our tour members started questioning our tour guide about God’s message according to the Eastern Orthodox Church. You could tell already tensions were high. Our translator even warned the guy that asked the question, and told him just to shut up. The lady got very defensive and started arguing with this man. It was pretty stupid actually. Yes, I love talking religion and asking questions, but as an Albanian, that was welcomed into a church that you’re normally not welcomed into, you should probably shut up and just behave. Don’t start a religious debate, cuz we all know how those debates end up—going nowhere.

Anyway, that pissed a few people off, including Ben and Allison, so they just left and went outside. Fellanza had left from the start, since she’s totally anti-Serbian, and doesn’t want anything to do with them at all, ever. Then a very honest question was asked by an Albanian woman that spoke English. She asked why some of the paintings on the wall were not completed. It appeared as if they had been damaged. The tour guide lady became VERY defensive, and all she would say is “I’m not here to talk about the violence and bad things, I only want to talk about peace and happiness.” Yes, I get it, we don’t want to cause another Serbia vs. Kosova debate. But I felt this was an honest question. I was curious myself. The reaction by our tour guide pretty much told me the answer—at some point this church was bombed or attacked, most likely by Albanians, and that is what caused the damage. At this point, I decided I had enough of this. I could hardly understand this woman as it was, so I just went outside and took more pictures.

Eventually, the tour of the church ended, so we all go on the bus and left. We then went to a neat overlook spot along the road in the nearby mountains. Then we headed back to the train, and left to go back home to Prishtina. The ride back was fun. Ben and I were enjoying a few beers, while the accordion guy was partying it up in the front train car. Eventually, when we got near the city, our tour guide asked us if we wanted to come join the fun. The music around here is interesting. Sure, there’s the Rihanna, 50 Cent, Eminem, and Beyonce (PS—those are probably the 4 most popular singers/rappers here). But then there’s the local, folk-like music. Some of these songs have been around for 100’s of years, and everyone knows them and all the words. Most of them are pretty catchy, and easy to clap your hands to. So that’s what everyone does—just claps their hands. The entire time. Just claps. Frankly, I don’t get it. It’s fun to clap your hands for a song or two. But EVERY song? It got kind of strange after awhile. I haven’t experienced much of the local dances yet, but I’ve heard they’re kind of “Greek-like.” I’ll let you know what those look like when I see them/learn them…

That Sunday the Packers were playing the Bears at 10:15 pm. Since Sunday afternoon’s no longer consist of non-stop football, I usually go into school and get some work done. This Sunday was no different. I went to school for like 5 hours, got tons of planning and grading done. Then my buddy Drew, from WI, was having a Packer party at his place. So Ben, Allison, and I all went. There were like 15-20 people there, mainly KFOR, UN, or US military, but it felt like being home at a real football party. We had to wait around until 10:15 for the Packer game, and when it came on, most people had left. It was a great game, obviously, since GB won. So I ended up getting home and going to bed around 2 am. Kinda late for a school night, but totally worth it to see the Packers kick the Bear’s ass.

Then that weekend there was this thing called “Beerfest.” We had seen signs around town for it, and were wondering what it was. It said there would be like 17 different beers there, along with live music, and “beer games,” which we all assumed meant beer pong, since there was a picture of beer pong on the poster. Anyway, we went to this thing on Friday night, and it was pretty neat actually. All the local beers were there, along with pretty much every beer from Eastern Europe. Kosova, Albania, Macedonia, Greece, Slovakia, Montenegro, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, and Czech Republic all had beer there—along with WI (they had Miller Genuine Draft there, but that was one of the more expensive beers since it’s an “import.” Speaking of MGD, that’s like the only US beer you can find around here. It’s one of the ones I like, so I’m not going to complain.)

The beer they had there was very cheap—most of it like 50 cents or 1 € (that’s the symbol for the euro—if you want to know how to make it, just hold down the ALT key, type 0128, then let go of the ALT key. Pretty neat, eh?). Then for “happy hour,” from 7 pm to 8 pm, they had free beer. But don’t get too excited—it was only a few of the local beers (including Peja). Ah well. It was still a good ole drunken time with friends.

The next day I went and played ultimate Frisbee—if you want to call it that. First of all, I found someone on facebook, a guy from New Jersey, that wanted to get something going, so I responded, told all my teacher friends, and about 9 of us showed up to Germia Park on Saturday afternoon. The biggest problem was finding a place to play. We finally agreed upon a somewhat flat area that was about 75 yards long. The only problem here is that there is no grass right now, the ground is as hard as a rock, and the ground is very uneven and “lumpy.” I almost turned my ankle about 2 or 3 times because of the ground. Nevertheless, we had a great time. And I just have to add, my team, consisting of Joe, the NJ guy, and Allison, beat the other team of Andy, Zach (2 new USA guys that came along), Ben, Courtney, and Fëllanza. 5 vs 4 and WE won! J We all were pretty “green,” but everyone learned very quickly and it was a pretty competitive game. Well, except Joe kept dropping my 75 yard bombs (is that what you call them in ultimate Frisbee?). No worries-team USA pulled through, once again, like always. The worst part was that, since most of the people there were pretty new at the game, there were a lot of turnovers, meaning a lot of running. It was a great workout though, and we’re planning on playing again soon, before it gets too cold.

Saturday night was the Brewer’s first playoff game, so I went to the Irish pub to watch it with Drew. Of course, we won, so that was pretty awesome. Sunday was another work at school day, then Sunday night the Packer’s played the Broncos, and the Brewers were on again. I was watching both games online, so I didn’t really miss much at all.

And I guess that does it. I’m caught up now with my blogging. Well, not exactly. Just last weekend I went on a trip with a bunch of teachers to Lake Ohrid in Macedonia, about a 4.5 hour drive. I will fill you all in on those details another time. Until then, good night everyone!

Sunday, October 2nd, 2011

Sorry folks. I know it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged. But I did skype with some of you in the meantime, so that’s gotta count for something, right?

Ok, here’s the past 2 week recap: 2 weekends ago we went to this town in southern Kosova called Prizren (Prizreni in Albanian—a lot of the cities here have 2 names, one in Albanian, one in Serbian I think. I’m trying to start calling them by their Albanian name, but sometimes it’s hard. For example, Kosova isn’t Kosovo—Kosovo is what the Serbs call it. But here, all the locals say Kosova, so I’m trying to say that too. There are many other examples of this around the country here). Prizren has a lot of Turkish influence, therefore there are many mosques there. Like A LOT! You’ll have to see the pictures I have on facebook soon (I hope). I organized this trip with the school. I asked our principal if he could get us a school van and a driver. All we had to do was pay for gas and the meals of the driver. All in all, in the end it costed us about 5 euro each (we gave him a nice tip, since he did a great job).

The main attraction I wanted to see in Prizren was the mosques. I find religion very interesting, and I had never been inside of one, so I really wanted to see one here. We left Prishtina at 7 am, arrived in Prizren around 9 am or so. Had coffee (people ALWAYS have coffee here. It’s so popular just to stop somewhere and have coffee). Then we started exploring the town. We went to this placed called the League of Albanians. It is the place where all the most powerful Albanian people met, like a hundred years ago, to decide what Albania should do, and they decided to declare their independence. I might be wrong on some of that story, but that’s all I remember. So anyway, that was just a building or 2, with some artifacts and stuff inside. Then we hiked up this nearby mountain/hill where there was a “castle” on top. It wasn’t really a castle anymore—it was basically just a huge wall. Like a defensive wall. That’s exactly what it was used for, for the past hundreds of years. It was a good lookout spot. It was also a good place to defend, since it was uphill. So we got some nice pictures of the town up there.

Apparently this fortification was built many many years ago. The exact century is unknown, because I believe the Romans built it, but then it decayed and eroded away over time. Then the Turks used it, and I think eventually the Albanians used it too. It’s very common (not just here, but in all of Europe) to build over things. If buildings fall over, break, burn, or have only a foundation left, future civilizations will often use the bricks and whatever is left of the structure for a building.

By the way, 11 of us teachers went. Scott, Ben, Allison, Joe, Courtney, Mark, Fllanza, Diane, Kristen, Natalie, and myself. Most of us are new teachers, except Fllanza and Scott. Then we had lunch. We also drank out water out of this fountain in the middle of the city. Legend says that if you drink the water there, you will marry and girl from Prizren. However, I didn’t have much luck while I was there. Maybe someday I’ll find one.

Then we decided to check out some other places, like this old Haman, which means “bath house.” It was basically just a huge stone building with many different, small rooms with places to sit and bathe. Back in the “old days” people used to do this. Obviously it was not used anymore, but it was still neat to see. It reminded of some old Roman or Greek place, where all the men would sit around and discuss politics or something like that. I think this building we were in was like 500 years old. It’s strange being around things that are so old. In the US nothing is older than like 100-200 years. Here, everything has been around forever, since people have been here for such a long time.

Finally, we sat around the rest of the evening, eating some more, have a few more drinks. I think I have to copy my fellow teacher Ben and say my new favorite thing is just to sit at a café, drinking a beer and watching people walk by during the evening. It’s so relaxing (and sooo European-like too). We decided we were going to hike up the castle again to see the sunset. It was only like a 20 minute walk, so not too long. But as we were about to go up, we noticed the big mosque in town had its doors open. It was perfect timing. We had been walking around all day to find a mosque to go into and finally we had found one. So we went in, and it was beautiful inside. Of course all the girls had to cover up their heads with these towel-like things provided, and if any of the girls were wearing shorts, they had to put one of those towel things on their legs too. It was kinda funny. Islam is such a male-dominated religion (obviously). It was basically just one big room inside. We had to take our shoes off, too, since that’s an Islamic belief too. The carpet inside was really soft and comfortable.  There were many different colors inside—it was much more colorful than most Catholic churches I’ve been in. There were many Koran’s (Islamic book of worship—basically their “Bible”). Anyway, this was probably the highlight of my trip to Prizren. Like I said, religion relaly interests me, so it was neat to go into my first mosque.

Sunset was beautiful from the top of the mountain/castle/big wall. Near the hiking trail there was an area of town that seemed to be just destroyed. There also was a lot of razor wire around. We eventually found out that this part of town used to be Serbian. During the war back in ’99 and during some riots in ’04, this part of town was destroyed by the Albanians/Kosovars, mainly because it was settled by Serbians. It’s so strange to think that war was taking place here only 12 years ago. I’ll tell many stories of how the Serbs hate the Albanians and how the Albanians hate the Serbs. Once again, Kosovars (people from Kosova) are considered Albanians. I feel that the war in ’99 was pretty much 100% Serbia’s fault, but people need to realize that both sides were doing bad things to each other. Serbs were killing Albanians. Albanians were rebelling and killing/persecuting Serbs. It was a bad time for everyone. I’m not trying to defend anyone here, cuz war is hell, but I just want you all to know that both sides did bad things, even though it was mainly Serbia that caused the war.

Anyway, that Sunday was a relaxing day. I went to school and got some work done. I’ve recently realized that Sundays are PERFECT days for me to work on school stuff, since there are NO sports on during Sunday afternoons. NFL games begin at 7 pm, so I usually have all day to do whatever I want. It’s a good time to work at school, so that’s what i’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks. I was talking with my brother Matt online this day, and we both decided to buy the NFL.com Game Pass, where you can get all the NFL games online for free. Granted, it’s like $200-something, but at the same time, it’s nice to know that I can always watch the Packer game whenever I want to. However, on this day, my power went out. Not once, but twice. 11 am until like 2, then 7 pm, which was RIGHT when the Packer game was about to start. So I quickly ran down to a restaurant with Wi-fi (everyplace here seems to have Wi-fi so that’s great) and started watching the game online. Allison, one of my fellow teachers, texted me and told me the Packer game is on at the bar she was at. The bar is called Paddy O’Briens, but we all just call it the Irish Pub.

So I ran down there to watch the game. I found a guy from WI (Milwaukee) named Drew. He works for KFOR, a military organization here. He said he was just about to leave and watch the rest of the game up at his house, and invited me along. Now, normally I’m not one for going to random peoples’ houses on the first night I meet them, but hey, this guy was from WI, he seemed normal, and above all else, he had the Packer game on! So I went. He had a really nice place, with a huge wall-mounted flat screen tv. So Drew, his friend Joe (from Texas) and I just sat around, watching the Packers kick the crap out of Carolina. Drew seems like a really down to Earth guy, and I’ve hung out with him a few times since this night.

Nothing really happened at school that week. Just same ol, same ol. We have been going to this “Team Trivia” thing at the local Irish Pub here (called Paddy O’brien’s). Our first time we got 4^th (a few weeks ago), but this Thursday we ended up getting 1^st place (no surprise—we have a team full of teachers, which, in case you didn’t know, is the smartest profession in the world). So we won a bottle of whisky, which we only drank half of it. The other half is sitting here in my apartment, waiting to be drunken (or drank… not sure which is the correct form there). Anyway, it’s Bushmills, and I’ve never heard of that brand, plus I hate whisky, so I don’t think I’ll be drinking it anytime soon. I’ll update you guys more on the next 2 weekends, but for now it’s bedtime. This weekend a bunch of us are planning on going to this awesome looking lake, Lake Ohrid, in Macedonia, so I will try to get all caught up before then. Talk to you all later!