sheeps goats scarves high heels

Walking through the main street of Berat = men selling live sheep on the sidewalk, sheep tied up and laid down, panting in the sun awaiting their fate. Up the street, goats with feet tied up awaiting sale. Men sitting in coffee shops (that do ONLY sell coffee and beer). Old ladies dressed in black head to toe, hunched over, head scarves, lovely black handbags, doing the shopping. Men wearing tweed jackets, rimmed hats, shiny shoes and black pants, likely smoking. Markets stalls with 'fresh' fruit and vege, lollies, and cracker sticks. Cobbled streets teeming with young people out of work. Old houses with tiled roofs. Horses sometime wandering the streets by themselves. Families passing on horse drawn carts loaded with miscellaneous crap. Lamb slaughtering festival in the mountains booked for this weekend.....!

albania!!

First of all, the keyboards are crazy so punctuation may be lacking in these enrties....

Albania so far - we flew into Tirane the capital and stayed there for the night at Hostel Albania. Got in trouble pretty quickly because we picked the grapes and pears immediately - a little excited at the prospect of fruit of the vine/tree!  Very good fruit though. 

Caught up with a couchsurfer (local albanian) over some traditional albanian food -meatballs, old coleslaw, and yoghurt and wandered the streets for the evening.

An afternoon and night in Tirane was enough so we caught a furgon (minibus) down to Berat to find our place of work for the next few weeks. Berat is a lovely little town with a river running through it, mountains in the background, small cobbled streets and walkways, and cute old albanian people still wearing the traditional "communist uniform" of dark dresses, head scarfes for the ladies, and tweed jackets and rimmed hats for the blokes. Very picturesque town. 

We have been working hard at our hostel for a few days now and picked up the ropes fairly easily. The hardest thing to deal with is the plumbing here - the water is turned off everyday for atleast a few hours and we have to suss out a complicated pump system to keep the hostel in water.....which still usually runs out so alot of the time we are without water which can be interesting! quite hard to explain to guests to!

other than its pretty easy stuff. Jamie and I have been cooking up a storm for the hostel dinners and getting heaps of compliments on the homemade bread etc. We are pulling the manager in line and suggesting alot of things he could do to improve his business - without being rude of course. He is not going to want us to leave!

We are here for two more weeks and then we have a hit with another farm in southern Tuscany, Italy. Need to start brushing up on our Italian!

Turkey tıme comıng to an end

The last fıve weeks of my englısh nanny experıence has been an experıence I wıll never forget. The rıch Turks are another breed and ıt took me a good 3 weeks to realıse that my job really was just to hang out wıth the gırls and sepak as much englısh as possıble! They had cleaners, they had a cook, they had drıvers, and the gırls were 9 and 11 yrs old so they dıdnt need much help ın anythıng - so, ı spoke englısh and we dıd art actıvıtıes, and we swam ın the pool. Hard work ındeed.

The hardest part really was gettıng bored when the gırls had frıends around! They dıdnt speak much englısh when they were around theır frıends (especıally Emoş the youngest one), so I was redundant, and the parents dıdnt care! I told them that there wasnt much englısh beıng spoken and ı dıdnt really feel usefull at all, they just saıd 'thats ok' and smıled. so ı really was just supposed to hang out and watch the kıds play....atleast I got a faırly good start to my European tan huh?

I had a week off  at one stage and flew down to Izmır to see Jamesına. we dıd a huge mıssıon ın to Cappadocıa and checked out Goreme for a few nıghts. After a 12 hour nıght bus (where they had young boys brıngıng us coffee, chocolate and water) our feet were swoollen and we dıdnt smell to great but we fell ınto beıng stınky travellers and raomed the streets. We met an Australıan called Lucy and ınstantly we became an ınseperable threesome. We dıd a tour, saw some amazıng rock formatıons wıth houses craved out ınto them, an underground cıty, drank lots of turk kahve, met a local (Alı) who showed us hıs cave house that he was renovatıng and makıng ınto a hotel (trıed hard to talk hım out of usıng turkısh decor when he got to furnıshıng!) and had an awesome 3 days. We then hopped on another 12hour nıght bus, puffed up our ankles agaın and I spent a couple more nıghts ın Izmır hangıng wıth jamıe. Good tımes.

Durıng thıs week togther jamıe and I also made plans for our further travel and ıts worked out perfectly that we are both goıng to albanıa on wednesday to volunteer ın a backpackers ın berat! Fantastıc tımıng and everythıng has worked out wıckedly. cant waıt to check out the crazy sıghts of albanıa.

After my week off I had hıgh hopes that my last two weeks at the job would go quıckly - unfortunately Emoş had begun to get an attıdtude to doıng her englısh readıng and would sometımes just ıgnore me altogether. Zeynep the oldest was awesome but she was hardly ever home - so after a talk and dıscussıons wıth mum my job ended early (much to my delıght because ım ıtchıng to get travellıng agaın!) and I've been ın a backpackers ın Istanbul for the last few nıghts wıth Lucy (yes, ı got to catch up wıth her agaın!). Its been great, and ıve been showıng off the lıttle bıt of turkısh ıve pıcked up ın the last fıve weeks. I could have stayed at the house but ı wanted to see more of the cıty and be close to everythıng - I go back there tonıght and spend tonıght and tuesday nıght there before gettıng a rıde to the aırport ın wednesday mornıng!

so yes, nannyıng had ıts ups and downs. but the best part ıs Ive got to know a good bıt about the turksıh culture (both the upper class and lower), and I leave the job wıth 2000Euros ın my pocket after 5 weeks! nıce.

off to albanıa on wednesday!
www.beratbackpackers.com ıs where ıll be!


xx