Michal and Sarah's WEDDING August 10th 2013 - Svatba Michala a Sarah dne 10. sprna 2013

Dear Friends and Family,
Milí Kamarádi a Rodino,

Our wedding ceremony will be at the The Little White Church in Eaton, NH, on Saturday, August 10th at 4 pm. There is a reception following at Earle Family Farm.  There will be dinner and dancing!

Náš svatební obřad se bude konat v Malém Bílém kostelíku v Eatonu, NH, v sobotu 10. srpna ve 4 hodiny odpoledne. Svatební hostina se bude konat na farmě rodiny Earlových. Na programu je slavnostní večeře a tanec.

ACCOMMODATION:
UBYTOVÁNÍ:

Accommodation in August in the Mount Washington Valley is a competitive affair.  There are various options, including these sites:


Ubytování bývá v srpnu v Mount Washington Valley často obsazené. Zde jsou možnosti ubytování:

Hotels and Motels
Holiday Inn
Cranmore Mountain Lodge
Colonial Motel

B&B's and Apartments in Brownfield, ME, and Eaton, NH:
Brookhirst Farm B&B
Stone Mountain House apartments
Foot Hill Farm B&B
AirBnB


ALTERNATIVELY, there will be plenty of tenting opportunity at the farm (camper vans are also welcome), and some space for sleeping in the farmhouse.  Let us know if you need help finding a place to stay and we'll arrange something for you.

Je zde také možnost stanování na farmě (karavanisti jsou též vítáni) a nějaké místo k přespání nabízí i samotná farma. Dejte nám vědět jestli budete potřebovat pomoci s hledáním místa na přespání.

GIFTS:

We have empty walls, and would love your handmade art or decorations--anything you make is beautiful!
We do have a gift registry, which you can find here:
Knack Wedding Registry
OR contribute to our Honey Moon Fund!

We look forward to seeing you!
Těšíme se na Vás!
Sarah and Michal

PS! About Us!  You can read about our travels on this very blog.

-For pictures and writings about our bike trip in the Balkans, scroll through July and August 2011 postings in the archives to your right.

-Life in the Czech Republic and British Columbia, Canada, can be found in years 2009-2012

-and for pics and writing about Guatemala, where we met, see January-March 2009.

Harlem

I just got back from visiting my sister in Harlem, NYC. She lives at 116th Street and 2nd Avenue, up the corner from a new taqueria and grocery with an old banner: "Hot Sandwich, Cold Sandwich, ATM, EBT, WIC."

My father Tom, a farmer from New Hampshire, my boyfriend Michal, a Czech from a spa town on the German border, and my sister Katie, a textile artist trying to make it, and I (whose spotty blog you're currently perusing) huddled into the three-chair- counter-window-spot, and ate tacos con pollo y tacos con bistek.

A couple Latinas blew in and ordered some food as we drowned ours in green salsa. "Como esta?" asked the man behind the grill. "Que frio!" said the lady, shivering. "It's cold!" We looked out at the blustery December day--a pale sun shone and the bare trees bent and scraped at the air when gusts of wind came off the East River. Hah! We said to ourselves. We're from the north after all, and there was no snow, no sleet, no temps below freezing. It was hardly a winter.

Later, on a journey towards the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, we passed a street booth selling scented oils and ceramic holders where the oil sat and burned beneath a tea light. "How you doing?" asked the man, who finally emerged from somewhere after we'd stood around sniffing the burning oil--cocount breeze--for about five minutes.

(By then, with the wind whipping though our hair, we were eating our words. "Que frio," we said. My sister had just broken down and bought a hat)

"I've got Jasmine," said the seller, opening a bottle of whiskey colored oil so that we could sniff. "I've got Tahitian Vanilla." Katie asked about aphrodisiacs, and the seller looked bashful. He offered her a few other bottles to sniff, which is when he said, "and I've got Michelle Obama." "What?" I asked. "You've got Michelle's scent?" "Oh yeah," he said, and opened a bottle of pink liquid. "Smell." Michelle smelled like Gardenias; She smelled like baby powder and Chanel. Michelle smelled wonderful so we bought her. The guy was $20 richer by the time we continued our chilly stroll down the wide streets of Harlem.

Pemberton, BC to Montreal, QC

Grenfell, Saskatchewan

The drive back East was sticky. With no air conditioning, we developed a sunroof and left-side back window aeration system, which left us saying things like "What did you say?" "Come again?" "Co?" (That's Czech for "What"). Up and through the Rockies, we catapulted into Alberta and then drove for endless hours in the flat, hot sun of the prairies. We hit Swift Current, Saskatchewan, on evening two. A campground had been erected on a grassy bank not far from the highway, and we drove in after dark, a group of Latinos sitting, chatty but watchful, outside the laundry room. We put up our tiny tent, and then fed quarters into the hot showers, the water metering out fairly over our burnt skin in 25 cent increments. Then we went into town for food.

"Where do you guys go to eat?" I asked two girls my age who were licking soft serve outside the dairy bar. We'd driven around for a hunger-stricken 30 minutes, past the vacant store fronts and neatly kept downtown. All we'd seen was a restaurant advertising "Chinese and Canadian Cuisine" void of customers. "Oh," said the girls, friendly enough. "Yeah, the downtown doesn't have much. You have to go to the service road. They have McDonalds and Taco Time and stuff." They gave us directions, and we were on our way. In a deep, late August night with few stars, the Swift Current service road was like entering a neon tunnel. Petro Can Signs glared, next to Tim Hortons' red and brown lights and Taco Time's jazzy green. Sweeping headlights cut through the asphalted black like bursts from Mars. We went to Taco Time for our microwaved dinner, and sat shivering in the air-conditioning, amid the palm trees and orange stucco.

Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan

The trip continued. From grassy, Saskatchewan towns baked by sun, we hit Winnipeg, with its tree lined streets and aging cement apartments and were met by friends. The next day was my birthday, and after bidding my friend Suzy goodbye, we maneuvered our overstuffed car to the bookshop in a shopping plaza. It was nine in the morning in Winnipeg, and the plaza, complete with brown tiles and tiny food court was overrun by the elderly. Drinking coffee, sitting on benches, shopping at Zellers; we had found Winnipeg's epicenter of old people. The only shop with clothing was Zellers, a Canadian K-Mart, and I tried on a few back-to-school specials that Michal bought for me. We threw them in the car and got out of town.

Then the long Ontario leg began, another three solid days of northern Pines, big lake views, poor nutrition and dodgy camping. We were still sticking to the seats but not as much, the lull of the drive had made us almost mute. We put on music and watched the scenery go by. After a few good luck campsites, privately run but near real bodies of water, with birds and breeze, we landed in Montreal.

Pemberton BC, to Montreal, QC: Seven days.

Adieu BC!

The two of us, dipping in and out of various forms of employment, sampling a handful of adrenaline here and there, hitting up the cheap burger nights and driving a hunk of a Honda to and fro on the splintering mountain asphalt of the Sea to Sky corridor, are about to say "adieu" to BC. "Ciao", "sayonara", "auf wiedersehen!" But BC, I love you.

It doesn't matter that a tub of nice yogurt costs an hours wage, or that CBC interviews the highly normal (read horridly boring) parents of BC's own Carly Rae Jepson, Canadian Idol winner of 2007, for TEN whole minutes during the morning commute. And it doesn't matter that the resort town of Whistler sports the biggest collection of classic Ray Bans this side of Seattle, in fact, the mountain itself could be resculpted in hip sunglasses. (OK, I admit, mine included). BC, I love you.

Because we're in the middle of a vacation, somebody's vacation, and if you put yourself in the right mind frame, if you forget about your Swiss ESL students who will, you can be sure, ask you if you can use a separable phrasal verb in the passive voice, or why you don't yet know who Usain Bolt is, AND it's an Olympic year. If you forget about your duties for a minute, you're smack dab in the middle of your own holiday. And you didn't have to go anywhere at all.

Walk down a road to a glacier lake and go for a swim. Hike along a throbbing, white and green river, eat poison-red thimble berries and roast sausages on the shore. Go to a deep pine forest and find a couple of rocks to boulder on, bike down mountain-sides surely better suited to goats. Thrill yourself by looking down from the bungee jump suspension bridge, go to the golf-course and look for bears. There's lots of other stuff to do of course. Things you can shell out cash for, paragliding, rafting, ziplining, pub crawling. But the pleasure of finding your own program, paddle boarding into the lilly pads and tanning on the pond.

That's what the summer in BC is made for.

The Lillooet Nation Rodeo

It was a misty day at the rodeo. Five bucks got you through the wooden gate, and we parked under the shadow of Mt. Currie next to the rv selling "Property of the Lillooet Nation" t-shirts. A couple of concessions stands were underneath wooden lean-tos advertising "Hamburgers, hot dogs, Indian Tacos." Apart from three tents with blow-up dinosaurs, there was a serious lack of the commercial. "Whoever parked their car near the toilets, the fire truck has asked you to move them," said the announcer from the loudspeaker booth.

The rodeo is in the town of Mt. Currie on first nations land, and perhaps this lack of sponsors (and lack of advertising) is a first nations style. Nothing flashy, nothing expensive, just real cowboys and cowgirls roping baby steers. The young boys even rode some cows. As in, cows. With udders. Kind of weird. But a what a relief, because if you go to Whistler Blackcomb's Telus Festival for example, sponsors swarm you, throwing raw-nut protein bars, blue perfume or strawberry milk samples from their branded tents. You have to duck to avoid a concussion. At the rodeo, the only time you'd have to duck is if the horse's hoof sent out a dollop of sand from the ring, which it did from time to time.

"Mt. Currie, are you asleep?" asked the announcer. "This is one of your own, put your hands together for Shequila!" And the crowd clapped and whistled while a fourteen year old flew out into the ring and lassoed her hat instead of the calf that was charging ahead. "Ah well," the announcer chuckled. "Thank you anyway." We watched adults on bucking horses, and a few calf wrestlers who fell from their saddles onto the freaked out babies and tried to pull them to the ground. No luck. "Well ladies and gentlemen, we're now moving to what we call intermission," said the announcer. The mist had moved to tiny rain droplets, and people pulled their blankets and umbrellas closer. "We'll see you back here in one hour and a half. Stay tuned for bingo." The crowd mumbled and began to disperse.

Behind the bleechers, the mountain seethed green and kids ran wild through the tall grass while riders exercised their horses. A woman's voice was calling out numbers on the bingo chart, and a collie was running to and fro nervously, looking for something to herd. "So let's go?" I asked. Michal was eating a hot dog with relish and he shoved the rest in his mouth. "Asi Jdem," he said. "So let's go." And we did.

A false start: The horse that didn't want to get out of the holding tank.

Life Goes On, Surprisingly.

There have been a few surprise developments in moving winter to spring and then spring to summer in Pemberton, BC, Canada. One is, that after a dull and listless gray sky all winter with a low cloud cover always, and the chance of precipitation (think rain, not snow) hovering around usual, we've had nice weather. No, not nice weather, STELLAR weather. Mountains radiate their purple mountain majesty (oops, is that copywritten only for the States?) and their snowy top coat like gorgeous rocky divas showing off their assets. People skip around town in perpetual peppiness, biking and hosting garage sales and supporting children in their lemonade stand enterprises. We went to a garage sale yesterday where Michal picked up a fishing rod, and I bought a colander. Michal was carrying both, and an older fellow drove by on a bike. "Looks like you've bought both a rod and a net," he said.

I started working in landscaping, and nothing was as surprising as learning I was totally and hopelessly out of shape. Not that I'm alone. Carolyn, our boss, complained about the wimpiness. "I'm there putting soil into wheel barrows and managed to make four or five trips while some of these boys did one," she scoffed. "I mean, they're twenty years old." She's like the terminator, the woman version. Half the boys are scared shitless. Like Christian said, a Kiwi dude who lasted all of a week: "I bet Carolyn is on a lot of people's don't fuck with list." The awe in his voice was audible. As for me, with the enthusiasm of someone who half-relishes and half-dreads the boot camp experience (and quite frankly, using a power broom conjurs up images of a North Korean prison camp as read about in the Guardian) I am building muscles in places I didn't know had useful muscles. Lower left hand side of the back. Between thumb and forefinger. Neck.

Lastly, and perhaps not too surprisingly if one thought hard about it beforehand, dog-sitting is an incredible amount of hard work. I had it in my mind that I would have this cute doggy (he is cute, for the record) and we would frolic and play, go on long walks and generally have a good ol' beast and human fabulous time. We'll give Ash credit here, my lovely friend Kerry's lovely Collie dog, because something was up with that Kibble. He wolfed it down, acted a bit nervous, frolicked and then did a big doozy in my car. Like a big sloppy shit which got into the tiny cracks of the plastic door casing and all over the upholstery. Then there was some more nervous eating and some pooing inside our house. I'll spare the rest of the details, but it went on like that. "Wow, your car is really clean," said my friend Carolyn. "Well," I said, "You shoulda seen it last Saturday." We did do some very nice walks however, me and Ash, which suited him just fine cuz he could run into the dandelions if the stomach-going got rough.

Last but not least (You always say "last but not least," said my Swiss ESL students)I am surprisingly giddy with anticipation at returning to the States in some months time. I'll leave you with a quote from a story called "Letters to Caitlin" by Dylan Thomas who had been in San Francisco and then Vancouver, Canada. (1950)

"Vancouver is on the sea, and gigantic mountains loom above it. Behind the mountains lie other mountains, lies an unknown place, 30,000 miles of mountainous wilderness, the lost land of Columbia where cougars live and black bears. But the city of Vancouver is a handsome hell hole. It is, of course, being Canadian, more British than Cheltenham. I spoke last night-or read, I never lecture, how could I?--in front of two huge union jacks... The pubs--they are called beer parlours--serve only beer, are not allowed to have whiskey or wine or any spirits at all--and are open only for a few hours a day. There are, in this monstrous hotel, two bars, one for Men, one for Women. They do not mix.... And thank God to be out of British Columbia & back in the terrible United States of America."

I can't say there are still segregated beer parlours in Vancouver, though BC, which still has some of the strictest liquor laws in Canada, was probably not the ideal place for an alcoholic. But that terrible United States....it's calling my name.

Pow--Not just for knocking people out in cartoons.

There are a lot of words that I have learned since coming here. They fall into two categories: embarrassing and words for the Cambridge English Test. Let's start with the first category. Anyone who has lived in/near a ski resort or has ever chanced to sit in a gondola with four young Australian snowboarders might have come across the word "pow." Short for powder, and usually paired with "sick", (as in "it was the sickest pow I ever saw mate,") this is a well used word in Whistler, because of its heavy coastal precipitation and consequently pow making abilities. The next word, which is promoted in numerous publicity campaigns by the Whistler Blackcomb corporation, possibly to show a chummy, we-know-what-you're-all-about relationship to its mainly young, Australian employees, is the verb "to shred." Shredding is almost synonomous to skiing or boarding, but not quite, cuz when you are skiing or boarding you might be doing it awesomely or unawesomely, the nuance is left open to interpretation. Not so with shredding--when you shred, you are doing some fucking awesome skiing or boarding, dude.

"I work safe cuz there is so much shredding to do."
Whistler Blackcomb poster, in the lodge staff room.

I'm missing umpteen other exceptionally cool words for riding up a large rock on a lift and then getting back down on variously shaped pieces of wood and metal. But I've had my ears and eyes full of teaching English to eight Swiss guys who are studying for a Cambridge English test. Their favorite words in English are either "Fuck" or "you're useless," both of which they say with giggly enthusiasm. The more scholarly words we have been reviewing (and honestly, some of which I have been learning for the first time) will have to wait for another time.

Today though, there were blue skies. Fresh snow had fallen on the previous day's fresh snow. It was sick dude, all that fresh pow. And I don't mean I skied sort of awesome--I shredded it.

West Coast Canada Represent or Mountains Mountains Mountains

2011 was a travel year. After a bike trip through Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Hercegovinia, Montenegro, and Albania, we hopped to England, then the United States and finally to Canada. Our trip across the United States was like a never ending movie reel--Vibrant Vermont colors, rain soaked Great Lakes towns, armpit strip malls in Illinois, beige frozen fields from Minnesota through South Dakota, the deep Bad lands and the endless bill boards for road side attractions. We were quieted by the yellow and brown emptiness that was Wyoming and tramped through Yellow Stone National Park (stopped for a glimpse of those coughing geysers). Then flew across the highway in Montana, catching a glimpse of Idaho as we quickly descended into the dry prairie of Eastern Washington state, and then were sucked quickly into the rain and gaping temperate rain forests of the coastal mountains. Whew. By the time we reached Whistler, BC, our destination, my brain was spinning with pictures.

East Coast Americans aren't too sure what Whistler is. Many have some dim memory of possible Olympic Games. You can be sure that they've never heard of Pemberton, BC, the town next door with a history of farming, horses and gold. Pemberton is where we settled--due to cheaper rental prices, and a good 25 minutes respite from the resort mania that Whistler generates--and on clear days, snow streaked Mount Currie towers over us from 2,591 meters or 8,501 feet. (On other days, it is entirely enveloped by fog). The area was first settled by the Salish tribe of First Nations people, and now the neighboring town of Mt. Currie serves as the administrative seat of the Lil'Wat Nation. It was settled later by pioneers who were not-the-faint-of-heart. For a long time, you had to take a ferry from Vancouver to Squamish, and then travel by rutted dirt road up over the mountains and into the Pemberton Valley. Now, after a revamped highway due to the 2010 Olympics, Vancouver is a 2.5 hour car trip away. Because of its proximity to the Whistler Blackcomb ski mountain, Pemberton is one of the fastest growing communities in BC, though it lies in a low valley susceptible to floods. Here there are a few interesting juxtapositions--old farms with white fences stretching along the river bed and new condos built in a "frontier style." There are hunters and fishers and potato farmers living next to Whistler marketing managers, writers, artists and moms who jog with SUV strollers. The scenery is stunning.

Mile One Lake

Top of Whistler Mountain

Postcard from Olomouc

Jen and I took the train to Olomouc . Olomouc is a small city tucked into Northern Moravia in the Czech Republic, and it boasts two main squares, a Socialist themed Astronomical clock and a very large Holy Trinity Column which in part celebrates the end of the Plague. It also houses the densest number of university students in Central Europe, including a Theology Faculty at the Palacký University of Olomouc. We saw many young men in black robes roaming the streets before and after Sunday Mass. Church spires gleamed brilliantly in the cold, spring sun, and their bells pierced the air.
(March 2011)

Belgrade

From Podgorice, we took a night bus to Belgrade. Arrived at 5am, and wandered like ghosts until the bakery opened. Saw this graffiti on a street in the center. "Smrt" means "death". Dunno about the cyrilics, anyone?

Leaving Albania and heading North

What else would you rather do than cycle in mid-August at one pm in Albania on a highway that is being completely reconstructed? Nothing!

We said farewell to our friends in Tirana, young and old, and took a bus to Skodra, at the side of Lake Skodra. All attempts to find another bus to take us to the capital of Montenegro, Podgorice, failed. The road it turned out, was bad. Not bad, one taxi driver told us, very bad. We bought gyros at a fast food shop, and a guy eating pizza started chatting with us. Turned out he had lived in Michigan for six years. "You're going to cycle on that road?" He raised his eyebrows. "I just drove on it, it's terrible."

Lacking another choice, we went for it. The only positive part of the experience was that no one drove fast, as the gravel, dirt and rocks prohibited it. Giant trucks passed us constantly, and our mouths, nose and ears filled up with dust. The heat beat down. We passed an old bunker that had been refashioned into a tattoo studio. We finally reached the border with Montenegro, saw the lake again, and headed for the city.

The cold water spring Part II

Even in the mountains, the heat was intense during the day. After doing some garden work, and eating the required hot milk with pieces of bread breakfast, and listening to the cranky old men, and washing some dishes, we holed up in our quarters (the family room that Hysni kept locked when he wasn't there. All rugs, blankets and a fireplace.) We listened to the BBC worldservice somewhat relentlessly. Clarence and Orgys were bored by this, so they disapeared to swim or fish, or ride the donkey down at the farm.

One morning, an old man from the farm below, also a down and out pensioner who Hysni had taken in, came into the garden where we were working. He said a lot of things in Albanian, and then took the garden hoe from me, to show me how to do it. There was only one hoe, so I began pulling weeds with my hands. "He says don't pull them with your hands, only with the tool," translated Orgys. The old man kept on with the hoe, and the rest of us stood around, watching him. Very efficient, very Albanian.
When the old man finally left, Orgys was mad. "He said Clarence and I stole his mobile," Orgys said. "He saw us at the farm, and he thinks we took his mobile." Orgys kicked the dirt. "He's a stupid man," he said, bitterly. I didn't disagree.

There was a spring from the earth ten minutes down the hill, and since the old men regulated their water pump with a Fascist spirit, we started collecting water there quite often. (Indeed, why didn't they tell us about it sooner? We were strong and capable, and very willing to please, we would have hauled water all day if they wanted). It was Monday, and it was reported that Hysni was coming to fetch us, and so both sides were happy. Michal and I went down to the spring to get water, and wash, and pick plums. The path there was steep and shady. Water poured from a fixed spigot, and the air was fresh and cool. Plum trees were everywhere, and yellow and purple fruit spilled onto the ground. We were filling our bottles when suddenly, out of no where, the tall, skinny frame of the mute man Boujar appeared, carrying an empty jug to fill.
"Hysni!" he gasped, though it sounded more like "Hoos!" He pointed at his wrist to indicate time, and then waved his arm wildly towards the house. "Hoos!"
"Hysni is coming? Now?" Michal and I looked at each other. Boujar repeated his message, stamping his feet impatiently.
"Ok, we get it." We nodded vigorously, and this satisfied Boujar for a minute. We stood surveying the cool scene. Then "Birra!" Boujar mouthed, making the motion of drinking from a can. He pointed to us, to him, to the can. "Birra!" He made a gesture that looked like money.
"Ah, he wants us to buy him beer," said Michal. Boujar nodded vigorously, and then said "Shhh!" and put a finger to his lips, his face utter seriousness. "Shhh!" and a slapping motion on his face.
"Don't tell anyone," we translated. He waved his finger in the air to say "no no no."
"Ok," we nodded. Boujar looked happy.
Michal took his jug to fill, and as he bent down to the water, Boujar put his arm around me. He made grunting sounds as he was wont to do, and then, as I didn't know what to do, he got closer. I felt his unshaved, concave cheek next to mine, and I smelled cigarettes. He gave me a passionate kiss on the cheek, which was enough for me. I moved away.

For a 50 year old man, Boujar was very weak. He couldn't carry the jug up the hill and neither could he walk 20 steps without a break. He slapped his legs and shrugged to show that they were weak. We waited for him under the fig trees as he caught his breath, and then he pointed at me, Michal, him and made the motion of an airplane. "Take me with you," he was saying. He looked defeated and repeated the motion. "Take me away with you."

When we returned, Michal bribed the men with money and beer. Boujar always waving his finger and saying "shhh!" The men looked happier for a while, but even this gift couldn't shift their position of being poor, family-less men in a rich family man's world. We learned after we left that they had all been transferred to the village from the city because they were capable of working, and because perhaps they didn't fit in in the house in Tirana. The crabbiest old man, it turned out, was an alcoholic who had mistakenly set his room on fire.

Hysni arrived with his brother, Clarence and Orgys's father. Their father was short and smiling, with a limp because of a bad hip. He spoke a bit of German, and was excited to show off his gun, talk about life, and his sons. We were sitting out in the yard as the sun was setting over the mountains, and Orgys's dad said to us " You did some good work here, the men are lazy, so you showed them how the house can look." We smiled uncertainly and then he turned to Boujar. He loudly mimicked his grunting sounds,and rolled his eyes. "You're lazy," he said to Boujar. "You're lazy and stupid." Boujar grunted and then nodded, and then sat down. This was all through Orgys's translation, so Michal and I sat politely, in disbelief. Orgys started talking about something else, and Clarence munched peanut snacks from a plastic bag that later he threw on the ground. Boujar looked blue.
"Hey," said Michal, putting a hand on Boujar's shoulder. "Ok?"
Boujar grunted, and nodded his head.
The twilight turned into dark.

The village behind Mt Dajt Part I

We drove into the village on a streambed. The Mitsubishi Galloper was flying like in a comic book, Hysni at the wheel smoking Marlboros and an older fellow from the home next to him, quietly throwing up out the window. "The road is good at the beginning," Hysni had told us through the translation of his 14-year-old nephew, Orgys. "It's bad at the end." To us, it hadn't even been a road. But in Albania, we quickly learned, the possible and impossible have a very blurred relationship.
Orgys was our teenage-going-on-forty-year-old friend and translator. He and his younger brother Clarence and Michal and I were packed into the back seat with all our luggage. We were headed to a small village behind Mt. Dajt, 20 kilometers or so from Tirana, where the Kuka clan was originally from. Hysni had a few of his elderly poor men living out here, and we were going to help them. We weren't sure how exactly we would help, but help we would.
At our arrival there was much fuss, and neighbors, dogs and cows greeted us. The small house where two men lived was fairly basic, with cement floors and some cots and a basic kitchen. It turned out that most mountain people cooked on a wood fired outdoor stove, and they even baked bread inside of it.
"bukë" (say boook) means bread in Albanian, and is synonomous with the word food. "ujë" (say the oy of boy) means water. I will never in all my life forget these two words, as they were the constant conversation topics in that house. Either there wasn't enough, it wasn't satisfactory, or in the case of water, the men needed a whole lot of it to pour into their washing machine--the one modern appliance in their small homestead. But this all comes later.

When Hysni was there, we visited nearby cousins and neighbors, and at every stop we were plied with strong turkish coffee boiled over gas camping stoves, and strong Rakije (plum or grape alcohol--homemade of course!) We had meat, soup and bread. The men smoked and discussed. When Hysni left, with a calf and lamb strapped into a trailer, banging back down the streambed, we learned that the men of the house had opinions about us being there. Their opinion, it turned out, was not a favorable one. The cranky ring leader, whose name I never learned, bossed. The tall, gaunt mute man named Boujar, was bossed. The quiet man who had come with us (throwing up) became ornery and opinionated, though we didn't understand him. It quickly became clear that they didn't want to share their scarce water with us, nor their food.

Orgys, still looking like a young boy, called the men dajë (judgay) meaning uncle, and in turn they called him djalë (dyal), meaning boy. And the kids we met in Albania were super subservient to adults, in a way that American children would be amazed and then scared about. So the cranky old man bossed Orgys too, and he translated for us. So then, we were bossed as well.

Luckily we were given the garden as a task, so I was happy to pull weeds from the tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. You could hear the tinkling of cow and sheep bells from every vantage point, and the mountains were a panarama. My other task, it became clear, was to cook. Duh! I was a woman, what was wrong with me? The men had ideas about what I should cook, how I should serve it, when I should wash the dishes. But they wouldn't do those things, only knew how I should do them. It took a couple of days to learn their wishes, but being a pleaser, I did. I washed a lot of dishes, heating water on the outdoor stove, and lugging fresh water from a underground spring, which was down a steep hill. The men usually sat outside in the yard, smoked and talked. They talked late into the night "blah blah blah bukë! blah blah blah ujë!" and then woke up early in the morning, and talked some more. We wondered that they never ran out of conversation topics, but talk they did. They smoked, sat around, and then did some washing in their washing machine.


(to be continued)

The scenery

The house

Boujar and Michal

Orgys in the creek

Orgys and Clarence with their dad and his gun. Which he shot off for us. "Only for protection," he said. Then strung a bullet belt around his waist.

The glasses series

The Kuka's cement terrace has no shortage of stuff scattered around. Tidiness is not next to Godliness here in Albania, there are bigger things to think about. We found some broken glasses, and here is the photo series that followed:

A tent in Tirana

We set up our tent on the breezy, cement terrace of the Kuka family's house, which both confused the parents and delighted the kids. Hysni Kuka pointed at our Coleman blow up mattresses and then held his back, indicating we would have a painful if not crippling experience sleeping there. In three minutes, kids were lugging up mattresses to the second floor terrace, and in five minutes our tent had transformed into a certain type of bed heaven. We just hoped the mattresses weren't from the beds of any old, ailing old folks.
It looked like the kids had never seen a tent before, and they were in and out of the thing like lightening, testing out the headlamps, sleeping bags and our bike helmets with gusto. "tent! tent!" they tried out the new English word.
Below the terrace is the small, but lively street. The cafe and betting shop and the corner store all in the same house, people are chatting, playing football, preteen boys are constantly testing their strength and machoism with short and passionate fights, and then there are the dogs and cats, slinking around, looking for delicious morsels of trash (to be found everywhere).
It's like a mini village in a corner of the capital city.

A little bit about volunteering in Tirana

"Hello," says Jenny. Then, pointing at herself, she says, "Emri im është Jenny" (My name is Jenny). "Ju?"
"Sarah," I say.
"Ah, Sarah," she says. She grins and the tops of her false teeth press into her gums. "Here, Tirana," she points at the floor. Ju?"
"I'm from America," I say.
"Ahh, America." Then, "I love you." Kiss on both cheeks.
A man wanders by, smoking a cigarette. He never sits down, walks up the stairs, out into the yard, onto the street, back again. His teeth are missing, and I don't know his name.
Etem takes our laundry. Through a series of gestures, and through the Italian he speaks, he makes it understood that he will do our laundry for us. "Benissimo!" He says proudly, as in, that's what your laundry will look like.
"Hello, Emri im është Jenny," says Jenny. "Ju?"
"Sarah," I say, shaking her hand.
"Ahh, Sarah. Good," says Jenny. "Here, Tirana. Ju?"
"America," I say. It goes on like that.
Four hours later our laundry is still washing in Etem's machine. "Piano, Piano," he says, adding more water into the soap loader. "Benissimo." He points at his undershirt, which I must say is quite white.

Welcome to Residence Kuka, a house for elderly people who don't have a home. We ended up here through a series of cancellations, and it isn't really in desperate need of volunteers. At least so it seems. Hysni Kuka is the man in charge, and he chain smokes Marlboro cigarettes and comes and goes from his job at the ministry. He has six brothers, and they all live in the same neighborhood in Tirana, the capital of Albania. Hysni speaks absolutely no other language besides Albanian. Some words we have in common are "system", "no problem" and "d'accord." (Ok, in French). Luckily, one brother emigrated to Germany, and is visiting with his family, so the teenage sons translate from Albanian to German, which Michal understands. I'm mostly in the dark.
"Jenny," Hysni sighs. He makes a sign at his head to indicate that she's crazy. So far, she has managed to take my phone charger and a skirt from my bag and hide them in her cupboard.
"Jenny has Alzeheimers" says Argi, the older man who speaks English. He was a professor of law and lived for years with his daughter in Istanbul until she went to study in America. Now he mostly watches TV. "When there is something missing in the house, we go and look at Jenny's room."
Hysni has three young kids and his brothers all have kids. There is a cafe connected to the house, a store, a classroom for homeless Gypsies. People pile through at different intervals, some related some not.

This morning, after we were served our breakfast in the dark little cafe of warm milk and bread (you rip up the bread into little pieces and eat it like cereal in the milk.) we went upstairs to sit with the really old folks. There are men on the third floor who look like breathing is an exercise. One man has one closed eye and then one that is far too open. He sat with his back to us, spinning a hard boiled egg on the table. The other guys told us they were 85 and 65, even though I would have guessed 95 and 75, respectively. Gena, a young nurse and teacher takes care of them. She is blond and pretty, with Cleopatra eyeliner and wears a white lab coat. When we wake up, she is cleaning the bathroom, and when we eat breakfast she is cleaning the old folks. "Do you need help?" we ask her. "No, no," She smiles.

Today a boy from Hungary is supposed to arrive, and on Sunday a girl from Austria. Michal has regaled me with volunteering stories from Montenegro and Germany through similar organizations, but this one is different. "What can we do to help this afternoon?" We ask Hysni. "Oh," he says, mumbling and shrugging and then invites us to his house where there are visitors eating fruit. "You can stay here, relax and watch tv," he has his nephew translate.

Hard work happening here in Tirana.

Ancient Roman gladiators battle in amphitheatre, Durres, Albania

Gladiator Michal chose this ferocious turkey as his opponent in a true to life reenactment of an ancient Roman fight.

Map of the Journey

This is a post for Andre.

The red marker is our trip so far by bike * The blue marker is our trip by train, bus and in Montenegro, in the car of a couple of Dutch Nudists. (You can click to enlarge).

We're in Durres, Albania! The roads are something special, from lovely pavement to utter dirt, potholed nothingness, and then back again. Cement trucks have dropped cement on the road that has dried into ridges and mountains, manholes are missing, and there are sheep, cows, goats, people, mopeds, donkeys and carts, and lots of Mercedes from America. ie with license plates that say "New York." They sure drive like Albanians though.
One old man in one such car, all hunched, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, he approached us on a dusty, deserted dirt road in southern Montenegro. His car slowed. "Hey guys," he rasped. "Hey, how you doing?" And then he drove on.

About the Cycling

Our camping place...Look how big these thorns are!

After 1,000 kilometers of cycling, we have had 15 flat tires. The heat combined with the amazing amount of thorns in these regions, has had a disasterous effect on our inner tubes. More than once I was lured off the pavement by delicious blackberries, growing thick over the rocks and fallen fences along Skoeder lake in Montenegro. And more than once I was pulling thorns from my wheel, while Michal was once again applying another patch to the inner tube, both of us cranky.

In Serbia the hardest thing was the heat. We woke up early, sometimes as early as 4am, and then cycled until 10 or 11. The heat hit hard around noon, with the cicadas screaming from their shady trees, and it hung around until 6 or 7pm. So we would laze about during the hot part of the day. We visited Monastaries and public swimming pools, ate giant watermelons in the park and sat in air conditioned, smokey cafes. Then in the evening, as the sun set, we'd put in some more kilometers, often cycling into the dark, finding a spot to put up the tent and then fall asleep.

Well, fall asleep is rather a bad way to put it. Camping alongside corn fields, on old broken roads, and by the side of the Danube (worst night of our life. A story in itself. Barges, fishermen, and one very hopeful and protective doggy, who wanted us to adopt him), it's more like dozing and waking, dozing and waking....Since we've reached the sea coast we have had to pay for more and more camping, as there are more people and less corn fields. At least there aren't anymore late night tractors, blaring up the road.

The heat wave broke while we were camping on the Boca Kotorska bay in Montenegro. Clouds rolled in, and sat heavily, looking like rain but never following through. Suddenly, it wasn't 40 degrees celsius anymore! There was a breeze! It became a perfect cycling climate. We proceeded to cycle up a lot of mountains after that, so it was a wonderful thing, this new weather pattern.

Finally, sometimes it's a question of low moral. For example, we started one day in the town of Murici, which is rock bottom sea level, on the side of Skoeder lake. And low and behold, as we climbed, we realized we were biking up a mountain. (Not a greatly detailed map, we mused). We rose 916 meters in 20 kilometers. I was really lagging, kicking and screaming, like a child. It's not til we got to the top did I sort of calm down, and think, cool. I'm glad we did that. (I also saw a viper on the side of the road that was trying to digest a big lizard, but the lizard was only halfway in its mouth. It was hard to know who was more dead at that moment, the lizard, the snake, or me).

The view from Montenegro

We have been in Montenegro for six days or so, and it has been the most exciting, interesting and difficult cycling yet. From campground on the Boca Kotorska, to the mountain city of Cetinje to Lake Skoeder, to the sea coast at Ulcinj, it has been mountains, water, rocks, goats and donkeys.