Paradise Here I Come!

I have finally found out where I will be living and working for the next two years! I will be living in a small beach town by the name of Himarë. It is located in the south west coast of Albania on the Ionian Sea. The town is south of Vlorë and north of Sarande. Apparently, the tall Llogara mountains steeply cascade down to the beautiful beach and sea. How much better could it get? I have the mountains and the beach/bright blue sea!

This small town has been occupied and ruled by the Greeks, Italians, Germans, Austro-Hungarians, and Albanians and dates back to antiquity. It seems like this town has tons of history and that there will be lots to see there. The piece of information that most interested me what the language that is spoken in this town. The language of Himarë is a dialect of Greek. Can you believe this?!?!? Once I read this information all I could do was laugh. I have been frantically studying Albanian and have been worried about how I will be able to communicate with the locals in the area that I will be living in and now I find out that they don't even speak Albanian!! I guess I will have to switch my efforts to learning Greek.

There, I will be teaching at a 9-year school and high school. These two schools are joined together, which is not very common for Albanian schools. I have learned a little about my counter-part and she seems like she will be a great person to work with as well as a great resource. I am pretty excited about my assignment. I mean, it can't get much better than living in a small beach town for the next couple of years.

I guess that now I (and now all of you) know where I will be living for the next 2 years I should be expecting visitors.