You spin me right round, baby, right round…

We had culture day on Saturday in our Palace of Culture. Don’t get too excited, though it does have some nice elements, namely the auditorium with cushy by Albanian standard seats, the Palace part might be a little misleading.
The day started with a show of traditional dance and music. It was pretty cool and very interesting. I even made it up on stage and joined in the big circle dance. Big surprise huh! After the show they had different stations set up showcasing various aspects of the Albanian culture. I had some dessert, again big surprise, and ate some other tasty things. Also on display was some embroidery at which they are quite skillful. They also do this nifty decorative border thing too. My host sisters and mother do this as well. Later I will post a picture of some of their handy work. It’s really quite impressive.
On a sad note, I sacrificed my large bottle of hand sanitizer  I had brought in my large bottle for everyone to use since the bathroom didn’t have any water, and with Turkish toilets you don’t have an option of using water from the bowl or tank of the toilet. If you’re not familiar with Turkish toilets, they consist of two main elements. First and foremost, a whole in the floor and second a porcelain surround that is set into the floor in the middle of which is the aforementioned whole. At the end of our cultural day, I went to retrieve my bottle of hand sanitizer and it was gone (I’m sorry I lost part of your gift Jenelle, no really I am the one that’s sorry). I’ll have to check to see if I can get hand sanitizer here. I might have to America-Light, aka Tirana the capital city.
After the festivities, we took some of the other volunteers for a tour of our fair city. We scaled the castle walls. It just dawned on me that I now get to play on a real, totally legit, built 2000 years ago castle. How cool is that! I am sure one of these days, they won’t allow that but until then, I’m gonna enjoy it.
We then meandered down to the soccer field because there was a game going on. We didn’t have tickets but we decided to play the dumb American card. We just strolled right by the security and the gate guy. He didn’t even try to ask us for tickets. Being obviously foreign does have it’s advantages.
We finished the day with a drink at café where we sat outside and enjoyed the evening.
It’s sleepy time. I have to get up, shower, shave, dress, and eat breakfast to leave at 8:00 a.m. Ug. Yeah, it’s nice that I have to join the PC to get into that whole 8-5 schedule.
Good night.