Let it snow . . .

Winter has arrived in Peshkopi. I know that some of you in Denver have had a pretty harsh, cold and snowy winter already, but here in Albania, the winter so far has actually been pretty mild. This is of course mostly good news because when it gets cold here, it gets really cold because there is no insulation or central heating. This week, however, the winter has arrived. On Friday night I was lucky enough to be out to dinner with Dylan, Turi and Dylan's counterpart Habibi when it started snowing for the first time this winter. I say I was lucky because it was beautiful and also because by the morning there was barely a dusting and by the next afternoon the snow was gone. Driving home from dinner as the big, wet flakes fell on the lit city . . . gorgeous. I wish that I could have effectively captured it on film, but I'm afraid that I couldn't. Over the weekend it continued to snow off and on and I snuggled into my wood-stove heated room. Up until this point, I've felt pangs every time I started up my stove- is it really cold enough? Do I want to waste this wood? (not to mention the pollution pangs I always get), but when it is really cold, I feel less bad about using the wood for some reason. Anyway, don't ask me . . .

Next week I'll be going to Italy for Christmas and New Years with Connie, another PCV. When I get home, hopefully I won't have frozen pipes like I did after my vacation last year.

Happy holidays and let it snow!!!

Feeding my Pyromania

By the way, I’m a pyromaniac. I love fire. I was the Girl Scout that always volunteered to light the campfire. I have the (slightly dangerous) habit of sticking my fingers into candle wax (especially if I’ve had a drink or two). So maybe giving me a wood stove as the main means of heating my home is not a good idea. Or maybe it is cause it is nice and warm and Fire! Fire!

I am perfecting my fire lighting skills- I have been lighting fires outside for years. But lighting a fire in a stove (is it bigger than a breadbox? No, it’s exactly the same size as a breadbox!) is a little bit more challenging. It is hard to light the kindling (that’s the small stuff) for long enough to get a big log going (luckily, my landlord had been nice enough to provide me with a bucket full of small pieces of wood and egg cartons to get things going). And once it is going, you can only really fit one log in a time, so you have to watch it closely to put a new log in just as the old log is still burning a bit . . . My skills are improving- from 12 matches and a half an hour of frustration the first night to a one match perfect fire last night! Anyway, one thing the wood stove provides (besides lovely warmth) is endless entertainment- I can stare at the fire for hours. Ok, so maybe the wood stove is dangerous . . .

Anyway, winter has definitely arrived. We finally had our first snow on Saturday and this is a picture of the thermometer INSIDE my kitchen this morning . . .

I have wood

Get your head out of the gutter. Really, there is no way to talk about this without it sounding dirty. But here, in the cold rural mountains of Albania, wood is not dirty- it is important and helpful and keeps me warm all winter long (ok, that sounded dirty too!). Anyway, I am now the proud owner of two square meters of wood. This wood, now stacked below my stairs, will probably last me about half of the winter (depending on how cold it is, how much I am traveling and how much of a wimp I am). I could only buy two meters now because this is all that I can store and keep dry under my stairs. You can tell that winter is coming here because of all of the woodpiles outside of just about every building. Apparently, last year at this time they had already had their first snowstorm, so maybe this will actually be a mild winter (or maybe it will be much worse later on). The weather here has actually been pretty nice for the past few weeks- foggy mornings, sunny days, and chilly evenings. Down in Tirana and near the coast, the weather last week was still really nice, with temps in the 60s or 70s (still t-shirt weather in Durres last weekend). The biggest problem I am facing, like in the summer with no air conditioners, is that the buildings are not well insulated, so it is often colder inside than it is outside right now. But that will soon change and I’m prepared: I have a whole lot of wood.