Bell Ringing

Language class was amazing today. I realize in reading my posts, that I spend a good amount of time describing the food (you all must think I’m a bit monomaniacal) but I do and think about quite a number of other things.

For instance, today I thought language class was really helpful. We read a dialogue once. Then we closed our books and had to remember and transcribe the dialogue from memory.

Our attempt was so comically bad that our teacher cracked up. We finally got in almost right, but are all still struggling a bit.

After class, I made a fabulous discovery. I learned how the bells ring in the school.
(I posted a few days ago my confusion over the cow bell and school bell ringing at almost the same time).

On my way out of the building, I came across both bell ringers. Yup- there are two. One stands by the entrance and manually rings the school bell, while one walks up the stairs to ring the cow bell.

I sort of guessed that, but wasn’t sure. Now, I’m sure. Thankfully, the bell ringers were happy to pose. Then Kristen posed next to the bell.



I saw many chickens crossing the street today. That has nothing to do with the bells, but since I’ve been trying desperately to capture a chicken crossing the street with my camera, the sheer number of chicken crossings was great because as soon as I missed one, there was another crossing right behind it. I think I captured about 5 different chickens crossing the street today on my camera.



Usually, this is hard to do because it takes a few seconds to reach in my pocket, get the camera, turn it on and zoom of the moving target. Today, they were fast as usual, but I kept my camera out and on. I was determined. My chicken hunting skills lead me to make two huge generalizations. Number one, chickens really do cross the street to get to the other side. Number two, chickens can be really fast when they want to be.

Chicken crossing pictures in hand, I went home to change and back to Shales to workout. Kacey, Chris and I worked out to “Biggest Loser”. It was great to work up a sweat and loose some fat, but doing it in Albania, particularly in a cross-gender group is tricking. As we laid out our bodies across the hall to all watch the video, Kacey’s house mother gave Chris house slippers to wear during the work out. Yeah- those are a bit dangerous to wear during jumping jacks. You could easily kill yourself. For real. Who knew house slippers were murderous?
Out of respect he kept wearing them, until we told him he had to take them off or he’d hurt himself.

After the work out, we took a long walk to stretch out. We each made a pact to change our diet in one way the following day, with the looser buying lunch for everyone. I am going to try very, very hard not to buy a chocolate bar tomorrow (not so easy when they are $.10 and new European combination.

I went home and luckily, because I had both workout and warned my family I would smell bad after and asked for a shower before hand, I was able to obtain my fourth bucket bath. Yes- by now I no longer suck. I am by no means a pro, however my confusion at how to shower while being the shower no longer exists. In fact, I bet I could get the entire shower down to one bucket pretty soon. That'd be sweet. If there was ever a water outage or sever limitation on water in New York I'd be hands down the cleanest women on the upper west side. That's right. You'd all be struggling with clothes and deodorant, and there I'd be all shiny and clean from one bucket.

Feeling refreshed from my shower, I asked Rina if she wanted to work out with me tomorrow. She was a bit apprehensive about working out at Kacey’s but eventually agreed to come. It will be great for her to get out of the house and to work out. I think we will both enjoy it. Hey- after all the housework she does, she could easily kick my butt and might ended up shocking both of as in the workout world.