"A Stab in the Dark"

Hi!

Merry Christmas!

Happy New Year!

I have some catching up to do! 

I last wrote at the beginning of December.  That’s not so bad, right???  Except that at the beginning of December, I was catching up from the beginning of November!  My apologies!  Let the catching up begin!  I’ll aim for one entry per day until we’re caught up!  ;)

At the beginning of November, we had a travel weekend.  It was a great chance to get away and see a little bit more of Albania.  We spent a day at Butrint and stayed at a beach hotel in Saranda.  (I have so many pictures from this trip, so I’ve decided to include the Saranda pics and save the Butrint ones for a later entry.)

I love my panoramas!

The sun rays were beautiful!

Butrint is an archaeological site which was an ancient Greek and later Roman city.  It has been abandoned since Middle Ages.  Modern archaeological excavations by Italians began in 1928, and were taken over by Albanians when communism rose in 1944.  (Don’t mistake any of these facts for actual knowledge!  Wikipedia is a great source!)

Beyond that, I can’t tell you much, because unlike a typical historical site in the Western world, informative signs are scarce in Butrint.  In fact, so is any type of rules or guidelines.  You could crawl all over the ruins if you wanted to!  So generally, Zak and I wandered throughout the ruins, drawing our own conclusions about the purpose and significance of each of the ruins that we came across.  We did know that one of the most famous features of Butrint was a baptistery with a beautiful mosaic floor.  At each ruin that we came across, Zak would excitedly exclaim, “Maybe this is the baptistery!”  We were kept in suspense until the last few minutes when we finally found it, the mosaic covered in sand to preserve it…  Well, the pictures online are beautiful!

Referring to our hotel in Saranda as a ‘beach hotel’ may give you the unfair impression that it was ‘great’.  Did you forget that I titled this section “A Stab in the Dark”?  Now, before you begin to seriously fear for my safety, don’t worry, I’ve never heard of anyone dying from bed-bugs!

Beach hotel

Now, you’re probably expecting a fun fact about Albania, and I won’t disappoint you.  However, I’d like to add a new regular thought.  As I’m taking notes during class, if something really sticks out to me, I copy and paste it into my “Greatest Lessons” document.  So, from now on, I’d like to treat you to one of my greatest lessons each time I write.

I was gone, but Andrea grabbed my camera as the sun was setting  :)

Greatest lesson:

Here are five basic ways to approach the Bible:

Hear, read, study, memorize, meditate

These are like our 5 fingers, and the more of them we use, the firmer grip we will have on God’s word.

And of course, a fun fact about Albania:

The lights aren’t generally on in the grocery store, or in many stores that have a window, until it’s dark outside.  There’s often not a whole lot to look at on the shelves, anyways.