A Brief Update

So I guess I will need to change the title of the blog...something like, Broke and Blogging? Joe is being tested lately. He is being challenged on his patience. Since we have been home for the holidays we have been very busy, but still feel like we have not gotten anywhere. I don't mind though, we will survive. That is what I keep telling him...just be patient, everything will work out.

So here is what we need to do in the near future:

• Find jobs
• Buy a car (maybe two)
• Find an apartment to rent
• Move into the apartment
• Buy some furniture for our apartment
• Save our money so that next year we can buy a house

This is what we have done so far since we have been home:

• helped Joe's mom move
• went to New York to attend Joe's sister's wedding
• Bought gifts and celebrated Christmas with two families
• Spent a little money on shopping
• Spent a lot of money on a hotel in New York
• Looked for cars that we can't buy yet
• loaded all of our things from Joe's mom's house into my parent's attic

So the good news is that we went into the school offices and we will be able to by-pass a lot of the required items to substitute teach, since we have worked there before. So it looks like a week after the schools start again we will be subbing. However, we are still looking for a few other possibilities, which is time consuming on the computer. Hopefully if we start subbing soon, then we can get a car. We have the money to buy a used car, but since the car deals are so good right now, we think it might be smarter to hold on to the cash for a house and get a loan for a car (which we can only do when we can prove that we are working). And then we can also move into an apartment, which will be nice. I love my parents, but I am basically living out of a suitcase and I would like to have all my things once again. So I will keep updating and hopefully make some good changes to the blog in the process!

Return Trip Home

So it has been a rough journey for Joe and I while we have been living in Kosova. It is at a point of frustration for Joe that we gave our letters of resignation to each school last week. It is truly unfortunate, because I have grown fond of my classes and I am sad that I will be leaving the students. Trust me, there are many things that have frustrated me...I will explain in a post when I return back to the states, but I feel a deep regret in knowing that I will be letting the students down. I really feel attached to them and I think they might feel the same way. Tomorrow I will tell them that I will be leaving.

Anyhow, to all our friends, I can't wait to see you. Let me know if you can help me find a job! Thankfully we have been able to save a bit of money here and that should help us get on our feet when we return home. So I will be back in the states this weekend!

**You might find this a bit amusing. I found out yesterday that my flight home does not actually exist anymore! Our landlord just happens to work with Austrian airlines and he informed us that there was no flight on that day. Otherwise we would have shown up to the airport on Sunday to find out. So we are quickly working with the airline to find a solution. I think we will still arrive home on the same day, thank goodness!

When we arrived in Meteora we did not have a place to stay. We figured that we would talk with the rock climbing guys that we met and get an idea of where to stay. Well, the only guy we met, in charge of No Limits, also has rooms in this beautifully renovated house. There were three rooms available to rent out with a kitchen area as well. Lucky for us, since it was off season we had the place to ourselves! It was the perfect place for 40 euros a night. Not the cheapest we had found there, but definitely well worth the money for its updated fixtures! See the video below to see what it looked like in the inside.

Meteora Monasteries

One huge reason for tourism in Meteora comes from the monasteries. Each of them has been built on the top of a cliff. In the past monks used ladders and baskets to bring people and supplies up. Let's just say they were well protected from the Ottoman invaders. It is something to marvel at and we found out way hiking around looking at the monasteries. We even packed a dress in the backpack so that we could go inside. It cost two euros to go into each monastery, but really only one of them was worth it. Most of the times we ended up just seeing the church inside, so I was very excited when we went into the largest one to find some museums, the refectory, the crypt, and the tool storage room open to see as well. I was even happy to pet the monastery cats, which I believe have the best life. Below you will see many of the monastery pictures that we took while in Greece.

When we were walking up the steps towards one of the monasteries we found twenty human skulls sitting out in the rain. I had just read how the monks took good care of the deceased monks so I could not figure out why these had been left outside to decay in the rain. We tried asking one of the monks, but he only spoke Greek. I guess we will never know. It was all a bit creepy.





























I think these cats found the perfect spot in the monastery. There were snoozing on top of the heaters and I could not help but pet them. I think Joe was embarrassed, but I saw two guys take pictures too.




















"Yo, dude. What's up?" I am so irreverent....

Thanksgiving Break - Greece

Joe and I took a trip to Meteora, Greece for our Thanksgiving break. It was so nice to get away and I think both of us were feeling better because of it. We took way too many pictures so I will have to sort through them and figure out what I am going to post. These are just a few to see how much fun we had!