Feel the Beauty

June 22, 2013







Effie



Feel the Beauty

I had plenty of opportunity to explore Saranda while visiting. Each day, the students of the field school would start the day with a brief class and overview of the day’s activities, followed by diving and then more classroom lecture. Then everyone would gather and we would all head out to dinner in the evening. Not having the obligations of either the staff or the students, I had the time to pretty much do whatever I want.









Occasionally I would watch a lesson or two and sometimes I would go along with the students on their diving excursions, but mostly I just took the time to relax, do a little work and explore the Albanian city. The pace of life in Albania suits me, the oppressive daytime heat during midday means that many businesses close during the afternoon and most work gets done in the early morning or early evening, with plenty of time for afternoon siestas.



Lee & Chris





The experience in Albania was great for me, I loved the people, the pace of life, the food was not terrible (It has much in common with Greek cuisine) and the ocean is incredible. The only real problems involve the lack of many amenities, the large quantities of trash that litter much of the city and the poor infrastructure including countless unfinished large cement structures.







Effie, Dave, Kailey & Leslie



Another thing that I really enjoyed was getting to know and hanging out with the students and staff of the field school and scientific diving class. In order for a student to see a posting offering classes in Albania and to think that sounds just like something that I should just sign up and do it, takes a very special individual. The students here tend to be highly intelligent, highly motivated as well as very adventurous and they all have tremendously diverse and interesting backgrounds and very focused and success orientated goals.











The students come from all over and are mostly interested in archeology, though there are a few on the marine biology side of the aisle as well. The opportunity to dive in basically unexplored, pristine dive environments is the biggest draw as well as a chance to just do what so few others have done.

Michael & Effie

Cameron, Leslie, Effie, Kailey & Dave



Effie

They also know how to have fun and spending time hanging out with the students at night, after a group dinner was great. We had a great time exploring the night life that Saranda has to offer including riding the antiquated bumper car ride and hanging out on the beach under the light of the summer super moon.

Kailey



Dave