This
week led us to a project with the Harvard Grad Student and we worked on the
logistics of airports in the Balkan region—statistics mainly so it was a tad
tedious but not unbearable. It seems to me that statistics are more “fun” when
done for an actual purpose and not just for practice. It was a data collection
of all Balkan international airports compared to Albania’s sole Mother Theresa
Airport. We ended up piling some more interesting work to our translations and
PR workload—we met with the National Coastal Agency’s director, Auron, and
we're working with them to further future internship and possible USA student/university
affiliation opportunities. Although nothing was handed to us directly this
week—we know we’ll be dealing with their new app they just launched about the
coastline and translating it into English by next week and onward.
We
took a couple days off to explore Southern Albania’s coastline in the little
beach town of Himare—considered a Greek minority of Albania. It was my first
time visiting the coast especially after 16 years away from Albania. You could
see Corfu across the distance of the Ionian Sea, so it’s super close with
Greece and people could be heard speaking in Greek and we even ran across
Swedish tourists—really cool for us to see tourism on the ground instead of
seeing it through the statistics. In addition, the coastline there was small
and quaint—beautiful rocky hills right in front of the rocky, crystal clear,
turquoise colored water. Needless to say we enjoyed it and being that it isn’t
super developed but established enough with restaurants, cafes, and hotels
galore it’s developed enough to accommodate the influx of tourists that will be
hitting Himare up in the next two months (July and August are the key touristic
months). So for anyone planning on going to Corfu—go to Himare, it’s the same
exact seashore and even cheaper—plus the experience is more authentic and still
not as capitalistic/touristic!
Laying out after a nice burn
Dinner right on the seaside :)
Hanging out on some rocks on the Ionian Sea
Enxhi,
ReplyDeleteYou are really catching up on your posts! I enjoy reading all of them! Statistics makes me shiver, but I see what you mean about it making more sense when there is an identified purpose. I feel that way about physics.. it's like applied science/math. Was the data about the airports helpful? Will changes be made based on what was found? Translating the coastline app sounds like a good opportunity. Do tourists actually use these apps?
Relaxing is good!! Keep enjoying your free time.
Best,
Tammy