Spoonbill at Lake Mikri Volvi – by Lia
Hallo Tom, nice to hear from you!
Well, just yesterday I went out to a lake to take some pictures and I send you some… It’s from Lake Volvi, near Thessaloniki. It was a wonderful day, and the contact with the nature filled me with energy!
Wader at Lake Mikri Volvi – by Lia
After that, I am trying to find what to do with vacations (15-30 August).
That’s all for now. Greetings to everybody, hope you have a good time for the rest of the summer!
Lia
Tim Lunt has been busy …
For the blog, the story so far this summer is :
- Ryanair to Latvia for midsummer with lots of beaches, bonfires and beers
- attended younger daughter Alice’s graduation in Dietetics (see picture). Now she has to find a job !)
- sold my car to older daughter Clara
- went to see a Shakespeare play at the Globe theatre in London
- been on some geophysics searches for roman roads in Somerset
- weeded the allotment, painted the windows etc …
Regards to All,
Tim
The Peace Corps is such hard work for Karen …
I’ve been having fun entertaining visitors from the United States but believe it or not I did do some “work”. I was a counselor at a girls leadership camp here in Macedonia and it was a great experience. Not only did the girls learn new leadership skills they became friends with other ethnicities…for many of them they made their first Albanian/Macedonian friend. I had 10 girls in my cabin and one senior counselor – we had alot of fun and not much sleep – about 5-6 hours per night. I’ve attached a photo of the girls holding me…not sure why they wanted to do it and it was a bit scary – but I decided to trust them and let them do it.
Hope you and everyone else are doing well!
Karen
Ines has been travelling but had some bad luck …
I just came from Czech republic. me and Jure (my boyfriend and husband at once) spent there three weeks in different places (Česke Budejovice, Boubinsky Prales, Praha, Trinec, Brno and Kiyov) around the state. We liked it very much especially the beer (which has high quality), and in Moravia they produce a lot of wine and slivovica (rakija). With pleasure I would send you some photos, but someone stole our camera 😦
I am now going home and most of the August I will spend there, working on fields with vegetables.
What about you? Aha I will read it on blog 🙂
Greetings from Ljubljana,
Ines
Despite a tourism downturn in Ohrid, Katerina is busier than ever …
Hey there Tom,
For me , very fortunately, this tourist season is better than the last one. I don’t know how or why, but I have more work than I did last summer. I hope it stays that way. There are less tourists in Ohrid, that is true, but probably that is bigger problem for those who are used to having thousands of tourist. For me and my micro company and small tours, this season turns out to be great so far.
Katerina
Mirjam is doing nothing and everything …
I’m not really doing anything right now. Just enjoying summer and spending time on the beach or in way overcrowded city (seems like tourists didn’t hear about all the financial crisis going on). Ok, I also started to study a little bit for exams in September.
In the middle of August I’m going to some village on Croatian- Slovenian border for a ethnological and documentary workshop on influence of Schengen border on life of people living there and I’m really looking forward to see Slovenian crew once again.
But the thing that occupies me the most these days is waiting for interview for a job in kindergarten on one of the islands. I wanted that kind of job because I would like to try living on island (all the isolation seems so perfect for me right now) and I have a degree in preschool education so this would be a great opportunity to get some experience. There is really not a lot people living on islands (meaning not a lot of children and kindergartens) so this kind of job opens up once in a really long time. But it seems like they already promised someone a job and I’m calling and being kind of annoying just to get a chance. Hope it works out. Interview should be in 3 days unless they postpone it…again!
Hehe for someone not doing anything I sure write a lot, and I can’t wait to hear about others.
Sorry about me being so slow and lazy, I’m in a process of accepting Mediterranean way of life 😉 As you can see I’m doing great.
Mirjam
… Snippets from Facebook etc …
Benson Siwek (honarary VEF’er) has just climbed Mount Olympus in Greece
Carl Hagen hosted a 4th July party and VEF reunion at his house in Holland (on 4th July!)
Holger is still working on the technical report which is a long and detailed piece of work.
Marietta has been working out how to attract funding for the VEF and I am sure we will hear more of this soon.
Christina Kontaxi has been on holiday and has attended a number of environmental events in Greece.
Franz Hazelzet has still had no firm offers for the paintings; I am thinking seriously about it but if you are interested please get in touch with him.
Stellian has been spotted at a fancy dress party, at which Lina was also in attendance. Lina has a new job designing jewellry which looks really cool http://www.laloorna.com/ . I guess Ivan and Nayden are busy with their field schools at the moment as you can see from their website .
Wim has also been looking at ways to fund projects and Mirsa has been giving many concerts and has been in touch with the school at Dardhe with news to come of that at some later date I am sure.
There has not been much sign of Bernardka since she came back from her trip with her Scouts to Ireland; maybe the Leprechauns took her? There was a report of her working at a museum in Macedonia but this cannot be verified.
Bernardka’s New Job?
Laura seems to be busy but as my Italian is only slightly better than my almost non-existant Greek I can’t update you, but I am sure she is happy.
Mateja is very busy and has just celebrated her birthday (29 July). She was working hard on her dissertation but has now been to lots of events and appears to be singing as much as she can.
Over to me. It has been a month of very hard work. As we have had generally lousy weather in July I have not missed much by being indoors. I was lucky enough to have five days with my (almost all grown up) children in Fort William and Glencoe at the start of the month, climbing many mountains in good weather, and drinking in some of the wildest bars in Scotland, with great music playing; yes I embarrassed them by dancing. Of course I have also been enjoying the Ashes cricket matches, with England doing very well so far.
Patrick, Hannah, Harriet & Tom – Ben Nevis in background
I have had a lot of form filling to do with my eldest daughter and my son who both want to join the Army as officers after university; my daughter to be a doctor and my son to join the Infantry. With the war in Afghanistan having taken over 20 British soldiers’ lives this month that fills me both with pride and some trepidation, but it has to be done.
Ines’ mountain marathon in June has inspired me to enter for the Karrimor mountain marathon in October which will take place ‘somewhere in Wales’; I should hear soon if I have a place.
Finally, let’s all try to keep in touch one way or another, be it by email, Facebook or this blog. I know that the Via Egnatia Foundation is developing its plans and we can all play a part in that over the coming months. There is a lot of work to do, and I am sure Marietta would appreciate any support or assistance that you can give. We need to be ready to do more work next year as things move forward with greater momentum. My apologies if I have missed people out of this update, but I only have certain information. Be sure to mail me next time!
VEF2009Review 