I had been preparing mentally and physically for this upcoming Turkey trip to run my first Marathon and explore Turkey. The day had finally come and Andrea and I were about to head out the door, but let me take a few steps back so I can get you caught up on the situation of my house. For the past few weeks I was having some plumbing issues and I mean ISSUES. This had lead me to not shower in a few days nor allowed to use the sink or toilet. I will leave certain details out because I want this to be readable. So it was the day I was heading to Turkey and I needed to shower so I went over to my neighbor's apartment. Neighbor Grandma! (She is a Grandma) I was going to ask if I could use her shower. She explained to me she had no water at this moment and then became very concerned of what was going on in my house so she came over. She literally just walked into my house. Come on in Grandma. She went into my bathroom and saw the disaster of the toilet and shower. Began shouting things and then asked me if I had been flushing the toilet paper and I said yes. Then there was more shouting. She left my house came back with a plunger. I thought this is going to be fun! She told me to go get some gloves on and a bucket.

Let me remind you that our communication is based on the little shqip I have so she is very patient with me always. She began plunging my toilet which only lead to a series of events that were not so pretty. She plunged the toilet then everything preceded to come up through the shower and I mean everything. Let the imagination roll with this one. This had to be my worst nightmares because when it comes to bodily functions I want NO ONE to be looking at them let alone know what has come out of me. ( Ask the girls here, it is literally a fear of mine.) Yup....this was becoming a reality, it was happening she was plunging and then my job was scoping up everything in the shower into a bucket. I yelled at Andrea to come document this moment because I thought why not laugh about it at this point, but Grandma wasn't having it. So after the bucket was full it was my job to go empty it outside somewhere. As I make my way down the stairs carrying my poopy water splashing all over me I break down. Literally the situation that was at least not going anywhere was now everywhere. The situation was worse. Time was moving fast and we needed to be out the door in two hours and still no shower. I came back inside and told Grandma that someone was going to come over and take care of this situation because obviously it was going no where. She would plunge, I would pick up the crap and then dump it. But the problem was more than plunging. So I showed my gratitude and Grandma left. I shut the bathroom door and sat on the couch to get it together for a few minutes. (With my blankies thanks to Andrea) I asked Andrea if this was training for becoming a Mother and if it was I think I will pass. So I closed the door and we headed to Susans house for a quick shower. What a good site mate I have! We then rushed back got our stuff and I looked at the bathroom one more time. Water was now rushing from the bottom of the shower all over the bathroom and making its way to my living room. I couldn't believe that this was happening as we were literally walking out the door I was having a flood. I got the mop and tried to do what I could. Thats when I called Peace Corps and let them know the situation and that it was an emergency that my landlord come over right now because my house was going to flood. As I was mopping the area and trying to keep it one room Andrea was picking up everything off the ground and putting it on my bed so if it did spread everywhere the floor and rugs would just be wet. I had no choice, but to leave the situation, pray that they were coming and head out the door to catch the furgon or else we wouldn't be making it to our destination to start the trip. I was beyond overwhelmed with this situation and everything about Turkey. I thought why now as I am trying to leave the country? But life doesn't ask you permission to come and stir things up.. it just does. I can't control situations or people around me, but I can control how I react to them. I spent the next furgon with Andrea praying about it all. Praying for calmness in this crazy situation, for my landlord not to be angry with me, and to put my focus somewhere else right now. Sometimes the best thing to do when a situation is bad is just to leave it for a while get your thoughts together and come back to it when you have had a break. And thats what I was doing. There was nothing I could possibly do now and I had to realize that. You would think this is where it all ended ha I wish it was.

We then made our way to Carrie Ann's house ( another volunteer who would be running the marathon with me!) because from there we would be catching a furgon at five in the morning then making our way to Korce, taxi to a city in Greece (Thessaloniki) and then a train (wait for the story) I mean a bus into Turkey. We all decided to go out to pizza for dinner because it was the easiest thing to do. So as we were waiting for our pizza Rudi had called me from Peace Corps giving me the down low of my situation at my house. I owe a great THANK YOU to Rudi for being so kind to me during this whole event and tried to make things better. So the issue with the plumbing or the lesson learned is that nothing should EVER be flushed down the toilets here in Albania because there plumbing system can't handle much. I really felt horrible in this situation because my landlord was VERY upset with what had happened. It's times like this that I wish my language was a little sharper to explain to him that in no means did I want this to happen. I felt that I had disrespected him and his home. I know this property means a lot to him and he was trusting me to take care of it and I didn't. I wish he would know that I never meant to cause any of this. I hope he likes cookies! Anyways as I got off the phone with Rudi, Carrie Ann looked at her boyfriend and asked him if he had put the tube into the toilet before they left. For all you non- peace corps volunteers out there let me just put it this way. If this tube wasn't placed in the toilet there could be a flood. There was a miss communication so the tube was never placed into the toilet. Uh-OH. Raino ( her boyfriend) ran home to call Carrie Ann with the news that there had been a flood. She then left. Andrea and I sat there and couldn't believe the circumstances that surrounded us. I couldn't believe that this was happening to them. I thought that I was leaving behind everything and then this happened. I felt awful for them. Andrea and I sat there and tried to make the best of what we were left with. We waited for the pizzas gave them sometime and then made our way back to the apartment in the pouring rain. We got to the apartment to find them cleaning up everything. I didn't know what I would be walking into, but I just prayed for their spirits and that they wouldn't let this all ruin their excitement about leaving the country. And God does deliver because the circumstances that had not only been affecting me, but others around me didn't ruin how we felt about the journey that we had ahead. We headed to bed early because our journey was starting at four in the morning. We took a furgon to Korce then a taxi to Thessaloniki. At this point everything was running smoothly. We made our way across town and then to the train station to purchase our tickets for the next leg of our trip. There was an issue the train was on strike. As I stood behind the group and heard this news I wanted to break down because of all the circumstances that had surrounded me the past few weeks. It's funny how you expect things to always work accordingly to a certain plan a plan of your own, but why in the world do you think thats how everything else operates. It is really actually foolish to think that everything will always happen according to the plan you have in your head. As we were given the news we got together and decided to find some other means of transportation. At this point as I followed the group because no matter what I am the slowest walker and I thought how thankful I was to have Carrie Ann and Raino there. They really took the reigns on the whole situation with their amazing sense of direction and ambition to just find transportation. After about an hour of walking around the city we found transportation for Buses that would take us into Turkey. The bus was leaving at 10 at night and it was around 5. Throughout this time there was a lot of silence because I think everyone was playing out everything in their heads and now we could all breath. We gathered around a Starbucks ( how American of us) had a drink, read a little and relaxed before our ride. The ride was an adventure of itself stopping a few times in the middle of the night with everyone getting off the bus checking passports and luggage. By the time we arrived in Turkey I was going off of maybe a few hours asleep. It was so amazing to actually be there. I remember just getting off the bus and thinking hours before that maybe this wasn't going to be happening, but it did. We got there and I was so thrilled. We made our way to the Hostel and there we got settled and Andrea and I decided that running on a few hours of sleep was worth it because we were in Turkey so we went out to explore. By this time it was eleven in the afternoon.