The next day, Rushit, Shawn and I took a trip to the beach (well, they went to the beach. As for me, "I don't like the sand, I don't like the water.") I spent time wandering the steets of Ulcinj. Ulcinj is a small town of about 20,000 peolpe or so. It is on the coast near the border of Albania and is thus populated with about 90% Albanians of which most are Muslim. The other residents are Orthodox Christian. Now, expecting to be in Serbia/Montenegro, I had practiced Serbian words like 'hvala' and 'pivo'. I didn't realize that Albanian would have come in more handy. While the local Albanian population spoke Serbian, it would have just been more polite had I at least learnd the basics of their language.
Luckily, since Shawn and I were Rushit's roommates and we took a liking to each other, we spent alot of time together. Rushit would translate for us since, being from Kosovo, Albanian was his first language. The waiters at the Villa and pretty much everyone in town were Albanian, so it certainly helped to have Rushit around.
Random photo of the city...
Up in the Villa there were a number of restaurants which served primarily fresh seafood of the day. Here is a photo of the catch before being prepared for that evening's dinner.
I guess it was that evening that Vahida divvied up the art supplies. This came as a bit of a shock to Colleen and myself, as we were both from educational backgrounds that did away with disciplinary boundaries. I more recently have been doing photography and video and was not expecting to paint. I knew painting was certainly going to take place, but I didn't think it was the sole practice of the residency. And, as it turned out, it wasn't going to be the sole practice of the residency. But, more on that later.
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