Dita e verës known as the summer day is an ancient pagan feast, originally created in 

Elbasan, which is my hometown. Even though it's now a national feast, we are the ones who still celebrate it rigorously. 

In this day we all wear verore, which is a swirled bracelet made of two threads, a red and a white one. In two weeks we take it off and hang it in a rose branch, so that swallows can take it and use it as a construction material for their nests. This is considered as good luck.

Cooking ballokume is another tradition of this feast. In other cities people buy them in stores, but in Elbasan, we still cook them by ourselves. Then we exchange them with relatives and friends.

Important thing of the day: Lunch with family at your place! 

On the occasion of her 18th birthday, my best friend invited us on a one day trip to Voskopoje (Moschopolis/Voskopolis,Moscopole), a mountainous village about 3 hours away by car. We got there yesterday morning and waited the whole day for her birthday to come..

A drawing of us two in the window of our van.

Enjoy this two surprise videos we prepared for our best-friend's birthday while I'll be uploading pictures of the one day trip we took to celebrate it! The first one is a fast moving-pictures short movie with some special dedications and the second one is a video I made with drawings from our everyday life events and inside jokes that most probably nobody will get! However I hope you like them, because she sure did!

The final picture of our video and it says "Happy  birthday!"

There was this scarf, that I would rarely wear, in my closet. I really liked the pattern so I had this crazy idea of turning it into a headband. I'm really satisfied with the result and I hope you like it too. 

This is my best friend's new dog, Shila. It's a 3-months-old baby girl, and it's always sleepy. She's such a cutie! I don't usually like dogs, I prefer cats better, but I love this one..

Since the opening of the first albanian school in March the 7th 1878, this day is still a national feast in the honor of our teachers. In this day, we present them with flowers or gifts, usually symbolic ones.

We tried to be as creative as possible this time because this is our last year in this school. We want to be always remembered. 

I guess they liked them, as they shed tears of joy from excitement and astonishment. :)