Tirana Albania
- Thread starter Cycsk
- Start date
Looks like a big deal to me. No Americans at this event, however.
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U23 European Championships 2025 wrestling entry list
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U23 European Championships 2025 wrestling schedule
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Not asking for TMI, but what line of work do you do that has you end up in Albania for a conference?
Pretty sweet!
Pretty sweet!
Find out what Albanian translation is for "big sissy-pants" and go up and call them that. Report back.
It is a higher education conference. This group is famous for finding great out-of-season spots. Technically, we are at a resort in Durres right on the sea.
I've seen the Azerbaijan and Turkey teams at our hotel.
Today, we had to walk across their practice mats to get to our breakout room. Glad they weren't around yet!
I've seen the Azerbaijan and Turkey teams at our hotel.
Today, we had to walk across their practice mats to get to our breakout room. Glad they weren't around yet!
Find out what Albanian translation is for "big sissy-pants" and go up and call them that. Report back.
"pantallona të mëdha motër"
I will never hear Albania without thinking of Coach from Cheers
I just saw the funniest thing. The hotel here has double-booked several of its meeting rooms. So, while we are having our evening session at the top of a grand staircase, the wrestlers keep coming in to do their weigh-ins in the lobby at the bottom of the grand staircase and being very distracting. So our conference clerk keeps shooing them away. She told me, "No problem, I have four girls at home." Seriously, whenever they try to come in the lobby, she just waives her arms, blocks them, and refuses to let them in. If I tried to stop them, they would just beat me to a pulp. Her, they respect and walk away.
This is fascinating to me. Very few people have reports from Albania.
I was born in Politsani, Albania (a village in far southern Albania very close to the Greek border). My mom and I miraculously escaped from the brutal dictatorship of Enver Hohxia when I was almost 10. I wrote my autobiography in 2014 called “From Hell to Iowa”. Now it’s a free country and I visited Politsani last August. It was a very surreal experience for me.
Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to find the best 197 wrestler there and smuggle him to Ames in your carry-on. Good luck
When I went to Iowa State, I challenged myself to talk to as many people from other countries as I could to try to hear their stories. Growing up in small town Iowa, I had a strong desire to learn firsthand about other cultures.
I realize that a college student isn't necessarily a perfect representation of the struggles that people from their respective countries was dealing with, but it was a start. I heard stories about ruthless dictators, communism, oppression, arranged marriages, government-enforced food shortages, politically repressed social information, archaic gender discrimination, enormously unequal distributions of wealth, etc. I had countless hours of conversations in dorm rooms that would often spill into the early mornings.
To this day, I feel like the best knowledge I took away from Iowa State never came from a class. It was a greater understanding of other people in the world. I came out of college with a larger appreciation for the situation I was raised into.
