![Picture](/uploads/9/1/8/2/9182665/published/20170909-092613-copy.jpg?1506020526)
Anyway...the 'story' really starts the night to Saturday, two weeks ago. There's always a final party on the last Friday of each term, so...let's just say that I didn't get a lot of sleep. At 7AM, quite punctually, I left the Academy in a private car together with an Albanian student, and two Kosovan students. Originally, it was just supposed to be the Albanian student...and then I got to go with her rather than get dropped off in Skopje and having to take the 10h bus to Tirana (+ this would be free)...and then the Kosovans heard about it, so they asked if they could join too, since it'd be faster for them to join us because of where they live, rather than go with the rest of the Kosovans to Pristina, and from there to Prizren. So the car was fully seated, and I'd say it was pure luck that we could fit all the luggage in the back.
We headed for the Kosovan border, where I got a stamp in my passport. I had got stamps when I went to Kosovo last time as well, but I hadn't realized (or checked), so I was really jolly to have got a stamp. After all, you don't get that a lot these days, but better yet, my passport was expiring two weeks later, so it was the last chance to collect any.
We had a coffee on the Kosovan side, then put on some (loud) Albanian music that everyone was singing along to (except the driver, and obviously me...). We drove on beautiful mountain roads, and decided to take a 5-minute break at the company's training centre in the middle of nowhere, just to enjoy the view. There was no seminar or training going on, so no students when we got there, but a security/janitor guy who welcomed us out on the terrace which had...(I'm still a bit speechless)...stunning view. And it was a bit cloudy so the sun rays made the mountains even more dramatic. I could easily have spent more time there just enjoying the view, but realized everyone was waiting for me to get on so...we took some pictures (and selfies) though, and continued to Prizren.
The Kosovans were telling the Albanian, in Albanian, about the spring in Prizren, if from which you'd drink, you'd get married. He started explaining to me in English that 'there's this spring in Prizren...'
'And if you drink from it you'll get married?' I asked. I obviously knew from my previous visit.
He thought it was hilarious that I knew about it. So I told him that my friend had adviced me against drinking the water, because 'if you don't believe in it...that's when it'll happen!!' He found that funny too.
When we got to Prizren, I tried the spring water. Mostly because I was thirsty. So far, not married... We went to have lunch at the same place, and potentially even the same table, as I had had dinner at with my friend last time in Kosovo. I felt quite 'pro' eating the Balkan BBQ this time, the way they eat it. Just some meat and then you just eat the bread with your hands alongside it. One of the Kosovans paid for all of us before and without me evening noticing it... It's Balkan tradition: hosts pay - without question. Though this can cause conflict...as you'll see later.
We dropped the Kosovans off, said good-bye and hopefully see you again soon, and then continued towards the Albanian border. Now there was more space in the car so I sat in the passenger seat and the Albanian had the backseats to herself. The Albanian border control was very smooth and we drove straight into another beautiful, mountainous landscape, with a few raindrops in the air. There was still another 3 hours or so to Tirana, so I decided to sleep.
I woke up quite sleepy and, by that time, we had clearly got to a city. Tirana. The traffic was quite jammed and slow. We dropped the Albanian off, and then the driver called my friend to try to get directions to her house. Good enough that they could speak Albanian, but the driver did not speak a lot of English. He spoke some Italian though, like a lot of other Albanians, so we could get by with simple sentences in his Italian and my Spanish.
It was raining quite a bit when the driver stopped, and I could see my friend's husband wait for us, who I had met when they came to Skopje to visit. Soon after, my friend also came out, spoke a bit to the driver, then we said good-bye, thank you for the ride, and went inside. They also lived inside a gate. Once, and if the gate was closed, they didn't need to lock the door to their actual house. Unlike my friend's house in Kosovo though, it was quite small. A kitchen and a living room. A bathroom with a shower, but you had to go outside (but still inside the gate 'area') to go between. Their living room was also just accessible by first going outside, and then taking a spiral staircase to the second floor.
One of the first things my friend told me about was the water. They had a huge...tank I guess I can call it, outside the bathroom, with water that made a loud noise every time you turned the water on. Because apparently they don't have water 24/7 in Albania/Tirana...so they have that tank with water, just to actually have water at all times when you might need it - not for drinking though. I never found out when during the day or for how long they have water...
We were only at her house for like half an hour...then we got into their small car and headed off. First we were going to pick up another friend of ours who had been at work, and then we headed for Berat; a UNESCO town about 2h south of Tirana.
We stopped on the way to get fuel. There was a guy filling the tank for us, but both my friend's husband and my other friend got out of the car to pay him. It was quite funny to see them 'fight' over who should pay from the rear window. Even after...I think it was my friend's husband who 'won', my friend would try to stuff money down his pocket but he'd insist my friend take it back. And trust me, this was not the only time this happened.
Then we got to Berat, and what can I say...? It was beautiful. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
We walked past the old part of town, then up to the castle...wandered around for a bit...talked/caught up with each other, tried Albanian fruits called ide (ee-deh)...took plenty of photos, both of the place and of ourselves. It had got dark when we left. Headed back north. It was difficult to find our way though, as the roads were dark and there were not enough signposts to know where to go, which exits to take, or which turns to make. I spent most of the time trying to sleep though. It had been a long |
![Picture](/uploads/9/1/8/2/9182665/published/img-1622-copy.jpg?1506021940)
We stopped in Durrës, which is where my other friend actually lives, and all had a drink at a bar by the sea. Then we dropped him off nearby his house, and the rest of us headed back to Tirana, where we had a midnight dinner before going to sleep. We had planned to go out, but we were all just really exhausted, and I was even so tired that I had forgotten about those plans.
I spent my second day in Durrës. First my friend and her husband took me there. We met our friend in the same bar as we had been the night before. He was there with some friends, so we got a drink while waiting for him. We drove to nearby Golem just to see the beach (and have another drink), then went back to Durrës. My friend's husband had to be at work at 3PM so the two of them dropped me and my other friend off at a hostel in Durrës. He waited for me while I checked in, and then we sat outside in the hostel garden talking for, probably, well over an hour.
When we finally decided it was maybe time to be a bit more 'productive', we had both got hungry. So we decided to go get something to eat. We continued talking while walking, and I managed to 'secure' that I'd pay by saying - before getting to the restaurant - that I'd pay. It totally worked, and prevented any argument at the (very late) lunch table.
After lunch, my friend wanted to take me to a famous dessert place in Durrës (and of course, he this time made sure to use my own tactic against me and said he'd pay before we even got there...). We got pastries, then went to visit the amphitheatre...the archeological museum... Then he showed me where to take the bus the next day, and then we said good-night, as it was already dark, he was sort of getting/had a cold, and he had work the next day. I also enjoyed an early night off, though when I got to the hostel, one of the hostel volunteers, from Israel, invited me to go out shopping some stuff for the hostel with him. So I went. Ended up spending the rest of the night talking to a Swedish/Montenegrin man who...basically had had a pretty bad day, and a German guy, both of whom I was sharing rooms with, and a really enthusiastic Australian guy in the lobby.
My intention was to wake up as early as possible to spend as much time as possible in Krujë, before it'd start raining in the afternoon. However, the previous...nights had been short, and the days intense...so I don't think I got to the bus stop until about 11 o'clock. It was surprisingly easy to find the bus (sorry, shuttle) though that would take me to Fushë-Krujë, then I had to switch to a bright orange shuttle that drove the remaining way through mountain roads, to Krujë. It was 220 lek, or 1,65€ in total for both rides one way... It took around an hour and a half.
The fortress/castle of Krujë was really nice, but Krujë itself was different from what I had expected. I had googled it and seen pictures, and even though I had forgotten what the pictures had actually showed me...it was just different. I think maybe I was expecting to see more...or that it'd be more scenic. But really the only things to do there was to walk through the old bazaar, and because tourist season was heading towards its end, there weren't a lot of people there...which meant that even just looking at the things at any one shop, would guarantee that the shop owner came out and tried to get you inside. They had some decent things, but because of this, I sort of just hurried through it. They had lots of jewellery though...scarfs...souvenirs. Weird...sort of army helmets. Lots of stuff.
I went inside the fortress, saw the tower, went around the tiny 'streets' of the fortress, where some still people lived, visited the Skanderberg museum... It's quite funny that, even in these museums that must be getting loads of tourists during peak season, they don't have proper translations. One sign said 'in people's remember' instead of 'in people's memory'. Many of the things were quite funny. At another museum in Tirana, a sign read 'stop smoking'. Instead of just no smoking...
After having made sure I had seen the entire interior of the fortress, I went to look for a place to sit. I originally wanted to sit on the terrace, as there were so many places with a really nice view, but it had started getting really windy, and actually quite cold, so I eventually ended up having an ice tea inside in a restaurant. There was almost nobody else there, but I found wifi and could send my mum a message, as it was her birthday. (Birthdays seem to be a main theme of this post...)
I bought some postcards on my way back to...where the bus had dropped us off. I won't call it a bus stop, because there was no designated sign or actual stop. I also got some snacks to eat on the bus. Waited a bit under a half roof, as it had now started raining a bit, until I saw a small shuttle that was going back to Fushë-Krujë. It started raining more on the way, and by the time we got to Fushë-Krujë, and I had to switch bus, I pretty much got showered even though I was just running across the street.
I slept most of the way back to Durrës, though sometimes it rain in because the window at the front was open because there didn't seem to be any air condition in the shuttle... It was also raining in Durrës, though thankfully not as much, because it was a 5-minute walk or so, back to the hostel. Also, there were no traffic lights in Durrës, at least not as far as I could remember. Sometimes there'd even be like 4-lane streets with cars in both directions - and no lights. You just had to start walking, then the cars would stop. But you had to be secure about it, otherwise they wouldn't. So it was a strange proud feeling when you were the first one to step off the pavement and just, Balkan style... And then other people would follow, take advantage of the stopped cars.
![Picture](/uploads/9/1/8/2/9182665/published/20170912-150513-copy.jpg?1506022299)
Bunkart was...I guess sort of in the mountains. At least the roads weren't straight anymore. And the place was completely misrepresented on Google Maps, which meant I first walked in the wrong direction...or maybe it was the right direction, but Google Maps showed me there was a street straight ahead that would lead to the museum...but instead it was a closed road, with lots of construction sites. And a forest sort of. Basically, there was no way of getting to Bunkart from there. So I had to turn around, asked someone (who didn't really speak English) for directions, took another turn and then saw a sign that guided me to the right place.
Bunkart is, well, a bunker. It was built to withstand explosions, radioactive or chemical bombs and was just built out of paranoia, and never actually used. It was quite huge though, and the museum contained both the dictator's old room and the PM's. There were also a few art installations, and lots of pictures from the times of the dictatorship...other information about the history.
Afterwards, I headed for the cable cars, which was only a 5 minute walk from the museum - but the ride itself was about 15 minutes even higher up into the mountains and super steep at some points. Beautiful view of the entire city though, and it was quite a sunny day. Once up on Mount Dajt, I walked around for a bit. There's supposed to be like an outdoor activity park up there...and you could do some horse-riding and shooting balloons right outside the cable car station, but when I followed the signs towards the park, everything was pretty abandoned, and there was nobody around. There was a sign (and a building) for a Hotel Resort, but it looked like a ruin from the Jungle Book or something... Everything was just super deserted and weird.
When I got to something that looked like it could have been an old camp site, I decided to not walk any further. Though there was nothing there; the trees blocking the view of the city, no flowers, just a bit of forest and no bench or anything, I decided to stay there for a few minutes to enjoy the quietness and how far it was from everything and everyone. It was only on my way back that I strangely bumped into "lots" of people.
I took the cable cars back down, and then the bus back. My friend wouldn't be home for at least another hour or so, so I took the bus all the way into town, and then decided to walk from there back to her house. It was surprisingly short, so I still got back quite early, and just decided to start editing all the photos I had taken. From the last term (6 weeks, though I guess 7 with Albania) I have just over 600 photos.......
When my friend got home, and her husband with their son, we went into town to see the city center at night. It was quite different. Very lively, and a lot of people. Walked around for a while, then drove to a restaurant a bit outside of Tirana that had a view over the entire city. We got really nice Albanian (I think) lamb and goat meat with salad and baked potatoes for all of us to share, though their son was mostly playing at a playground that was part of the restaurant with some other kids he immediately befriended.
We got back quite late...maybe around 11PM. I had insisted that I'd get to the airport on my own, but they had still somehow won the argument, and my friend's husband was going to be taking me to the airport at 2.30AM. So I packed my back, got 2 or 3 hours of sleep... They both came downstairs when it was time to leave. She was going to go with us (have her son sleep in the car), but then I had asked what we'd do about my suitcase, because their car was so small... So then it was decided that I'd only go with her husband, and the suitcase would have to be in the backseat.
But when I woke up, I had two mysterious missed calls at 00.18. The numbers were from two different countries, but the number itself was the same. So I asked if I could use their phones to check that my flight was on time.
So...Albania... I've told you they don't have running water 24/7. Google Maps isn't up to date on Tirana either. And let's just say that Tirana airport only showed details of departures from the day before. So...somewhat starting to freak out, I went to the website of Ljubljana, where I was flying through and to. The arrivals read: Tirana - cancelled.
If you know me, then you know that I travel a lot. And even way more than I can fit or be bothered to bore you with on my blog...but I don't think my flight has ever been cancelled before. Strangely. Luckily.
I got to use my friend's phone to call one of the numbers that had called me, since it was Albanian. It was maybe the most informal call I've ever had. Someone picked, and somewhat unclearly introduced himself. I told the voice that someone had called me on this number and that I had seen that the flight had been cancelled.
He seemed to know my last name just by these facts and explained that yes, the flight had been cancelled. They were going to send me to Pristina, but it was too late, so instead I was to fly Air Serbia to Belgrade, then from there to Copenhagen. The flying, arrival and transit times would be approximately the same, but I had to come to the airport ASAP. I said I was already on my way out the door.
So, I said good-bye to my friend, and her husband helped me outside with the suitcase and into the backseat of the car. There was very little traffic to the airport, and strangely some of the streets were lit with 'decorative' red lights...but which must kinda look like landing lanes from above.
When we got to the airport, we had to go to the Adria airways booth to get new tickets. Something about their computer system wasn't working, no matter how many times they typed it in...I think we stood there for 30-60 minutes just waiting...and thank God I was the first in the line, because by the time we finally got a ticket, there were like 6-8 other people queuing behind us. If all of them would take an hour...I can't even imagine what it'd be like.
I got two so-called manual tickets, or in proper English; hand-written tickets. I was to stick to this other woman and her daughter, because the tickets were for the three of us, as they were also going to Copenhagen. In Belgrade, we'd have to go to the transit desk to get the hand-written ticket exchanged with a real one. They had spoken Albanian to my friend, but once on the plane, it turned out they were Swedish citizens and spoke Swedish fluently. That made things easier, since only the daughter spoke English otherwise.
I actually wanted to look around the duty-free for a bit because I had like 900 lek to get rid off, but because of how long it had taken to get those 'manual tickets', I had to go straight to the gate.
When we arrived to Belgrade, I went straight to the transit with the mother and daughter. They were quite paranoid because none of us knew how long we had until our next flight, and they thought we should ask if we were in the right queue/place for a proper ticket. My Icelandic spirit was quite calm though and tried to convince them that everything would be fine and that we were most probably in the right place. We would only have had 50 minutes in Ljubljana though, and when I booked the tickets, I remember having the option of going through Belgrade as well, and remember that the transit was approximately the same, so I knew we didn't have a lot of time. And sure enough, when I got onto the airport's wifi, I saw that we had 40 minutes until take-off.
Some guys were quite cheeky and skipped the queue so we could probably have got through quicker, but we still managed. I did the talking, when the woman asked what the problem had been causing us to have hand-written tickets. But she didn't complain, just printed some new tickets, talked a lot over her walkie-talkie which I could make out had to do with our luggage needing to urgently be transferred to the Copenhagen-flight.
We probably got our tickets around 25 minutes before take-off, but the gate was only a minute walk, or less, so we easily made it on time.
I wish everything had gone smoothly after this, but that was not quite the case; my dad had told me that the trains would maybe be cancelled part way home because of a class 1 storm warning. I got to Denmark and it was raining a bit...but hardly any wind at all. Once it's clear that the forecast won't come true, you'd think they'd let the trains run - but no... I was on the train for an hour or so, then I had to get off and take a bus for the remainder of the way. You'd also think that the bus specifically designed to replace the train would be synchronized with the train - but no... I had to wait for 40 minutes between arriving with the train and departing with the bus. Thankfully, the weather was quite nice, because I had no coat, no jacket...my suitcase had been packed for a 40°C heatwave in Macedonia! It was sunny and not too cold in the single-layered cardigan that I was wearing.
Needless to say, I got home somewhat later than expected, and completely exhausted - and wet; the rain caught up with us on the way and when dad picked me up it was pouring. Because of the short time I spent at home, then at the meeting, and travelling, I didn't fully recover from everything until yesterday. But most importantly, I had a great time. I am really looking forward to continue my travels, as my parents are coming down next weekend to celebrate my belated birthday, and I'll show them Prizren, and then we'll drive down to Shkodër in northern Albania and to Montenegro. So excited! So stay put!