We’ve had another excellent week here in Albania. More living a normal life in Tirana and then getting out to see a little more of the country with a couple of day trips. Our normal life while we are in Tirana is filled mostly with breakfasts and lunches (Greek salads) at home and then going out to find something for dinner. Our workouts are usually in the great park by the apartment or the gym just around the corner. As needed, we get the grocery shopping done – so nice having a grocery store on the first floor of our building and a second option only five minutes away. Sandy keeps up with our laundry – we travel light, so we usually need to do some laundry once a week, but we can push it out to a couple of weeks if we need to. We watch our TV shows – still watching AGT and Frasier. We work on our journal and other general tasks that we all must deal with no matter where we live. Other than all of those “normal life” things, here are our highlights of this week in Albania.
Monday, we spent a lot of the day watching coverage of the peace deal between Israel and Hamas. Having just spent a few weeks in the Middle East, it all feels a little closer than it would if we hadn’t been there and made friends with people in the region. Hopefully this agreement can stand the test of time, but it’s all so very difficult given the long, long history of conflict. We had plans to go to dinner with Lucy (I met her on my trip up to the north of Albania), but she wasn’t feeling well. That was a bummer. Sandy and I still went to the restaurant she recommended – Chinese Garden – and had delicious food. We had been craving Chinese food, and she had commented on our hike that there aren’t any great Chinese restaurants in Tirana. We were very happy with her recommendation, and it only would have been better if she could have joined us. She was very sweet because she sent us screen shots of the menu and indicated the dishes from which she thought we should pick. Sandy enjoyed chicken and ginger sauce; I had chicken and mushroom soup and kung pao chicken.
Tuesday night, we went to the beautiful Air Albania Stadium to see the Albanian national soccer team play the Jordan national soccer team in a friendly.
Jordan has already qualified for next year’s World Cup and Albania is in the midst of qualifying but they did not have a group match this week, thus the friendly was scheduled. Security is as tight to get into the stadium as I have seen anywhere. Multiple pat-downs and you can’t bring coins in. I had some and they said we could go to the market across the street to change the coins into paper bills. Inside the stadium, the food options were less than ideal – we each had two hot dogs, and they weren’t that great. Our seats were down in the front row at midfield.
It was fun that the game was against Jordan – it gave us a chance to message between our friends in Jordan, who we knew would be watching the game because there are soccer fans amongst them. There is a lot of smoking across Albania and unfortunately, smoking is allowed in the stadium, so we each felt like we smoked a pack of cigarettes through the game. It was an exciting game – Albania won 4-2. The crowd was into it as you would expect at a national team game. Sandy thinks it was louder than a Depeche concert. After the hot dogs and inhaling all the smoke we stopped at Organic Corner on the way home to get detox juices to remind our bodies that we still care.
Wednesday was a guided day trip outside of Tirana. The bus picked us up at the meeting point (about five minutes from our apartment) at 10 and we met our guide for the day, Bledi. He was awesome. Great English, clear communications and directions, knowledgeable and passionate about the history of the area. Bledi is extremely mature for his 23 years. He left Albania at 14 to earn money in the UK for the family. He returned seven years later speaking excellent English which allowed him to become a tour guide. Leaving Tirana, we first went past the main stop of the day (Kruje) and up a small winding mountain road that had the acrophobes tensing up (there were moments when Sandy had to take a few deep breaths and not look out the window). We got to our first stop at the top of the mountain and had a nice panoramic view over central Albania and all the way out to the Mediterranean. It was hazy, so the views weren’t as clear as we’d have liked but it was a beautiful area.
There is a temple at this lookout that was built by the founder of the Bektashi religion. It is called Sarisalltik Temple, which was built in the late 1200s and is built into the mountain. The religion is related to Islam but carries some differences from other Islamic sects.
We then made our way back down the mountain to the city of Kruje. This is an historically significant city in Albania. Skanderbeg is the national hero of Albania. He had been given to the Ottoman empire as a hostage when he was young and underwent military training by the Turks through his early years. He was one of their most successful warriors in the expansion of their empire, but when they set sights on his homeland, he deserted along with 300 soldiers. He went to Kruje and eventually won three major battles and sieges against the Turks in the 1400s preventing them from taking Albania and delaying the Ottoman expansion (and Islam) into Europe. There is an olive tree that is now nearly 600 years old on the gorunds. It was planted by Skanderbeg and his wife on their wedding day in 1451.
The old bazaar and the castle at Kruje are very worthwhile sights to explore. Sandy explored the grounds and the bazaar more than I did as I spent the free time we had in the Skanderbeg Museum.
We met for a delicious lunch at the Panorama Restaurant and then headed back to the bus and Tirana.
Thursday gave Sandy a chance to have a Sandy day and me to have a Mike day. Sandy stayed in Tirana and spent her time exploring more of the Grand Park – we know the running trail around the lake very well, but there is so much more to explore. She didn’t sleep well the night before so she got a few more hours of sleep after I left at 5:30am. My day was a trip down to Berat. Given my enjoyment of figuring out public transportation options, I decided to go to Berat on my own instead of a guided tour. I had a great day. I took the Tirana city bus to the main bus terminal at 5:45am. At the bus terminal, it’s pretty easy to find the buses that are going to various cities around the country – they are marked on the front of the bus, but you can ask any of the drivers “Berat?” or whatever city you want to visit and they will point you in the right direction. It’s all cash only on the bus and you pay when you get off. My cost was 500 leks each way ($6) and the ride took about two hours to get to Berat and two-and-a-half hours to get back in the afternoon. In Berat, I explored both sides of the river. The houses from the Ottoman Empire days are still intact and lived in – some of these date back to the 1300s and you can see from the picture why the city is known as the city of 1,000 windows.
The castle area was interesting – it’s like its own small village with shops and people living inside the castle walls.
I visited a museum inside Saint Mary’s church that was filled with Byzantine icons and religious objects mostly from the 1600s. The audio guide for the museum was only 100 leks more than the museum entry and I found it to be very interesting.
I wanted to have lunch at a place that was closed, so I went across the bridge and ate at Eni Traditional Food Berat. I was very happy to find this place. I wanted to eat tave kosi (which is baked yogurt with lamb) and drink rakia (the national drink and it is usually very strong). They had both things and they were very friendly – just one of the wonderful characteristics of this country – it’s hospitality).
I was very happy with my exploration of Berat and then happy to get back to Tirana around 6pm to have dinner with my lovely wife.
Friday, we watched a fun documentary called Dear Albania. It is a short documentary by Eliza Dishku (an American actress with an Albanian background) and her discovery of the land where her grandparents came from. We went to get our favorite cookies and brownies from Your Brownie Guy – they are so addictive. Friday night, we went for burgers, wings, and Octoberfest beers at The Burger. We met the owner last weekend outside the opera house when we went to the ballet and wanted to try his restaurant. Good idea.
Today, we started with brunch at our favorite brunch spot – Mimoza n’Qoche and then we went out to the mall. We both need a refresh on some of our clothes. Sandy did most of her shopping when I went north so now I needed to get a few things. That all went well. This happens to be the two-year anniversary of my last day with Wells Fargo, so we decided to go out for a nice dinner to celebrate. We went to a steak place called Fix Experience and it was awesome. The environment is what we were looking for, the wine was good, the steaks were amazing. They brought bread with a cream blend and olives and prosciutto to get us started and then they brought us a plate of fruit to wrap things up. Definitely a great experience. And then, they are next door to Your Brownie Guy and guess what – we avoided more cookies and brownies. But we did see them (the brownie guy and his fiancé) and they gave us each a piece of baklava to try. It has been so fun getting to know them and see them several times during our residency in Tirana.
We finished the night watching an Albanian movie called Sworn Virgin, which dives into the code of a woman swearing virginity if she chooses to not marry the man she has been committed to by her parents. It was a slow movie but interesting in the context of learning more about the history of where we have been living. That tradition no longer exists.
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