Friday, July 16, 2010

Albania

After a week of not seeing my boyfriend (due to family visits) i was happy to spend a week with him in Albania. We drove from Kosovo to Dürres, Albania

It took 5 hours by car, we stopped once while waiting to get into the new tunnel and then to hand out passports at border control where once they saw I was from Iceland they asked Lumi "Where did you find here"... not surprising, since they probably don´t get a lot of Icelandic visitors. 


We stopped at a restaurant looking for a hotel and the owners of it told us they had a room for us. I was surprised but Lumi said this was how people raised money in the summertime. I trust him so we saw it, liked it and stayed there. It was 15 Euro a night (for both of us) and next to the beach. What a bargain. I loved how cheap Albania was.

We went to the beach during the day and then had dinner at different restaurants every night. The burgers there has the fries in the burger (not on the side). Turns out they eat the french fries first and then the burger. My stomach was still strange after the food in Kosovo so I mostly ate salat.

I loved the beach, I managed to avoid getting a sunburn by staying in the shadows. A miracle, since I´ve got such white skin I burn every holiday.

We also got temporary tattoos, me a rose and lumi the albanian flag icon, to remind us of this trip.


The thing I didn´t like, was seeing the gypsies or Roma people begging on the street without limbs. It broke my heart.

Once we drove back to Kosovo we stopped in Prizren, the oldest town in Kosovo, really beautiful little town. Then we drove home to Vushtrri, packed and I took the plane back to Vienna the next day.


Gotta love holidays, but I was happy to be back in a land, closer to my culture and where I could speak the language. Visiting other countries makes you appreciate yours.

No comments: