Category: Uncategorized

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Albania Bari, Italy Uncategorized

Going Home

Well it’s very nice here in Bari but too expensive. I’ll be glad to get back home. The hotel’s free breakfast looked good but it was all heavy carbs…..pastries and other yummy stuff. So I just had that tablespoon of espresso and headed out to the train station. Ugh, it was raining! I suddenly wished I’d packed an umbrella but I did have my rain jacket.

I didn’t realize there were two train stations in Bari so naturally I went to the wrong one. I thought I’d be able to figure out the ticket machine but I couldn’t find destination Aeropuerto anywhere. I guess I was taking too long so a uniformed man came up and offered assistance. Oh the train that goes to the airport is in a different building, the one with blue windows! It was only about 100′ away.

I got my ticket (€5.20) and had only five minutes wait for the train. I was glad I’d left early because the next train wasn’t for 50 minutes. From the train station it’s about a ten minute walk to the airport but it goes through a long long tunnel so it’s out of the weather.

They tell you to be at the airport three hours before your flight for international flights but WizzAir’s check in desk doesn’t open until two hours before, so I had an hour to kill, and nowhere to sit! I got some euros from the ATM; that killed a whole two minutes. I had read that ATMs in Italy are fee free and I guess it’s true, because they didn’t charge a fee even at the airport!

Elevator doors at the airport

I decided to go have breakfast at McDonald’s. Yeah, I know what I said before but they do have keto friendly breakfast options. But not here. The breakfast offerings here were all croissants, rolls and muffins. I wandered around and the only other restaurants on this floor also only had rolls & pastries. I guess Italians are not into American style egg breakfasts at all.

The flight was pretty full but uneventful and coming back through Immigration in Tirana is just through two machines that look at your passport and then take your picture. I sure hope they recorded my entry, as that was the whole reason for going to Italy!

I walked to the back of the airport parking lot to the buses and I didn’t have to take the bus that goes to Tirana city center; I found a minibus that went straight to Vlorë! Almost. Several of us had to change to a different bus halfway there. It cost 1200 lek ($11 USD) and I was able to get dropped off at my usual city bus stop instead of going all the way to the far side of town. But I’d just missed a bus so I knew it would be a 15 minute wait. I just started walking towards home, in hard rain. I was soaked, cold and miserable when the bus did finally come along so I hopped on even though it was just one stop before mine.

I’m so glad to be home and so tired! Air travel sure isn’t fun any more., especially International travel.

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Albania Old Town Vlorë Albania Uncategorized Vlore

Old Town Vlorë

On Saturday a group of six entrepid explorers took a wonderful guided tour of Old Town Vlorë and the bazaar. It was led by our young expat friend Travis (age 32) who is a darling boy, with huge dimples…I want to adopt him!

L to R Vincent, Catherine, me, RJ, Dewayne and Travis

Travis walks 10+ miles every day so he knows where everything is, and since he’s on a strict budget here, the locations of all the best and cheapest cafes and restaurants.

Interesting story he told….he befriended a street dog and somehow got distracted and left behind his bag with about $300 of Airpods and other electronics on the beach. He went back the next day and it was still there where he left it! I’ve heard others say they had similar experiences here in Albania. Would that happen in your town?

We walked to Old Town and Travis showed us some of the really old buildings

Muradie Mosque built in 1537

He took us to a really cool little coffeeshop, Committee Cafe, where we sat in an enclosed patio full of banana trees and other lush vegetation

This was a whole wall of twigs inside the coffeeshop!

In the ladies’ room was this weird hole in the floor, which I think was an ancient toilet. Thank goodness it also had a modern toilet (though it had no seat)

These are some of the pretty little shops in Old Town, though I guess most of them are only open in summer.

RJ

And some ancient artifacts, just laying around. Vlorë was founded in the 6th century BC!

We ended up walking through the bazaar area which goes along several streets but it was late and most were all packed up already.

So we headed back to our starting point and Travis took us to a little tiny restaurant where we got roasted pork sandwiches that came with French fries, a little salad and some yogurt-cucumber sauce for around $2! But it was all tucked into a pita together. I don’t think I’ve ever seen french fries in a sandwich! Travis ordered me (Miss Fussy Eater) a plate with just meat and salad. There had to be close to a pound of meat there, for around $4.25 US! Vincent got a huge tray of food for 600 lek, about $5.50 US!

Vincent’s huge tray of food

RJ has a really accurate distance app and he said we walked 4.8 miles! I’m pretty sure I’ve never walked that far in my LIFE before, and I was really starting to wilt. For the last mile or so they kept telling me we were “almost there”, the big fat liars! But it was a really enjoyable day with a fun bunch, so it was well worth the mild shin splints and stiffness I’m experiencing today. I’d do it again in a heartbeat!

Stephen, a crazy Canadian and me at Game Night

I’m having so much fun here! But I am very happy to be spending all day today staying home reading and recovering from yesterday’s big hike. Tomorrow I take the bus to Tirana and stay overnight at a hotel near the airport and on Tuesday I take my $46 round trip flight to Bari, Italy, returning on Wednesday.

I saw this man walking his sheep on a leash right in the middle of the city! They stopped off at this tiny patch of grass for a snack.

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Albania Albania Dentistry Uncategorized

TEEF!

My dental issues have caused no small amount of problems and setbacks. I thought it was a simple matter of replacing existing crowns and two bridges on top. I forgot about my bad luck!

Getting crowns here involve three or four visits. First the prep work and impressions, then another visit to make sure the new bare metal or zircon crown fits and to be adjusted as needed. Then the lab adds the porcelain and there’s another visit to make sure it still fits (because now it’s thicker and larger than before). It then goes back to the lab for final color and polishing. Each of these visits are 2-3 days apart. I feel like I’m practically living at the dentist’s office!

I had the extraction and root root canal I already mentioned. Then she removed two old crowns on that same side and took impressions. They don’t do temporary crowns here so I was left with a really ugly ground-down “peg” of a tooth right in front!

At my next visit she greeted me with the words no one ever wants to hear, “We have a big problem “. As we age, our teeth get worn down, mine more than most because the enamel on my teeth is so thin. My bottom front teeth are extremely worn and are actually hollow, with the pulp exposed. I also am missing 3 bottom molars on each side, which allows the opposing teeth to float downward. The lab said I didn’t have enough space in my bite for the new bridge; it would raise that side and cause the teeth on the other side to not meet at all!

The solution was to do both sides at the same time and raise the whole bite. And another advantage would have is that it would even out the bite pressure along my whole mouth instead of the current excessive pressure on one side. That is what caused the porcelain veneer to pop off two crowns on that side in the past.

But wait, it’s not over! Because my lower front teeth are so worn, and worn so unevenly, none of the front teeth in the new 12 tooth upper bridge met the bottom teeth. There was a huge gap of more than 1/4″! Of course you don’t want the new upper teeth to be hanging way down and crooked just so they’ll meet those old bottom teeth, so she went to work with that carbon paper stuff that shows where the teeth meet, and ground down each side & back tooth of the bridge as much as she could. I still have a gap in front but it’s much smaller.

The bad part was that she then had to remove the 5 tooth bridge on the other side so I was left virtually toothless on top! I had one set of upper & lower teeth way at the back that still met each other, and the next day the crown fell off one of those poor overworked teeth! And I was stuck with three of those ugly little toothpegs qright in front! I looked like a very macabre jack-o-lantern for more than a week.

It looks like the Expat Game Nights are a weekly event! I had to skip last Friday because of my scary Miss Snaggletooth look, but I got the new teeth just one hour before this week’s event and it was lots of fun again. I’m a little worried that my extreme introvert tendencies will eventually chafe at having a weekly “commitment” but for now I’m loving it! It’s always a mix of really interesting people. This week we had people from Finland, England and Ukraine plus 7 Americans and one Canadian.

The final cost for one extraction, one root canal and 13 crowns was $1156 USD.

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Albania Uncategorized Vlore

Game Night

Last night there was an Expats Game Night at  Pizeri Amantia restaurant and I overcame my Extreme Introverted tendencies and actually forced myself to go! I’m still a little amazed at that. Like all good little introverts, I usually sign up for something that sounds really fun but then at the last minute I don’t go.

I’m so glad I went! It was so fun, and so nice to speak English again.  There were 11 people there; mostly Americans but also one each from England, Canada and Italy. I was happy to see that the other expats weren’t all 20-somethings, though of course I was the oldest by a long shot and also had the most “seniority ” in Albania. Several had only just arrived.  There was lots of raucous chatting, laughing, eating and a really fun game called Dixit. It’s an Italian restaurant and most people were eating delicious-looking pizza (around $5-6 for a big pizza!) And it was really hard to have to sit there and smell that pizza aroma and not be able to partake. But I survived,  and really had a great time. I hope this is the start of regular expat gatherings and maybe even some small group travel to other cities.

I’m so jealous of all the places these young kids have been….Thailand, Germany, Bali. All over the world, made possible by being able to work on line.  The other day I went to breakfast with Catherine and we met a young guy from Poland who was looking to put more distance from the Russian army. He worked for a  S. Korean company,  spoke perfect English and was buying a brand new one bedroom apartment one block from the sea for $85k US. It’s the building right behind mine and I’ve been watching the construction proceed. I find it amazing that those guys just scamper around on narrow scaffolding 7 or 8 stories above the ground.

When I was young I always wanted to do the backpacking through Europe thing. I’d look up the Eurailpasses and hostel information and figure costs, but I never could afford it.

I was thrilled last week to find a source for ziplock sandwich bags! They’re quite rare, in fact all ziplock bags are a little hard to find.

I also went to my favorite fish store to buy frozen sardines. The fresh ones are half the price but are not cleaned and while I know how to clean fish, I’m happy to pay double for them to do it. The cleaned ones are $.85 a pound. But I accidentally picked up something else. They’re really skinny like sardines but once I got them home I realized my mistake….They’re about 9-12″ long and they don’t have any fins. I think they’re baby eels! I haven’t decided if I’m going to try and eat them or not but I’m leaning towards NOT. This one is 12″ long!

I went for an early walk on the beach the morning after a windy day and found some treasures.  I love the round one; it’s a sea urchin shell.

I just realized a couple things. There’s no packaged sandwich bread in the supermarkets. You get bread from a bakery and it costs around $.60 a loaf. The other thing is that Albania has 20% tax on nearly everything you buy! (And I thought Arizona’s 8.5% sales tax was bad!) It’s included in the marked price on each item though so there’s no big shock at the end of checkout. Except that very often the price marked on the shelf is way lower (as much as $1.50!) than the actual price at checkout. What can I say? It’s an Albania thing. Oh 3 things. You can’t get cash back with your debit card. It’s very much a cash society here. Some stores will take a card if you’re spending more than $10-15 but none will give any cash back.

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Albania Albania Residency Dentistry in Albania Uncategorized

Summer Plans & Residency

I’ve had a busy morning!  I am proceeding with my plan to apply for residency. I have to leave the country and reenter because the application has to be submitted within 30 days of entry. So I leave for one day, come back and my entry date is fresh and new! I booked a flight on a discount airline called WizzAir. $48 rd trip from Tirana to a little town in Italy’s “bootheel” called Bari on March 14, returning the 15th. I booked a hotel for $80 that’s close to the city center and the rail line from the airport.

My landlords rent my apartment in summer for $2000 a month! (I pay €250, about $277.) So I will have to be gone from June 15 until September 1. If I have my Residency I won’t have to go to a different country, which is really good because my health insurance is only valid in Albania. At my “advanced age” the cheapest travel insurance I could find for neighboring countries cost $660 for that 2.5 month period! (My Albanian insurance is only $100 a year). So I started searching Airbnb for somewhere to live this summer. It had to be away from the ultra-expensive coast. Places are already going fast and I couldn’t find any decent sized city that’s really cheap. I booked an apartment in Shkoder (Northern Albania) for June 15 until September 1. Quite pricey, $523 a month! But that includes utilities, which could run as much as $80+ in summer.

Shkoder is on Europe’s largest lake which also is half in Montenegro. They have some pretty cool kayak trips on the lake to twoq restricted-access bird sanctuaries and also boat trips to Komani Lake and Shala River which I’m really excited about. Shala River is beautifully turquoise and clear, really pretty. 

Shala River

So now I feel like I can relax a bit. I still need to go to the US Embassy and swear a notarized affidavit that I’m not a criminal. I was hoping to do that on the day I fly back from Bari but the Embassy’s last appointment is at 1 pm and my flight gets in at 12:50, so no. I’ll have to make a special trip. It’s about 2 hours and $9.25 each way on the bus.

I had to get a tooth pulled last week and it was a doozy, with a curved root plus it was broken off at the gumline and split vertically, so it was hard to remove. Glad that’s over! Tomorrow I get a root canal and then in a week or so I’ll have the two new 5 tooth bridges and I can smile again! It cost $9.25 to get the tooth pulled and the root canal costs $56.

I’ve made a friend! She’s a 61 year old retired from the US Forest Service. We met for lunch and had a nice time and are meeting for breakfast on Wednesday. For lunch we just walked along the promenade looking at the menu boards and chose a restaurant that looked promising. One place offered grilled goat or lamb for 1000 lek ($9.25), grilled guts for 500 lek and whole sheep’s head for 400 lek. Yeah…didn’t go there!

Those who know me well know that I’m an extremely fussy eater. It’s been said that I have the taste buds of an 8 year old boy. And eating low carb makes it even harder to eat in restaurants.

I can’t remember the name of the restaurant we chose but I’ll walk back over that way soon and find out, though I hope no one is reading my blog for restaurant recommendations; if so they must be sorely disappointed! This was the first time I’ve eaten out since I got here almost 4 months ago!

So I was tempted to just order a nice safe omelet for $2.30 but I decided to be really adventurous and ordered a whole grilled fish, including the head which had a lot of really sharp little teeth! It came with scrumptious hand cut french fries which nearly killed me to resist gobbling up. I only ate one. This was a pretty expensive meal at $10 US but it was excellent!

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Uncategorized

Elevator Fun

I needed more almond flour. I guess it’s like childbirth; you forget what a pain it was the last time around! I stupidly decided to make twice as much as the first time. I forgot all about having to de-skin them all! This time I blanched them in the boiling water for almost twice as long and that did make it easier but who knew two cups of almonds would turn into two billion of the darn things when you start undressing them! My poor arthritic thumbs! They don’t normally hurt but this was torture, and they have to be skinned while they’re still wet. Now they have to dry out for a couple days, then ground up in the little coffee grinder, a little bit at a time.

With my elevator broken and no way of knowing when it might be fixed (but probably not soon) the rental agent proposed temporarily moving some of my stuff to a different apartment until the elevator is fixed, then move back.

Maxim (my landlord, I guess he works for them) took me to see the new place. It’s directly behind my place, with a front sea view. It was very nice, a small one bedroom with sofabed in the living room.

And when we got back to the office, they told me that my elevator was working again!!! So I walked back with Maxim and sure enough, it worked. I hadn’t even bothered to try it this morning. It’s not permanently fixed, just temporary. So I’m not moving….. today, anyway. I just hope that I’m not IN the elevator when it decides to break again. And that the worn out parts are not the ones that might send me plunging wildly down to the ground floor at the speed of light. Wheeeeeeee!

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Albania Uncategorized Vlore

Never a Dull Moment

So. More changes. I don’t fully know the extent of them just yet. A friend who’s in the know advised me to go ahead and apply for Residency now instead of waiting until I’ve been here the full 12 months of free visa for Americans. It seems the European Union is pressuring member countries to set the income requirements to €2000 euros a month. Albania is not an EU member but they have applied, so they would have to comply at some point. And the changes usually happen without advance warning. For instance in February of last year, Albania withdrew the 12 month free Visa for Americans without warning  and suddenly there were a whole bunch of Expats who had overstayed the new 90 day visa! Eventually they ruled that if they had entered before January, they’d be grandfathered in. And then a few months later they completely reversed the decision and the 12 month visa was back!

Without warning, Cyprus raised their income requirement from €900 a month (same as here) to €2000, plus raised the bank deposit requirement from €10,000 to €24,000 (a year’s expenses) effective January 1. Several other European Union countries require bank deposits of €10,000 to €25,000. If this happened here, I’d be ineligible!

So I’m applying for Residency now. I need to supply an Apostilled (special certification by the US Government) income statement from Social Security, a certification that I’m not a criminal (available from the US Embassy in Tirana), an Albanian bank account for direct deposit of my income, proof of health insurance and at least a one year notarized apartment lease. And you have to apply within 30 days of entering the country, so I have to leave and come back to reset my entry date.

I already feel completely overwhelmed by all this! I have contracted a facilitator to help me wade through it all. It’s going to end up costing $1000-1200 before it’s all done.

I checked and getting an Apostille is easy enough and only costs $20. But the government website advises a 10-12 week wait time! So I had to use an Apostille service that hand-carries the documents to the Apostille office. It cost $150 but they got it done the same day! It is already on the way to my friend Raquel, who will send it to the facilitator in Tirana via DHL. The shipping cost for that is approximately $147!!

Next I spent half the day yesterday researching the cheapest and easiest way to leave the country and reenter. I’m going to Italy! For one whole day! I can fly to Bari (just north of Italy’s “bootheel”) for $47 round trip on Wizz Air, get a $70 hotel for the night and return the next day at around 1 pm which will allow time for visiting the Embassy for my criminal check, and still get back home that same day. I think it’s a two hour bus trip to Tirana.

I really was dreading to ask about getting a notarized apartment lease because it involves the owners having to file and pay 15% tax on the rental income. A lot of apartment owners just don’t want to be bothered. But I decided to go visit the rental again and get her to ask.

The elevator here has been out of order for five days! And due to the thick cement floors and 10′ ceilings here, that means 90 stairsteps. It’s terrible on my poor knees, especially when carrying a bunch of groceries and a 7 liter jug of water. When I finally got to the ground floor yesterday, I saw a sign on the elevator. It says the elevator is broken and the parts to fix it cost €1300. The apartment owners must pay for the parts before they’ll order them, and once ordered, it will take at least a month to get the parts. How long will it take to collect that money from all the mostly absentee owners??

So just like that, the being elevatorless took precedence over getting a new lease. I can’t live on the 6th floor without an elevator; I just can’t. So I may have to move. The rental agent is out of town until Tuesday. Back when I was apartment hunting, the owner of this apartment also showed me a one bedroom apartment in an adjacent building; maybe he owns both? I don’t remember a thing about that other apartment but I think it was cute. I don’t remember anything bad about it, I just liked this one better. If I have to move I’d really like to stay in this neighborhood. The one bedroom unit would be cheaper too, as if I stay here all year long my rent will probably increase by about $100 a month!

So I’m not going to N. Macedonia for the summer. I canceled my Airbnb in Ohrid, and was penalized 30 days’ rental fee plus some service fees….$545! Gulp. But that’s somewhat offset by not having to pay the other two months’ $465 a month rent plus $450 for travel insurance required to enter the country. I’m relieved about that; I didn’t want to go and have my apartment taken over by casual renters who might spill things on the sofa or scratch the new glass cooktop, etc. I can’t imagine what the summer will be like here, with triple the population. The traffic and parking are already awful and the buses are often Standing Room Only! It’ll be interesting, I’m sure.

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Albania Uncategorized

My Kitchen Smells Like Camping (and other trivialities)

My kitchen smells like camping! I had the hardest time figuring out why, or what the smell actually reminded me of. Then it hit me; it was my new trash can liners, and they smell exactly like that blue liquid they use in porta-johns! HAH! Not exactly the most favorite camping fragrance I’d pick, but hey, at least it’s the smell of unused porta-johns. Could be worse.

I’m learning that the weather forecasters here are even more inaccurate than the ones in the US. Rain was forecast every day for 10 days. They’re still saying that and this is the 5th bright sunny day in a row. I plan my trips into the city around the weather because I really don’t want to get caught on foot in a downpour.

I went into the city a few days ago and spent a small fortune ($40) on stuff like a dish drainer, fleece throw, some mixing bowls, a bedside lamp, a few Christmas decorations and other goodies. I got a little 8″ Christmas tree and a hanging decoration with pinecones & ribbon but then I discovered I don’t have anyplace to hang it! The walls here are all concrete. So I hung it on the corner of the TV, since I never watch it, it won’t be in the way. My best find was this little gizmo that helps open jars and bottles. I don’t know how I ever lived without it!

I wanted to also go to the meat store. I can’t believe I haven’t made it there yet but I turned out to be way overloaded with three bulky bags already so I couldn’t go this trip either. But I did pass a little fish store and bought a half kilo (1.1#) of tiny fishies, 3-4″ long. For $.88 US! There were 3 different kinds of fish and I don’t know what any of them were but I think some were sardines. I had to clean them myself which was kind of a pain but boy were they good! I just lightly fried them and they tasted very much like smelt and I ate them the same way….bones & all. Now I want to go back and get lots more to clean and freeze.

I just love all the closet space in my bedroom. It spans the whole 14′ length of wall! I need a lot more clothes to even come close to filling it up!

I’ve noticed the older women like me mostly wear dresses or skirts below the knee. I guess that’s why most Albanians know to speak to me in English; old Albanian women don’t wear jeans! The younger people dress very differently too. They might wear jeans but also a lot of dressier pants and matched sweatpants and tops. Nobody here looks grungy, they’re all very neat and clean. Men don’t have long hair. Definitely no droopy pants on boys or young men! A lot of the men use messenger bags, man-purses or fanny packs. And nobody wears tee shirts with crazy patterns or sayings, usually if it’s a tee shirt, it’s plain or it has Adidas or Nike logos.

I went over to my little local grocery this morning and for the first time, noticed that there’s a bakery right around the corner! So I wandered by but didn’t buy anything. Bread or foccacia costs $.50. I might go there and splurge and try an Albanian dessert on my birthday. 0

Right outside the grocery is a little produce stand. The produce is super cheap, cheaper even than the one on Sarandë! Plus the lady is very cheerful and smiley, unlike the ladies in Sarandë who always seemed grumpy. I got a gigantic leek, two onions, 3 potatoes, two kiwi and 2 lemons for $.83!

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Albania Uncategorized Vlore

Vlorë Day 1

Today was our time change! I don’t know why we’re a week ahead of you. I found the right bus in Vlorë and paid 1000 Lek ($8.45). It was a “furgon”, a large van that seated about 24 people.

We left right on time and I thought it was a 2.5 hour trip. Nope! Ot actually took 4 hours to go about 85 miles. The driver kept stopping to pick up more people waiting at the roadside along the way. I sat right behind the driver so I could see out the windshield. He spent the whole time either talking on the phone, texting or turning around talking to guy across the aisle from me. It was a little nerve-wracking.

Halfway there we stopped for a rest break at a place that had a little restaurant and a little restroom building. Uh oh, I had to go pretty badly and had left my phone on the bus, so I couldn’t translate and I didn’t know which side was for women and which for men! I waited until I saw a man come out and chose a cubicle on the other side. (I’m a GRA) What a surprise….my very first floor toilet!

I’m a GRA
Yep, that’s the toilet!

Then after a while we came to a roundabout where Vlorë was one way and Tirana was the other. The driver made me and 3 others get off the bus at the side of the road! I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one. After about 10 minutes another furgon came along and picked us up and took us into Vlorë, for an additional $3. I took a taxi out to the apartment complex. It was at least 1/2 off the main drag, up a really steep twisty hill. I went where the taxi guy pointed but couldn’t find the office. Turns out, I was supposed to go to their office in town! I wasted $8 on a taxi and the agent had come out, pick me up and drive me back to town. She suggested I stay at a different apartment in town, and I jumped on that idea because there’s no way I could have hiked that hill to get to amd from the bus!

So this place is cute but weird. The kitchen is enclosed but in order to get to it, you have to go out on the terrace first! It’s obvious that they just enclosed part of the balcony. It’s odd because there’s actually room inside the apartment for a little kitchen. Oh well. It’s a studio with bathroom, bed, sofa and table. And the little outdoor kitchen. It’s just 1/2 block from the beach and there’s a little market right next door!

The entry to the kitchen….from the balcony!

The kitchen has a two burner electronic hot plate, similar to the stove in Ecuador that I struggled with so much. And guess what, just like the stove in Ecuador, I can’t get the darn thing to obey my commands. It shows that it’s locked and nothing I do changes it’s evil little mind. So tonight’s dinner was cold ham and some cheese and walnuts. I won’t be able to have my nightly cup of decaf, which is pretty close to a National Emergency in my mind! I’ll have to go get help from the agent tomorrow morning; their office is directly across the street.

So tomorrow starts the apartment hunting! Wish me luck!

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Albania Uncategorized

Summer Plans

On Sunday I have to put on my Adventure Girl hat and Big Girl panties and take the bus to Vlorë to look for a new apartment.  I hate not knowing EXACTLY how to do this, how much it costs and how to get from the bus station to the rental agent’s office to check into the little Airbnb studio apt. I’m renting for the next 6 nights. The agent said it was an easy walk from the bus station but I just pulled up the directions and it’s 1.2 miles! With a heavy backpack plus a day pack. Maybe I’ll spring for a taxi…..that’ll probably cost more than the 2.5 hour bus trip, which is $5 I think. The bus to Vlorë is in a furgon, a large van that holds about a dozen people. I’ll have to catch the 9:53 bus to town and then hang out for nearly an hour to wait for the 11:00 furgon to Vlorë. Ugh.aà

And that’s another thing, the bus goes through some really twisty turns roads and I guess I should wear one of the expensive Transderm Scop patches that go behind the ear. They work really great and are good for three days. For someone like me who gets sick on swings, they’re a lifesaver! Better to waste one than maybe have to use a barf bag. I was okay coming to Sarandë in a car but the bus sway is probably way different. 

I cannot believe this…they dragged that nasty old camper away! I was so happy! Then it came back a few hours later, with wheels under it now but with two flat tires! So it’s still being dragged, not rolled. Crazy! I got a close-up photo of it last week…..it’s coming apart at the seams! It’s a wonder it doesn’t just disintegrate on the road. The liquor bottle shoved into the gap is a nice touch, eh?  Or maybe it was trying to escape from the inside.

I’ve got my summer plans figured out. I’m going to leave the country for 90 days, June through August. I’ll skip the super high summer rents and hordes of tourists in Vlorë and when I return, I’ll get another 12 months free visa in Albania. So I’m going to Ohrid, North Macedonia. It’s just over the NE border and on huge Lake Ohrid, and the summer highs are only around 80. There’s really cheap kayak trips & rentals on the lake; I’m really excited about being able to kayak again! It’s not cheap though, a one roomà studio apartment was $430 a month. And…yet another strange language, and the Cyrillic alphabet! Won’t that be fun.

Here’s the little apartment I’m getting. Not much of a kitchen but everything else that’s still available was way more expensive. Seems crazy that reserving an apartment 8 months in advance is too late! https://abnb.me/gZeAX6Suuub

Then I have to come back through Greece. I have to be out of Albania for 90 days but can only be in N. Macedonia for 90 days, and both countries count the day you arrive and the day you leave. Anyway, to be away for 90 days without overstaying in the second country,  you have to go to a third country for one night. I’ve booked 3 nights at a hotel in Florina, Greece which is pretty close to Ohrid. (Today’s Geography lesson!) It’s $90 for all three nights. So….yet another foreign language and alphabet. Ain’t Life Grand!

I am hoping that when I come back next fall I can move back into the same winter apartment in Vlorë. I’ve been studying the ads on the MerrJep website and there are quite a few “student” apartments that rent from September or October until June every year. After studying the ads I feel pretty confident that I can find a nice well-appointed apartment for $200-300 a month. I think I want to be in the city center next time, rather than have a long walk from the seaside. But at least the buses in Vlorë run every 15 minutes, not just once an hour like here.

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Albania Uncategorized

Apartment Hunting & Summer Plans

I’m going to take the bus to Vlorë on Sunday, to try and find an apartment to rent from now until summer. I’ll be there for 6 days. I contacted a few agents who have apartments for rent but so far nothing has been exactly right. Maybe I’m too fussy, but I’d like a place that has heat and air conditioning,  and maybe a stove in the kitchen? This one place was really beautiful but no stove or refrigerator in the kitchen?? Oh HERE they are, out on the balcony about 15′ from the rest of the kitchen! And this was not a cheap place  either! Yeah….no.

I’m learning that yes, you can find apartments for $180-250 a month but they are most likely in older buildings without elevators, heat and AC, or maybe stoves in the kitchen! $300 seems to be the norm for a nice apartment with all the modern conveniences we wimpy Americans want.

My requirements are that it be on a lower floor (4th or below) with an elevator because they do have power outages here and having to hike up 5-7 flights or steps would probably do irreparable harm to my fragile knees. It’s not like a flight of stairs in a house! These buildings have thick cement floors and 10′ ceilings. Getting from ground floor level to my 3rd floor apartment means 54 steps! (Huff  puff!) I also need a good kitchen, stove with an oven, microwave or space to put one and an outlet to plug one into. My apartment here is only 10 years old, very modern, yet there’s only one electrical outlet in the kitchen! And not a duplex outlet, just one. If I wanted to use an appliance,  I’d first have to unplug the microwave. Perhaps that’s why there are no appliances here. Most Airbnbs provide at least a coffeemaker!

I spent hours poring over the apartment ads on the Century21 and Remax websites, only to find that they are woefully out of date. None of the apartments I was interested in were available. 

I have a few more resources plus there’s an online website called MerrJep,à similar to Craigslist that lists a lot of apartments for rent.

I have learned that getting Residency is fairly easy but costs about $600, plus it requires Apostilled documents from the US that a friend would have to get for me and send. And an Albanian bank account is required, plus a one year notarized apartment lease. It seems to be a lot of red tape and it’s only good for a year, then the whole thing must be repeated! After 5 years of doing this I could apply for permanent Residency.

But Americans can come here and get a free 12 month visa. After the 12 months are up  you leave the country for 90 days, then come back and get another 12 months. So that’s what I’m going to do for this first year anyway. I’m looking at spending the summer in either Pristina, Kosovo or Ohrid, North Macedonia. Ohrid would be my first choice, as it’s just a 6 hour bus trip from Vlorë. It’s on a big lake, with lots of kayak rental places! It’s cooler than the south coast, plus I’d escape the summer crowds.

I was going to go to town yesterday but looked out and saw the huge cruise ship Oosterdam in port. It holds up to 4,000 passengers so there’s no way I wanted to get into that mess! It blasted it’s whistle as it was steaming away.

I finally made it to the good meat store this morning! It was quite a hike but well worth it. Another meat store I went to had ground beef for 1500 Leki per kilo! That’s $5.67 a pound! Of course it’s all grass-fed, but that still seems outrageous for here. So the A Stillo Shpk meat market had it for 900 Leki, $3.45 a pound. I spent $47 there and now I’m all stocked up for a while. I got 2 kilos (4.4#) of the ground beef, a nice beef roast, some pork chops ($2.88/lb), a pork roast and some chicken breasts.

I passed a guy on the sidewalk selling the biggest walnuts I’ve ever seen so I had to get some. He didn’t speak English and he also started shoveling some normal sized blackish walnuts into the bag. A passerby said the dark ones were local, the big ones were from the north but they were both the same price. So I got some of each, mainly because I didn’t know how to refuse. A huge bag of them cost $4. The big ones are 2 1/2″ long!

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Mango Beach

I ventured out to find a beach I could walk on today! Mango Beach is just a couple blocks from here. As I’ve mentioned before, Sarandë’s mountains start at the water and go right up. For instance, my apartment building has some (vacant) shops at street level that are about 20′ deep. My apartment is right behind the shops. So at the front my apartment is on the first floor. At my balcony however, that’s about 30′ back from the street, I’m three floors up! And my beach is about 40′ below that. That’s how steep it is here.

So to get down to the beach level I had to walk down a really steep ramp and then some stairs. It’s so steep, I’d be afraid of losing my footing if it was wet!

I got down to the beach and was able to walk quite a ways. The beaches here are not sandy, they are deep gravel that’s hard to walk on…great exercise but really tiring.

The water is gin-clear and it gets deep really quickly, if you walk in about 4′ it’s already waist deep! It seemed comfortably warm.

In summer this beach would be wall to wall beach loungers and umbrellas, for which you’d have to pay $7-10 a day. Sadly, most beaches here are private like this. You can walk along the beach but you can’t sit down!

I accidentally took this little video

I walked a ways and then tried to find a way back up to the road. I saw a couple stairways that turned out to be dead ends, either they were all overgrown or I couldn’t find a way to get to them without entering one of the beachfront hotels. I ended up going all the way back to where I’d come in. There might be a better way but I didn’t find it today. This stairway shows how steep the hill is. It would have been handy but it was all overgrown and trashy at the bottom.

I was pooped when I finally climbed back up to street level on that ramp! I went on up a few more blocks to Planet Market and lugged home another 8 liter bottle of drinking water.

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Cheese

I love cheese….super sharp cheddar, nice creamy havarti, maybe a jalapeno jack and mozzarella or provolone on pizza. That’s about my repertoire of cheese. Sadly I’m absolutely not an adventurous eater!

I haven’t found any acceptable cheeses here yet. I haven’t given up hope though, given the fact that shopping at the local stores is only slightly above the equivalent of grocery shopping at a convenience store.

Today I bought three cheeses to try. Something they call “cheddar”, though if it’s like the cheddar in Ecuador, it’s very mild. And something just called “sandwich cheese” (a mystery!). The third one is WAY out of my comfort zone, a wedge of local Kackavall, pronounced “cashkavall”.

I read that it’s a salty semi-soft cheese, the second most popular cheese here after feta, which I just recently tried for the first time and hated the texture.

I didn’t realize there was important information on the other side until I got it home….

SHEEP CHEESE! Ewww?! I had to go put on my Big Girl Panties for this one. Milk is milk, I told myself. Right? So I tried it. It is salty, okay that’s nice; I like salt. It seems more like a hard cheese than semi-soft, at least it’s harder than cheddar. And…. it’s okay. Maybe slightly better than just okay. Maybe a little rubbery though?

I think the jury’s still out on this one as a go-to snack. I’m pinning my hopes on the one they call “cheddar” but in the store they also had Edam, which I haven’t tried yet. There’s still hope! The stores all also have mozzarella but unless I really throw my diet, pizza is not a good choice.

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Albania Sarandë Albania Uncategorized

To The Beach at Last!

I finally made it down to the beach! Most of the beaches in Albania are private. If you want to sit there you have to pay $7-9 a day to rent beach loungers with an umbrella; you can’t just plop down on your towel. The beach in front of the apartment is “wild” (public). I am about two blocks in each direction from very popular private beaches, Mango and Flamingo.

I didn’t go down to the water because I was wearing flip-flops and it looked like an ankle-breaker. This part of Albania is mountainous and they start at the sea and go straight up! So the path down to the water is steep and rocky. My apartment building is the one on the left and I’m around the left side.

Here it was about in the middle of the tides; high tide was in 3 hours. The tides only vary about 8″. It was pretty windy again so the waves are bigger than normal.

It certainly isn’t the kind of beach you’d be able to walk along for very far, but it’s pretty. The beaches here are gravel, not sand. Other cities do have sandy beaches. In town there’s a nice promenade all along the beach. That’s the city of Sarande in the second and third photos. I’m about a mile from the main part of town.

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Albania Sarandë Albania Uncategorized

Another Beautiful Day

Yesterday was quite breezy, with gusts up to 47 mph! I thought I left that kind of wind behind in Arizona. But it was pleasant inside with the slider open and I didn’t need to use the AC.

Yet another early morning shopping trip because it’s supposed to be 86° today. (I really need to learn Celsius) In addition to the other stuff I bought an 8 liter bottle of water…..1.75 gallons. It cost $1.10, the same as only two of the 1.5 liter bottles. I had a hard time bringing it home though; it weighs 15# and only has a small plastic handle. Both hands wore out within the first block and I ended up carrying it in my arms like a baby. Next time I’ll buy it from the little store across the street! Even if it costs a little more there, it’ll be worth it. They don’t seem to use the big 5 gallon jugs of water in a dispenser here but it’s probably just as well; I probably couldn’t lift one high enough to get it into the dispenser.

I still can’t find a lot of items on my list. At this point I’m trying to get the basics, as I’m starting with nothing. I hope to do better once I figure out how to find the big supermarket in town but right now I think I’m done with shopping for the next few days. I wanna go to the beach! I get worn out just walking to the market and back, probably due to spending the last three months sitting on my butt in Ecuador, plus jet lag. I haven’t felt up to shopping and the beach in the same day.

Along the way today I passed some olive trees in front if a hotel! I was very excited about that. Too bad I don’t like olives.

I used my washing machine yesterday. It’s so tiny! It’s only 15″ deep. I don’t understand the little icons so I just picked a cycle out of the 14 available and it took 2 hours and 36 minutes! I saw that on the display but I thought it couldn’t possibly be the time. My clothes aren’t even really dirty; they sure don’t need to be knocked around for that long! I see now that the shortest cycle is 50 minutes….still pretty ridiculous. I haven’t a clue what water temperature I’m using.

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More Shopping

I do have a western view, so sunsets could be amazing! Last night’s wasn’t that great.

Today it’s breezy with some whitecaps. I think there’s not big surf here on the Ionian Sea except maybe in a big storm.

I actually got a decent amount of sleep last night, yay! I felt much better this morning. Today’s high is going to be 81° so I headed out early to the Big Market which is about 1/4 mile from the apartment. It wasn’t. Big, that is. I got a few things and used my day pack to schlep them home. I was very happy that I was able to unlock the apartment door all by myself. I’m afraid that’s going to be a source of anxiety for some time to come.

Than I decided to go back out to the Planet Market which is just 4 or 5 blocks away. That’s the one! Got it on the 4th try. It looks small but it goes way back. They have a little bit of everything. Clothing, toys, housewares, bedding and food, though no fresh fish or meat, only a few frozen chicken and hamburger items. I got two small throw rugs for the bedroom & bathroom, a new small “granite” nonstick pan for eggs (there are 3 frypans here, all huge!) and some more groceries. I still really need a larger supermarket to find some of my favorite keto items, like sugar-free condiments, heavy cream, avocado or coconut oil and raw apple cider vinegar. Also celery. They may not exist here. It’s even harder to shop than I thought, trying to decipher the product information, because a lot of products are Greek and Italian! (Especially the Greek, with that Cyrrilic alphabet!) I was trying to figure out what kind of coffee to buy and there were products from all three countries. I think I’ll have to just experiment with the different kinds of coffee and hopefully find one I like.

The cream I’ve found are unrefrigerated UHT products that are either sweetened, or a vegetable product. Eww. It’s also very expensive. I hope I don’t have to learn to drink my coffee black!

There’s a large Spar supermarket in town that I need to find but it’s too far to walk and bring many groceries back on foot. I don’t know how to take a bus there yet and I haven’t seen any taxis roaming around.

I have balcony access from a large patio door in the living room and a small glass door in the bedroom. Neither one has any screens, nor did the apartment in Tirana. Do they not have bugs here? I wanted an apartment that was on the third floor (with an elevator!) because I read that mosquitoes only fly about 25′ off the ground. I didn’t want to be higher than that in case the power goes out and I have to use the stairs. This seems like the perfect place; it’s ground floor at the entrance but the land drops off really steeply so it’s 3 stories high at the balcony!