She's Got Leks, She Knows How To Use 'Em

Tuesday, April 1 2014

Arrival

We took the bus from the airport to Tirana, and checked into our apartment.

It was conveniently located about a 10-15 minute walk from all but one of the transportation hubs to catch the nationally run buses to other cities, and a few minutes walk to two arterial streets. After stocking up on groceries, we took a stroll to the main square,

and down Bulevardi Dëshmorët e Kombit, the Tirana equivalent of the Champs-Élysées. 

We didn’t do a whole lot more the rest of the day, planning to go to bed early to adjust to the local time.

Wednesday, April 2

Mount Dajti

For our first venture out of town, we picked the closest “attraction”, Mount Dajti, which is just outside Tirana. After a walk to Skanderbeg Square*, the center of town and city bus hub, we managed to find the bus to take us to the edge of town, where we caught a free shuttle to the cable car station,

which brought us close to the top of the mountain and near the space-age hotel (also owned by the cable car operators).

We couldn’t find the hiking trails that were touted in our Bradt Albania book (which shall heretofore be referred to as The Book), but it was a beautiful day and we enjoyed walking on paved roads.

The cable car ride back down was described by Bhob as possibly the most terrifying thing he has ever experienced (he has a bit of acrophobia). I wasn’t worried, as the cable cars were manufactured and installed by an Austrian company.

On our way home, we stopped in to the Official Tirana Tourist Information Office, and picked up a copy of the national bus schedule, along with a map, on which the Friendly Employee marked the places to catch the buses. “Hurray!”, we thought. (Cue foreboding music).

That evening, we took the bus to the Marubi Film School http://www.afmm.edu.al/ to catch a free screening of Les Tontons Flingueurs.

* The Square is rather large. Travel guides casually mention to “catch a bus in Skanderbeg Square”, but fail to mention exactly where, which is like telling someone to “catch the bus in Uptown”, with no mention of street names or landmarks.

Thursday, April 3

Durrës 

Based on the map and instructions given to us by the Friendly Employee from the Official Tourist Office, we went to catch the bus to Durrës, on the Adriatic coast. After lots of wandering, and asking around, exclusively in Albanian (more on that later), we finally found a bus hub, but not the right bus hub. The kindly bus driver took us aboard and drove us to the correct bus stop. It was very, very far from the place on the map from the Official Tourist Office.

When we got to the town, we tried to find the amphitheater by following the map in The Book, but to no avail. As soon as we just started wandering aimlessly, just going down streets that looked interesting, we found it right away. We explored the amphitheater, which seemed plunked down into the middle of town, surrounded by modern homes,  reminding us of Herculaneum in Italy.

We then proceeded to the Archaeological Museum, which was closed. It had recently been rebuilt, and they were scrambling to get it ready for tourist season in June, but the wonderful director took pity on us and allowed us inside for a quick peek.

Bhob had to try a pizza from the only real fast food chain in the country, Kolonat. 

Though not as good as the ones in Napoli, it was better than anything in Minnesota! After a little more wandering and looking at old stuff...

...we headed home. In the evening, we walked around our neighborhood in Tirana.

Friday, April 4

Berat

On to our 5-day sojourn outside of Tirana, and what turned out to be our favorite spot on the whole trip. We took a national bus almost all the way to Berat, but just before we got to town, they made us all get off and take a jam-packed city bus the rest of the way. No one really seemed to know why, and one person even asked me (in Albanian), to which I could only use facial expressions and gestures to communicate “Don’t ask me! How the heck should I know!?” Our airbnb host managed to find us in town, and walk us back to our lodging, which was a medieval house in the old part of town. As soon as we got there, we didn’t want to leave. It was so cool!

The best part was the balcony, which had a glorious view of the town, and the mountains beyond.

It was a short, steep walk to the castle up the hill. Contrary to my “If you’ve seen one castle, you’ve seen them all” maxim, Albanian castles are more like walled, hilltop villages, in which people still live, so they are much more interesting (to me, anyway) than ones I’ve seen in Ireland or Germany.

We then walked around the newer part of town. There wasn’t whole lot to see, but Bhob got to have his first of many outdoor beers

We had dinner at a restaurant across the river from our apartment,

and encountered the first non-Albanians of the trip at the next table. I couldn’t recognize the language they were speaking. Russian perhaps? After dinner, we strolled around the old town some more,

and then returned to our beloved balcony.

Saturday, April 5

Ksamil

The next morning, we caught the bus to Sarande, and again encountered the young foreign couple. I still couldn’t place the language until I heard the word “gerai”*. After 5½ hours, we reached Sarande, where we caught a bus to Ksamil

Oh, Ksamil. Where to begin? We knew we wanted to visit the archaeological site of Butrint, but what we’d read about Sarande (the closest city), suggested that it was a bit of a tourist trap (which as it turned out, was an understatement; the less said about Sarande, the better. Taste Level= 0), so we found an inexpensive apartment in the village of Ksamil, which is about an hour’s walk from Butint. We were initially mortified as we walked up the gravel road to our destination, the equivalent of a cheap motel on the outskirts of town. https://sites.google.com/site/ksamilapartments/albania-holiday-apartments-for-rent (ours was AC103).
Our revulsion quickly wore off due to the genuine warm-heartedness of our gracious hostess, Linda. She spoke very good English, and had done everything she possibly could to elevate her humble hostelry into something sweet (potted flowers in the apartment, meticulously clean, flowers planted everywhere on the property). It’s the kind of situation that Dickens would describe respectfully in glowing, admiring terms, as being shabby and worn, but spotless,  reflecting the pride and dignity of the owner.

The town itself was not so much a town as a strip of road with some buildings on either side, with a couple of mini-marts, hotels and kebab joints.

While most Albanian cities and towns have their share of unfinished buildings, here the ratio seemed to be about 3 unfinished/abandoned/falling down (literally) buildings for every 1 intact, occupied building (many of which wouldn't look out of place in South Beach).

 The whole place would make a perfect filming location for a movie about a post-apocalyptic beach resort. Granted, we were there during the off-season, but it was really difficult to picture it as the hopping summer vacation destination described on various websites. The setting, however, was beautiful, on coast of the Ionian Sea.

My favorite quote from Linda: “We give credit to God, not the government, for making Albania beautiful”.

*Since only two people reading this will understand that reference, I will reveal that they were indeed Lithuanian.

Sunday, April 6

Butrint

The morning was a beautiful one for our visit to Butrint, near the Greek border. It is one of those prime pieces of real estate that has been utilized/occupied by several civilizations over thousands of years (Greeks, Romans, Venetians, etc.).

 This is where the Venetians stored their used mattresses


The archaeological site is in a national park, so even without the ruins, the forest-y setting was gorgeous.

We spent the afternoon walking around Sarande. In the spirit of being positive, I’ll say that the Ionian Sea is lovely!!  We waited for the bus back to Kasmil during a dramatic thunderstorm, and our feet got pretty soaked on the walk back to our humble abode. The rain continued as we walked up and down the Ksamil strip, trying in vain to find someplace to eat. Apparently, Sunday Family Dinner is kind of a thing in these parts, so everything was closed, and we ended up throwing together a random jumble of food from the minimart to cook at  the apartment. I speculated that we were the only people in the world at that moment eating chickpeas, hot dog buns, sauteed lettuce and an Albanian cheese and pepper concoction called Fërgesë.

 

Monday, April 7

Gjirokastër

We took the 1½ hour bus ride (which had some really fantastic gorges and mountain views) to Gjirokastër. We checked into our hotel and headed up to the castle.

This another vertical town with really old, really cool houses, earning it a designation as a Unesco World Heritage Site. We walked, and walked and walked.

We went to the Ethnographic Museum (the childhood home of Enver Hoxha). 

In the afternoon, we hung out at the kafe in front of our hotel,

and went out to dinner. After that, it started to rain a little bit, so we missed out on our usual evening stroll. We retired to our hotel room to watch some kind of Eurovision knock-off.

Tuesday, April 8

Gjirokastër

In the morning, we had no running water until 6:30. We found out that they have an electric pump for the water that they unplug at night, and don’t plug back in until they open the kafe at 6:30 AM.

Having already seen The Castle and Museum, we spent the whole day just wandering around.

  

We stopped into one guest house to check it out, and it turns out that the owners’ two children both live in the Twin Cities. Botë e vogël! At the restaurant where we at dinner, the owner was so delighted at my  pronunciation of Albanian that he gave me a hug. Later in the evening, as we passed by, his wife was out front, so I sang her the Albanian National Anthem, and she was quite tickled.

Wednesday, April 9

Tirana

We splurged on a taxi to take us from Old Town down to the official bus stop on the motorway, which turned out to be a very wise decision, as the real stop was down quite a ways from where we had intended to wait for the bus.* After the 4-hour bus trip back to Tirana, we re-upped our grocery supply and walked around a little more before attempting to find the bus to the Kristal Center, a fancy shopping mall amidst some shabby apartment blocks on the South end of town, which was the home of one of Tirana's four movie theaters, to see Captain America: Winter Soldier in 3D. It was great!

*This was on Bhob's insistence. If we had gone with my idea to save the $4 and find the stop ourselves, we'd probably still be waiting there.

Thursday, April 10

Shkodër

To catch the bus to Shkodër, in the North, we went to the place on the Official Tourist Map marked for us by the Friendly Tourist Office Employee. After seeing absolutely nothing resembling a bus hub, we asked at a kafe, and a truly helpful woman told us that it the bus is now stopping at the same place that one can get the bus to Durrës. Since we now knew exactly where that was, we confidently strode directly to it. The ride was beautiful, but when we got to the actual town, we were a little disappointed. I had thought that it was a town, but it was as busy and noisy as Tirana. Other than lots more bicyclists than we’d seen anywhere else in the country, there wasn’t much compelling about it. We saw some cool photos at the Marubi Museum (which was of course, unmarked, down an alley and though a gateway, and only found through much asking of directions), but we didn’t feel like walking around the city, so we went to ……The Castle. We took a bus to the road that led up to it*, and mainly enjoyed the views of the distant mountains

In the evening, we had dinner at Chakra Jone, the only Indian restaurant in Tirana.

*A tangent about the bus ride. A little background first about city buses: each one has two employees: a driver and a fare collector. We asked the driver when we got on the bus whether or not it went to Rozafa (the castle). "Po, ai shkon për të Rozafa." We got to the end of the line, and the driver says (in Albanian) “Oh, we’ve passed the stop for the castle”. Another passenger intervened, and we managed (in Italian) to communicate that “It’s OK, you can take the return trip for no extra fare, and I’ll show you where to get off”. So we got off, and he pointed to which road led to the castle. So after a couple of hours at the castle, we went down the road to catch the bus back to town. When we got on , the same “passenger” was still on the bus, which led us to wonder: Who is this guy? Is he officially employed by the bus company, or merely a public transit enthusiast? If he is an employee, what is his title? Concierge? Passenger Liaison? Activities Coordinator? Bez?

Friday, April 11

Tirana

Since the day’s forecast called for rain on and off all day, we stayed close to home and went to the National Museum.

It was, in a word, thorough. It covered every era of the nation’s history, from prehistoric, to the uprising that led to the end of the Communist Dictatorship in 1991. These people have had to fight one occupier or oppressive regime after another for most of their existence.

Fascinating Fact: Albert Einstein escaped Nazi Europe to America with an Albanian passport!
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/rescue-in-albania-how-thousands-of-jews-were-saved-from-the-holocaust

We returned to the film school in the evening for a free screening of El Perro del Hortelano.

Saturday, April 12

Elbasan

After going to the spot on the map where the Friendly Tourist Employee marked as the place to get the bus to Elbasan…….I’ll let you figure out how the rest of the experience went.

The bus ride was, of course, beautiful

The town was nice, with a big, wide promenade through the center of town with minimal car traffic. There weren’t many “attractions” or “sites” to see, but it was a pretty place to just walk around, and the sidewalks were wider than in most places we’d been. They had a very impressive pasticeri.

In the evening, we walked (passing both a political demonstration and a soccer rally) to the other theater in town that showed 3D movies to see Noah (which was….ummmmm….inventive). The theater is near the Sheraton, which is near the US Embassy, so they sold nachos and popcorn at the concession stand.

Sunday, April 13

Krujë

We caught the bus to what we thought would be Krujë, but turned out to be a town a few miles before Krujë. The driver showed us where to get a minibus the rest of the way. When we’d planned the trip, we’d heard all about these independently owned minibuses, and how they are more expensive, but faster than the national buses, and no set schedule; they leave when they’re full. Shortly before our trip, the government clamped down on these operations, requiring onerous things like “drivers’ licenses” and "safety inspections”, so this was the first one we’d encountered. It was just as The Book had described: fast, noisy and a little scary. When we got to the old town, we went to ….you guessed it: The Castle! This one was quite a bit more touristy, and had that feeling of a quick stop on a “10-Day Balkans Discovery Tour”.

The setting was lovely, but Bhob described getting through the gantlet of souvenir vendors as being like walking down 10^th Ave in Manhattan circa 1974.

When we got back to Tirana, there was more rain in the forecast, so we went to the National Art Museum. The woman at the desk was so impressed by my pronunciation of the usual Albanian pleasantries, she encouraged me to keep going, and say what else I knew in the language. Again, I launched into the national anthem, after which she clapped and said “For that, the gallery is yours!” and let us into the museum for no charge. The museum was great! Lots of impressive Social Realism.

Monday, April 14

Tirana

Since we’d seen everything we’d come to see, we spent our last morning in town walking to the park at the Southern end of the city. In St. Paul, a big park with an artificial lake is called Lake Como, evoking romantic images of Northern Italy. The equivalent in Tirana, created during a Communist dictatorship, is unsentimentally called Big Park With Artificial Lake. Despite the utilitarian name, it is quite nice (and as the name suggests, quite big).  

I hope they never auction off naming rights (though if they did, my money would be on Vodaphone, which has a storefront on every single block in the city, if not the entire country).

Considering the population density of Tirana, I think the citizens would go a little crazy without this public green space (much like New Yorkers and Central Park).

Our walk took about 4 hours, after which we ate some lunch, did some cleaning and started packing. It was a gorgeous day, so we spent several hours just sitting on the balcony, doing absolutely nothing.

In the evening, we took one last long walk around our neighborhood.

Random Topics

Our Shqip Has Come In (Handy)

As soon as we started planning our trip, we started learning Albanian. The Albanian for Albanian is “Shqip” (pronounced “ship”). We utilized Transparent Language  Online (free through the St. Paul Public Library website), Pimsleur discs, and a lovely woman on the youtubes named Viola.

We thought that it would be more of a courtesy, that after a greeting in Shqip we could then switch to English, which everyone in the world speaks, right? Unlike in many European countries, very few people (not even young people) in Albania  speak English, so it was actually fairly essential that we learned some of the basics. A lot of the words are very familiar, some sounding like French (tualet, qen), some like English (sanduiç). Others are unique to Shqip. 

As previously mentioned, I was told that I have very good pronunciation, but that often backfired on me, since someone hearing me speak just assumed that I was proficient in the language, when really I only know about a dozen words (one of which is “strawberry”, which is of limited use), so we had several deer-in-the-headlights moments when someone replied to a query.

General advice: it sure doesn’t hurt to learn the national anthem of any country you are planning to visit!

Cheapskate’s Paradise

The unit of currency is the Lek, which is worth about 1 cent US, so it made for a very easy conversion by adding a decimal point two places from the end. If something costs 300 lek, it’s $3.00. 1000 lek is $10.00.

Other than airfare, everything on this trip was really cheap: a byrek was between 30-50 cents, a 3-scoop ice cream cone was 40-50 cents, a beer at a bar was $1. Public transit was 30 cents for a city bus, and between 50 cents and $12 for inter-city buses (the more expensive one was for a trip half the length of the country). Museums, castles and archaeological sites were generally between $1-4.

Our total cost for absolutely everything for both of us, including airfare and lodging (but not counting souvenirs*) for 14 nights was $3817.76. Our daily expenses (not counting airfare and lodging) came to $18.94 per person. We could have gotten away with a lot less, but we didn’t deny ourselves anything.

Here’s a little rundown for you Virgo-types:

Airfare $2418.40

Lodging $869

Groceries $136.46

Restaurants $121.50 (6 meals for 2)

Ground transportation $116.50

Treats $22.40

Museum and castle admissions, movies, etc. $89.50

Prepaid cell phone $20

Kitchenware/Paper products $24

* We spent a scandalous amount of money on souvenirs, but who can resist that double-headed eagle? And where else can you buy an Enver Hoxha coffee mug??

Trademark, Shmademark

Apparently, there’s no phrase in Albanian for “Cease and Desist”

Look at the words on this sign closely, and prepare to scratch your head

Spotted but not photographed:

Rock Hard Cafe

Coffeebucks

Undercolors of Benetton

FAQs

 

How were your flights?

Fine! No problems or delays. Flight time each way was about 13 hours. We narrowly missed a 3-day Lufthansa pilots’ strike that started the day after we arrived. After returning to the States, the passport line was severely understaffed, so we missed our connecting flight and spent the night at O’Hare, where every 20 minutes, we could enjoy the PA announcer’s Chicago-style pronunciation of the word “baggage”.

Oh, and the best part of flying Lufthansa? The in-flight audio selections included Kraftwerk, Brian Eno and Natacha Atlas.

 

What are the people like?

Wonderful! Everyone we encountered was very friendly and very helpful (without being obsequious). When asking for directions, people would often walk us near where we needed to go, so they could point things out  (patiently talking to us the whole time in Shqip, with no condescension or exasperation). We witnessed countless acts of courtesy on public transit, with men giving up their seat for an elder, or helping her hoist her shopping bags onto the bus.

The only rude behavior we witnessed was that of the pushy Italians trying to butt in front of us in the passport line, and the only angry outburst was from an American woman in a restaurant kvetching to her husband about how angry she was that their hotel didn’t provide them with a blow dryer.

While a two-week stay doesn’t make us experts, my impression of The People as a whole is that they are scrappy and resourceful. We saw very few people begging, but lots of enterprising street vendors, selling everything from roasted chestnuts,

to sunflower seeds, cigarettes and gum, or even just having a scale on the sidewalk, to serve those folks who have a sudden impulse to weigh themselves. Around the perimeter of every town, we’d see dozens upon dozens of handmade signs for “Lavazh” (Car Wash). Since anyone with a pressure washer and a canopy has a Lavazh, there is no excuse for having a dirty car in this country. 

It looked like everyone was happy to be busy doing something, and everyone appeared to be working hard, and doing their best with limited resources. Seeing all of this effort made us kind of resentful toward the few panhandlers that we did encounter, not because they were asking for money, but mainly because they displayed a lack of imagination.

The young women all wore skinny jeans, spangly t-shirts (often with random words in English printed in big block letters), and stared at their smartphones. The young men all wore jeans with the strategically faded spots on the fronts and backs of the legs, Adidas jackets, and what Bhob called “the monkey haircut” , but which I would call a faux-hawk, though different from the slightly off-center one that was so popular in Napoli last year. We could count on one hand the number of guys we saw with hair longer than their ears. They, too, stared at their smartphones.

We also noticed that when a pretty young woman would walk past a group of guys, there was never a comment made, and not even turning heads or nudging each other after she passed.

The only area of Albanian life that has yet to be infused with this common courtesy is driving. Until the fall of Communism in 1991, only government officials were allowed to drive cars, so driving is still a relatively new thing. While the drivers aren’t as “bold and decisive” as in cities like Cairo or Mumbai, it’s nerve-wracking enough that I pledge to never again complain about trying to cross Snelling Ave. during rush hour, as you can usually count on people at least heeding the traffic signals.

I guess when you’ve had 2000+ years of people telling you what to do, it’s going to take a while to shake off that pent-up energy. It’s only been 23 years of freedom for these folks, and I imagine that they are having a collective rumspringa.  I trust that they’ll get it out of their system eventually.

Oh, and everyone smokes. Everywhere. All the time.

How was the weather?

Great! Highs in the mid- to upper-60s, lows in the 40s-50s, and only a couple of rainy days.

What is the food like?

It’s a lot like Greek food: pretty simple seasoning, mainly salt, pepper, oregano and lemon. Lots of lamb and veal. And they sure like their carbs! Bhob developed a fondness for Qifqi, a fried rice ball seasoned with mint and pepper. It was hard to find places to eat that could serve both a vegetarian and a no-carb eater. Either it was Meat, Meat and Meat or Pizza, Pizza and Bread. I voluntarily stepped off the Paleo wagon for a few days to accommodate my traveling companion. I have to admit that I really loved the byrek, which is a big, triangular, handheld savory pie, the crust being kind of a cross between a croissant and phyllo, filled with cheese, spinach or meat, and not usually costing more than 50 cents.

Did you hear any Albanian music?

I don’t know. Is this Albanian?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMCVoPPvR0s#aid=P-ktfaoLpKc 

 We must have heard that song at least 2-3 times per day, along with this song:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM

This track comes in a close 3^rd Place (you can also admire the singer’s Monkey Haircut):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyZEwpDPCCw

The only music that we heard during our stay was courtesy of the drivers of the various buses we took. Sometimes we’d get lucky and they’d pick a station with some modern, Balkan-type selections, but most of what we heard was the same crappy, Western pop music you’d hear while shopping at the The Gap in Rosedale.

Is it as sketchy as its reputation would suggest?

Not in the moral/ethical arena, but their lack of infrastructure maintenance would often give us pause. Have you ever walked down the sidewalk and avoided walking on a grate or utility hole cover, even though your rational mind tells you that there’s a very small chance of falling through it? Well, in Albania, you can’t be too sure. Frequently, there were no covers on the utility holes, and they haven’t quite embraced the concept of “safety”, “guard rails” or “building a house on a foundation”.

What's the deal with the bunkers?
Yep. Those paranoid commies sure liked building bunkers. They're everywhere.

What was it like being in a Muslim Country?

For the record, Albania is a secular country, with 59% of citizens claiming to practice Islam. However, judging by the pervasiveness of pork on the menus, and 10 bars on every block, this is a Muslim country in the same way that Italy is a Catholic country (which is to say, not very). Other than the call to prayer sung from the mosques (which is much more pleasant and less invasive than the digital hymns from the Lutheran church next door to me), I detected no discernible religious presence. I can see more hajib on one trip to Target Midway than I saw during our two–week trip.

Did you manage to find any additions to your international clothes pin collection?

Why, yes! As a matter of fact, I did:

Is it safe?

We never felt unsafe at any point during our visit. We didn’t feel conspicuous as Americans or Tourists, and we didn’t seem to be on anyone’s radar (unless we asked them for directions).

Who should go?

Any one who

-Can appreciate people who are friendlier than the French, less hot-headed than the Italians, and public transport that is almost as punctual as in Switzerland.

-Would like to go somewhere that has yet to be permeated by Starbucks, McDonald’s and Pizza Hut.

-Has already been to many countries in Europe and wants to get a little off the beaten path, but with a recognizable alphabet

-Wants to visit Europe, but not be surrounded by other Americans

-Wants to visit a foreign country but not spend a lot of money



-Can't get enough Greek and Roman archaeological ruins, but has already been (or doesn't want to go) to Greece and/or Italy

-Prefers to explore a place that isn’t presented as a sanitized theme park

-Is nostalgic for the Europe of 25 years ago, before the widespread smoking bans.

Albania is definitely not for everyone. Tirana isn’t as beautiful as most of the other, older European capitals, and they haven’t done as much as far as signage and maps to make for an easy tourist experience. If you like to have 3-4 attractions and sites per day, you’ll run out of things to do quickly. Albania reminds me a little bit of Ireland circa 1987; not much to “do”, but a beautiful place to just “be”, with very friendly people and lots of smoking. These guys sure smoked (said in the voice of Gavin, from Kids in the Hall).

Do you think you’ll go back?

Bhob is definitely going back; in conjunction with his dream pilgrimage to Cinecitta in Rome, he’ll head to Tirana and stay there for a spell. While traveling, I'm not much of a Big City gal, so I’ve had my fill of Tirana, and I don’t know that I need to revisit the areas in the South where we’ve already been. I would love to go back to check out the Northern part of the country, either Theth National Park or the Valbona region (using this excellent resource http://www.journeytovalbona.com/)

I can guarantee that the one place neither of us will be revisiting is the Official Tirana Tourist Information Office

  

How much did it cost?

 

For 2 people, 14 nights:

 

Airfare $2418.40

 

Lodging $869

 

Ground Transportation $ 116.50

 

Groceries $ 135.46

 

Restaurants $121.50 (6 meals for 2)

 

Treats  $22.40

 

Admission to attractions  $89.50 

Burner phone $20

 

Housewares  $24 

Total $3817.76

 

Total "On the Ground" (not including airfare and lodging) $530.36

 

Total per person, per day $136.35

 

Total "on the ground" per person, per day $18.94

 

To save for a trip like this for one person, you'd need to save  $5.23 per day for a year

 

Final Thoughts

Our trip was inspired by a question: Why do Albanians never complain about being the default nationality of Bad Guys in Hollywood action films? We considered two possibilities: Either they are so comfortable in their inherent goodness that they don’t feel the need to get defensive, or they really are bad-asses. After visiting there, I think it’s a combination of the two. Overall, they are truly kind, good-hearted people, but they are descended from a long line of folks who have had to fight and die for every single one of their rights, every square inch of land, and every iota of language and culture. They could never be accused of being pushovers.

Or maybe it’s just that the folks writing the Shqip subtitles for the DVDs distributed in Albania change the nationality of the Bad Guys to Serbian.