Getting Back

Walking long distances isn’t a problem to the three of us. When we were younger Jazz lived up the glen and we lived outside the village and to get to work or to the village we would walk there and back. It was the easiest way to get around, headphones in, jacket on, off you go. This has come in very handy in my adult life as when me and Alona are travelling we often just start walking and sometimes you end up walking for 5 minutes or 5 kilometres, it just depends.

We followed Jazz’s lead, we walked at a fast pace, passing people sitting on crates and overtaking the more leisurely walkers in font of us. We kept going, walking and walking, we asked some people for help but there was a language barrier. We finally got to a bridge that had an underpass, we crossed and came onto a street with a lot more life; restaurants, bars and supermarkets. We continued walking and walking and eventually we recognised the little pizza shop from our first night.

We knew the way to the square from there and from the square to our little home stay. On the way back we visited the wine shop again, deservedly so after keeping our cool so well. We sat outside again in pyjamas and jackets and worked out we had walked around 16 or 17  kilometres that day. We drank our wine in the frosty secluded garden, reminiscing of the day and making a plan for tomorrow.

The next morning we woke at half 8 as the family we were staying with made us breakfast for 9. After we ate breakfast we all went back to our room, put our pyjamas back on and went back to sleep.

We slept more that day. I woke up first and went on my phone, Jazz woke up next we chatted for about an hour before Alona woke up. I swear her superpower is sleeping. On a plane, a bus that’s throwing you about, a floor, standing up, you name it - Alona can sleep there.

We decided to show Jazz the view point tower that doubled up as a bar. We walked to the tower and took the lift up to the top floor. Once out the lift we went up the stairs and into a very fancy circular room all glass windows and a little bar and beautiful tables... but we went and sat outside. On with the theme of freezing for the joy of sitting outside. We were the only ones outside, we sat under little blankets and looked out onto the all the little green roofs and big green hills that were laid out before us.

We went for some cocktails as it was our last night in Albania before we headed to Macedonia. We chose at random as only the names appeared on the menu. When they came out there were in fancy glasses with orange peel in the shape of a heart. We were rather taken aback, I have never seen such a pretty cocktail before but Albania doesn’t mess around with its food or drink so we really shouldn’t have been surprised.

Cheeky, Cheeky!

We sat and tried different cocktails. We talked of our highlights of the trip and the things we had enjoyed. We also talked of home - a place me and Alona have not been in so long. We chatted about what everyone was doing now and what Jazz’s time living in Cambodia had been like.

I knew the space I was in was safe and I told the girls of how this was the first time I have spoken so freely with no fear of judgment or with the fear of accidentally crossing an invisible culture barrier. I told them of how I had stopped talking and laughing on trams as not to look strange and how I often held some of my opinions back. This was something I was unaware of until this point, the words overflowed out my mouth and they listened to me talk of things I was just discovering about myself.

After a few hours had passed we decided to order one last one before we headed off. We were getting the bus early the next day so we were going to be sensible. As we order the last mysterious cocktail, the waiter went in and came back out a few moments later carrying a black slate. On the slate was an assortment of fruit that had been delightfully arranged into a sea theme of fruit. There was an apple crab with eyes and claw, a whole pineapple made into two ships, a pear sea monster and a passionfruit. It was beautiful we all looked up at the waiter and he beamed at us ‘a present for you.

Excuse the lighter!

It was stunning, we couldn’t believe it! It was such a beautiful gesture, that had come out of the blue and as we looked down at the beautiful plate I got the same feeling I always do. It's time to leave Albania – the horrible sentence I dread, the kindness of the people and the beauty of the food never fails to impress me every time.

We ate our sea themed fruit and had our last cocktail, we thanked the staff for their hospitality and headed on home. We sat in the garden one last time, and the mum of our host family came out with a premade breakfast for us to take on the bus with us. We went to our room and with the help of google translator wrote a thank you note in Albanian the best we could.

As we sat on a wall eating our little breakfast of cheese, sausages and boiled eggs, we waited for the little bus shop to open, as we had gotten our tickets there the day before for the bus to Macedonia. The lady had told us to be there at 7.30 so we were there at 7 just in case. It was creeping up to 8 o'clock when she appeared, she pointed us down a hill and told us it's in the next car park. We went to the next car park but there was nothing there. We saw a road that went round the corner so we followed it and ended up in a bigger car park with lots of mini vans in it. We found which one was ours and we hopped on board.

The breakfast of kings!

Me and Jazz took 2 chairs next to each other, and Alona took the single one. By the time I had sat down and turned around Alona was asleep. We knew the bus would be a few hours so I propped my bag on my leg and put on Netflix, gave Jazz a headphone and we settled down to watch a series. From time to time we would stop it and look out the window to see the green trees fly by and the more outside the capital we got the more rural it got. It went from shops and restaurants to a few run down houses in the fields rather quickly. At one point we went up the tall winding road ( it was so steep our ears popped)  and we could see a little ahead a very insecure rickety looking bridge. We went over the shaky bridge, we dared to look out the window to a very alarming drop. We exchanged a look and put Netflix back on.

Then we got to border control.

Alona using her super power of sleep