From Tirana to NYC

Letter #43: A surprisingly pleasant time in Tirana. Albania, I'd love to come back!

Marilyn and I at lunch on Shkodra Lake

A quick shoutout and welcome to the 15 new subscribers over the last 30 days—I am so excited that the newsletter continues to grow, especially as I am about to embark on the second half of my year traveling around the world! ❤️🌏

7/5/23

I thought I’d be posting twice a week while I was in the US for a month—I was wrong. 🤣 I was in a pretty relaxed routine and managed to get about 5 hours of work done at least 4-5 days of the week. What work, you ask? Well, not real work I suppose. But I wanted to finish up my TEFL certification which was agonizingly long (I just received it yesterday🎉). Will I actually use it? TBD. I also put on a presentation for a friend’s company, and in the meantime still wrote out the newsletter. Anyway, more updates on my time in US coming up. But for now I need to finish sharing about Albania! 🇦🇱

Theth to Tirana

I reached the town of Theth after a 45 minute walk from my guesthouse. I stopped into the mini market for a packet of Skittles before the bus arrived. Is California going to ban Skittles? The jury is still out. Maybe they just need to reformulate. But either way, I’m not taking any chances and I am buying out any mini market I find out.

I got back to the hostel in Shkodër around 1pm. Marilyn (the vascular surgeon resident from French Canada) was waiting for me there. I dropped my bag and we rented bikes to head out to Shkodra Lake. It was a much farther ride than I anticipated (WHY did I wear my strapless bikini under my clothes for a 10km bike ride 😭). We stopped at an overrated seafood restaurant for lunch, only about a 10 minute drive from the border of Montenegro.

Once we finished our mediocre lunch, we stopped at a beach nearby to enjoy the cool lake water. Freshwater swimming, a Midwestern girl’s favorite summertime activity.❤️ The lake was so huge it looked like a sea—much like Lake Michigan where I grew up.

Mosque in Shkodër, Wanderers Hostel, obligatory Skittles, Shkodra Lake

We biked back to Shokdër around 6pm, freshened up at the hostel, and went out for a nice dinner. This would be my last big dinner before heading back to NYC, and Marilyn would be leaving early in the AM to meet London Katie and Alex in Berat. So, we picked a wine and Tapas bar, split a Greek salad and mushroom risotto 😛 and enjoyed a couple glasses of wine. We were staying in the same room again, so we said our goodnights in the hostel and went to bed. We had also shared Instagrams and WhatsApps so we could stay in touch.

I slept in the following morning, waking up around 8:30. Marilyn and I had also split a load of laundry (it’s amazing how close and comfortable you can momentarily get to someone when you’re traveling solo), and she so kindly left a bag of my clean clothes near the bed. I showered, packed up my bag, and went down to checkout. While I ate the hostel breakfast, I typed out my newsletter for June 2nd, which would post while I was flying home.

I left the hostel around 11:30am, hustling to catch the 12pm bus back to Tirana. It was Thursday morning, and my flight to NYC was Friday morning at 6:20am. The ride to Tirana was uneventful. I put in my AirPods, read my Kindle, and finished off those Skittles. 

We reached Tirana about 2.5 hours later after sitting in stop and go traffic. I walked back to my hotel to collect all the things I had left there over the past week. The hotel owner gave me a warm smile when I arrived, and led me into the banquet hall. All my stuff was still stored safely under that table. I thanked her over and over. She helped me carry the stuff back up to the same room I had the first night (that, yes, smelled faintly of cigarettes, but she was so kind I couldn’t complain). I spent the next hour repacking my entire bag to see if I could get away with hand-carrying everything back to the US—in other words I wanted to avoid shipping another box or checking a second bag, in which case I would have had to BUY another bag. I just barely succeeded at fitting all my stuff back into my bags—new rugs, throw pillow covers, and all. 

I decided to celebrate by venturing into the city centre for dinner. I had to ask a couple locals how to catch the bus downtown—again, there are no real bus signs even in the city. I just knew the name of the area I needed to get to so I hopped on the bus the local told me to get on. And I definitely was frantically trying to find the right amount of change even though I had no idea how much it cost. But I didn’t have to pay right away, which was odd—a worker came and collected the pay as the bus drove a while. He just grabbed a couple coins and gave me change so I still am not sure how much it cost—but maybe only 50 US cents? Traffic was wild so it probably took me 45 minutes to get downtown.

I was expecting not to care much for Tirana—just another capitol city—when I was more interested in the natural landscape at the time. But I was REALLY surprised by how much I liked it. It had great energy, tons of people strolling around on a Thursday night, wide, clean streets.

I was so badly craving Thai food (I couldn’t stop thinking about the street noodles in Bangkok), so I found the only Thai restaurant listed on Google Maps and walked about 20 minutes to find it. Odd note: Google Maps and Trip Advisor allegedly aren’t big in Albania yet…? Which was a bit shocking to me, as Google Maps is basically how I find anything anywhere. 

The food at this Thai restaurant was SUPER good. I finished a huge meal and decided to end my night with gelato. There are tons of gelato/coffee shops in Albania, similar to what you see in Italy. They have cafe seating along the sidewalk and people sip on coffee, smoking, and lounging with friends for hours. I had yet to try the gelato so figured it’d be a nice way to end my time in Albania. So much for last night being my LAST big dinner 😅.

I walked to the Blloku neighborhood—I had read it was the most popular part of town for nightlife—and got myself a waffle cone with mint chocolate chip and sea salt caramel gelato. Yes, the gelato was definitely something to write home about, but more importantly I fell in LOVE with this neighborhood! It’s hard to describe in words what I loved so much about it, but it just had that great vibe of European cities that us Americans loves so much. A lot of people were out for dinner, young families getting gelato, and mid to high end shops with any fashion you could want—clothing, shoes, perfume, sunglasses. Locals strolled leisurely down the tree lined streets, taxi cab drivers hung out in front of their cars smoking and waiting for the next customer. It just felt like a very hip area, I’d love to spend more time there. I’d even consider renting a furnished apartment and staying for a couple months. Will I? Probably not, but everywhere I visit I always ask myself “could I live here?”

Pics of Tirana and my Pad Thai <3

I half-walked/half-hailed a cab to get back to the hotel near the bus station (so lame, I know, to stay in a hotel near the bus station, but it was practical!), and was in bed by 9:30pm. I had to wake up at 3am to get to the airport for my NYC flight the following morning. 

I was groggy when I woke up, but hoped that would help me sleep on the plane. I had a 4 hour layover in Frankfurt—which happens to be, hands down, the worst airport I’ve ever been in. Just an utterly chaotic, unorganized mess of waiting, waiting and more waiting. Security that rips your entire bag apart , then makes you wait some more. Long lines just to walk into your gate area…AFTER security?! I was so shocked at how bad it was that I actually Googled it to check if I was imagining things. I found out that I certainly was not the only person confused by how bad this airport is. I pulled up at least 4 articles about it.🤯😂

Everything being taken out of my bag at Frankfurt security, lines to get to the gate area...WHY

Either way, I kept my cool. Vipassana has made me a MUCH more patient traveler, and I was super excited because my first stop in the US would be at Nicholas’ house to spend the evening with him and his partner, Bob. He was my best friend at work for the past 9+ years, and I hadn’t seen him since I left in November 2022. 🥰

---

Hey! Would you like to connect over creativity, self-growth, and problem-solving? Or just to have a virtual glass of wine or mocktail? Please book a time on my Calendly for us to chat! I can’t wait to see you. XOXO.

If you’re enjoying On the Road, please share with others who you may think would enjoy as well! As always, I love reading your comments and feedback. If you're not already subscribed, please click the button below so I can continue sending you weekly-ish stories and lessons while I travel. 🚙