How? How has it been
three years since I started this journey?
I’ve always said that the perception of time distorts the
older you get. When you’re told at 10
years old that you’ll do fun stuff on Saturday and it’s only Tuesday? That was a torturous eternity. Now (if you’re lucky) you get to be my ripe
old age of 54 and you blink and three years pass. Three whole years!
On March 2, I landed in Lisbon, now one of my favorite
cities. But just before March 2 of this
year, I landed again in Tirana, another favorite of mine. Three years in, I crave familiarity which
made me happy to book the same place I stayed when I first visited the city
last summer.
My host did warn me that there would be some protests in the
area but that they might not impact my trip in.
I did hear some ruckus as the taxi pulled in front of the building, but
I didn’t see anything that night. More
on that later.
It’s cooler in Albania than in Cyprus. I expected that but I also wanted to get a
sense of what the city is like in the winter.
Not too bad, a little nippy as I set out on my first morning to get breakfast
and supplies. It was decent enough for
me to visit the Millenium Café again and sit outside, just as I had on my first
morning in the city last year. The
treehouse-like atmosphere wasn’t as lush as it was in the summer but at least
there were no bees this time. Believe
me, I was looking out for them. I haven’t
forgotten about you, crazed Albanian bees -- it took weeks for my swollen bee
foot to heal!
A few days after my arrival in the city I got a sense that the
protests were still going on. I would see a group of people sitting outside a
government building for days around a small display of signs. Then one day I went out to get some groceries on a rainy, yucky afternoon and saw
this on my way into the store.
I’m not sure what the protests and I only heard later that there was some rowdiness. I didn't see any of that, though, so I wasn’t
worried about it. Still beats being in
the U.S. And here, unlike in Cyprus, I
can have hot water any time I want! Love
that!
I’d been in the city for a couple of weeks when I stumbled into a street festival. Also not sure what this was about but it was nice to see everyone out enjoying the early spring weather. There were a number of stalls selling crafts and snacks along with a lot of big cookies. So in my mind, it was just the Big Cookie festival.
This video came out a few days after getting to the city. It was cool to see one my favorite travel vloggers walking the same streets that I’m on now.
