Tirana to Athens

Contrary to popular belief, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. I've actually been quite solidly on the earth. In fact, I've even been to a few new places. Let me explain. Let's rewind back to March 1.

Remember I said we had a friend visiting? Well Andrea's plane was supposed to arrive in Tirana at noon on March 1. However, due to some delays, her flight did not arrive until around 1am that night. After waiting for awhile, people started coming out with their luggage. But none of them were Andrea. We knew she was there because we'd spotted her once when the door opened to the baggage claim area, but she hadn't seen us. Pretty soon just about everyone was gone and some lady came up to us and started speaking to Dorien in Albanian. Then, in English she said, "Your friend is dying." lol Emily and I were confused, then she said, with some help from Dorien, that Andrea was the only one back there and she was waiting because her luggage hadn't arrived. It wasn't on the flight. Apparently Andrea looked frustrated since the lady described her as "dying." lol

So we got back to our house, stayed up til 5am talking and catching up, and the next day went as any other Monday normally does for me. While I was teaching classes, Emily took Andrea to the German store. It's actually just a thrift store, but it's run by some Germans and the sign is in German and Albanian and has the colors of the German flag. Therefore, Emily and I refer to it as the German store. Very original. We know. ;) Anyway, Andrea was able to find some jeans, a bit big, but some jeans nonetheless, and then Emily took her to a shoe place where she found some almost new shoes for a decent price. So at least she had that going for her since she'd just been wearing comfy athletic type clothes on the flight with some moccasin type shoes. Hey, on flights that long, comfy is the best option!

So as we were all packing for Greece that night, poor Andrea was having a bit of trouble. Her luggage still hadn't come, no one at the airport could say when it would be coming, and we were leaving for Greece the next day at 3:30pm. Emily and I scrounged around and found things for her to wear. Emily had some clothes that would work for during the day, I had extra socks, a hoodie, and then a pair of short sweatpants for her to wear as pajamas. Emily had a spare duffel bag for her to use to pack and we had extra toiletries, so that wasn't a real problem. At least she'd had a few necessities like a toothbrush and her contacts with her in her carry-on. So we packed the best we could and just said lots of prayers that her luggage would arrive the next day before we had to leave for the bus to Athens.

No such luck. We slept in, since we'd all stayed up too late again the night before, and then started the phone calls to the airport. They weren't any more helpful than they had been, except to say that when it arrived, it would be delivered to our apartment. Ok, so that was good, but we kind of needed it within the next few hours. We accepted that that wasn't going to happen and Andrea was a super sport about it all. It was kind of beyond desperation, but she just laughed it off. She couldn't really do anything else, so she said she just had to laugh. Go figure, it would happen to her, she kept saying. lol

We had to run a few errands before the bus left since we didn't exactly know when we'd be stopping or for how long. We just knew that the ride was through the night and was supposed to take 13 hours. Just to be safe, Andrea and I ran errands while Emily took care of a few other things and made one more call to the airport, just in case. We grabbed a bottle of water for each of us, the two of us also got a Coke, and some snacks for all of us on the ride. I picked up some extra batteries for my camera so that I would be prepared from the get-go this time. I did not want a repeat of the Pompeii incident! Andrea also needed contact solution. She'd had enough to get her through the flights but since the solution was in with her luggage, she was desperately in need of some contact solution. Well, let me tell you--that is a hard thing to find around here!

Most people seem to wear glasses instead of contacts. I think it's for the cost, but I could be wrong. So we checked three different pharmacies and two different stores to see if we could find any. The stores didn't have anything close and the only thing the pharmacies had were regular old eye drops. But we had a bit of luck when we ran into our friend Jeremy at one of the stores. I told him we were on the hunt for some contact solution and he suggested we call Lori because she wears contacts. Emily called her and though she wasn't home, she answered and said we could go to her place and take her travel size bottle. Whew! Problem solved!

We got everything together and walked our luggage to the bus stop. They tagged our luggage, checked our tickets, we boarded, sat there for 5, maybe 10 minutes, and left the parking space only 5 minutes late. Pretty darn good! Our first stop was in Durres, but it took awhile to get there because of traffic, an accident, and road construction on the highway. We didn't care. We were so excited that we just snapped goofy pictures and had fun pointing out the bunkers to Andrea along the way. :) In Durrs, the Banana Man got on the bus. See, when you stop at the main bus station in Durres, there's a guy who gets on your bus, walks up and down the aisle, and sells bananas. They're good and they're cheap, so we got some.

From Durres we drove somewhat along the coast to Fier where we stopped quickly again to pick up a few more people. By then it was dark. So Andrea and I, since we were sitting together, watched a movie on her iPod. Then we started listening to songs and such. We stopped at some little side of the road place for about a half hour or 40 minutes. We got cappuccinos that just tasted like hot water and tried to order a little something from the menu. However, everything we ordered from their menu, they didn't have. Wait, what? Yeah. The didn't even have the items that they listed on their own menu. Haha! I'd heard that this wasn't exactly uncommon here, but it was the first time I'd actually witnessed it. So Andrea and I just ended up sharing some plain buttered noodles. That held us over since we had snacks with us.

The next stop was at the Albanian border patrol, not too long after we drove through Gjirokastër. We stood in line to get our exit stamps in our passports. As usual, it wasn't so much of a line as it was a big blob around the guards' little stand. Andrea did a great job of not letting people budge in front of her. She caught on very quickly. ;) We got the stamps without a problem but then we had to wait with our suitcases for the guard to come and check them. For us, he pretty much just opened them, stuck a hand in, and that was it. But for other people, he moved a few things around and took a few things out to look. And for one person, he completely ripped open a box they had with them. It wasn't small, either. It was like a moving box and it was all taped shut. He just ripped it open with reckless abandon, and I felt sorry for the box's owner. After that we were able to board the bus. Then the guard got on and checked our passports again to make sure we all had stamps. Sheesh! What an ordeal! But I was glad to know that people do their job and they take it seriously.

Then we drove through no man's land. You know, the black line on the map. lol It was all of 30 seconds before we got to the Greek border control. We got off the bus quick, fast, and in a hurry! The three of us were the first to get our passports stamped so then we went and took more pictures to pass the remaining few minutes while everyone else got stamped and/or showed papers and whatnot. We loaded the bus and drove off through Greece.

The roads in Greece were much much smoother than the Albanian roads. In fact, they even had lines and shoulders and stop signs. The highways even had directional signs, exit and entrance signs and ramps, and even tolls. It could have been Illinois! Despite this fact, it was pretty much impossible to sleep on the bus because it was just ridiculously roasting hot. We really did try though, we rearranged ourselves in our seats, took off our coats, tried to block the heating vents, put on our iPods and everything, but it didn't work. We stopped someplace that seemed like it was out in the middle of nowhere. But it was nice, clean, and had plenty of bathrooms. We got ice cream as a snack because cold just sounded refreshing at that point. Haha!

We got back on the bus to continue the travels. It got hot again and the lady sitting next to Emily complained. Then it cooled down for a bit. Then it got too hot. Then the lady complained. Then it cooled down again. It went on like this for the rest of the trip. lol It got even better though around 6am. Just after it got light out, we noticed the bus was really going slowly, even though we were on the highway and there were no problems with the road or traffic. People just kept flying passed our bus. We didn't understand. From where she was sitting, Andrea could see the driver and could read that we were going approximately 30-35 miles per hour. It was like this the whole rest of the way to Athens. We got there late and had to get off the bus before the last stop because the bus didn't make it that far. It broke down. Haha! At least this extra slow ride allowed us to sleep for about an hour.

When we got off, we weren't exactly sure where we were or where to go or how to get to where we needed to go. Emily said if we could get to Omonia Square, she would know where we were and we had directions from there to our hostel. A lady who'd been on the bus with us was quite helpful and told us to get on the city bus with her because we could stop at Omonia Square. So we did. Once we got on the bus, we realized everyone else had tickets and they were putting them through the little machine to verify them. We didn't have tickets. Hmmmm... Then we saw the sign. "Riders without validated tickets are subject to a fine of 60 times the price of the ticket." Yikes!!! We started praying that we wouldn't get checked. Thankfully, we didn't.

The lady told us to get off with her, so we did. However, we weren't at Omonia Square and the bus wasn't actually going there. We saw a cab and figured we'd take that to our hostel since we had the address. The cab driver told us we were only about 3 blocks away and that about 3 blocks past the hostel was Omonia Square. Perfect! We had a great location. So we walked to the hostel, checked in, and got to our room.

We were exhausted! Our room was very simple but very clean and safe. We had two sets of bunk beds and our own bathroom. We even got lucky enough that we didn't have a 4th person in our room the whole time we were there. Not that we really would've minded, but it just meant extra space for us and an easier time relaxing. We were exhausted and felt gross from being so hot on the bus, so the first order of business was to shower. We did that and decided we needed food if we were going to function for the rest of the day. We found a little sit-down place close to the hostel and ate lunch. As we ate, we made our plan. After we ate, we went back to the hostel to grab a few more things, ask for a map, and we were on our way.

Here's where the exploration of Athens really begins. But I'll save that for next time. We were mostly in good spirits, however, after knowing our luck in Naples (the extra long ferry ride with rude men, batteries dying at Pompeii, rain the rest of the days, the museum not being open the day we wanted to go) and with Andrea's luck on this trip so far (two delayed flights, lost luggage, no clothes of her own) and now with a bus that already broke down, we were making lots of jokes about bad luck. lol

Anyway, let's quickly fast forward to today. Andrea's flight left at 6am this morning, after a very fun 12 day visit. All three of us enjoyed the time and no one, including Andrea, wanted it to end. She didn't want to go back and we didn't want her to leave. But alas, it had to happen. Plus, it was an early morning and we were all tired. We got up at 3am because we were scheduled to meet our taxi at 4am so that Andrea could check in by 5am. She knew that once she got on the plane she could sleep. Emily and I, not wanting to pay for another expensive taxi ride, waited until the shuttle busses started running around 7am. So we just sat there for 2 extra hours. She'd brought a magazine with her and I'd brought my computer to take advantage of the free wi-fi. The internet there was sooo sloooow, but at least it passed the time. We got back to Tirana at about 7:30 and decided to go to the Stephen Center for a nice hot breakfast. It was delicious! Just what we needed after such an early morning. We got back to our place between 9-9:30am and at 9:30, after being up for 6 hours already, I decided I needed a nap. So I slept until almost 12.

Then Emily got things ready for her little kids class and I got everything ready for Activity Night. We had a St. Patrick's Day Party. :) We learned a little about the history of the holiday and then played two games--Pin the Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow, and Shamrock Search. In the second game, everyone got a Shamrock with a St. Patrick's Day word on it. They had to find their match--either someone else or one of the extras strewn around the room. It was a lot of fun and I think the kids enjoyed it. We even had golden treasure for them as a treat--candy in gold wrappers. Think Werthers.

So now it is late, I am tired, but in very good spirits. It was a blast having Andrea here and it was really fun to see someone else experience all the new sights, sounds, smells, and interactions of Tirana. It made what has become ordinary seem a little more exciting for a few days. :) A nice change of pace. But if I am to continue with a nice pace, I must get some rest. Therefore, I say goodnight. Natën e mirë!