Ending Vlore on a crazy note
We planned this part of our trip to be slower, so it was easier to establish a routine. It was also easier to feel like things might get mundane. Tanya had an excellent idea for spicing up our week. She devised Movie & Munchies Monday, Wandering Wednesday, and Find a Food Friday. Monday is a movie night and a fun snack. Wednesday is when we go for a walk to find a new part of town or spend more time somewhere we haven't yet. On Fridays, we walk around to find a local eatery or cafe, try some new food, and keep it at $10 for the family. We all look forward to a different aspect of these days, but everyone's favorite is Find a Food Friday. So far, we've tried different pastry or ice cream shops, a chicken place, and a joint that sold souflaque, pizza, hot dogs (not American dogs), and various sandwiches. No one has been disappointed with anything we've tried.
The morning walks with my son have been great. After finding the phone, my daughter wanted to join us in case we had more amazing discoveries. The biggest downside is the trash on the beach. I don't know if it's the locals or tourists, but it would really improve the experience if both beach-goers and the city took more pride in keeping it clean. We've enjoyed getting to know this place so well. Our walks generally take us in the same direction, so more and more looks familiar. My wife and I have gone shopping enough to have a sound basis for price comparisons and where to go for certain groceries. I'm sure the clerks recognize us since some of them are familiar to me.
We've been able to attend church each Sunday except for one due to thunderstorms. They have scripture study on Friday evenings and basketball on Wednesdays if anyone can meet up. It has been great to join the "church family" and get to know people. Having a routine around these activities helps bring a sense of home to a new country. We were invited to a member's home for dinner, and it was a great experience. Luckily, the local missionaries were there to help with the language barrier. It has also been fun getting to know the missionaries and their backgrounds. We will miss this little church community we've become a part of.
My wife and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary while we were here. It was a real treat to do so in another country. We looked at a few restaraunts the week before, wondering what would be a great place. What we decided on ended up exceeding our expectations. For this place, you messaged them via WhatsApp the day before to reserve a table and order your food. They served slow cooked meats and we guessed you ordered the day before so they had time to cook it and how much to cook. When we arrived the owner greeted us and showed us our table. It was a smaller place than I envisioned which made it even better. The decor and design was rustic with upbeat music playing. There were only two people there, the owner and someone helping him prepare meals. Our food was served soon after we were seated. It was hot so we knew it recently finished cooking. We had lamb with potatoes, carrots, and tomatoes. All of it was simply cooked but quite delicious. The owner treated us with a complimentary dessert which was a type of cake in a syrupie liquid. It was somewhat similar to pound cake and also delicious. Despite the cake we still stopped at a place for some gelato. We sat, just the two of us, talking and enjoying the activity around us. It was a great way to celebrate our anniversary.
One thing I learned is to be very familiar with the difference in currency in a new country. The Albanian currency is called lek. They display their prices in tens or hundreds instead of starting at one. Something that costs 100 lek is $1. I thought I understood it well but messed up a purchase. While looking for a new pair of shorts, I found some that I thought were $9.50. The price tag said 9,500 lek. It wasn't until later that day that I realized it was $95. I wouldn't spend that kind of money on shorts anywhere. Since little things can be different in another country from what I'm used to, I wondered how returns and refunds went here.
I talked to the people in the office we rented from, and they said the store should be able to accept the return. Well, all I could do was hope. I walked back to the store and explained my mistake. The clerk said I could exchange it for something else in the store, but I said the shorts were the only thing I wanted after shopping there the day before. I asked if they could return the money on the credit card I used, but they couldn't. The shorts still had the tag, I had the receipt, and I had not put them on. The clerk told me to wait five minutes, and he left. He returned with another man, his boss, I assume, and gave me cash for the shorts. I could tell he was not happy about it. Lesson learned: I'll make sure I know what I'm buying in the future.
Speaking of little things being different, here is another. If the change is less than 5 cents, they don't give it to you. I didn't think there was a coin less than that since it happened everywhere, but after looking it up, I saw a one-cent coin. Sometimes, some places didn't give us change at all, and we had to ask for it. It makes me wonder if they kept it because we're tourists. Do they think we don't know the money exchange well enough to notice, or are we rich and won't miss it? Is it not stealing to them? I'd love to know the language to ask questions, but I don't know if it would be a taboo subject for a tourist to bring up. We've heard about places charging tourists more than locals, but I don't think it happened to us. We paid whatever the posted price was wherever we went. Most of our stay was not during the height of tourist season; perhaps that was the reason.
Despite things like this, we still enjoyed Vlore. The majority of the people were nice and grateful we were visiting. The experience of going to different stores and markets depending on the food we needed was fun. Also, knowing the produce was most likely fresh and organic was great. Being close enough to the beach to enjoy morning walks and beautiful sunsets will be a highlight for me. This city may be a tourist hub, but it didn't feel as busy as others we've been to. It moves at a more relaxed pace, and it feels good. That may change during the next few months, with tourist season starting as we leave, but we've enjoyed our stay.
A monkey wrench was thrown into our departure plans. We booked a ferry from the port of Vlore to Brindisi, Italy, at 2:00 PM on a Saturday. It's about a six-hour journey so that we would have arrived around 8:00 PM. I was looking forward to being at sea and having that experience with the family. Tanya received an email from where we booked our tickets at 12:00 PM, saying that the ferry departure time had changed and that we could leave at either 11:58 PM that night or Sunday morning. There was no Saturday option. We already had a place booked, a time to catch the bus, and things arranged based on the original time to leave. Based on our plans, we needed to go with the earlier time slot. It was time to scramble to get everything packed and organized.
A load of laundry had just finished washing, and there wasn't enough time to hang dry the clothes before we left. There wasn't a laundromat nearby, so we called the rental office to ask where we could go. They suggested a hotel just up the road that could dry our clothes. Tanya and I put the wet clothes in a garbage bag and went to the hotel. We thought it was the kind of hotel with a laundry room for the guests, but that wasn't the case. They used dryers for their linens, and our request meant we were asking them to dry our clothes along with their things. Thankfully, they obliged, and we scheduled a time for me to pick up the clothes. I didn't know if it was something they would charge for or not, but I didn't care. Getting the clothes dried was our biggest concern in packing right now. For the rest of the afternoon, we packed and organized. When I returned to get the clothes, they had been neatly folded. I was very grateful for this and had not expected it. It cost 10 lek and I was happy to pay for it.
With the last of the clothes, we finished packing and prepared to leave. We were going to leave the key inside, but I saw the office was still open on my way back from getting the clothes, so we went to drop off the key as we were leaving. It was a good thing we did. We got a happy goodbye from them, and I was able to exchange my remaining lek for euros. They had no problems with us, and we had a good experience, too. The office manager said if we come back to stay again, we get three nights free. We will gladly take them up on the offer if we can. With that, we caught a bus to the ferry ticket office.
Tanya purchased our tickets online a couple of weeks prior, and we walked by the ticket office at that time to make sure we knew where it was. The instructions said to arrive two hours early to pick them up. When we went by, we asked if we could get them. The guy we talked to seemed confused about why we would want to get them so early. He said to come by the same day, and everything would be fine. We obliged and found it interesting that their mentality was not to consider doing things early but at the time for whatever it was—yet another example of little differences in other countries we wouldn't consider.
Anyway, we get to the ticket office, show our IDs, and get the tickets. It was close to the port entry, so we walked to the ferry terminal. We are a couple hours early and don't know when they will let us through, so we drop our bags and wait. The terminal looks similar to a TSA check-in at an airport. There is a baggage scanner and a metal detector with a booth just after to have our passports checked. Surprisingly, we didn't have to wait long for them to let people through. Since it's getting late at night, there are few people, so that's a plus. We get through their security without problems and walk about 200 yards to the ferry. An employee checks our tickets before we get on and directs us where to go. We go up a couple of flights of stairs and find the "check-in" desk for the cabins we reserved. One cabin had four bunks, and the other had two, so we booked two. They are small and look quite old, clean, but old. Since we boarded over an hour before departure, we decided to explore the ship.
Our cabin was close to the front, so we went there to see what we could see. It was a misty night, and everything was damp. There is little room in the front due to machinery for the anchors and other things, but it was still neat to be there. My oldest decided to go back to the cabin, and the rest of us explored more. There was a restaurant, a "disco," which was a big room with tables, booths, chairs, a bar and a dance floor, a room full of chairs facing a TV too small for the size of the room, and a large room that looked like it was used for storing extra chairs. We went out onto the deck and walked around the ship. The last level we could go up was for the helipad. We looked at the ferries docked here from our apartment most nights, and seeing the view in reverse was strange. Even though we would be asleep for most of the trip, we wanted to be outside when the ship left port. We went back to the cabins and kept an eye on the time.
While we were waiting, we could feel the engines start. It was early for our departure, so we thought they needed to start them beforehand. Soon, we could feel the ship moving, so four of us quickly left to go up the stern railing. The ferry had just started leaving, so we hung out on the deck for a while. It slowly made its way from the port and started to speed up. It was neat to be there for this. We watched the lights of the coastline get further away, and the haze began to dissipate as well. All of us went back to the cabins. The kids that went were hyped up from the experience, and it was contagious for my oldest. At first, he didn't care to go out, but he changed his mind when his brother and I described how it was. It turns out he actually enjoyed it and even admitted out loud that he was glad he came out to see things. We went back to the cabin and got ready for bed to get what sleep we could. It was going to be an early morning arrival at Brindisi, Italy.
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