Before I go into talking about my second week in Tirana, I wanted to mention some highlights about my trip to Montenegro last weekend.
First off, Montenegro is amazing. The name of Montenegro literally means “black mountain” and the name is definitely obvious when you visit the county. Montenegro is almost entirely mountains and those mountains average more than 2,100m (7,000 ft) in elevation. The country literally looks like someplace out of a movie. It’s a beautiful place see especially when you’ve lived in a very flat Michigan all your life. The car ride from Tirana to Ulcinj (our first stop in Montenegro) took about two hours. Ulcinj lies right off the Adriatic Coast and is surrounded by mountains and colorful houses.
Our group visited an ancient castle which was built by lllyrians, a people of Indo-European origin. Then we had dinner at a restaurant off the water. The view wasn’t that bad. 😉
We ended up driving to our first hostel in Podgorica and fell asleep almost right away because we were exhausted from traveling and it took us about a half an hour to find our hostel. The next day we woke to a amazing free breakfast which was pretty much just bread and more bread. The man who made us breakfast gave us each three different kinds of croissants. He also made Turkish coffee which was extremely strong but very good. In the hostel, we met people from all over the world. There was a women from Japan who was traveling Europe by herself, a man from Ukraine also traveling by himself but then heading to Russia to study film, and an Australian couple who worked at the hostel and cooked us breakfast.
After breakfast, we then headed from Podgorica to Cetinje but not before we stopped at another local cafe for more coffee. (Europeans like their coffee) There wasn’t much to see is Podgorica except for a few monuments and a bunch of weird robot sculptures that looked like transformers.
The main square had a large fountain and that was pretty much the central area of the capital city.
In Centinje, which is one of the oldest cities in Montenegro, the streets were really wide and the houses were very colorful. There was also a main square in Centje where everyone in the town was gathered talking and visiting with one another. There were also a ton of little kids around the area riding small, plastic, battery powered trucks. (Definitely made be relive my Barbie jeep days). We walked around Centje, had dinner, and then headed on the road again for Kotor.
After many many hours of driving around winding mountainous roads with crazy drivers passing us all along the way, we finally made it to Kotor. Kotor basically looked like Minas Tirith (I just had to throw in the Lord of the Rings reference) It is a medieval city surrounded by water and mountains.
Just around one of the mountains near Kotor were the boarders of Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina. The “old city” of Kotor was so beautiful and romantic. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and was built between the 12th and 14th centuries. The city is almost entirely smooth stone and throughout the city there are churches, shops, and of course a lot of restaurants and cafes. All along the mountain behind the old city are ancient fortifications. (I definitely wouldn’t want to try to attack it) The city wall extend over 4 kilometers.
We arrived at our hostel in the old city, threw all our stuff in the room and went right back out into town. Our group sat by the water and watched the sun go down over the mountains. It was truly breathtaking. We all sat by the water and talked for a couple hours about so many things including different cultures, politics, and social issues both abroad and in the US. Although the material seems like it would be heavy to talk about in such a peaceful setting, our conversations were great and always stayed respectful. This was one of the aspects I loved most about staying in hostels too. So many people from very different countries throughout the world stay in hostels. Every person I have meet in hostels has been open-minded, respectful, interesting and so fun to be around. That night in Kotor, our group met people from Singapore, California, the Netherlands, and Montenegro and we talked for hours about our lives, ideas, and experiences.
Our new mantra after staying at hostels was that, “life should be a hostel”. I think I’ve learned so much meeting people from different countries at hostels it’s hard to even recount everything we discussed during our conversations. These experiences bring people together in a very beautiful way.
The night wasn’t all deep conversation however. The manager of the hostel and I had a fun yet intense game of floor tennis in the hostel lobby. The court was drawn with chalk, and the racquets were cutting boards, and the balls were ping pong balls…(hey whatever works right?) Regardless of the equipment, I still managed to beat the hostel owner in two games. 🙂 He wanted to play a third game but by then my knees were already bruised from the several games we played beforehand.
Unfortunately, like all my time in the Balkans so far, the day went by way too quickly. After floor tennis, long conversations with good company, and hours of travel, it was already 2:00 am in the morning and time to head to bed.
The next morning Will, Peixin, and I woke up early and went to an Orthodox church since Will is Orthodox. I’m not Orthodox but it was really interesting to watch the ceremony. The service was in Church Slavonic so I didn’t understand a thing, but the church was absolutely gorgeous and it was an unforgettable experience.
Before we left Kotor to head back to Albania we had a really good lunch at one of the restaurants in the city and then we were off for a six hour drive back to Tirana.
Life in Tirana
Going into my second week of living in Tirana was definitely full of transitions, but I was able to adjust very quickly thanks for the support and advice from the other Michigan interns who had already been there for about a week before I arrived (shout out to Peixin, Will and Siri). Also, another Michigan intern Eni, arrived the week after me and she fluent in Albanian. She was so helpful when trying to communicate with Albanians who didn’t speak much English and teaching me basic Albanian phrases.
A couple things I had to get used to in Albania
-Boiling tap water to make drinkable water (water standards are different in Albania and the city itself didn’t have guaranteed safe drinking water, bottled water was also very cheap)
-Hang drying laundry (the energy needed to power a dryer in Albania is crazy expensive so no one uses them)
-The elevators (they’re so tiny)
-Buying groceries very frequently rather than in bulk trips (Europe does not use the kind of preservatives that the U.S. uses in food therefore it makes more sense to frequently buy food rather than buy a great deal of food at the grocery store)
-Limited wifi (this is actually kind of nice, I don’t feel the need to check my phone often)
Work has also been going well too. I helped design a hat for the staff of the National Coastal Agency, also known as Agjensia Kombetare e Bregdetit. I’ve also been working on drafting letters to various research centers and universities asking if they would be interested in conducting research projects in Albania. Opportunities to conduct research in areas such as anthropology, archeology, marine/coastal biology, and environmental studies are just a few areas of study available in Albania.
Some of the highlights of Albania include
Really cheap food (I can get byrek, which is basically Albania vegetable/meat pie, for 30 leke which is less than 30 cents in the U.S.)
Coffee, coffee, coffee (Albania has really great coffee and coffee breaks are a regular part of the work day)
The people (My co workers have been very welcoming and so nice to be around, almost everyone in the office speaks English too so it’s easy to communicate)
The office (The National Coastal Agency is a beautiful office to work in)
The travel (the second week in Albania our group headed down to a city called Saranda in southern Albania. We were lucky enough to have Auron Tare, who runs the National Coastal Agency, take us down south with a military vehicle and driver. Our driver’s name was Wilson or Vilson in Albanian. He was so nice! We tried to speak to Wilson in English so he could practice his English language skills and in the process he also taught us a lot of useful words in Albanian.)
I’m a little behind in my blogging but there’s more to come about my last week in Albania, site seeing at Butrint, and my first week in Cardiff, Wales. Mirupafshim!