Monday, getting back to Tirana

OK. It's very late (almost 2am) and I need to go to sleep. At least I separated tonight's post into 4 separate posts to make it more manageable. As for Monday, we visited the castle again, which was nice, then we headed back to Tirana. We ended up taking a cab a lot of the way ($70) to Fier (perhaps 2 1/2 hours), then a mini-bus (much cheaper) from there (another 1 1/2 hours?). The cab ride was on curvy mountainous roads, and all of us felt a little bit weird in our stomachs at some point (which is saying a lot - Nathan & I have stomachs like rocks!). Apparently there had been 3 months straight of rain this winter, so the regular road was washed out at a couple of points & all traffic was diverted to an older, bumpy, dirt road. There are some pictures of where the landslide covered the road.

I am convinced that the southern part of Albania is one of the most beautiful regions in the world. The drive through the mountains is amazing. Perhaps it's even enough to bring someone to this country who doesn't have connections here. The towns are not very developed at all, but the views....

We made it back to Tirana at about 2:30/3pm in the afternoon. A long journey. I played cards with the kids a lot along the way, but they did really well.

We headed right to Genci's mother's house, of course, which was why we needed to get back. We were there from 3:30pm - 9/9:30pm, with a 1/2 hour break to go for supplies. She of course said that we hadn't been there for more than 5 minutes (meaning she was busy so she hadn't had time to sit and talk for more than 5 minutes), but we are trying to spend as much time as possible with her.

I feel better after blogging about our trip. I hope that tomorrow I will have a relaxed attitude towards everything and not worry about failing/succeeding at meeting his mother's expectations. We have 2 days left. We have had a very good trip so far, which is amazing, considering the history of our trips.

I take back what I said earlier about travel being wasted on kids. I do see my kids making observations about things (Nathan: "Albanians use their hands a lot when they talk."), and they do take in some of the history & culture between cat and grasshopper sightings.