Heatwaves to Floods.

 I arrived into the port of Saranda, Albania on yet another sweltering day of the heatwave. Had I known at this point that things were going to get far worse before getting better then I may well have skipped Albania and headed north. I’m glad I didn’t, Albania was a very interesting and beautiful place but, again, had I known I was headed for weeks of near or greater than 40 degree days and absolutely no air conditioning I would have made other arrangements. Albania was not just hot. It was also very humid – a Tasmanian’s worst nightmare. So first challenge: overcome my own poor attitude. After surviving the first night where the temperature barely made it below 30 degrees and only a sad, miserable fan (and the occasional power outage just for kicks!) preventing insanity I realised it wasn’t getting any worse than that and I would be fine and gave myself a good attitude check and I was happy (and sweaty) from there on. I stayed in Saranda at a place called Wallaby Hostel – owned/ran by an Australian! I had thought that might be fun, I doubted I’d see any aussies in Albania but who knows. Ooft was I wrong, the place was almost entirely Australian’s which I found hilarious – one staff member was even wearing a Richmond jumper around the place. I felt very at home. I also had lovely and fun dormies too which makes a big difference. I changed to a different hostel after four days (planned well in advance to manage a transport clash) and was thrilled to find a new and powerful AC in my room! Hallelujah! It was remarkable how much better I was at being a human once I could escape the heat for a while. In Saranda I spent a lot of time by the beach. I had a day at Ksamil which was lovely and otherwise spent a lot of time by the local beaches in Saranda.. under the shade of umbrellas. I also visited Butrint National Park (ancient city ruins), the Blue Eye natural spring (I was amazed that during the heatwave I found water that could be considered too cold.. but what do you know it was hecking cold at the Blue Eye) and took in the city views from the Castle of Lekurisi  (stunning).

 I next headed to the Albanian capital Tirana. It was a balmy 41 degrees when I arrived. Splendid. Tirana is an interesting city, a miss-match of old and modern from its past under the communist regime to a tech-forward city with strong ambition to become highly contemporary. Tirana was less touristy than Saranda and it felt a little more authentic Albanian. So authentic that I couldn’t communicate with a local laundromat well enough to get my clothes washed yay. A personal highlight was finding a hidden athletics track in the middle of the city park and doing my first faster session is quite some time. There was an older gentleman there having a potter around the track and I was super chuffed when he started encouraging me each lap saying “Grande! Grande!” which I’m pretty sure loosely translates to ‘get it giiiirl’ in Albanian. On the other hand, my saddest Albanian moment featured on my first night in Tirana, I had ordered dinner from a menu that was pictures rather than words (turns out that’s a red flag but at the time I thought it was very helpful due to my very poor Albanian. Haha.) and believed I had ordered some kind of vegetable casserole, possibly in a tomato based sauce. What was returned to me was, however, mushroom soup. Browny-grey soup topped with slices of mushroom. And I do not like mushrooms. What a fail. I ate it anyway because I figured it was my own fault but it wasn’t good. The following night I ordered a lasagne to be safe.. and was mortified to find that that was also filled with mushrooms! I know what you’re thinking; was it vegetable lasagne Sandy? NOPE it was run of the mill regular beef lasagne. I don’t understand why this is happening but from this moment forward I order nothing without verbal confirmation that the meal is mushroom free.

I only did a few runs in Albania – I think I mentioned it was hot? Way too hot for running. When the temp got back down to 33 degrees I thought it was amazing and went straight out for a run! And then again the next day! And then I had another break because 33 degrees is still really hot for running, actually.

I needed another few weeks in Albania as I missed some towns I would have loved to see. Fortunately (but its actually unfortunate) I failed to change my Albanian Leke over before leaving the country and it turns out you cannot exchange it anywhere else! Love that for me. So, I may have to go back to spend it or it’s a souvenir worth 240 euros… doh. While I’m on the topic, Leke is stupid. It’s just euros with two extra zeros, it’s a stupid waste of time. The country also runs almost entirely on cash, but they sting you 8 euros to get money out! That’s about $13 per withdrawal. I’ll never complain about the threefiddy Australian atms usually charge ever again.  

Moving north, I left Albania (and the heatwave, yass) for Slovenia (with the best tan I’ve ever had) – starting in the capital Ljubljana. Yes I am spelling that correctly.. you say it Loobalana.. locals told us this I didn’t make it up. So, I loved Ljubljana! It’s a beautiful city that I felt was almost like a fairytale! Lovely buildings, a farmers market and a pet ostrich named Nando that wanders the streets looking for pats. Yes read that again, not a word of a lie. I really adored the city. I had booked an outdoorsy tour in Slovenia and I met with some of my tour group on my first night here. You never do know what you’re going to get from a tour group so I was quite relieved with how much fun we had on our first night after just meeting. I had a feeling it was going to be a good time and I was not wrong! Our tour was based in a small town called Bohinjska Bistricia which is around 20 minutes on from Bled/Lake Bled. For a week we hiked, rafted, kayaked and canyoned, sauna-ed, drank wine and laughed endlessly and it was one of the best weeks I have had! The scenery was stunning, the activities were great, and I met a bunch of awesome people! For anyone interested, my tour company was called Join the Crew and it was a fabulous balance of organised and flexible; with a great guide the whole time but nothing compulsory, and the group could decide on what extra activities we did. It was a great way to see such a magnificent country – a lot of the more adventurous activities I wouldn’t be able to do on my own and it was a safe way to tackle some decent hikes without fear of getting lost. All of my tour buddies were European (so they made fun of my accent A LOT) which gave me a great opportunity to get to know people from different backgrounds. I loved it. It was a really cup-filling week and if I’m being honest I’m still recovering a week later!

Just so you know, the temperatures here were mostly between 18-25 degrees… what a place.

If you have been following international news, we did encounter the days of torrential rain and thunderstorms that caused widespread flooding in Slovenia. Sadly two Dutch people were killed from a lightning strike and the floods caused a lot of damage in some areas. We weren’t affected (other than getting wet) but we did prepare for evacuation just in case. Our outdoor activities were taken inside to the sauna and bowling alley during the rain. I am not real good at bowling. It’s about on par with my swimming but significantly more enjoyable.

After a final night in the city with the tour group we had to say our goodbyes and go in our different directions – sad times. I left Slovenia for London with a short stop in Munich. Here a border control staff member referred to my passport as a ‘kangaroo passport’ and then asked me a friendly question about my travels.. which is unheard of at border control, you may recall my interrogation at LAX. I then got to skip the line and go through the electronic gates. So long story short Munich is now my favourite airport.

I’ve now started my journey through the UK, I’ll be here a while to stay out of the Schengen Zone. If you don’t know about the complexities of the Schengen Zone you will have to google them yourself because I’m not explaining it. I am looking forward to a slower pace through the UK (but running faster I hope) and ticking a lot more things off my bucket list that definitely includes several Harry Potter themed activities. I am truly living my best life.