Back to Albania

I wrote 10 stories in Portuguese. Now I'm writing some in English too and that's why you are here.

About this weekend, I got an Eurobus ticket to Tirana, so time to travel!

On Saturday I left my place in Struga, North Macedonia, and walked to the bus stop/station 10 minutes away. There I saw the Eurobus and Eurolines offices.
There was an Eurolines van parked and I asked the driver, is this also Eurobus?
He said, Tirana? Go to the office.

I went to Eurobus' office, it was closed.
I went to Eurolines', there was a receptionist.
He said something like stay here [right] in front [of the office].
I stayed for a few minutes.
He comes and says jump into the van.
I said, but isn't it a bus?
And is it Eurolines rather than Eurobus?
Are they the same?
He said, yes. DA!
There's a bus, let's go.

I was like it doesn't make sense. But the Eurobus office is closed and he is saying that this bus goes to Tirana. I jumped into the van. The thing is I didn't know where we were going.

What if I'm being trafficked or whatsover? Trust him or not? I asked myself.

We stopped by the road. There was a family awaiting there as well. Zdravo leads to another Zdravo! When the bus comes, there it is, Eurobus. Thank you, cosmos.

Then I arrived in Tirana. In early November, when I was planning this move I already thought some unpredictable things would happen. But not in North Macedonia, only in Albania. Why? Because Tirana has a heavy traffic. I thought, if I buy my connection bus ticket in advance, I may have issues because of the city traffic. Plus, they recently changed the routes from North Macedonia to Albania and put them into a new bus station. That means that Tirana has now 3 stations. I went from the east to the regional one as I checked online and was thinking my other bus would be there but it wasn't. In total it took me arround 2 hours to take a city bus, walk and change stations until I reached the one near the airport. I finally got into the third station and by then I realized Tirana is hugeeeee and prettier than I thought it to be. It was my 3rd time there but it deserves a 4th as I have only been to Tirana for stopovers (airport and bus stations).

Once I'm at the station, I bought a ticket and in 30 minutes we headed to Vlora. Vlora, the sunny city that has a lot of history and a beautiful sea. Good to scape from cold winter. Winter I love you, but the solar system says it ALL.

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If you look at the map Vlora is located in the Adriatic and it's as close to Lecce (Italy) as it's to Albania's capital Tirana. As always you may be asking how do I end up in places in the middle of nowhere rather than the big towns. My hometown in Brazil is of the size of Zurich, but less crowded. I used to think that 400k people were all good in a city but I realized that for expats it's best to go to the super populated areas.

One thing I've found here in this short time was a bakery that has a great burek. After Pristina, I haven't found any burek like the one from there. Bosnia, Albania, and North Macedonia's burek were good but Kosovo's burek from a place near the city park was the best I've ever tried. I love burek as much as I love oats. Another thing is that here in Vlora they don't have as many supermarkets as I thought for a city of 140k peple (okay, Maps told me there would be some), and the list keeps going. Nomads recommend Albania as it's cheaper than most places. I talked with a few who have been to Saranda (including a colleague). But appart from the rental and the bakeries, food is more expensive than Central Europe. For living costs, whe you travel please consider Numbeo and NomadList.

I have plenty of time to figure out the old buildings as the city goes back to the 11th century.

Like I usually say, at the end everything will work out and it'll be fine no matter what happens.
Lke Aretha says: Take care, TCB.