Day #10 Thursday January 5, 2012
Up for
breakfast and there are more people staying at the hotel this time. The waiter who looks like some actor,
remembered what we liked to drink and got it for us. This place had the best breakfasts. We have until 1 p.m. or so Our daughter is going to work out and said
that there are regular people who work out there and also a staff of the
massage ladies who kind of hang out and wait for customers and get them as
well. There was a local patron in the
gym who didn’t appreciate that she took a long time running. (she runs about 2
hours) Heavy sighs.
After she
was done in the gym we wanted to go to the National Museum which was on the
square right across the street from us.
We started over there and walked up to the door around 10 and it was
closed. Bummer. My husbandl had come out without a coat and it was cold enough that he went back to get a
coat but while he was going back for his coat, it had started raining enough to
be uncomfortable and the hotel desk had never heard of the idea of hotels
having umbrellas so we just gave up on going anywhere at that time. We went into the gift shop of the hotel and
found some of the Cobo winery Raki which our daughter got as a gift.
There was some lovely jewelry there as well which was silver and gold
though so rather expensive. The guide
books had said there would be silver and copper jewelry but we never really
found any other than the kitsy cheap looking tourist stuff. So while the guide books had gone on and on
about the handicrafts and the locally made items, we never really found any
that were much different from any other tourist kind of place and never found
anything truly unique besides our wooden double headed eagles.
We finally
went out again after it stopped raining and I wanted to walk down the street
past the museum and see if there was anything to be seen. Was pretty much a street of travel
agents. Albanians must travel a lot plus
seeing the news around the holidays, there were tons of people coming home for
the holidays and then going back and the queues at the Greek border where
atrocious.
We did pass
several shoe stores and my daughter was looking longingly at the shoes and I
finally said we don’t know that they aren’t going to fit until you try them
on. Myself, I don’t get the shoe thing
but maybe that’s because I have a lot of foot problems but my daughter is well
into the shoe addict culture. So we went
into the store and she came out with three pairs of shoes. She could have done much more so it is a good
thing we waited until the last day to get the shoes. One was a pair that said it was Italian leather. I suppose it certainly could be and probably
is although Klodi didn’t think so. But
not sure he would know anything about women’s shoes. They were all nice pairs and all about what I
would expect to pay for shoes in a country like Albanian and expect to pay 3 or
4 times the price in the states.
So now we
have to go back to the hotel and finish packing and that means we have 6 bottles of wine between my husband and me
and one bottle of Raki and our daughter has a bottle of Raki. We looked up on the internet to make sure we
could come in with this much from a non EU country and we were ok. Sure did almost tilt our suitcases though.
Klodi comes
to fetch us on time and we wind out way out of the city through the traffic
with the useless police men paying no attention to the stop lights. Klodi dumps us at the departure door and
shakes hands all around and we give him an envelope with his tip. The guide book had said 10% of the trip cost but
we all felt that was a bit too much because he didn’t do anything the last 4
days except drive plus when we asked him about all the signs all over the place
that said “this castle that way and this church this way” he was very, “Oh,
nothing much there and it’s probably closed” but we certainly could have driven
out to see if it was closed or not and maybe seen something rather than sit in
our rooms in Korca or Gjirokastra or especially Saranda. Anyway, he got a nice tip for what he did.
By the end
of the trip, Klodi was rolling his eyes at our requests a lot, which were
stopping for lunch or stopping for fruits and vegetables or asking the
restaurant to cook our own vegetables (yet this was his suggestion in the
beginning and I’m thinking that if he knew that restaurants would cook your
veggies for you, he has done it before for other tourists) By the end of the trip, it was obvious that
Klodi would much rather have been somewhere else than taking us on a tour. Still, we did have a very good time and did
learn a lot from him.
We check in
without a problem. So nice being
business class. Could have told her not
to bother putting the priority tags on the suitcases since it doesn’t seem to
matter in the order of them coming off the plane. Then we did a quick run through of the duty
free, nothing, and then up to the lounge where we were the only ones
there. We did get some nice snacks
though and they had a nice but odd cake.
Finally it
is time to board so we go downstairs and wait for another 10 minutes. They had called for families with children
and business class first. We shuffled
our way to the gate and they were putting people to one bus or another as we
walked out the door. The plane is 100
yards away but we are going to be bussed over there. At first I thought we were getting the
business class bus because usually, nice airports, have a bus for first class,
a bus for business class and then a bus for the riff raff. But after about 10 people were in our bus,
they kept filling it until it was full and then it went. We did go first though and most of the
children and families were in the second bus so why have them go through the
gate first???
Luckily,
the flight was not totally as full and not as many kids and not as many whinny
kids so it wasn’t too bad a flight. One
of the nice things about business class and British airways is they try to
accommodate you, even with odd and unusual requests. I always ask to keep the coffee cup on
British Airways. So this trip, I managed
to snag all the British airways coffee cups this time. Now I have a set of four.
Into
Gatwick and we get through immigration rather quickly but then we stand in the
baggage claim area for at least 10 minutes before we even know what belt our
luggage will arrive. Then we are not
coming out first like priority. I had
gloated in Albanian when my suitcase was the first of our three to arrive. This time it was last. Karma!
Our driver calls me while we are waiting for our luggage.
Finally we
get our luggage and get outside with it.
Our driver takes off with two of our bags and we get stuck behind some
slow walkers and the driver is disappearing with our suitcases into the parking
garage but we catch up finally. He is in
a sedan and has a hard time getting everything into the car. He drives us home and stays in the fast lane
almost the entire time. While it got us
home faster, made me nervous to be flying that fast down the M25! So very nice to get home. So very nice to see our kitties. So very nice to be warm in our house and have
plenty of hot water.
That’s our
trip. We enjoyed it. We were very glad we went. We think Albania is a lovely country and full
of good things to see and visit. We
think we will not ever go in the winter again and would advise people to stay
in the “high tourist” season for a few more years until they catch on that
people like to visit at all times of the year.
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