As a welcome break from my convenience store cuisine, my current innkeeper Flora has been popping over every day or two with a home cooked meal, with a plethora of veggies from her garden and plenty of the olive oil she tapped from her olive trees. The downside to these gifts is I always get a mild “travel tummy” by the next day. Today, not only did I wake up to travel tummy from the roasted potato and eggplant casserole last night, but my sinus congestion is on steroids.
Not looking forward to hiking back from Mt Everest, I Googled not one, not two, but four different websites to check if pharmacies are open on Sundays. Everything from Google Maps, to Yelp to Sarande-specific sites, assured me that pharmacies were open from 7a-10pm today. I put on my trusty Allbirds and grabbed my day pack for some groceries and headed out.
The first pharmacy, just at the edge of the Mt Everest trail down, was closed. I figured it’s still in the “suburbs” of Sarande, and wasn’t listed by name online, so it must just be closed because it’s not as busy. I double checked Google and there were at least two pharmacies listed on the main street just north of the promenade with their operating hours, so I started down.
The second pharmacy was not only closed, but had one of those pulled down, garage door security mechanisms chained securely to the sidewalk at the bottom. The third pharmacy, closest to the ferry terminal, was also closed. My sinuses would need to behave until tomorrow.
Incorrect information online has plagued me for this entire Albanian stay, from wrong phone numbers for the taxis I can never order, to incorrect operation hours, as in today, and fake reviews of both food and tours. I have to be honest, I’m counting the hours until I board the bus on Wednesday and head back to Tirana and then LIsbon for my cruise. Albania may make it easy for Americans to come, since we get a full year without a visa, but so far, I won’t be planning a return trip.
As a consolation prize and because I wasn’t quite ready for the 90 minute hike back up Mt Everest just yet, I decided to try out the Hard Rock – type bar that was packed on my last visit, Rock and Blues. Turns out, it’s only a bar and doesn’t serve food, much like cafe’s only serve coffee and sometimes tea. I spied the Irish Pub next door and decided to grab an early lunch.
I won’t go into too much detail, but this Irish pub would never stay open anywhere in the U.S. or Ireland for that matter. It’s very pretty and definitely geared to the ferry and American/EU tourist crowd, charging 400 Lek ($5) for a draft beer vs the $1.50 I pay anywhere else.
I had hoped for some pub fare but the menu was a hodgepodge of pasta, asian stir fry, generic appetizers and burgers. The Irish Gold pub burger was a shaped patty of steak tartare that had the texture of a Costco Burger you thawed out too long before grilling. I am going to guess that the greek/arabic spice mix used tinted the flesh brown and the cook thought it was cooked. The fried egg, Canadian bacon, way too much mayo, and mystery (not Cheddar or American) cheese didn’t save it either.
Much like the burger, the fries were barely cooked and unseasoned. I couldn’t flag down the one waitress trying to serve both the restaurant and the patio to get it fixed, so I just nibbled around the raw meat the best I could. I finally walked over to the bar and asked for the check, uneaten burger platter in hand. She apologized about the food but made no attempt to let me order a replacement or take it off the bill. Once the debit card went through, I downed my second beer and headed out for the grueling hike back up, without meds and with the hope that “traveler-tummy-take-two” doesn’t hit tonight.
I’ve learned a few things about the Slow Travel movement, my travel preferences and first two months of retirement that may alter my plans for the next few months:
- Staying in one city for 3 weeks to a month, or longer, doesn’t work for me. Even Split, with its huge catalog of tours and attractions, ran dry before the third week. I’m going to pivot to visiting one country per month, but choose 2-4 cities within that country. I’m also going to limit Booking.com reservations to a max of one week, so if anything doesn’t work, I can move on.
- I’m going to stop renting apartments and move to rented rooms with a shared bathroom and kitchen privileges that have the highest rating for location. I want to have a grocery store, restaurants and things to do within walking distance, especially if public transportation is unreliable or a complete mystery, as it was here in Sarande.
- As much as I had wanted to see at least Japan, right now I want to visit countries where I can meet people and hold a conversation with a local, so I am narrowing it down to countries where Spanish or English are the primary languages. I’ve gone as long as four days in a row without a single conversation here, and Flora and I communicate only through Google Translate. I’m not meeting other tourists who speak English or Spanish, and the few Germans I have met tend to flake on meeting up for coffee or meals later. I’m perfectly fine traveling alone, but this was even too alone for me. It’s no wonder that the Slow Travel YouTubers I follow are all couples and not singles.
- The advantage to retirement is you can change plans when they aren’t working and don’t have to worry about scheduling specific dates with anyone. My goal to stay out of the U.S. until a new President is elected, or at least the current one calms down, may need to change. I may have to rethink the order of countries I wanted to visit. I may also look into some longer term volunteering assignments that include housing or finally test drive “van life” with a rental since I want to visit most of the National Parks in the Continental U.S. at some point.
- I’d like to spend the holidays with my family and friends fourth quarter in Seattle. I have to replace a few items (my Amazon basics carry on has a split zipper because I’m forced to check it in on every flight and my puffer jacket got lost in Copenhagen). I have some long-covid health issues I’ll have to get looked at with doctors who have my history. My savings and investments have recovered from the latest stock market hiccups and will be available once I reset so I don’t feel I have to rush back out if I’m not ready.