We had looked forward to this weekend as a chance to do some sightseeing and take a break from our volunteering.

We started by driving up to Lezhë Castle, a crumbling ruin sitting atop the town of Lezhë. Parts of this castle are as old as 3rd-4th century BC! It’s amazing to consider how long people have settled in this part of the world. Unfortunately, we only got to wander around for a short time before a lightning storm chased us back to the car, with soaked sweatshirts. That might not sound like a big deal, but it meant our main warm layers were out of commission for about 36 hours. We had to pay a small fee for entry, which we paid in euros due to having no small Albanian lek change at the moment. You can pay for just about anything here in either currency, and I think they’ll take US currency as well in plenty of places. The attendant gave us change in lek and euros, and I’m not sure I’ve ever received change in two currencies before.

We had some small wins as well as we found a nearby restaurant and managed to order takeout. Perhaps this doesn’t seem like a triumph, but something about walking into a restaurant is very intimidating to me.

We also found a great grocery store with a big, empty parking lot. The best grocery store we had found before this was downtown and required thirty minutes of frustrating circling to find iffy parking.

But everything went south when I started feeling sick to my stomach. I suspect food poisoning, or a bug from the water. We’ve filtered 100% of our drinking water here, but I have used the water for brushing my teeth and rinsing my toothbrush. In any case, I have been out of commission completely for 24 hours and even though it’s been 16 hours since I last vomited, I feel completely drained. Here’s to hoping for a better day tomorrow!