Goodbye, Albania! After a month in this very interesting and at times very backwards corner of Europe, we have departed Albania and are now in Milan, Italy.

Some of us were very excited to leave; a few of us could think of many things we loved about Albania. One thing we can all agree on is that spending a month in Albania has given us some major perspective and a new appreciation for some of life’s luxuries. We’re all happily adjusting back to flushing toilet paper. I briefly considered filling wine glasses with Italy’s tap water and clinking glasses to clean water! We are looking more carefully when crossing the street and using crosswalks now. Even in crowded Italian stores, we have been so pleasantly surprised to see people politely moving around each other and respecting each other’s space. And the options in grocery stores are simply amazing after seeing the same exact limited number of items for a month. What luxuries!

We did end our time in Albania on a good note, even managing to improve our overall vomit odds to a mere nine out of thirty days. After an easy drive to Tiranë, Nic especially was very, very happy to return our rental car. Some insane taxi drivers got us to our lodging. Honestly, we don’t understand how they didn’t hit anyone with their merciless driving, further confirmation that we’re just not really cut out for city driving in Albania.

Tiranë differs greatly from the rest of Albania. We stayed in a pretty shiny part of town right next to the US Embassy, and town felt safe and clean and, dare I say, modern? Our apartment still had some typical Albanian issues, but it was a step above all our other lodging. The town is a strange mix of sleek modern buildings, mosques, cathedrals, and more typical glimpses of the more common Albania down alleys and in certain neighborhoods. We appreciated the chance to shop in an organic food store and an open-air produce stand in the same shopping trip. In one day we also ate traditional Korçë lakror from a hole in the wall place by the bazaar before ordering dinner from a heavily Italian-influenced pizza place where all the staff spoke English. The contrasts could be disorienting, but after spending a month in Albania, I’d like to think we appreciated the best of it all.

I believe we will be mulling over the lessons learned and what we observed in Albania for a long time. It wouldn’t be at the top of my list, but I’d like to come back someday, hopefully at a point when the country has been able to gain some distance in time from their Communist years and establish a higher standard of living for their people. And I’d like to hope that someone will pick up some of that trash in the meantime!