Although they are exceedingly cautious for young adventurers, my kids will follow me off a cliff if my water landing is smooth enough. All to often though, my running jump ends in a belly flop and I’m left wondering if I should follow their leads instead. It’s common to feel a bit of self-doubt when something goes wrong. What about when everything goes wrong?
Life in Himara was pretty perfect. After a couple of months there it was beginning to feel like home. I enjoyed being by the sea and mountains and the coffee couldn’t be better. With a delicious sweet shop in town and high speed internet at our house, both the kids said they would happily stay in Himara indefinitely. Tola, though, wasn’t quite as content. It’s a small town and the selection of foods is quite limited. She was dreaming of wandering the isles of Costco rather than revisiting the little family mini mart around the corner for a loaf of bread and a bunch of bananas.
While I’m not yet tired of gyros and mousaka, I can certainly understand that feeling. I can remember the magic of walking into an American gas station convenience store for the first time after a seven year stay in Cambodia. The sight of Slim Jims and blue cherry Slurpees was like that of a cornucopia of plenty after living with the limited selection of Cambodian markets.
As nice as it might be to spend the year in Himara, my plan for the year is to explore living in a few different places in Europe with the hope that this will give us an idea of where we might like to live someday. So on our final Saturday morning in Himara we reluctantly packed our bags and carried them across our patio while the cats and chickens sadly watched us leave.
Usually I feel a bit of excitement to be on the road again. This time I felt nothing but doubt on the drive to Durrës. The latest news showed a terrible Covid surge across Europe and here we were headed straight into it.
The kids were feeling sad to leave and we were about to run into an avalanche of annoying little problems, the ones that become amplified by each other and maybe by one’s own state of mind.
Airbnb is magic for family travel and we’ve used it without problem dozens of times in countries across the world. This time, however, our apartment was located many miles from its listed location. We found ourselves in a summer holiday zone on the beach with the air of an amusement park shuttered for the winter. Surrounded by closed shops, empty hotel and boarded up attractions, the lively city of Durrës was a two hour walk away. This wouldn’t have been such a problem as the kids needed to focus mostly on school anyway, but then the internet crashed. After spending a full day working on it with the owner and tech employees at an electronics shop across town, we finally got it running in time for class on Monday.
But our problems weren’t finished yet.
We managed to get to Durrës the next day where ND had an appointment to get braces. He had already completed the mold back in August and now the orthodontist would be fitting them, or so we thought. Instead we found that the dental office had forgotten about our appointment and the braces would not be ready for another week. Our flight out of Albania would unfortunately be in five days. So no braces.
The kids spent the week getting some work done while I spent the days walking along a lonely stretch of beach. The water here was murky and the sand was littered with trash. With empty hotels and apartment high rises flanking the miles long promenade along the water, the place had the feel of an abandoned Las Vegas, neon lights turned off and sand blowing across empty kitsch restaurants with names like Miami Beach Plaza and Niagara Falls Cafe. I missed the authentic charm of Himara.
When the day of our flight arrived, I felt strangely apprehensive. The sky was filled with dark thunderheads and it began to rain as we tried to load our many suitcases into a taxi. We quickly found that we couldn’t fit in one taxi, so we took two.
As for our flight, the cost of our luggage was more than the cost of our tickets. ND’s heavy school textbooks were distributed throughout our bags so that none would exceed the weight limits, but all felt heavy enough to rip my shoulders off while carrying them up and down stairs and in and out of taxis. Our fourth suitcase exploded at the check-in counter, clothes and textbooks spilling out all over the floor. Eventually, we got it packed back up and plastic wrapped to hold everything in.
Our next destination was only a one-hour flight away by propeller plane, but the journey was enough to wipe me out. I almost always arrive in a new country excited and full of energy. Instead I arrived exhausted with a massive headache. I was hoping to rent a car here, but I left my International Driver’s Permit in the glove compartment of my Albanian rental car. I was probably in no shape to drive anyway.
But now that I’ve had a good night’s sleep, I’m feeling a bit more excited and energetic. I’m still not sure if I made the right decision, but I think it’s time to begin exploring. That is, as soon as we figure out where to get a new suitcase, driving permit and braces.
ADVENTURE-SOMEWHERE.COM 