We’re determined to explore more new areas of Tirana as we think further about a “permanent” residence here. Both of the areas we’ve lived so far have had their plusses and minuses, but there are tons of neighborhoods, so maybe we just haven’t seen the “perfect” spot yet.
But that requires coffee so we started our day at Hana. It’s become the de facto Antigua replacement in the past week or two, and while they aren’t their own coffee roaster, they are a very good coffee shop, with a very third-wave mindset, good beans from The Barn in Berlin, and excellent chocolate chip cookies if you get there early enough.
I tried an iced v60 last weekend and it was very good — they have little individual-ish bags of beans for v60s — this one said it had notes of blackberry jam which I definitely got and enjoyed. I had been chatting with one of the baristas and she recommended the same treatment for another bean, this one with chocolate and orange, so I picked that one for today. It was also good … although I think I like the blackberry one better.
After there, we headed south and around the opposite side of the stadium (there’s a tiny football pitch here where KF Tirana play — “Wrexham-sized” as H put it) and then kept walking straight, heading towards the big park and man-made lake at the southern end of the city. There was evidence that we are getting closer to spring — the cherry trees have started to flower. We found another spot to get a second coffee and H deemed the area the most relaxing she’d been in so far. It was maybe newer overall than our current building (which is probably Communist-era) and you could still see signs you were in Albania if you knew what you were looking for, but overall it was pleasant.
We stopped for … lunch? at a place called Tony’s American Something or Other and they had Mexican offerings and if we have not learned anything yet in our time in Albania, it was evidenced by us both ordering “enchiladas” despite being fooled time and again by anything that purports to pass as Mexican. The Greek salad was good though. I think we’re both looking forward to Greek salads in Athens next week.
Since that put us back on the street that Woodrow Wilson is on, we started wandering back towards the apartment, stopped at My Way to finish out the daylight with some Aperol spritzes, and then went into Opa to have some chicken skewers for a late dinner.
A very nice day. We agreed that it was easy and necessary to keep exploring, so planned to wander out west on Sunday. There’s an old airfield runway there that’s been turned into a park, and we’ve been seeing apartment listings in that area, so we’re curious to find out what it’s like.