Sunday of our first “out in the world” weekend back in Tirana went a bit like Saturday — get up, go to Mulliri, get hungry, etc. The conversation at Mulliri was even mostly the same, although with decidedly different results — after digging around, exploring options, picking layover or stopover, we actually bought the airline tickets to Australia for this summer. Crazy! To think only thirty years ago we would have had to go to a travel agent. Now we can just click a button on our phones.
I am pretty excited about this. I know H is not excited about the long time on a plane. On multiple planes, really, since the flight is TIA > LHR > SIN > SYD and almost 30 hours in air time. We really are on the exact opposite side of the world.
Next item on the list was to see if we could find Instax film. We had seen it in quite a few places last year, most notably in a game shop chain called Albagame, but so far they were very low on stock or completely out in most locations. H thought she remembered a place from last year down on Rruga Sami Frësheri that had cameras in the window, and that way led towards old favorite drinking spots from the last two years, so we went to see what we could find. Shpresa was the name of the shop — a nice, big electronics store with a full Apple product display, a bunch of drones and other video equipment, game consoles, and conveniently a giant countertop full of the Instax film H was looking for. I love my Albagame but I gotta remember this place is here, if only for all the DJI video goodies.
We also went into Baronesha which is a funny little import “specialty” grocery store. It carries some funny American imports like boxes of pancake mix but also things from other expat diasporas like cans of British baked beans. We mainly go in to get jalapenos — they had a good Mexican brand this time — and H also got a bottle of Tajin since we left our bag of spices at home accidentally this trip.
Grabbed lunch at Pastaria. It’s never going to be lost on me that we can eat out cheaper than we can cook, and this place is really one of the proving spots. Two bowls of pasta for around six bucks — spaghetti at home costs more than that. (Don’t worry, we upped the final bill by drinking an entire bottle of wine.) Then we took a nice circuit through the ol’ Blokku neighborhood before settling in for another round of drinks at My Way and then dinner at Opa, a local Greek fast food chain.
The location of the new apartment is definitely nice for days like this where we want to just wander. It wasn’t bad up north but we definitely finished some nights dead on our feet and getting a cab back to the apartment; here when we wrap up, it’s just across the bridge and a block down and straight into the building. So it does have that going for it.