We were told that Albania doesn’t really have a lot of crime here but moreso domestic disputes/abuse which I find odd because at the same time the sons (especially the youngest son) is responsible for taking care of the parents and are apparently spoiled by the mother. With that type of culture/mentality domestic abuse just seems contradictory. Anyway, my mom said that as she woke up she heard a neighboring woman in one of the apartments screaming with a man yelling at her (she said she even thinks he may have been choking her as the woman was coughing a lot). She said that she could hear eventually someone coming to the aid/rescue of the woman (I would say never in America but truth be told these things happen everywhere, but if it were me, he’d be a dead man FAAFO (if you know, you know).

Today is our tour to Kruja Castle and the Old Bazaar and we’ve been waiting for this Bazaar to get rid of some of this leke. Thankfully it’s with the same tour company that we went on the day trip to Berat with so the meeting place is also the same which was a small coffee shop right around the corner from us. It’s a little cooler outside today than it was on that day so instead of an iced coffee I opted for a hot coffee. Right as I received my order I got a call from our tour guide Denis who said they were outside so my mom and I hopped in the van and we were on our way. I think we may have stopped one more time before we began heading out of the city towards the city of Krujë.

Traffic getting out of the city is crazy in the morning as it is so backed up. Getting into the traffic circles as a larger vehicle is an even harder task. We had a van full of about 30 people with every seat taken. On our way to Krujë, Denis explained that there were a lot of furniture shops along the way because people tend to redecorate every 5-10 years here with new furniture. Also after weddings when the bride moves in with the husband an olive tree is planted and that’s supposed to signify a long marriage because olive trees can last up to 100 years.

What I didn’t realize but began to as we were heading to Krujë Castle was that the castle sits on top of a mountain and therefore the temperature was going to be cooler. Our first stop as we climbed this enormous mountain that was 1,176 meters above sea level was Sari Salltik which is a mountain shrine holy site. A small house, tomb, temple, shrine, altar and prayer room are all up there on or in the mountain (you must take off your shoes to go in the temple). From what I was told he performed many miracles and no one was forced to believe anything, anyone could believe what they wanted to believe.

After spending some time doing this we boarded back on the van and went further down the mountain to Krujë Castle which is dedicated to Skanderberg (whose real name is Gjergj Kastrioti) who is the most popular person in Albania who was a nobleman and military leader. We walked around the castle a bit and took some good photos and videos and then we decided to go to an Albanian restaurant within in called Motiv. This so far (my mom and I agreed) has been the best meal that we’ve had in Albania. I got the spaghetti bolognese with fries and she got a ceasar salad with chicken and some lamb chops with potatoes. We got a chance to sit and casually enjoy lunch but took some of it to go as we still needed time to look around the bazaar.

My mom got a jumpstart on shopping during a brief tour in the bazaar but I hadn’t started yet and I had a lot of leke I was trying to get rid of. I didn’t know what I was looking for but knew I would know when I saw it (I did see a cute van cleef looking bracelet that was my birthstone color so I was set out to get that). We did some shopping around and was able to get a few deals on some things. By the end of it we managed to get rid of all of our leke. While shopping I received a call from the tour guide for tomorrow’s trip to Greece asking if I could respond to the What’s App message.

I took a quick look because at one point my phone just lost all battery power and I was left carrying it around on my portable charger. He had asked if we could move our day trip from tomorrow to Sunday which I initially told him no (because we planned for it to be tomorrow and we wanted Sunday as a free day before we go back home). He responded back saying if we couldn’t move it they’d have to cancel it and refund us. When I asked why he said they didn’t meet their capacity for the trip. Knowing how that works but still being annoyed I agreed to change it to Sunday.

By 3pm, our group met back up and we boarded the van to head back to Tirana. We were dropped back off at our pick-up point and walked back to the Airbnb. When I got back I messaged and asked if I needed to switch the date in Get Your Guide for the tour tomorrow just to be told they have to cancel the trip to Greece even for Sunday. No real explanation was given so I wouldn’t recommend booking with Albania Tour Aisling for any tours (no worries we got our refund back). This was disappointing as we were really looking forward to going to Greece so we began looking up other places we could go to replace it.

I went from being really mad to actually wanting to keep my money and not replacing the trip to Greece with anything. That can just be extra money my mom and I will get back to take back home and spend/have. Now I’m thinking maybe we can just go see a movie and save our money. While thinking about this and going through some emails I saw that my flight upgrade for my mom and I was accepted but guess what…it was for the wrong leg of the flight. Why would I pay 100 euros each to be upgraded on an hour and a half flight…absolutely not I don’t think so.

I immediately tried to contact someone regarding this because I’m not paying for that upgrade. If it comes down to it and I’m charged I’m going to let Capital One and Austrian Airlines battle it out. I am too tired at this point to continue fighting with them on this right now but then I remembered I did a screenshot when I submitted it so I went back and guess what I found it but guess what I made the mistake and selected the wrong leg. Since there was proof this was something I would just have to bite the bullet on; oh well.

Not over it anymore I’m just going to put my portion of the Greece trip refund towards it to cover part of the partial upgrade cost. I’m not allowing my mom to pay anything. I will just try to work some extra days when I get home. We did however manage to make a movie reservation so we’ll go to the movies tomorrow and do whatever else we want. We’ll probably stay in all day Sunday and keep it as our free day we just now unexpectedly have tomorrow as a free day too. Our time in Albania is winding down.