My last night in Bajram Curri ended like the first night in Bajram Curri began, a huge surprise. I've mentioned before, you never really know where Albania is going to take you and my last night in town completed attested to this. Garrett and I have been running around town handing out pictures, having coffees with families and coworkers to say goodbye for the entire week and honestly it's exhausting. Confession: yesterday after lunch we stayed in my house for the entire day and watched the entire season of Top Chef Canada. Not that we didn't want to see people but saying goodbye is always dramatic... on top of explaining that you may actually never return to this town, not because you don't want to but because it's so far and extremely expensive.Anyways today we were going to have a relaxed day, handing out the rest of our photos and having dinner at the hotel. This turned into a coffee with my counterpart (which was much needed) and taking pizza home because we had to meet another family for coffee. We took the pizzas up to my house, thinking we would return to them in an hour or so. What actually happened was we walked down what we deemed as "Man Bar Road" to find my neighbor and had a few beers. I snuck off to the bathroom and paid for the beers which completely but a bump in their giddy up because it is completely out of the norm for that to happen. My neighbor then told us to get in his car, which was funny to us because we literally live 10 meters down the street. We ended up going to a village outside of town near the river and having a great meal (with our pizzas still in my house).
It was a great night under the stars eating corn bread, salad and grilled meat. We talked about times during communism, the weight difference of a cow in Albania compared to a cow in America and the difference of a villager and a city person. On the way home we actually broke down, right outside the city, but never to worry, it was under control.
Over all it was the picture perfect last night in town.. which means nothing that we planned to happen actually happened, which pretty much sums up our time in Albania. Rruge te mbare Tropoje, hopefully we'll meet again.
