Andrea Hearts Traveling: Albania

Showing posts with label Albania. Show all posts

Don’t ask me how to pronounce the name of this city because I have no idea! Albanian language is very hard!

I got a bus from Tirana and after a couple of hours I made it to Shkoder!!!

Tirana… the capital city of Albania!
Many people said visiting Tirana was not worth it and I should skip it but I thought I would do the judging of this city on my own so after teo days in Berat I got a bus to Tirana for the night.

Although my time in Tirana was short I got to experience what the Albanian big city was about and I finally saw where all the younger people in Albania are!

Well, Albania has been a great surprise so far!

It is just so beautiful surrounded by so many mountains all around (apparently the most mountainous country in Europe!… And seems like the country with the most Mercedes Benz per capita! haha)

I arrived in Berat with my friend Adam and immediately loved the vibe of the UNESCO World Heritage city. It felt like a bigger Gjirokaster but still with a lot of charm.

Now I'm off to the Balkans!!!

My start in Albania was a little shaky. First, at the border with Greece (in the middle of the night) I gave my passport to an officer in the border and looked at my passport and he literally went like this: “El Salvador… HA! El Salvador… HA HA”… I just looked at him and said “Well, I guess you don’t get many El Salvadorian through here!” I was annoyed! What’s so funny? I think waking up for border crossings at 2am is not my thing!

Then we crossed over to Albania and handed my passport to the bus driver and 20 minutes later everybody had received their passport except me. After a little bit another officer came and asked for me and that I needed to get out of the bus since Ecuador needs a visa!!!! I was so confused because I knew I did not need a visa and I said I was NOT from Ecuador but he kept saying I needed a visa!
I got to the booth and the new officer told me the same, that my country needed a visa and I told him that I did not! The conversation went like this:

Officer: “You need a visa to enter Albania”

Me: “I do not, El Salvador does not need a visa to enter Albania”
Officer: “Do you have a US visa?”

Me: “No”

Officer: “Do you have a UK visa or Shenghen?”

Me: “I am visa free in UK and Shenghen”

Officer: “Are you sure you don’t need a visa?”

Me: “Yes, I’m sure!”

Officer: “Are you sure?”

Me: “Yes”

Officer: “ ARE… YOU… SURE?”

Me: “YES!”

And showed him 3 different sites that said I did not while he pointed at his phone and said that I did… Finally I think he figured out that he was dumb and doesn’t know how to read El Salvador and Ecuador! So at the end he looked at me, wrote my info on the computer and said “Welcome to Albania” and let me go…

Shkoder, my last city in Albania!

Tirana, the capital city of Albania!!!

Berat

Off to Albania!

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