We had breakfast overlooking the mountains one last time and then packed our bags into a taxi and headed to our new home. Our apartment building is located on Rruga (road) Eduard Mano. Our official address doesn't really matter because they don't use addresses in Albania. Yes, that's right. You heard correctly. No mailboxes. If you want to get something delivered go to one of the big retail stores, pay them and then ask if they will accept your package. Not only does the mail system not use addresses, but the taxi drivers, business people and regular locals don't either. Thank god Mark and I live near the zoo (kopshti zoologique) because no one knows street names either. Anytime we want to get home we just say "zoo park" and cross our fingers. Thus far we've been pretty lucky with that. Anyway, we moved in only to find out that we needed to leave again- Mark left his passport at the front desk of the hotel so we decided to head there and then to the mall to pick up a few things for our new place. We found a really nice taxi driver, Freddy, who chatted with us the whole way to the hotel. He then recommended a detour that we agreed to. A few minutes later we were looking at a most beautiful castle. Not only did Freddy take us on a tour, but he then offered to take tons of photos for us. After, he sat down for a coffee and invited us to join.
At this point I was ready to leave because of my American view of "go, go, go". We had to go to the mall, we had to go grocery shopping and I had to go to school the next morning. Little did I know that this was my first lesson in the Albanian way of life. Socializing over a coffee is an incredibly valued pastime here and it's very common for friends to run into one another on the street and then exclaim "let's get a coffee" and stumble into the nearest cafe. Freddy was befriending us and introducing us to his beautiful way of life. I'm slowly realizing that it's important to pause and enjoy the moments happening around me. There will always be things to do and places to go, later.
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