Day 3 Saranda, Albania

I can see Greece from my balcony!

We are the building on the right, on the left is "our" cafe and staff housing.

My first full day in Saranda was wonderful.  I awoke early to the view of Corfu, Greece across the ocean from my balcony, bids chirping and glorious warm sunshine. It smells amazing here, the scents shifts from sea, to flowers, to cooking foods, to what I think is a citrus orchard, on the whim of the breeze.  I honestly had no idea what time it was when I woke up, Derek told me last night is was about 10:30 when he left, my phone said 11:30, my computer thinks it is 10:35 pm on Monday.  A guess it that I woke up around 6:30. I situated my stuff, did a little writing and headed over to the staff housing where I sat on the café patio and had a morning espresso. I returned to my housing for my computer after I learned there was wireless available at the staff housing cafe.  Etta, the restauranteur) is very patient with me and is trying to learn English, she is super sweet and smiles all the time.  I reassured the world that I arrived safely and was alive and well in Saranda.  From there Derek and I headed into town to run some errands, after returning I had an accidental siesta at the at the dive locker waiting for the guys to deal with bureaucracy.   

Gear locker and nap site.

We are located on a military base that is mostly abandoned except a radar tower and the few soldiers to run it.  I wandered off after lunch planning to snorkel, I had misheard that there was a trail through the graveyard up the street to the beach so I spent some time wandering around the graveyards up the street a bit.  I eventually gave up and headed back past our residence and down some streets that had been pointed out as a way to the beach, I wandered along dirt road, down what looked like an alley that led to the water and found a beach to snorkel at.  I had to get into the Ionian.  Not only was I itching to get into a sea I’ve never been in before but it was sweltering out, it has been easily over 90 F every day. I drank close to 3.5 liters of water today and felt like I should have had more.  Swimming was a lot of fun, poking around exploring somewhere new.  Sadly there is pollution here, as most everywhere.  After cleaning up from swimming I met up with the others and we headed to greet the ferry from Corfu and met Cameron, the next arrival for the program.  In true “Albanian time” the ferry was over an hour late, we chatted, drinking iced tea watching the water.   Derek picked out Cameron right away even as the ferry approached the dock, he stood head and shoulders over everyone else.  We all enjoyed delicious crepes for dinner tonight, Derek and Cameron headed to get Cameron situated and I had a wander through town with Howard to grab some necessities and headed home for the evening.  Today I also met Alma’s twin twelve year old daughters, Anna-Maria and Emily, they speak 5 languages and help us communicate with their mom who  claims to speak very little English.  Most Albanians who say the speak little or bad English do pretty well, between what they know and interpretive sign we get along pretty well.  Falemnderit is the phrase of the day, thank you, very important words to learn in any language. 

A relaxing evening stroll, for the cows that is.