Another day and another big breakfast. We don’t know what to do with the amount of food that we are being served. We feel terrible not eating the majority of it, it is made just for us. But there is just so much of it. Even if we were starving when we arrive for breakfast, which we never are, there is no way that we could eat this much. It does not help that each of the girls gets a full adult portion of food. It is crazy. Tomato, cucumber, eggs, crepes, donuts, cheese, butter, bread, crackers, cakes, a bowl of fruit, yoghurt, juice… it’s crazy.
Today is a lazy day for us. Well for most of us. I spent the day working from the hotel getting caught up, a little bit, on writing and posting. We have been so busy on this trip that I have had barely any time to be doing anything. In some ways that is good, I have needed a break, but it also means that there is just that much more for me to do whenever I get the chance.
We never really left the hotel all day. We did coffee downstairs at one point but the weather was not great for the girls to be out on the beach for very long so we did not put in very much time there.
For dinner tonight we could not decide where to go until quite late and finally the only good option was really just to eat in the hotel. Luciana really wanted to go get the pasta that they had gotten the other night but we did not want to deal with going down there and we knew that the girls were going to want to play on the playground but that it was too cold and it would just make everyone unhappy. So eating in our hotel is what we decided to do.
A quiet evening for us. A simple dinner and getting everyone off to sleep. Tomorrow we drive to Prishtina, Kosovo and Luciana turns five! Dominica was off to sleep first, tonight, then I got the girls off to sleep later. Luciana was the last one to go to sleep and I tucked her in as a four year old for the last time.
Both girls have, at around these ages, expressed their dislike for getting older. They love being kids and wish that it could last longer. They don’t want to grow up. I remember Liesl when I tucked her in the night before she turned four; she just cried and cried because she loved being three and didn’t want to be older. Luciana is not so dramatic, but the sentiments are there. These ages are so much fun. At least they appreciate that and sense the need to hold on to it.
The final verdict is that we like Albania a lot, it is a wonderful country with wonderful people. A truly fantastic coastline and epic opportunities. But it doesn’t feel like the right fit for us. Financially it is totally viable and could be very nice, but we just are not “feeling” it. It is a perfect place for the week long summer beach holiday crowd. But for a family looking for an authentic, local living experience there was very little that we found that really seemed like it would make sense to us.