Where does the time go? Last night, 06 November 2025, Jennifer and I celebrated our one-year anniversary of moving here.
We had dinner at Restaurant Berlin and dessert at Laguna. Jennifer had gelato. I planted our candle in a cheesecake. After a few bites, we traded desserts.
Yup. That’s the Albanian flag — red with a two-headed eagle.
We’ve had 365 days mostly filled with work. But it’s fun work. We had to deal with banking, healthcare, buying appliances, doing repairs, and finding the best places to shop.
We now know the hood very well. That includes the six bar/cafes on the street, the two little grocery stores, the meat market, and the dry goods store. And we know the names of most of the owners.
There’s also a tiny office supply store and a microscopic hardware store nearby. We also have grocery shopping down cold. That’s a story in itself.
Over time, I’ve dropped maybe 200 pins in Google Maps, but we’ve only been to about 50 of them. However, those 50 include a mall the size of the Superdome and many restaurants. We also had great mini vacations in Durres and Pogradec.
Oh and did I mention that I wrote a book during this summer/fall?
I’ll post more pics… a couple from last night and few from the past year.
At the restaurant…
About the Albanian flag…
Thanks to my good friend Mary Knaus Sampson, who has pointed out how much the flag of Albania resembles the flag of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick. You know that place from the novel and Peter Sellers film “The Mouse That Roared.” The original novel title was “The Wrath of Grapes.”
Highlights…
The beach at Durres.
Barry’s 77th birthday in Pogradec.
Tirana mosque at dusk.
Residence card.
Dessert from the bakery.
Titi, the owner of Café Roma, is the best host in Tirana!
The flag of Albania sounds a lot like the flag of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.
I can’t believe it’s been a whole year since you decamped for Albania. I’m sure it feels the same way for you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Fenwick#/media/File:Flag_of_Grand_Fenwick.svg
I’ll add this. Barry
“The Mouse That Roared” book is a hoot and a half! Never judge a book by its movie.
Hi Jennifer ! I adore your pink umbrella and your lovely way of sharing your journey in Albania ! I am picturing you walking in a light rain , standing out from all the others , making many smile !! What a brave and marvelous adventure you and Barry are on and I’m quite envious! Please keep sharing your delightful stories !!
Do you ever get “ homesick “, or is it a huge relief ?? What do your new friends think of us at this point ???
Have a great day / evening ?? and
I’ll be looking forward to more posts !
Joni Brown ❤️
Hi Joni,
Thank you for your compliments and praise for my blog post. You encourage me to keep finding things to write about. To answer your questions, I never get homesick exactly but I do miss the convenience of Amazon. For instance, I want to buy a plant stand for a lovely plant I just bought. I don’t know where to find one here. Shopping on Amazon was so easy and home delivery made it super!
On the other hand, it is amazing how I either find a work around for the thing I need/want or realize I am just fine without it. One of those things when we first got here is I wanted a small wastebasket to put next to my desk. I looked high and low for months and then one day at the 1.39 Euro store (sort of like a Dollar Store) I found a plastic flower pot that makes a perfect waste basket. Hey, maybe I can write about that! Thanks for the question! The other thing I miss is the live theatre performances at our local theatre featuring local talent. Honestly, we had shows that I didn’t think could be any better on the Broadway stage in New York. We had local actors who were great singers, dancers, and actors you could want. We were season ticket holders and never missed a show. There is a movie theatre here but I haven’t gone to see a movie yet. We did have a traveling comedian do a show and it was hilarious. We got a picture taken with him. Hey … maybe I could write about that! You have given me much to think about.
As for the locals here, they all want to go to America. I don’t think they get the news that we are seeing, although my taxi driver said he wished Trump would take out the Albanian government like he did in Venezuela. My driver doesn’t get it that any regime change here would only be to get some advantage for the US not to make things better for the Albanian people. From my experience I have not had any negative thing happen to me caused by the local government except for the red tape of getting our residency… we had to jump through a lot of hoops to get that to happen. Tonight we are going to a Turkish restaurant for the first time. It is within walking distance from our apartment. It might make it to a blog post. We’ll see!
Again, thanks for you comments,
Jennifer