We woke this morning with the intention of getting a croissant from the patisserie on our road however when we got there it was less of a patisserie and more of a bar. I wanted to see the "Grand Park" which is located right behind our hotel. From reading about it we believed it to be not too dissimilar to the park in Chisinau except we hoped it would better looked after. Inside the park we were confronted with a multitude of directions to go and settled for the grassy path up the hill. At the top was a small graveyard [View Full Entry]

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Amazingly we both got up when the alarm went off and we found ourselves sitting in Pasticeri Francaise. We both had freshly squeezed orange juice and a Pain Aux Raisin which was might impressive. It looked almost too good to eat and though very yummy I couldn't eat it all. We began to walk to one of the many bus stations and during a picture stop we met a really friendly guy. He was from the town we were going to visit, Kruja. One thing I really like about Albania is that people assume you are American but when you tell [View Full Entry]

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Last night was horrible and the journey took about four hours longer than it should have done, fourteen hours in total. We drove through the outskirts of Tirana around sunrise which was breathtaking. Tirana is surrounded by mountains in every direction so the scenery is beautiful despite the houses being rather primitive. The bus dropped us near the national opera house which is in a square that is surprisingly picturesque. To find Hotel Endri we had a simple map and address. We found the street without difficulty however we could not see the number or a sign. We asked someone who [View Full Entry]

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We packed up our bags and decided to have breakfast despite us being on the brink of checkout time. We had toast to use up which we did admirably and Rob had cereal. We were late for checkout but it didn't matter because the professor wasn't there anyway. We attempted to ask the man at reception if we could leave our bags in our room however he didn't speak English and was particularly unhelpful. We decided it would be ok, and left. It took forever to get into town. There was plenty of snow on the ground and cascades of water [View Full Entry]

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Instead of getting up at nine and going the forty minutes walk to the bus station and then traveling two hours to a little town called Prizren, followed by several hours walking round the medieval capital of 'Old Serbia' in the freezing snow, we stayed in bed. At about 10 I was rudely woken by the TV turning back on after another power cut but hid back under the sheets to protect myself from the subzero temperatures (electric heaters don't work without electricity). Whilst I dozed, Steph watched Will and Grace on TV until we 'got up' and watched a further [View Full Entry]

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Due to the powercuts through the night and first thing this morning, the room wasn't quite as warm as we would have liked. When we did get up I glanced out of the window and saw that it had been snowing. Walking into town was rather nice because it was gently snowing and it was beautifully crisp. The snow was on the rooftops etc but there wasn't much on the ground so it was easy to walk around. We walked around the town and nosied around the outside of the UN buildings. We knew that the UN ran Kosovo but I [View Full Entry]

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We dragged ourselves out of bed half an hour after the other people in our dorm got up. We were both awake but neither of us wanted to face the coldness. Rob polished off enough toast for both of us and then we went out to get money from the cash machine to pay for the hostel. We arrived at the bus station to find that the times we had been given were wrong and that there was an earlier bus than the one we had planned to get. The bus to Pristine was pleasant and most importantly it was very [View Full Entry]

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Well we actually had breakfast in this hostel but it was slightly uninspiring. Rob as usual made the most of it by having as much toast as a person can consume. It was too smokey to sit around in the kitchen for long so despite the snow outside we went to explore the city. The road into the centre was very flooded so we had to be careful whilst we walked. We took it in turns to avoid the rubbish and holes in the pavement and being soaked by cars driving past us. We easily found the centre of the new [View Full Entry]

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We actually made it upstairs for breakfast this morning and we were completely right about it. We weren't even told what/where it was, we had to ask for it. It was a little pastry each filled with cream cheese. Seriously what is wrong with cereal and toast? We chatted to the Iranian guy (Ally) for a while and an irritating woman kept on butting into the conversation with banarl comments. We learned quite a lot from Ally and in particular that Kosovo is a bit tumultuous at the moment due to a bid for independence that will be decided in the [View Full Entry]

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We both slept beautifully which was probably in large part due to having a proper mattress for the first time in ages. Again we abandoned breakfast for an extra hour in bed. It may sound like are being lazy but we really are ever so tired. Also breakfasts are utterly disappointing in most hostels and not worth the effort we expend getting to them. We dressed and just as we were about to leave I saw the weather out of an upstairs window. SNOW!!! I donned by gloves, scarf, hat and brolly and Rob turned up the collar of his fleece [View Full Entry]

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