http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Albania/North/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Europe , Albania , North en-us Mon, 28 Dec 2009 08:41:19 +0000 Mon, 28 Dec 2009 08:41:19 +0000 Still raining. Host beyond his call drove me to the bus where I was almost embarrasingly the only passenger on the massive coach. The journey to Shkoder in Albania took an hourandahalf including the bordercontrol stop where I without incident or payment of any kind received a slightly dissapointing passport stamp. I had been expecting a big Albanian eagle emblazoned over a whole page. We http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Albania/North/Shkod-r/blog-442087.html Teddy The Albanian Puppy We Rescued UpdateTeddy will be coming out of quarantine on Saturday 4th July 2009 'Teddy Independence Day'. Teddy will have an absolutely fantastic life. Everything will be a new experience for him. When we found and rescued him at 10 weeks old he was in a dreadful condition in fact nearly dead. He has now almost finished his 6 months in quarantine just 2 more weeks to http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Albania/North/blog-411220.html Just Look At Teddy NowTeddy the puppy my friend Jilly and I recued from a slum in Albania has recovered well in quarantine. He is now about 5 months old and is fit and healthy. He has grown tremendously and is now free of sarcoptic mange and his fur has fully grown back. For Teddy quarantine is like staying in a 5 star luxury hotel in comparison to the slum in Albania where we found him livi http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Albania/North/blog-380894.html This morning my boss strolled into my room and told me this Good morning...how are you doing beat Well I was thinking a little bit about going to Albania today...I think you already know how this story ends.But God you wouldn't believe what happened inbetweenAlthough the Albanian border was only a good 30 km away there was something that stood in our way...It was Tuzi this tinyass p http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Albania/North/blog-377523.html At the end of December 2008 just after Christmas my friend Jilly and I drove 4000 miles on a return journey to Albania. We will never be able to forget the suffering and misery of the animals in this country that we saw during our brief stay. We saw stray dog after stray dog living on slum sights horses and ponies tied on short ropes alone with hardly a blade of grass in sight for them to eat li http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Albania/North/blog-365194.html We woke early to head up to Montenegro by early afternoon after a disagreement about how we should get to the bus stop at 6 am cat won we walked up to the top of town then sat backpacker hobo style on the side of the road hopping we were at the right place. A few wanders later to see if the stop was elsewhere a swanky new mini bus and some kiwis arrived and before long we were on our way up to http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Albania/North/Shkod-r/blog-302183.html No buses run to Albania. In fact when inquiring at the eyesore of a bus station in Pogdirica Montenegrorsquos flat and characterless capital I received the same reaction for going to Albania as I did for Moldova while in Odessa ldquoWhy do you want to go thererdquo I took a look around and resisted the retort that Pogdirica was no gem either. If Montenegro is to separate from Serbi http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Albania/North/Shkod-r/blog-278119.html Albania was just amazing God really did some amazing things the week we were in Albania. And this is the first year Jesus Revolution has toured in Albania. We started off with a couple of days off in Shkroda and had some fun at the lake where almost everyone but me got burned. This city also has a mosque that is said to have been built by Bin Laden.Then we had our first concert in Fiere. It was http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Albania/North/Shkod-r/blog-65139.html I arrived rather early in the morning in Ulcinj coming from Kotor. I had heard it should be easy to get a minivan to Shkoder from here. But the informations there were confusing. One person told me it left at one o'clock another at 14.30 then one said 11 and finally someone told me four o'clock. As I was running around pretty swetty and tired I believe I was noticed by more than one person w http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Albania/North/Shkod-r/blog-14726.html The suspense is now over we have finally arrived and tomorrow we depart. As logic normally will tell you though people rarely listen is that the hype is usually nothing like the actual experience. It reminds me of the buildup to a GREAT New Yearrsquos Eve party. Every time you have all the hype and all the expectation it is never what you think it will be. In our case we heard a lot of n http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Albania/North/Shkod-r/blog-11876.html