The Next Chapter

Adventures of Full Time Travelers

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  • Broadening our Horizons

    Before I get started on this one I have to share my feelings of shyness. I’ve said it before, when I’m with someone I want all of their attention, when I’m with a lot of people I want none of their attention. I like one on one intimacy but public settings are not my jam. We had folks request that we document our travels in some way and this blog felt like the easiest way to do so. Somewhere that I could ramble and share Craig’s photos, that would technically be available to a random person who comes across it but mostly just people we know and trust. I somehow didn’t account in my mind for all the people we’d meet along the way and that’s made me reticent to share. Not because there’s anything bad, quite the opposite, everything is great…it’s just weird to write about people and experiences with those people and know they might read it. I’m doing it anyway, because we can do hard things, but it’s definitely uncomfortable for me.

    With that in mind, going forward, names will be changed (or omitted) to protect the innocent. Or the guilty, depending on how you look at it.

    If you know Craig and me personally, you already know how hard some of our time together has been. Not because our relationship was difficult, it’s always been wonderful, but because of the circumstances around our moving to various states during covid and the isolation that came along with that. We had years with only one or two (or zero) in person friends and it was really, really hard. We about lost our minds. When we finally moved back to Bellingham two years ago it got better but it took a long time there to really build a solid friend group who could keep us busy. We were absolutely expecting to go back to some form of isolation when we embarked on this adventure and it’s one of the things we most worried about. So far, I’d say we couldn’t have been more wrong.

    Guys, we went OUT OF TOWN with friends last weekend. While we were out of town, we made MORE friends! Honestly, I’m still a bit in awe. (Also, we’re planning on more trips with friends in the coming weeks!)

    I told y’all that we found the expat bar and that’s been so helpful for us. The owners are such kind and lovely people and that luckily doesn’t stop them from also being a riot to hang out with. We’ve made connections with folks that are friendly, nice to chat when we’re in the same place but that’s about it. We’ve made real friends with people that we get to spend extra time with; painting, eating, drinking, connecting. It’s been so great. One couple invited us to go to their friend’s surprise birthday party in Sarande, a town a few hours south of here that happens to be our next stop on our slow travel journey. They figured out all the details, we basically just showed up with an embarrassingly wrapped bottle of wine to give the birthday boy (seriously, I wish we had a picture) and some trust in the process.

    Our friends rented a car and picked us up on Saturday. We drove a couple of hours and stopped for lunch by the beach. It was such a delicious experience and we were so lucky that not only had they been there before but they were willing to order for the table so we didn’t have to make any decisions (my favorite thing is someone else doing all the ordering). I can’t describe all the things we ate but they were great; pickled veg, goat, lamb, yogurt sauce…I don’t even know what was in the thing I liked most but it was delicious. We had cats and chickens keeping us company under the table. Perfection.

    We took what my dad used to call “the long pretty way” after that. Our route went through mountains and then followed the coast through small one lane villages. I’d seen pictures of Albania before and I know it’s a beautiful country but really, I was not prepared for how stunning it is here. Truly breathtaking. We watched the sun set over the Ionian Sea and couldn’t have been happier. I really can’t wait to explore more of this country and spend some time in it’s nature.

    Due to our route we were delayed in our arrival to Sarande and unfortunately we missed the surprise part of the surprise party but it didn’t seem to matter. After checking into our rooms we headed out for drinks to relax our travel weary muscles and then met up with the party.

    Our first impressions of Sarande definitely left us feeling excited about our move in a few weeks, even though we know we’ll be sad to leave our connections here in Durres. Sarande has a different vibe and was so, so beautiful. Everyone says it’ll be much quieter by the time we get there, tourist season will be over, and that’s totally fine with us. We’ll take less dinner options if it means a slower pace and a more relaxed environment.

    We visited a couple of bars and ended the night at the penthouse apartment of the birthday boy and his partner and holy hell, you wouldn’t believe how beautiful their place is. Absolutely stunning. I won’t be so gauche as to tell you what it costs but believe me, nobody reading this in the US could fathom it. You probably give your kids more in allowance each month (okay, not really but almost).

    We stayed up until around 4am (who can read a clock at that time of the morning), ate pasta with ranch seasonings on it (delicious) and had such a blast. I haven’t consistently stayed up this late since my teens. We met people who I hope we will get to spend time with when we move down there next month. We had fun conversations, got a little deep about some things and even got to scout our next apartment.

    To say we’re grateful to our Durres friends for taking us along is an understatement. They made it so easy and so fun and we both feel incredibly lucky to have had that experience with them. (Also, aren’t they gorgeous?)

    Our drive home the next day was Craig’s opportunity to drive in Albania and he did a great job. Driving here, or even walking near a road, is not for the faint of heart. It’s basically a high stakes – no rules game. Of course we made it safe and sound (Craig only fixed two things on the car) and excited to do it all over again. We did need 15 hours of sleep to recover but I think it was well worth it.

  • Making Progress

    Things have begun to look up here in Durres. The weather has turned into fall which is quite pleasant and cozy. Our regular bartender has gotten familiar enough to joke with us. We did indeed find an authentic restaurant to enjoy a lovely meal out. We know where the cheapest good-enough pizza is ($4.22 for a medium which feeds us both for lunch). We’re getting comfortable.

    The best part is that we’ve finally made a few friends. Craig found an ex-pats group in town that was having a coffee meet up. I have mixed feelings about the ex-pat community, I don’t want to travel the world just to hang out with other Americans. That said, we really need some social connections and have not found inroads with locals yet. The cool thing about this group is that there are a diverse mix of folks, definitely not all Americans. Some people have lived here for years, some are just passing through like us but they’ve all been very welcoming. At the coffee meet up we were turned onto the bar that everyone hangs out at, which is right on the water. Last night was trivia night so of course we had to go.

    As soon as we got there the owner introduced himself (native Albanian married to an English lady) and chatted for a few minutes.  He introduced us to some other Americans sitting nearby and they immediately introduced us to more people and called us their friends. Already off to a great start. We teamed up with a group (one woman from Peru and her Albanian boyfriend, one woman from the US) for trivia and had a great time. They didn’t have high hopes for our trivia chances and didn’t initially seem impressed when I mentioned we’re not bad at trivia. Three hours and a hundred drinks later, we were indeed the winning team and we made a pile of new friends.

    We now have an invitation to Sunday dinner at someone’s house. Craig has a friend to play billiards with. We are planning a road trip to visit someone’s mom, a 6,000 year old town and a village on the edge of the deepest lake in Europe. We also got tips on where to eat, how much things should cost and how to order food delivery. For lunch today we had food delivered; bean and sausage stew, chicken noodle soup and a large Greek salad. With tip and fees it came to about $10. Local friends are absolutely what we needed.

    We walked home last night at 1:30 am, the only people still out, passing by 1,800 year old Roman ruins and felt the first bubbles of true excitement since we got here. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve enjoyed our time here so far and have had fun, we just hadn’t gotten that spark of possibilities yet.

    This morning brought a little bit of a slow start for us both but nothing too dramatic. That is, until I went for a hair cut. Last week I got a pedicure from a very sweet woman, she’s young and cute and did a great job on my toes. I figured she could help me find someone to cut my hair. I messaged her and asked for a recommendation for someone who could do a modern cut with a razor and speaks English. She said she had a great option and took the liberty of making an appointment for me for this morning. Great! I got there and nobody spoke English at all. They did not seem to be expecting me but indicated that it would be okay and they would fit me in. I showed them a few pictures of what I was looking for, a shaggy layered look with bangs. The woman who was gong to cut my hair made such a face at the picture I showed her, that should have been enough for me to walk out the door but unfortunately I did not. A patron of the salon kindly translated for us and told me that my forehead is too small for that type of bangs, hence the look of disgust on the stylist’s face. We talked about longer bangs instead and she took me back for a wash. She then got out scissors, not a razor and began to butcher my hair. I have had enough haircuts in my life to have an idea of how it goes and this was definitely not it. I didn’t know what to do. I decided to just be okay with whatever happened, I can always find a different salon and get a pixie cut if necessary, the world wouldn’t end.

    The whole time she was cutting my hair, the woman was whining and complaining, I don’t know what she was saying but it was obvious she didn’t like what she was doing. Eventually every person in the salon was standing behind me and talking, seemingly about me and my hair. Finally, the woman who was obviously the boss who had been working on the hair of the English speaking patron stopped what she was doing, pushed my stylist out of the way and spent the next 20 minutes yelling at the stylist while fixing my hair.

    Is it exactly what I imagined? No. Is it shorter than I wanted? Yes. Is it cute enough? Also yes. On top of it all, it cost me $12 and that included a tip big enough that the lady looked right into my eyes, touched my arm and thanked me. So, at the end of it I suppose it all worked out.

    Work has been so busy, it’s been hard to get much exploring in, it’s a good problem to have, as Craig likes to say. This weekend should give us some more opportunities to wander.

    It’s been amazing to still be able to send video messages back and forth with the kids, our parents and our friends. It makes me feel like it will be possible to maintain these important relationships, even while we’re far away. It’s a different dynamic, obviously, but it’s so lovely to see their faces, hear their voices and to be able to share what’s going on with us in real time. Thank goodness for technology.

  • Initial Impressions of a Weird New Life

    Day 3 (4?) in Durres, Albania. We picked this city in large part for it’s proximity to the sea, which we haven’t even made our way to yet. We’ve gotten close, within a couple of blocks, but not all the way. Frankly, I’m shocked at myself, being a confirmed water baby. The inner child in me will have to extend a little grace to the jet lagged adult that I have become.

    We got really lucky with our travel days, no delays, no cancellations, no terrible plane neighbors. It was still exhausting. We left our pet sit in Seattle on Sunday at noon, took an Uber to the light rail station, the light rail (along with a thousand Seahawks fans) to the airport, then a 7 hour flight to Iceland (empty seat in our row!), then a 4 hour flight to London, then a city bus to our hotel. Neither Craig or I sleep when we travel so by then I don’t know how we were managing to stay upright. I don’t remember doing it but apparently when I booked our London hotel a couple of weeks ago, I requested a wheelchair accessible room. I think this is the only reason we were able to walk into the hotel and go right to the room, there were lots of other tired looking people sitting in the lobby, hoping for early check in. Thank goodness for that little mistake!

    We restricted ourselves to a three hour nap so we had a chance to work into our new time zone. We took the best advantage of our one night in England and went ‘round the pub for dinner. The local we went to was built in the 1200s and was so charming! While enjoying a couple of pints, some fish and chips and a cottage pie, we got to chat with some friendly regulars and definitely got poked at for our “illustrious leader” and his recent visit to the country. The joke is most definitely on us.

    Tuesday morning was terribly early for us but we made it to the airport with enough time to enjoy breakfast and coffee in the airport club before boarding our 3 hour flight to Albania. Can I just take a moment here to swoon a little bit about my sweet husband? We all know how great Craig is, obviously. By we I mean all of us apparently. When the (complete stranger) lady next to him on the flight was obviously exhausted and kept nodding off then jerking awake because there is truly no comfortable way to sleep on a plane, craig offered his shoulder to her to sleep on. When I saw him do this I assumed she would decline, who wants to sleep on a strange mans shoulder? She did not decline, she got cozy and slept on him for the entire flight. No stranger-danger vibes from my guy!

    A 45 minute and truly harrowing taxi ride later, we finally got to our apartment in Durres. Are you exhausted just from reading all that? Yeah, we were trashed. We unpacked and wandered around until we found a grocery store for a few essentials, then went looking for dinner.

    It’s all a blur but we ended up having drinks and some lovey fish about 100 feet from ancient roman ruins. That’s Europe for you, so much history everywhere.

    The next morning, after walking around the same block several times, we found a gym and joined for the month. No paperwork, no liability waiver, no barcode to put on our keys. We just walk in every day and they wave to us and that’s it. We’ve managed to go every day so far (3 in a row!). Managed to eat. Managed to do our jobs, despite our phones not being as happy as they should be. My phone number is being routed to the BBC. Seriously, if you call me you might end up being connected to the BBC. That’s professional, right?

    Now that the how we got here portion of this ramble is complete, let’s talk about here. Durres, Albania is the second largest city in the country. It’s giving me mini-Naples vibes. A little dirty, a little hot, very much a living, breathing city, not a tourist destination. That’s great for me because I HATE tourists (I do understand the irony here). Really, what I hate are masses of people who don’t know what they’re doing or where they’re going and are maybe a little entitled. I used Google Maps to check out our apartment before booking it and it seemed like a good location, central but not too busy. I was lied to. The street view is 9 years old, which is a really long time. Also, the street is just two lanes and there are lots of shops and such, I expected it to be kind of chill. It is not chill. It’s the most busy road in the town, and where young men like to cruse all evening. It’s terrifying to watch and I can’t look away, they somehow take a two lane road that at home would be 25mph and zoom around, passing each other and showing off.

    There are tons of cafes where men sit and drink coffee all day. Most people dress very fashionably here, which I wasn’t expecting. It’s lovely to sit on the sidewalk and watch the parade of pretty people go by. We’ve tried out a few places and think we have found our daytime coffee spot, our afternoon coffee or beer spot and our evening drinks spot. All within a 30 second walk from our apartment. It’s our hope that if we frequent the same places we will start to form some connections with other regulars, and eventually get a report going. It’s going to be harder than we expected, there are not as many English speakers here as we expected and Albanian proved to be a very difficult language for us to even prep a few words of. Oh well, we’ll get there and in the meantime we will latch onto any English speakers we can find.

    We enjoyed an evening with some English guys who are in Albania to part. They had some flight issues so by the time they got here they had as much energy to party a we do (none). It was a fun night and I’m grateful to have run into them. They are all three originally from Africa before immigrating to England and it was interesting to talk about the cultural differences between the various countries. They said we’re automatically cool and a higher class because we’re Americans. I can definitely recognize our immense privilege but don’t feel that cool…

    Work and travel exhaustion have prevented us from exploring much, we’re finally about to head out and see what we can see. I’ve got a lovely dinner spot picked out for tonight, traditional Albanian food with a set menu. I plan to sample Raki, the local drink of choice as well. Wish us luck!

  • Ready to Launch

    I wanted a family so bad. So, so bad. And I got one, a pretty great one in the end. I can’t say I’d recommend having your first kid at 21 but I really wanted a baby and I wanted to start early so I could be “done” relatively young. Here I am, 43 years old and my youngest (my sweet baby) is getting settled at college. I now realize that  “done” is not the right word and even if it was, I don’t want to be done. I adore my children, they are cool and interesting people and I am so lucky to have them. I will keep being their mom and parenting them as long as they’ll let me, but the dynamic has shifted considerably. They are all launched, living the life that they want and my daily presence is no longer necessary. I get to support and guide from afar, video call for updates and fly them out to us whenever they have time to visit.

    It’s been a twisty-turny road but here I am, sitting in a bar in Seattle with my amazing partner; no house, no car, no dependents (kinda) only a plane ticket and some Airbnb reservations, two days away from leaving the country on a one way ticket.

    We have been planning this out for years now, had a big false start two years ago and a lot of ups and downs, doubts and hopes. But we’ve made it. Kids settled and secure. Business fully mobile. Belongings liquidated. Fingers crossed. Ready for the next chapter.

    I’d like to chronicle this for myself and for our friends and family, I’m excited about what we’re doing and want to share it with the people we love. I guess it’s okay if strangers see it too, I’ve certainly benefited from other people’s experiences and use blogs and Tiktoks to research everything. I’d like to share the good and the bad, the fun and the challenges. This will not be an indefinite vacation, not only will we still be working but we really want to live a full life which includes all the regular stuff. Stuff like laundry, grocery shopping, social interactions, gym visits…you know, life. This is not day drinking on the beach, it’s going to be our best stab at living like the locals in whatever location we will be in.

    Right now we’re pet sitting in Seattle, this allows us to stay for free in a very cute house close enough to where our kiddo is settling into dorm life. It’s given us a chance to be close enough to make sure he’s got what he needs for his dorm, help him navigate the move-in, visit the financial aid office, enjoy meals and the city together. In exchange for free accommodation, all we have to do is love and care for two very, very cute pups. It’s such a win-win and we hope to include pet sitting in our travels. We want houses, not hotels. We want to cook, spread out a bit, be in neighborhoods, have the full experience whenever possible and trading pet care for that is a no brainer.  When we can’t do that, we will rent apartments. Sometimes on Airbnb but we hope to find avenues off of that platform whenever possible. We’re avoiding the places that have had a lot of negative impact from short term rentals and places that simply don’t want any more tourists. We will endeavor to travel with some level of consciousness and will reduce our impact where we can.

    We will focus on a region and spend a month or so in several places in each region, slow travel with the intention of making some connections and routines in each place. We are starting in Albania which I will write more about in the future. We have about 5 weeks in Durres, then another 5 weeks in Saranda, after that we go to Athens for December with a kid or two visiting. After that…who knows. TBD. We’ve got some ideas but we want to get started before we plan past that, we know there’s a lot we don’t know and we’d like to learn from a few mistakes before we put more plans in place.

    I’ll try to update this regularly and include pictures, most of them will be from Craig because he’s so much better than I am at that. Let me know if there’s anything specific that you want to know about, I’ll try to keep it interesting!rst post.