After attending DebConf22 in Kosovo, Akshat and I planned to spend a couple of days in Shkodër, Albania. From Prizren, Kosovo, we reached Tirana, Albania and stayed for a night. Many of the fellow Indians who attended DebConf22 were also with me. The next morning, we checked out and took a bus for Shkodër.
While Akshat boarded the bus and sat with Abraham, I decided to search for some snacks outside before boarding. As a consequence, the bus got full and I didn’t get a seat. Seeing this, a lady from Germany sitting beside Abraham made space for me. Therefore, three people were sitting on two seats. It was a nice gesture, but obviously uncomfortable.
The weather was scorchingly hot, and the bus fans weren’t working properly. After a two-hour ride, we deboarded in Shkodër. Akshat and I had booked an apartment from Airbnb. Going by the location, we figured out it was 1 kilometer away, which we decided to walk.
Upon reaching the location, we texted our apartment owner on Airbnb. On the other side was a lady, and we were not able to understand what she was saying as her texts weren’t in English. We tried translating her texts, but the translation didn’t make sense to us. She seemed to be saying that she has an appointment in the church at 3 o’clock.
It was very frustrating. We were standing in hot sun with our apartment nowhere in sight. Then we tried calling her as I had a local SIM card. A boy was passing the street we were on, and we handed the phone to him. However, he could not translate what the lady said, as he probably didn’t know English.
Then I left Akshat to search for anyone else who could translate. I came across a car repair shop where someone agreed to translate the call for me. After talking with the lady over the phone, the person told me that the location is 2 kilometers away and offered a ride in his car. I told him that I would need to bring my friend as well.
I went back to Akshat. A girl was passing by on a bicycle. We handed over the phone to her and phoned the lady from our Airbnb booking. The girl translated the call for us in English. She told us that they are calling us at Hotel Rozafa. We asked her for directions to Hotel Rozafa, and we later discovered that it was where the bus from Tirana dropped us, but we didn’t know at that time. We walked towards Hotel Rozafa and came across the car repair shop I mentioned above. Turned out that the person who offered help earlier had left the car repair shop by then.
Then a person at that car repair place gave us a few grapes and water. At that moment, a few grapes felt refreshing and energizing. Then we went ahead and bought water from a shop. The shopkeeper asked whether we were from Afghanistan, to which we said, “No, we are from India.”
Upon reaching a shop named Neptune, Akshat texted the lady again, telling her that we had reached Neptune. Turned out they knew that shop as a few minutes later, her husband was there. He came there by taxi to pick us up. It was at this point that their plan was revealed. Earlier, I wondered why they were calling us to Hotel Rozafa - it was to pick us up.
Finally, we reached our apartment and the lady and her husband gave instructions about how things work at the apartment. She had to call her sister in Italy every time she needed to talk to us as she didn’t know English, so her sister acted as a translator.
I have noticed with a couple of Airbnbs we had booked in Albania that the locations given online were not correct, and we had to ask for help from the locals. However, the locals in Albania were very helpful. Whether they knew English or not, they always tried to lend a helping hand. I think that the apartment owner taking a taxi to pick us up was a nice gesture as well.