Friendsgiving on the coast of Southern Albania

A quick post with a few photos from our recent trip to Vlorë (pronounced Vlora) in Southern Albania. We rented a beautiful villa to celebrate Friendsgiving with a group of Evan's colleagues in a town just up the hill from Vlorë.  The home was gorgeous with a huge kitchen to cook our feast and sweeping views of the coast. Albania continues to amaze us with its untouched beauty. It was a great weekend full of friends, good food and delicious wine. Evan cooked a bacon wrapped turkey that was a hit. We plan to return to the region in the spring to enjoy the beaches.

I'm now planning our Christmas and New Years trip to Vienna, Budapest, Prague and Amsterdam. Details on our holiday trip to come soon. 

If you're ever in Vlorë, we highly recommend staying at Vila Amantia. The place was perfect for a weekend holiday or group outing. 

Our first adventure: Croatia for seven days

We’re back from our first adventure, a road trip through Croatia, and we had an amazing time! So many of our friends from the U.S. have already visited Croatia and loved their trips so we had high expectations and a great list of recommendations going into our vacation. The good news was that our high expectations were vastly exceeded during our short stay. Croatia is a beautiful country with kind people, good food and delicious wine. Pretty much all you need for a successful holiday!

We learned a lot on this trip about driving through the Balkans. With cell service spotty in the region, we thought we could navigate our drive through Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and finally into Croatia with printed Google maps. We were sadly mistaken! On our way to Croatia, we met new friends for lunch in Podgorica, Montenegro, who not only saved our trip but also our marriage by recommending an app made by Garmin called Navigon Europe. The app does not rely on cell service to work, it instead uses the internal GPS in your iPhone. It was lifesaving and we cannot thank The Adventuring Armstrong’s enough for their clutch recommendation. For anyone road tripping through Europe (especially the Balkans) you must get this app immediately! It’s expensive (in typical Evan fashion he flinched at the price) but is 100% worth a lifetime of wedded bliss. =)

For anyone interested, you can access our 7 day Croatia itinerary here with notes from our trip. Thank you to all of our friends for your recommendations on what to see and where to eat! We plan to return to Croatia in the near future to visit Zadar, Plitvice Lakes National Park and Zagreb. All places we did not have time to visit, but have heard amazing things.

Reunited and it feels so good!

We made it! 

A quick update - Liberty and I left Washington, DC on Monday, October 12th, 2015 (Columbus Day) to join Evan in Tirana, Albania as he continues his efforts to start a new international school. We landed in Tirana after a brief layover in Vienna, Austria on Tuesday morning. Libby did well, but I can say without a doubt she very much prefers staying on land. Jet setting is definitely not her thing! We we're lucky enough to have one of Evan's good friends help us takeoff from Dulles. International travel with a pet (especially a nervous 65lb pup) is very complicated so an extra set of hands is a must. The crew of Austrian Airlines impressed me with their kindness and their interest in Libby's well-being. I refused to board the flight until the pilot confirmed she was also onboard. They pretended to understand my neurosis and radioed the pilot frequently until she was safely secured in the climate controlled section of the cargo bin.

Honestly -- I was a bit of a mess on the flight to Vienna, but the Austrian wine kept flowing, and I kept myself busy by watching terrible romantic comedies. The movies helped me do my best not to think of all the horrible pet travel stories I googled in a state of panic on Saturday night. Quick tip-- don't Google anything remotely scary, the Internet is beyond frightening...

I know this move and all of the anxiety it provoked probably seems silly to a seasoned international traveler, but for a Southern California girl who never traveled abroad until her early twenties this is a Big Deal! To help you understand my naivety, my parents still need to get passports to make the trip to Albania and I will most likely meet them in Western Europe and escort them East to be safe. To sum it up, my family pretty much thinks I've lost my mind. Not only did I move to NYC in 2005 and never come back, I'm now moving even further away from the promise land (aka sunny California)...

Over the next few days, Liberty and I will be doing our best to settle into the wonderful life Evan has built for us. He has cultivated a community of expats and locals in Tirana who are waiting to warmly welcome us into the Balkans. We are two very lucky ladies to have him "advance" our trip. I promise we will update you once we get the hang of things and are settled. Stay tuned for future blog posts, I'll do my best to entertain you with what life is like in Albania. Yes, the fact that I'm officially a resident of Albania also amuses me. :) 

Before I sign off, I want to send a shout out to EVERYONE who has made our journey possible. From kind friends who have listened to me talk about USDA rules for pet travel over drinks (poor you!), to my co-workers who have covered for me on conference calls when I was on the phone with the USDA, to family members that have helped us navigate these past few months... please know your contributions are invaluable and we are forever grateful.

Thank you! We are genuinely overwhelmed by your kindness. 

Brianna, Evan and Liberty