After another night with broken sleep, which seems to be a bit of a rule on this trip, we all woke pretty early. The sleep at least wasn't disturbed by crazy screaming women or loud wedding music, but had more to do with uncomfortable beds, Saya waking up a million times and a warm room.
Even though Saya fell asleep really late last night, she was alreasy awake at 7.30 this morning much to our regret as we were both really tired.
we did however laze about in bed for a bit until we got up to have some breakfast which again was a huge breakfast with bread and loads of toppings, omelets and even a chocolate pudding for Saya. (whiche she didn't eat as she doesn't like chocolate)
After breakfast we packed our bags and once again had to have a fight with Saya as she didn't want to drink the juice mixed with the motion sickness medicine we wanted to give her. It once again turned into something that reminded me of torture, forcing the mixture into her. We tried literally everything to get her to drink it - promises of sweets did help a little bit in the end though and she managed to drink it all. The only thing we have found that works when it comes to her drinking it voluntarily is mixing it with the little Danone yoghurts. We did try to find some yesterday but without any luck unfortunately. The alternative was mixing it with a strawberry juice she has enjoyed so far, but as soon as she got a hint that we had mixed the medication in it, her mind was made up and she wouldn't drink it. She has always been a bit of a stubborn little one, but unfortunately this is something that we can't argue with her on.
Anyway, bags were packed and we set out to find the bus that was going to take us to Fushe Kruja, where we had to change to another bus going to Shkodra. The drive to F. Kruja was pretty nice - there was us and a whole bus full of Albanians who didn't seem to be used to seeing tourists taking the bus.. a good part of the bus did spend the whole trip staring at us with no shame, much to our amusement!
From F. Kruja, we had to walk a little bit to find where we were due to catch the next bus. This turned out to be at a motorway bridge where we just had to flag down the first furgon with a sign saying Shkroda. We managed to wait for about 1 minute before the first one turned up. All our bags were stuffed in the back of the car and we seated ourselves in the back of the hot car.
The journey went quick and we arrived at Shkroda after about an hour. To our luck the car stopped right outside our hotel and so we didn't have to go looking for it! The hotel - Hotel Kaduku is a pleasant little place in the middle of the town center. It is right next to a big roundabout, but pulled away a bit from the road, so there is absolutely no noise from the street in the room. The room is pleasant and the staff seem friendly and able to speak a little bit of English which is pretty rare from what we have experienced in Albania so far.
We put our bags in our room and set out to have some lunch as Kristian was starving. Lunch was nothing out of the ordinary - pasta, but it served the purpose and we went for a walk around town afterwards. After a bit of walking with a grumpy Saya who has a tendency these days only to want to hold my hand and not Kristian's, we found a really nice little ice cream cafe where we all had delicious ice cream. Saya's mood did seem to lift a little bit after this.
I have given the rejection of Kristian quite a bit of thought as I find it frustrating when she has moments like these where I am the only one she turns to. I do wonder if that is just her, her age, or if all children are like this. Perhaps it is because we are travelling that her need for motherly comfort is bigger? But Kristian is providing her with the same level of security and comfort as I am.. but perhaps in a different way? I really don't know what it is.. 98% of the time there is nothing wrong and they have a great time together, but the 2 last percentages can be hard work to be quite honest.
Oh yes.. now that I am on the subject of security, we haven't mentioned Jørgen (Bjørgen according to Saya) or Jorgen in English I guess. Jørgen is very important part of our trip! He is a purple elephant that Saya brought along from home and he is with her most of the time and has provided a lot of fun on the trip so far. Jørgen can really make her smile or distract her, when she is fed up or feeling a bit sick whilst driving. ( I spent most of the drive back from Butrint to Sarande giving Jørgen a silly voice and making him fall off the dash board in the car, so that Saya would get disrtacted and not feel sick. I'm not sure what we would have done on this trip so far if we hadn't had Jørgen, so he is importnat to mention here as well!
Taking of home..Saya has yesterday and today mentioned a few times that she misses her other flat (home).. perhaps she is feeling worried that she won't be coming home again. This is another thing that differs a lot from the previous years.. all of a sudden she is very aware of what is going on around her - that she is far away from home and the people she knows there. One of the challenges of this trip is also her need to play. We have brought along games, crayons, computers, books and cartoons to watch, but it still doesn't make it up for being in a playground all day with a bunch of other children in the kindergarten. We try our best to make it fun for her, but sometimes I feel that it isn't quite enough (which it probably isn't as well - a constantly bad conscience is what follows you from the day you become a parent).
Shkrodra is the first city in Albania where we have seen playgrounds. This evening when we had dinner, there was tiny playground with four swings and two slides. It was shabby and old and there were a million children, but Saya managed to get a good go and she was so happy. On our way home from the restaurant we saw a few other places with playgrounds and we promised her that we will spend a good deal of time tomorrow just playing.
The playground culture in Albania is really something else than in Denmark as well.. in Denmark it is common that you give your children a limited go at things if there are other children queuing to try - in Albania, from what I saw today, this isn't the case. People just let their children go on and on (one boy was at one of the swings for perhaps 45mins even though there were 10 other children in the playground dying to try it and queuing culture was to say the least also very different as there was no none. It was all about having the hardest elbows and being quickest.
Anyway, I guess today's blog is about Saya a lot, but our page is after all called Backpacking with children, so I feel the need to go a bit more in depth about this today.
After ice cream we went back to the hotel and relaxed for a couple of hours.. we were all really tired and Saya enjoyed watching some cartoons on the tablet. By evening time we were all feeling better and went back out to have dinner which again consisted of lots of meat and a salad. Food was good and Saya finished it all of with an ice cream again.
After a stroll through the center we got back to our hotel and Saya fell asleep straight away. Tomorrow will be a relaxing day seeing the sights in city and spending some time at playgrounds. We have decided to stay here for three nights, so that we can relax a bit more each place. The travelling part on this trip is a bit hard work even though every trip has gone smoothly. Perhaps it is a combination of several things.. us feeling generally run down before we left and having a big need to relax, not gettting proper night's of sleep, but maybe also the fact that Saya is older and needs more thought and attention, play a factor.
So far though Shkrodra seems like pretty nice place and I am looking forward to exploring more tomorrow. I am dead tired now though, so will turn this off and got to sleep without reading what I have written through again. Perhaps this blog has been a bit of a confusing read and I apologize if so. Tomorrow I will try to find the time to translate the rest of the blog into Danish as well and read though and correct Kristian's as well.