Day 20 - Tiranë - 21 Shtator 2019

Day 20 - Tirana - 21 September 2019

#Termët #Earthquake #tirana #tiranë #albania #Shqipëri

Our hotel

We arrived at the hotel and went straight to bed. Later on we arose, showered and went down for breakfast. Wonderful fresh bread and Albanian cheese! After breakfast Stanislav handed over some laundry and we headed into the city. We passed the closed off and abandoned Yugoslavian embassy. In the main square there was a huge open space, some communist buildings, a mosque and a church. We explored all there was to see and went for a coffee.

Centre of Tirana

Time for postcards. Eventually we found the post office, which also sold postcards! Mission accomplished! A bit closer to the hotel we stopped for a beer. We were both quite tired at this stage so we returned to the hotel and put on some music and went to bed.

Earthquake wine

BOOM!! There was this loud bang and the entire room shook once, I thought it was a bomb! Then the room started to sake violently left and right, and the walls were bending. Stanislav jumped up. I was on the bed which was being jostled around all I did was shout earthquake, earthquake, earthquake!! I was barely awake, where was I? Greece? Then I remembered Skopje the day before, the animals and birds were going crazy! I was trying to get dressed, and opened a door and the shaking suddenly stopped. A hotel worker shouted "terremoto!" "better leave now!". I quickly got dressed and we went down to the reception. We were afraid that this may be a warning for an even bigger quake!

Scared people on the street

All of the locals ran out onto the street and and many came into our hotel. We sat down and just as I was messaging on Facebook, the ground started to move in circular movements and the plants started to sway. I ordered a bottle of wine and called my sister Erica.

Fresh fish

Later we went for a nice fish meal, returned to the hotel where the Albanian news was reporting the earthquake drama. A little black dog kept yelping. After some wines and went to bed. Around 01:00 there was a loud cracking sound and the room started to rattle and shake, so I turned to Stanislav and said "another earthquake". We just rolled over and went to sleep. we later woke up a couple of times to some minor tremors.

In a word: #Termët