Saranda, Albania

June 22, 2012

Dola's mother, Lee, Dola & Kela

Avery

Saranda, Albania

The ferry trip between Corfu and Saranda, Albania covers the two nautical miles that separate the cities in about forty-five minutes or so. We were met at the ferry terminal and whisked away to our hotels which are both located about a mile from the city center, right next to the military base that serves as the operations center for RPM’s diving in Albania. 

Dola & Howard

The hotels are more like small inns in the United States, the students all stayed in one, while I moved in with staff members Derek and Howard in the hotel that RPM has been using the six years we have been working in Albanian. The hotel has an amazing view overlooking the bay and down on to the dive locker, decompression chamber and the Contender that we use to go diving. 

Hotel View

Contender

Dola with her parents

Both hotels are small comfortable family run establishments and while there the owners treat you like family, since most of the students and staff will be living here until the end of the summer this becomes a real asset to our operations and to the people here as well. You really are treated like extended family as they cook, clean and even do your personal laundry every day, all for about seven dollars per night.

Speaking of family, our Albanian friends Dola and Kela are already like family to us and we spent much of our first day here hanging out with them, we joined Dola’s parents for coffee in a small café then spent the afternoon hanging out at a small, isolated locals only beach to relax catch up and enjoy the company. When traveling in new and different places it always helps to have good local contacts and we have been treated wonderfully since arriving mostly because of the friends we have here and the reputation that RPM has built up since arriving here.

Lee & Dola

Kela & Michael

Evan & Mathieu

Dola

Being mostly Americans, we do have one Canadian and one Italian student, we stand out easily among the local population, who all seem aware of who we are and why we are here and are almost to a person kind, curious and helpful. Most Albanians over the age of 25 do not speak any English at all, so much of the translation is done by young children who are now taught English in school and who love the opportunity to test it out on actual Americans. They frequently engage you in conversations and seem endlessly curious as to what we are up to.

The first day we all went out for pizza at Lumani, which was excellent, as good as just about any pizza you might find in the US and later we as a group went on a shopping expedition to local markets and to the amazing Farmer’s Market which was packed with all manner of fruits and vegetables, honey, nuts and even locally made wine and liquor. Everything has been grown locally and the quantity, quality and diversity were staggering, it was an incredible and wonderful experience.

Jeff, Chris & Derek

Avery

All in all it was a pretty spectacular first day or so here, I love it already and can’t wait to get the chance to really dig in and explore.

Dola & Lee

Corfu to Saranda

June 21, 2012

Corfu

Corfu to Saranda

The flight from Dusseldorf was relatively short and efficient; Berlin Air a model of German organization was fantastic. Airlines in the US could certainly learn a thing or two from the professionalism, comfort and efficiency of their German counterpart. We arrived right on time on the beautiful Greek island of Corfu and within minutes had gotten our luggage found a taxi and were on the short trip downtown to the wonderful Cavalieri Hotel.

Lee & Michael

We had basically one night to stay and explore Corfu city and after quick showers we headed out on to the narrow streets that were crowded with people shopping in the many stores, enjoying the small cafes, bars and restaurants that populate the beautiful Oceanside locale.

Lee

Corfu is the second largest of the Greek Ionian islands and has a rich history and features two significant mountain ranges along its forty mile length. Corfu city is where the airport and ferry terminal are both located and features a labyrinth of narrow cobblestone streets lined with restaurants, bistros, bars and shopping. It is fantastic and while we were able to explore a little, I hope to spend a little more time when I pass back through on my way back home.

Corfu is incredible and beautiful, we basically had the single night to explore and enjoy and Saturday night turned out to be pretty fun, especially since Greece was playing Russia in the Euro ’12 soccer tournament and the crowds were packing every café and restaurant to watch the game. 

The mood turned celebratory when Greece won and fans took to the streets for a raucous celebration, which was really cool to experience. Lee & I had a great Greek meal at a waterfront restaurant then had some drinks in a local pub before wondering through the celebrating crowd back to our hotel. They really take the soccer seriously and the entire place basically turned in to a huge street party. It was a tremendous travel experience and an auspicious start to my trip.

Chris

We were up early the next morning and on our way to the ferry terminal to catch the short ferry ride from Corfu to Saranda, Albania. We met the first of the other students and instructors waiting to board the ferry. They easily stood out by their massive piles of scuba gear and we were able to hang out and talk with them during the ferry ride over. When we arrived, we were greeted by our friends Derek, Howard, Kela and Dola as well as Dola’s mother and were soon off to the hotel to begin the next phase of our adventure.

Lee

http://www.albaniamarinecenter.org/pages/education.html

Dusseldorf

June 20, 2012

Lee

Dusseldorf 

Sometimes I take my job for granted, getting caught up in the day to day issues and not realizing that I have a pretty amazing situation going working for RPM Nautical. This week was not one of those weeks. RPM is involved with setting up a new underwater field school in Saranda, Albania and I get to head over to Albania along with one of RPM’s diving intern and field school student Lee to check it out. Probably not most people’s average work week is my guess and I am very fortunate to be involved in something that is so cool.

What at first glance might not appear so great, the 36 hour travel time between departure from Key West and arrival in Saranda, actually turned out to be fairly amazing.  Sometimes the journey is equally as valuable as the destination and this journey was way better than expected for a couple of reasons, one we had a couple of cool stops along the way and secondly Lee turned out to be a wonderful travel companion.

The second reason should come as no surprise really as she is very well traveled having spent the better part of the past three summers overseas, two working as a diving intern aboard our vessel the R/V Hercules. In addition she is just a pretty cool person, one who I really enjoyed getting to know during the trip over. It is always enjoyable to travel with someone who is more of a traveler than tourist and is low maintenance. 

The trip took us to Miami first where we had a long layover before boarding an overnight flight to Dusseldorf, Germany where we had an even longer layover, over nine hours before we caught a flight to Corfu, Greece. While many people might have opted for the relative safety and comfort of spending the layover in the airport, we choose to take the train in to town and explore the city.

It turned out to be a great decision. Dusseldorf is a short twelve minute train ride from the airport and is a fun and wonderful place and we got to spend basically a full day exploring and hanging out. We began by winding through the streets from the train station, making our way down towards the Altstadt or old town, the historic section of the city located along the banks of the Rhine. It was a Saturday morning when we arrived and at first it was fairly quiet in the city, but as the day progressed the city literally came alive in front of our eyes and by mid-afternoon the streets were packed.

There were a couple of festivals occurring that we were able to check out, one was a book fair that had hundreds of vendors along a beautiful canal and the Chinese- Dusseldorf festival. Both were pretty cool, but the highlight for us was our traditional German lunch at one of the famous breweries located in the old town. We stopped in at Uerige, one of the five breweries in town that brew the beer that Dusseldorf is famous for, Altbier a hoppy beer which translates as old style beer, a reference to the pre-lager brewing method of using a warm top fermenting yeast like British pale ales. The beer is cleaner and crisper than most beer and is made only a few places in the world and Lee & I sat and sampled a good portion of the tasty brew for much of a fun afternoon.

We eventually had to wonder our way back to the train station, past the amazing collection of graffiti that is found throughout the newer sections of the city and then it was back to the airport to catch a flight to Corfu. We had to spend a night in Corfu at the lovely Calivieri Hotel before catching the morning ferry to Saranda early Sunday.

http://www.uerige.de/en/start/