I have been in Albania for a week now, and I have not begun to scratch the surface of new things to learn and experience. Simple things that I took for granted every day in the States involve a great amount of thought and room for mistakes. The mistakes started before I even arrived in Albania!
For starters, the language difference posed problems on my layovers. I was terribly thirsty by the time I reached the Vienna airport, but someone left their bag unsupervised causing half the airport to close down until they made sure the bag had no explosives or whatever else they checked for. I sat on the outside of the crowd of people for about 45 minutes, hoping I understood the situation correctly despite understanding few of the people around me, and super paranoid that I would miss my next flight. Finally, the crowd began moving through the entrance, and I went on my way to find my gate.
Now even more thirsty and rather sweaty from standing in the crowd for so long, I found a vending machine but couldn't understand the German drinks. All I wanted was water, but the thing about Europe is that pretty much everyone serves both plain water or carbonated water. SO... the vending machine had a couple different brands of both kinds, neither of which I could determine. I took my chances. Counted out some euros in my purse, praying my understanding of money in U.S. dollars was adequate for using euros and insert them into the vending machine. The machine dropped the bottle I had chosen. Hooray, euros work the same! I scooped up my precious drink, twisted open the lid, lifted the bottle to my mouth and prepared for a nice, long drink of pure water, then...
Yuck! It was carbonated! My dry throat burned as the water went down. I drank it anyway because at least it was something liquid, but was very disappointed to not have my thirst quenched.
My first week in Albania, I learned the words for those two different drinks - Oi me gas, "water with gas," and oi pa gas, "water without gas." Very important phrases for me to know in this country if I want to stay hydrated.
You should pay attention to the labels you get at restaurants so you don't buy the wrong kind at the store! I may or may not be speaking from experience haha When in doubt, give it a little shake and look for bubbles ;)
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