Dentist update, and the Berat Ethnographic Museum

We published our March expense report earlier today. If you want to have a look, you can view it here... March Expense Report. 

You may have noticed that there was no expense for the visit to the dentist that I mentioned the other day. Well that's because it hasn't cost us anything ...yet! However, it's an interesting story...

I had said that I thought maybe the dentist here in Albania would cost slightly more than what we pay at our regular dentist in Mexico. But I was basing that on what I read online, and almost anything you can find online is prices that are from "dental tourism" websites. And those are always higher than the price the locals pay.

Our host here had sent us to a local dentist. Nice clean modern equipment, but not the fancy and expensive waiting rooms and highly qualified assistants and receptionists that you would find in a typical dental practice in Canada.

In fact, there is no receptionist. And his appointment book is hand written. If he spilled his morning coffee on it, he would be lost! And the only assistant I saw was a girl who came by and filled up the little paper water glass for me. Other than that, everything was done by the dentist, just like our dentist in Mexico.

So, I went to my second appointment yesterday. I was in the chair maybe 45 minutes in total. He removed the bridge again, froze the tooth, and went right to work. He explained everything he was doing, and why. He did some drilling, and installed an anchor in the old root. He took another X-ray. Then he reinstalled my bridge, again with temporary adhesive and scribbled me another appointment in his book for this coming Saturday at noon. 

He had thought I might need another appointment after that, but now he's saying he should be able to complete the whole job during my appointment on Saturday.

I hadn't yet asked how much all of this was going to cost. He has a price list up on the wall, but it's all in Albanian. I could understand the figures, but not the descriptions beside the figures! (By the way, the Albanian alphabet has 36 letters... more on that another day!)

Anyhow, he had told me at the first appointment that I did not need to pay anything until the job was complete. Exactly the same as our Mexican dentist. So this time I asked how much money I needed to bring to the Saturday appointment. I really had no idea, but of course wanted to be prepared.

He turned over my appointment card and wrote on the back.

5,000 lek.

Well 5,000 lek is $60 CAD ($48 USD, €40). I honestly thought he missed a zero. But no, that's the total cost.

Now, I haven't been to a dentist in Canada for over 15 years. But I'm pretty sure you can't even sit in a dentists chair in Canada without committing to more money than that. I'm only guessing, but I'm pretty sure that what I am having done here in Albania would be a $1,000 job in Canada. 

Anyhow, with that done, we went back to the cottage for an hour.

And what did we see outside our patio?

A small tortoise.

It turns out there are ten of them living in the garden!

This is the first one we have seen.

But given the amount of dirt on this one, we think they bury themselves in the dirt over the winter.

Ruth in our garden.

There is a museum just up the road from us called the Berat Ethnographic Museum. An Ethonographic museum is one that displays the history of a culture. 

It's just a small museum, but it's located in a fairly big home that was originally built in the 1700's.

The Berat Ethnographic Museum.

This loom is over 200 years old.

Not bad. 300 lek ($3.60 CAD, $2.85 USD) for entrance per adult. Fairly well done, although a little small. We were in and out in an hour.

A special birthday today. Wish we could be there to help grandson Cameron celebrate his 10th birthday. We have a small group of loyal readers who have been here since we set out in 2007. Most of them probably remember when grandson Cameron was born. Can you believe it's been 10 years??

Happy 10th birthday, Cameron!

(Daughter Lindsey sent me this photo that she took this morning.)

It's another beautiful day here in Berat, Albania and we are taking the car out for a drive into the mountains.

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Little girls love the LOL Surprise Dolls.

And in Canada...

Lindt Easter Chocolates