Just another day of Motorhome life in Albania.

The plan was to do a bike ride into town in the morning to pick up some groceries, then another one in the afternoon in the opposite direction just for pleasure. 

So we set off to do groceries around 10:30am. It was a nice blue sky day. We got to the butcher that we have used in the past. He speaks zero English. But we got across to him that we wanted some fresh ground beef. He held up a slab of beef and made gestures like he was going to cut it. But we pointed at his meat grinding machine and he shook his head. It took us a few seconds to figure it out, but it turns out the power was out!

This happens fairly regularly in Albania. Quite a few of the larger stores, banks, and hotels have their own diesel generators ready to use when this happens, but the little guys have to just wait until it comes back on.

We told him we would return later, and we went for a walk.

Christmas in Berat.

They have just finished installing the big Christmas tree in old town. I think that's a kind of a funny picture above... the Christmas tree beside the palm tree... and across from the mosque! Here in Albania, many people are non religious, however there are also sizeable populations of Muslims and Christians. Religion is a kind of a non issue here... everybody gets along. It just doesn't matter. 

And because it doesn't matter, and nobody cares, there are no official statistics regarding the number of practicing religious people per each religious group. According to a 2007 poll, 63% of Albanians said that religion does not play an important role in their lives.

We notice they are also installing a lot of holiday lights on the trees. And there are a lot of Christmas type items available in the stores. And they installed a lot of huts for what appears to be some kind of Christmas market. Who knows, if the weather holds out maybe we will hang around for a while!

Ruth, and Berat old town... city of a thousand windows.

We made our way to one of the larger grocery stores. Their lights were on, but we didn't know if it was because they had a generator or because the power had come back on. 

In the Big Market grocery store, Berat.

Ruth, at the deli counter.

We can now order 400 grams of deli meat and do it all in Albanian. Including the please and thank you's! The locals are really surprised when we come out with a few Albanian words. They always smile. Either that or they are laughing to themselves because we're not saying it quite right! It's a difficult language to learn, but we are trying and we think they appreciate that.

But by the time we made it back to the butcher, his power was on too. We got one kilo (2.2 lbs) of fresh ground beef, and six big pork chops that weighed 1.35 kilos (3 lbs). The total was a bit more than we were expecting, at 1,600 lek ($18.65 CAD, $14.75 USD, €13), but those are big pork chops. Might only need to split one between the two of us! It does look like nice meat.

We never did make it out for our afternoon bike ride. Sometimes a nap takes precedence! We'll get out this morning for sure because it looks like we're in for some wet weather tomorrow and through the weekend.

We did end up ordering the motorhome water filter from Germany. Its being send by DHL courier, so we know that we are hanging around here at least until it shows up. DHL says 6 to 8 days, but the supplier thinks it will be faster than that. We'll see.

Just a reminder once again that our travel medical insurance company Heymondo is having a Black Friday sale for our readers. Normally, readers of this blog get a 5% discount, but from now until next Monday that has been increased to 15%! It's a great deal for travelers age 69 or younger, and you can buy the insurance now for any future travel date! Here is the link.. 15% off Heymondo Insurance.

And finally, Happy Thanksgiving to all of our American friends! We hope you remembered to set your bathroom scale back ten pounds at midnight last night!

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Black Friday sales are in full swing. Black Friday prices on Levi's Jeans.

And in Canada...

Finally, some great deals on Laptops.