The bus ride from Kotor to Tirana took around 3 hours. The closer we got to the Albanian border we noticed the landscape got a lot less spectacular and before we knew it we were back in a big city. Tirana, the capital of Albania. This stop was the least anticipated of all the Balkan countries we planned to visit. The only real thing we wanted to do here was a food tour. Our first night we walked around the city, grabbed a bite to eat and took advantage of the fast wifi in our room to get some work done. The next morning we found out that the food tour we wanted to do wasn’t available so we decided we were just going to set out and find the foods on our own and see what kind of history the city had to offer. After a quick work out at a nice gym down the street we were off. The plan was to film an intro to our video in the main town square and then wander around using google to find foods and historical spots. As we were about start filming a guy came up asking if we were from London. We said no and then got to talking. He was a tour guy who couldn’t find his tourists. While waiting for them we told him our plan and it turned out his brother was a chef at one of the places we wanted to eat so when his people didn’t show he offered to walk us to the restaurant and help us order some authentic foods. After ordering we asked him to sit with us and he agreed. Alyssa and I picked a meal each and one side dish. When the food arrived we had at least 5 meals and 6 side dishes sitting on the table. Along with a couple of beers for him, a few drinks for us and a shot of a traditional Turkish alcohol. There was so much food that it didn’t all fit on the table. As we ate 2 more dishes arrived. The total bill came to $32 and the food was incredible. Our conversation with him over lunch was so good we decided to hire him (at a discounted price) to give us a tour. Usually the tour would have cost $68 each but after a few beers we agreed on $26 each. We wandered the city for over 4 hours as he gave us a great info filled tour of all the historic places in the city. We learned more with him then we ever could have on our own. And he seemed to have as good a time asking us questions about the US. We saw the old castle, a famous bridge, a new mosque, a church dedicated to sister Theresa, a monument to some miners killed in a big cave in and a section of the Berlin wall. We parted ways at a hookah lounge and Alyssa and I enjoyed some shisha. It turned out to be one of the best days of the trip and the city we weren’t even looking to visiting ended up being more than we ever imagined. Days like to this are why we love to travel. You can’t plan adventures like this. You just have to leave yourself open to the unknown and let the adventure happen. The people here have been super nice to us here and we can’t wait to come back some day and explore the countries beaches. Now we are off to country # 32 where we are going to meet up with some other new vloggers we meet in Kotor. They are on a similar route as us and we are looking forward to going on an adventure with some new friends. Another reason we are leaving a city we like so much without adding any extra days on is because in 2 days the city is hosting the soccer world cup finals and the entire city is becoming crazy. Increased security, sections of the city closed off and crazed soccer fans don’t sound like fun to us. We will be back though.