Berat & Fier

We woke up this morning, and we packed up rather quickly. I didn't even get anybody breakfast at first. We had planned to go see a sister, Sister Baroti, real quick before we took off to head south. We headed toward the beach area of Durres, and went to her house. Good thing I pretended to know where cars can go. You see, it's quite different when you drive places than when you walk along the train tracks and go through secret alley-ways.
She wasn't home, which is disappointing, because Brother Risto had mentioned that she had been offended, and that perhaps seeing me would lift the ice. Her doors were bolted shut, so she was out shopping, or she had taken her daughter to Tirana or treatments. So, we backed the car up and took off down the boulevard again. When we got to the end of the road (Plepa), we stopped and I got everyone some Molto's (filled croissants) and Amita (fruit juice boxes) for breakfast, and we took off toward Berat.
I had never gone to Berat from the North, but surprisingly to me, there were good signs pointing the right way. It wasn't difficult by any means, and I guess since I've never driven before I had never noticed all of the signs.
We got to Berat about noon-ish and went straight to the castle. The castle in Berat is quite different from castles that most people think of. The castle consists of an outer wall and contains a city. In the middle of that city, there is a citadel, which was the where the governing body spent a lot of time, and finally, the palace was within the citadel, and was the house of the king and his family. Check the pictures.
We finished walking throughout the castle, sweating and hot, and decided to go down another way. We took the road, ahem, less traveled, which was made from weathered rocks. It was rather slippery, but it was awesome. And I was filming as I was driving. Haha. Yeah, you'll all love that footage.
Then we drove by the old part of the city, and went across the historical bridge. The houses in the older part of the city are beautiful--lots of windows and really classy looking architecture. I looked at my phone and I had received a text from some friends, inviting us for lunch in Fier, so we took off from Berat.

We arrived in Fier with no problems, well, the police did tell me to slow down, but besides that, you know, it was good.
When we got out of the car, we ran right into Elder Peco and Elder Behling, who were down from Lushnje for district meeting. It was good to see them, and right after that, President Clayton came up and saw us again.
We ended up eating with President Clayton and Morton's, the new humanitarian couple in Fier. Afterwards, the Morton's invited us to their house to visit a little bit. We said okay, but decided to go see a few members before.
We went to the fruit treg (market) to see Sister Mellaraj. It took a while for her to recognize me, even though I walked in with my video camera and everything. We visited and took picutres, and then took off to Sister Licaj.
Haha, *that* was an awesome meeting. She hasn't changed at all, for all of those who wanted to know. She brought all of her concerns to me, as if I were still in the position to take care of it. Ha.
Afterwards, we went to the other Sister Mellaraj, who was pretty mad that I didn't tell her I was coming. Oh well, that was the plan, actually. I didn't want them to do something crazy for me, so I decided to surprise most people. She took us to her daughter's work where we saw Emliha.
We took off to the Morton's to cool off a bit. We stayed there a bit longer than expected, and had to go off to find the first Sister Mellaraj's house--she had invited us to the house to see the family.
It was the first house I couldn't find, but talking with people later, they have changed the area around there, so I don't feel too bad. I sent a text explaining, so I hope everything is okay.
We took of to Ylli's house now. I expected a small dinner, but he just had fruit and drinks for us, which was fine, since we were still full from lunch. Something was wrong with him, he just wasn't himself.
We left there and went to visit the Gjika family. Sister Gjika was working at the kiosk, and she was very surprised and delighted to see me and the fam. We chatted for a while and pretty soon Fredi passed. Fredi is probably the only success story from Fier in the last year, and he stopped and talked with us. We then took off to go to see Brother Gjika at his house. What a great man.
We then planned on going to Vlore, but when we went back to the Morton's to get my computer, they insisted we stay at their place in order to not make the drive to Vlore. So we did.