My other end. Chapter 2. Part 1.

My other end. Chapter 2. Part 1.1

Chapter 2: This is a real Knot.

June 19, 2024
Ksamil, Albania

Mountains, Goats, and Sea.

Exactly one month ago, I started a trip with many illusions and expectations, as you could notice in the previous story. Perhaps I romanticized this experience much more than I should have.

Spoiler: I'm VERY romantic.

I have experienced good and bad days. I have felt a lot of happiness but also a lot of sadness and loneliness. Sometimes, I feel like my heart is crushed, but minutes later, I feel it swell with real joy. Everything is very intense, and it goes by very fast...

I started my trip in a small village in southern Albania called "Himarë," pronounced "Himara." In Albanian, the e with a colon (ë) sounds like an "a." It was a coastal village surrounded by mountains, goats, and sea.

What am I doing here? I came to volunteer...

I arrived at the hotel restaurant of a Greek family, but remember, it was in Albania. Difficult personalities, quite strong and bipolar. One day they were happy, and the next day, you couldn't talk to them. Their mood could change throughout the day, or in minutes 🤯.

However, very good people. I never lacked food, I gained a few pounds. Thanks to zukini, moussaka, french fries, and eggs flooded in oil (but delicious 👌). Cakes and pancakes for breakfast. Pasta, rice, and meat late at night. And of course, the galactac burok (I don't know how to spell it), was a traditional dessert. But nothing like my favorite, the chocolate dessert 🤤.

I slept in a small room at the bottom of the restaurant (like Cinderella).

My roommate was an Albanian woman about 45 years old who did not speak English. So she preferred not to communicate with anyone. But as soon as she gained confidence, she never stopped trying to make herself understood 😅.

In the kitchen, helping the boss, was a BEAUTIFUL woman of about 40 years old. Two sons, a daughter, and her lucky husband. She would give me special little meals, whenever she could 🤫. She loved to watch me dance, and we were accomplices when the kitchen boss would get out of hand, with our looks and gestures that said: "Let's leave her, she's crazy" 🤷‍♀️.

P.S: she's not crazy, I say it with love 👀...

There was also the poor husband of the head chef... I'm kidding, her lucky husband 🤥.... 🤫.

At the end of the month, he said more than "morning", or "sorry"; I heard him say: "Puise Soffia", I don't know how to write it in Greek, but it means: "Where were you, Soffia?", every time I arrived at the hotel after enjoying my free time. He is very kind and helpful and seems like a kind-hearted man.

And now, the complicated characters 😅.

The head cook (mom of the owner). A woman of about 60 years old, but she looked like 80. She lived stressed 25 hours a day, 8 days a week. I can't describe her tired face, but I distinctly remember her pronounced green, black, or purple dark circles under her eyes (I don't know what color dark circles are 🤔).

She complained that no one helped her, but she didn't let go of control of anything. The typical person who thinks that if she doesn't do things herself, no one else will do them as well as she does. (I must admit that this reminds me of something of me that I need to improve...)

She had a special ability to always find something wrong with other people's work. Although she enjoyed cooking (which was noticeable, as she cooked delicious🤤), she yelled a lot. Even the smallest detail managed to get on her nerves. She's a good and generous woman who needs to work on her stress... I'm fond of her🤔.

And, as particular as she, was Syrus Black, as we used to call the hotel owner. To me, he was the most complicated character of all. Gender: male, more or less handsome, about 35 years old. The most bipolar of all, somewhat self-centered and petulant. Sometimes too rude and crude for my taste.

Spoiler: I'm also VERY sensitive 🙄.

But, in general, a good man. One day, he told me that he thinks I look like the Gioconda, which, far from offending me, was perhaps the BEST compliment anyone has ever paid me. Then he told me I looked like a lemon because I was so sour, and then he told me I was a snake because he thought I was badmouthing him behind his back.

P.S.: I was not badmouthing him. I was simply sharing my opinions about him with the volunteers. Six BEAUTIFUL girls who made my life very nice during the month I was in Himarë. All Latinas. I think the Syrus had a thing for Latinas, his wife was Colombian (not surprising) 🤔.

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