Berat Trip

Last weekend, we went on a language trip to the World Heritage site of Berat, a historical city in Albania.  A language trip is a trip that our Albanian teacher sets up for those who are interested in exploring Albania in a group setting.  Out teacher acts as our tour guide and tells us about the sites in Albanian, while a lucky member of the group gets to translate for the rest of it.  To Sean's dismay, he was the one chosen to translate :)  He did a great job.

While we were looking forward to seeing more of Albania, I have to admit I was very nervous about it.  It was a day trip, having us leave at 8am and coming home at 8pm.  My anxiety stemmed from the fact that Asher was joining us on the trip, and we were planning on being gone for 12 hours.  With other people on the bus.  On a hot summer day.  I was leaning towards backing out, since his record isn't so clean when it comes to traveling, but Sean convinced me to give it a try.  And you know what?  I'm so glad he did.  Asher was FANTASTIC!  I mean he didn't fuss for more than a couple of minutes and that didn't even happen much!  He slept on the bus during his nap times.  He did great in the Bjorn while we were at the city.  He sat the entire time during lunch.  It was amazing!  We could not have been happier/prouder of how well he did.

Asher climbing up a slide at a rest stop on the way.

Here are some beautiful sites around the walled city of Berat, the last stronghold of Albania's national hero, Skanderberg, during the invasion of the Ottomans.  He held out for decades until he was betrayed by his nephew!  Well, this is what we think happened, though it says nothing about it on Wikipedia when I went to check facts, haha :)

A a very large bust of Emperor Constantine.

Great place, great trip!

Next month, we are off to Montenegro and Croatia!  What a great place to live!