The city of Durres

Today we went to Durres, a coastal city about an hour outside of Tirana.  We met one of my Dad's converts named Plarent Toci who lives there and we went with him to the ruins of the amphitheater in the center of the city.  It was cool to be with Plarent because it was actually his father who discovered this amphitheater in 1967.  It is the largest ancient amphitheater in the Balkans.  Much of it is still underground unfortunately and they are working to get the rest of it restored.  It was amazing how huge it was.  It would have seated 20,000 people.  We were able to go through all these tunnels through passageways that were transformed in later years into tombs, small places of worship and we even saw some Christian mosaics (shown above), an altar (shown above in front of alcove) and a baptismal font.  Our guide spoke very good English and Plarent was able to tell us a lot about his Father's discoveries and his memories as a boy playing at the site.

Here are pictures of my Dad and Plarent on the exact spot in the center of the city where my Dad first talked to Plarent about the gospel.  They both have very vivid memories of this and wanted to take a picture to commemorate that occurrence 21 years ago.  They also wanted a picture by the Adriatic Sea where my Dad baptized Plarent because there were no fonts available at the time.  Plarent is such a good faithful member of the Church, has been a branch president and served faithfully and certainly grown in his testimony over the past 21 years.

Here are more pictures of us on the beach of the Adriatic Sea on the edge of Durres.  It was too cold to put our feet in but we tried skipping lots of rocks and just walking along the shore.  It is really beautiful.

This is King Zog's castle.  He was the Albanian king prior to 1939.  In 1939 when the Communists took over he was exiled and they took over the castle during World War II.  Unfortunately during the political unrest of 1997 in Albania, the castle was ransacked and is in terrible shape (as you can see).  The second picture is a view of the Adriatic from the castle.

Lucy getting the traditional double cheek kiss from Plarent's mother.  She also pinched Lucy's cheeks several times.

I also got the two-cheek kiss from her.  My Mom especially liked her because  she thought all three of us were my Dad's daughters!

After visiting these sites with Plarent, we went back to his apartment where he lives with his mother (very typical for Albania--most households have multiple generations living together).  This is a picture of us and his mother in their apartment.  The Albanian people keep very tidy, uncluttered, clean apartments.  They have very little but are so generous.  They served us cookies, chocolates and a huge chocolate layered custard dessert.  They are such giving, generous, hospitable people.  Plarent showed me a picture of him holding me as a baby in 2001 from his visit to the Utah when he translated the endowment into Albanian for the Church.

The whole time we have been here in Albania my Dad has been absolutely amazed at the changes in the country.  When he was here in 1992-93, the missionaries would carry around an empty backpack all the time because if they ever saw food for sale, they would buy it because they never knew when they would see food again.  Everything was scarce, there were no large markets, only one bread store with a line down the street, no pharmacies or hospitals or any way to get basic supplies.  On our way back from Durres, we stopped at a mall--my Dad is still shocked that there is a mall in Albania.  On the main floor of the mall was a store similar to Target in the states.  He walked up and down the aisles in amazement at all of the food and supplies that were now available in Albania.  They even had things like peanut butter which is hard to find anywhere in Europe.  Here are some picture from our visit to that store and the mall.

Kinder eggs and Haribo!

This is a display with all of the Disney movies translated into Albanian!

Here  is Dad in amazement at all the produce and products available at this store!

Lucy even found Magnum Bars!

And I found the Nutella stand!

Mmmmmmmm!

We ate at a McDonalds knockoff in the food court of the mall.

They had Big Macs (not called that of course) and Happy Kids was what they called their kids meals.  They also had one yellow arch on everything (instead of 2 golden arches).  It tasted a lot like McDonalds but their sauces were a little different and you had to pay for ketchup packets…pretty funny!  It was good to have some semi-American food.

The mall even had a small ice skating rink!

Upper level of the mall