{"id":75,"date":"2016-07-01T16:43:53","date_gmt":"2016-07-01T16:43:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/?p=75"},"modified":"2016-07-01T16:43:53","modified_gmt":"2016-07-01T16:43:53","slug":"balkans-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/2016\/07\/01\/balkans-adventure\/","title":{"rendered":"Balkans Adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This past week was spent on a bus traveling through the Balkan regions of Albania, Greece, and Macedonia. Our group immediately got a feel for what an adventure our trip would be once we began driving up the abnormally narrow, windy, and incredibly bumpy roads that went up the mountains leading to our destinations. Though our bus driver was clearly a pro (seeing as he was able to drive the bus backwards up a hill through a traffic jam without hitting anyone) I was still convinced we were going to die several times.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_112\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-112\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-112\" src=\"http:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Tomasello_blog-6-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"View from the top of the Archeological City of Butrint, Albania. \" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Tomasello_blog-6-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Tomasello_blog-6-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Tomasello_blog-6-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Tomasello_blog-6-1200x1800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 85vw, 200px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-112\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u00a0View from the top of the \u00a0 \u00a0 Archeological City of Butrint, Albania.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Ever since we arrived at our first destination (Kruj\u00eb, Albania) I was in awe with the beauty of the region. I have never been exposed to such magnificent mountains and crystal blue water before. Heck, I\u2019ve only seen the ocean once in my entire life and let me tell you, it was not nearly as beautiful as any of the water I saw on this trip.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_114\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-114\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-114\" src=\"http:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Tomasello_blog-8-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Boat tour of Lake Ohrid, Macedonia\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Tomasello_blog-8-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Tomasello_blog-8-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Tomasello_blog-8-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Tomasello_blog-8-1200x800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-114\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Boat tour of Lake Ohrid, Macedonia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Though every single place we visited was wonderful and gorgeous, Saranda, Albania was by far my favorite. Our hotel was located on an adorable street leading to the downtown area, and overlooked the water, showcasing the regions killer sunsets. We spent most of our time there on private beaches that were only accessible by (a very sketchy) boat, bonding as a group by playing \u201cchicken\u201d or attempting to do cheerleading stunts in the sand. We spent our nights eating dinner quite late (between 9 and 11pm) laughing together and watching futbol games. We were almost always the most obnoxious group in the restaurant, putting together 4 or 5 tables just to seat us all, and taking about 40 minutes to figure out the check.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_109\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-109\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-109\" src=\"http:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Tomasello_blog-3-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Mountain goats grazing on a photo site in Dhermi, Albania\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Tomasello_blog-3-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Tomasello_blog-3-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Tomasello_blog-3-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Tomasello_blog-3-1200x800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-109\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mountain goats grazing on a photo site in Dhermi, Albania<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The food was incredible even though being vegan left me eating salad and grilled vegetables practically every day and night. I once tried to be adventurous and order a cheese-less pizza, however due to the language barrier I ended up with a very cheesy, sauce-less pizza instead. Lets just say I was not \u201cfood-adventurous\u201d again.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The entire experience left me wanting more. I felt that a week was nowhere near enough time to really see three countries and learn their stories. I plan on going back for sure and finishing my journey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This past week was spent on a bus traveling through the Balkan regions of Albania, Greece, and Macedonia. Our group immediately got a feel for what an adventure our trip would be once we began driving up the abnormally narrow, windy, and incredibly bumpy roads that went up the mountains leading to our destinations. Though &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/2016\/07\/01\/balkans-adventure\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Balkans Adventure&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}