Immersion Trip: Day 9-10

Today, a group of us went to Berat, a castle built between the 13th and 15th centuries.  It reflects the culture of the time insofar as it includes both a mosque (now ruined) and a church, the Church of St. Mary, which includes many famous Albanian icons.  The town of Berat is known for having thousands of "one over another" windows, as the photos attest; it also turns out (I just learned while checking out the Wikipedia entry) that Shabbatai Zevi, the 16th century Turkish Jew who declared himself to be the messiah and led a mass movement before being forced to recant, is buried there.



We then stopped in the Gobo Winery on the way home to sample wine and walnut raki.  The wine wasn't bad, but the walnut raki was a clear reminder that walnuts contain iodine.  I suppose it cures what it doesn't kill.

Day 10 was essentially a continuation of Day 9, since we never went to bed - we watched television until 3:30 when the cab came and took us to the airport.  The airport was fairly busy at 4:00 AM, since the flight to Vienna is popular and there aren't many options for getting out of the country.  We got through security easily enough, although strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, the airport security did not identify the oversized bottle of saline solution that I had accidentally packed in my carry-on luggage.  However, they did confiscate the bottle of wine Abby had purchased at the Gobo Winery.  Our teacher, who had met us there along with her 85 year-old mother-in-law, urged Abby to go back and get the bottle of wine, and we'd drink it there.  We passed on the offer.