I woke up today at 7am, when the church bells outside the window coincided with my alarm. I got up after a few snoozes and made a cuppa each for us, then at about ten to 8 Kokolo came in to tell us that our transfer was picking us up in 10 minutes! Oops! So we quickly packed up our bags, payed for the transfer, finished our cuppas, then walked with Kokolo out of the old town and to the road, where we saw a few of the people that we'd met the night before. Our transfer rocked up and we said goodbye to them and to Kokolo then jumped in the car with our driver, Dan, who was taking us to Tirana, in Albania. We stopped in the next town, Budva, about half an hour away where we picked up a couple more Aussies, and continued to drive. We got a good introduction to Montenegrin driving when the car behind us lost control and almost skidded into our car before almost skidding off the cliff! Crazy! We stopped for a photo of a small island just past Budva, which had a small town on it. Apparently now it is an exclusive resort that goes for about €1000 a night! So celebrities are the only people that really stay there now! A bit further up the road our drivers skills were tested again when a little orange car was driving on the wrong side of the road, then pulled out to go back into our lane without looking! It was a very very close call!! Then the driver of the orange car must have thought it was all too much, as he decided to just stop in the middle of the road on a narrow bridge. What the?! And Dan said to us "if you think this is bad, just wait until we get to Tirana!" We drove down a really dodgy little road, which was apparently the main road to the border crossing, then got through the border crossing easily, then came to a town called Shkoder. We stopped at a nice restaurant which was in a big old building and made up almost like a museum, with all sorts of old relics around the place. We went in for lunch and Darren and I shared the most delicious cheese entree. It was some type of unsalted cheese served in a still-boiling pot with some delicious flat bread. It was sooo yummy! Best cheese ever! After lunch and a look around the restaurant, we hopped back in the car and set off nervously waiting for the third accident-causing driver to appear! (Bad things come in threes, right?) Not far up the road we came across a dog who was just having a lay down in the middle of a two lane highway! So we had to swerve around him, and thought he was number three until the lady ahead of us moved into our lane practically on top of us without indicating! Crazy roads! But eventually we made it safe and sound to Tirana. (Where the driving was much worse, but it somehow worked!) We got out of the car and were instantly bombarded by a group of kids trying to sell random things like band aids and credit card holders! Trying to ignore them, we said goodbye to our driver and the other Aussies then made our way up the street to our hostel. We walked up a street that felt like a massive garage sale, every shop seemed to be a furniture shop or a bike shop, and they all had their merchandise on the street! We followed the green stencils spray painted on some of the buildings pointing to our hostel, and found the gate down one of the dirtiest, creepiest streets! We rang the bell and when the door opened we were relieved to see it wasn't a run down place like all the places surrounding it! We had a really nice and enthusiastic guy, Ady, check us in, then without intending to, we fell asleep straight away! When we finally woke up, we got a recommendation for dinner, then as we were walking out we heard someone asking directions to the same place, so invited him along with us. His name was Chris, and he was also from Melbourne, and has massive blonde dreadlocks! We walked around with him to find an ATM before heading to the restaurant, but every ATM in the area only accepted Visa, and we both had MasterCard! We tried about 10 different ATM's before deciding to walk a bit further into town to one that Chris knew accepted MasterCard. We eventually found it and got some local currency, then walked back to the restaurant, Oda. We got a meal and had a chat with Chris. I had a bean dish and Darren got a big lump of meat, which he shared with a scrawny hungry cat that was hanging around! We also had a bit of a chat to the waiter who started telling us about a Canadian girl he had picked up from our hostel once that he was still in love with!! After dinner we walked down a few blocks to where they had the Tirana International Film Festival going on for the next week! Talk about timing, it finishes the day we leave! There was an outdoor bar area set up and a lot of fancily dressed people sipping champagne! We got a beer and went around the back where the cinema was to look at the schedule for the night. There was a bunch of short films that would be played shortly, so we decided to stick around for that. Darren got another beer and I got a red wine (from a cask, served in a styrofoam cup!) then we got some photos on the red carpet being movie stars! The short films were all done by the same film maker, Nelson McLaren, and most of them were drawings he had done directly onto the film tape, so they were very random pictures, constantly changing along with some weird music! There were a few funny ones mixed in there too though, including a kind of stop motion film of two guys fighting over a special flower. It started with them both reading a newspaper, one saying 'With War there is no Peace' the other 'With Peace there is no War'. It was very funny! The other funny one was another drawn on one accompanied by a French song about a bird who loses different body parts before gaining three of them again. That was funny too. When the films were finished, we went into a little bar next door called Opium, where there was a band playing. They were on a break when we got there but we hung out and had a chat for a bit until they started again. When they came back they started with a strange Britney Spears cover, which didn't sound good at all! But after that they alternated between Albanian songs and Western music, and they sounded pretty good. Chris left after a few songs and we watched for a bit longer. I was feeling pretty **** by then as my hayfever had been getting worse and worse all day, so we didn't stay late. After Darren had a couple of drinks and got a video of the band we walked back home. Some of the hostel staff were hanging around and playing chess, so Darren gave one of them a game. I headed up to bed instead though to try sleep off the hayfever!