"Do you have any good stories?"

I read one time that when somebody asks you, "Do you have any good stories?" people often struggle to come up with a response. Now that's not because they don't have interesting lives, or that they don't have good stories, it's just they haven't reflected on them recently enough to remember, or written them down, stored them away in an easily accessible mental spot.

So, to take a dose of my own medicine, I wanted to share a quick story, probably the best story that I have. Pay attention closely, do not skip to the end, and carve out a few minutes to read through, and as always thanks for your time, you're welcome for the procrastination fuel.

*This is from the movie Wardogs and is exactly what I'm talking about (Is this even Tirana?)*

Background

As you might've guessed from the subject line, the story is about how I lost my wallet in Albania, but what do you really know about that country? I don't blame you if not much, but a little bit of context will help with the plot here.

Albania, despite always being portrayed with that blue hue in movies because of their communist ties until the 70's, is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to.

On the map, it's just above Greece on the Adriatic, with sheer cliff beaches and incredible balkan mountains, I highly recommend it. It's cheap, great stuffed peppers, lots of history and is just different. Yes, the country flag is pretty intense, and yes, the driving is absolutely insane, but it's about the size of New Jersey so if you give yourself some time you can cover a lot of ground between the mountains and the coast line.

*Paula and I's route from Tirana to the south, to the north and back through Tirana*

Less to say, it's a beautiful, beautiful corner of the world and we went there on a whim this past summer. If on the off chance somebody asks you to go, go.

Our Trip

Admittedly, Paula planned most of the trip, but I had some say. And admittedly, the only mistake I made was probably the first night where I booked a hotel close to the airport. Very sketchy, start sharing your location with your family vibes. But it was cheap and I thought it was a good idea at the time. It ended up being fine, and I grabbed one of their cards from the reception on the way out in the morning for the memory.

Other than that, we split our journey into two phases, the south with the beach, and the north in the mountains. We spent a total of 10 days ripping a rented fiat 500 through the whole country (no insurance), stopping in little towns on the way.

And we picked a town called Theth in the north to stay in a guest house, which is like a little mountain hotel. Theth is a hub for hikers in the Balkans, it's really not even a town just a gravel road along a river in a valley. People hike the ridges from town to town in the "Albanian Alps", so they stop into these guest houses for a night or two.

One day I decided that we should take on a 16km hike on a whim the next with insane elevation gain to Valbona Pass and back. Paula agreed and we decided it'd be a relaxing night.

The Beginning

That night we grabbed dinner at a neighboring guest house for 20 Euros or 2,000 Lekes, that included a glass of wine each, a main dish we shared and a dessert. It all felt very home cooked and as I was saying super cheap. After that night we walked that river a bit to a church and appreciated the stars and clear skies. We laid in the grass outside this church for a while and mentally prepared for the early morning hike before making our way back and laying out our clothes and gear.

And the next morning we sprung out of bed around 6:45 or 7 to get our act together. We ate breakfast, I stole two sausages for our lunch and ate honey on toast that was from the bee farm behind the guest house. I had packed my bag before leaving for breakfast but couldn't find my wallet and figured it'd turn up after eating.

Since we paid in cash for most things, I thought maybe Paula had put it in her purse, but she unfortunately let me know otherwise. No worries - I checked the room again but no luck.

You know that feeling when you're looking for something and know it has to be in an obvious spot you're just missing it? That was me then, and so I checked my pockets of my pants, my jacket pockets, the car (the trunk, the center console, the doors, under the seats), took the sheets off the bed, checked under the bed, took the bed off the frame and the whole room apart.

It wouldn't be that big of a deal, I had my passport to travel home and digital wallet, but I had just, literally a week before, received my Spanish ID that I had waited months for and jumped through plenty of antiquated procedures to obtain. Nonetheless, I wasn't sure I could reenter Spain without it.

The Middle

So we started panicking, retracing our steps over and over and quickly realized that we'd need to forfeit our hike for my mishap! What we gathered is I paid for that cheap dinner the night prior, so it had to be between that restaurant, the half mile stretch of trail we walked to the church and back to our guest house.

We assumed that it'd have to be in the field where we looked at the stars, so we checked the church. I covered it like a lawnmower, or like a golfer looking for his ball. Back and forth I walked the surrounding field over and over again. "So we sat here," I motioned, "So it has to be close to this spot" as Paula checked inside the church in case somebody had grabbed it. No luck at the church.

Maybe it had fallen out of my pocket when we decided to have a foot race and was buried on the edge of the trail. We each took sides and scanned slowly. Once we got back to the Guest House we checked it again, and the car, and the surrounding area. And then made our second pass on the trail to the church. No luck again. After 5 times back and forth and plenty of frustration, Paula took to the internet to find what I need to get back to Spain. I walked the trail for hours more and she researched.

I got creative too, and talked to every hiker I could find that was passing through. I asked each of the waiters, the guest house hosts and the local authorities, shop owners, everybody giving out my number. And Paula and I joked (kind of) that we were going through the seven stages of grief. Later I looked at my steps and say I walked 12 miles on a half mile stretch trying to find the wallet, picturing the shape. Eventually we blamed a group of Italian campers who said they'd stole it.

Later when we regrouped she had found a Spanish Consulate in Tirana, 4 hours away, that might be able to issue a temporary ID. As it was Sunday, it was closed so we couldn't just call to ask questions, and our flight was on Tuesday, a tight timeline.

Check Out Everything

She had a checklist of things we needed: A passport sized photo, a police report filed about the incident, a copy of my passport and prints of my ID. She found a printer in this tiny town by some miracle and we decided if we'd left at 4:45am the next morning we could make it to Tirana and get everything done by 9:30 when the consulate opened.

These kind of high stress situations really show your true colors, and at the end of the day we were almost at acceptance and hiked a beautiful trail and found a valley, writing off the wallet and moving on with our new plan.

4:45 came up quick the next morning and we moved out. It took 30 minutes to climb up the switch backs in our fiat and 20 to get back down the other side of the mountain, then another 2 hours to Shkoder and another hour or so to Tirana. We filled out the forms on the way to Tirana and made it there by 8:30 or so.

First Stop: Police station. It's not as easy as you might think to get a police report in a country like Albania. Immediately they gave us a hard time until we said it wasn't stolen, but rather lost, and they gave us a document, success.

Second Stop: Photocenter. We grabbed two passport sized photos of me and were off. This lady was nice, she helped us quickly and wished us luck.

Third Stop: Spanish Consulate. It opened at 9:30 and we made it there the second in line. The first guy must've heard some bad news which was a little bit of a vibe killer. Paula had emailed their support line yesterday and so once it was our turn she chatted with them and they let us know they had read the email, and were responding.

So we sat in Tirana, emailing with the consulate, inside of the consulate lobby. As slow as government systems are, you gotta give them credit for being consistently slow all over the world. It's like it's a requirement when they're being setup. "Yes we are a new consulate, but remember to make it as difficult as possible for everybody who comes in..."

Eventually they told us we didn't need the document, but they weren't positive and said it'd be up to the discretion of the border patrol officer on how to handle the situation when arriving in Spain, i.e. "we can't help you, good luck." And I didn't want to leave without a clear answer, so we sulked in the lobby until further notice.

I checked my email as well and saw a notification to check booking.com messages. I opened it up and saw a note from the sketchy airport hotel on night one of the trip, I was on edge and thought it was a scam attempt, but read closer and saw "We found your wallet"

How could that be possible? We hadn't been there in 10 days. How did they even know I lost it? I responded, "What do you mean?" To which they informed me, they didn't actually have the wallet, but somebody had reached out to them, asking if I had stayed at the hotel recently, and that they'd found my wallet. All of this happening while in the lobby of the consulate.

We rushed outside, I called the number and spoke to a guy named Nik. I remember the first thing he said was "Mate I've been trying to find you." It was straight out of a movie, he told me he'd found the wallet in the field of the church early back in Theth the morning prior and picked it up. He told me that he didn't trust that anybody there would be as committed to getting it back to me, so he hung on to it. He reached out to other Eli Larson's on facebook, instagram and had no luck.

The real kicker: the only reason he found me is because of that business card I had picked up in Tirana at the sketchy airport hotel. What a guy.

However, it's now Monday mid morning, our flight leaves Tuesday and we assumed Nik was still in Theth 4 hours away. Paula and I chatted with him on speaker and looked at each other like "okay we can make it, we'll drive back 4 hours, get the wallet, drive back to Tirana for our flight the next day."

Before we could ask, Nik said he was headed to Tirana this afternoon, all we had to do was wait for him in town and enjoy our last day. Which we did with an Ernest Hemingway themed bar.

The End

Later that day we did meet, Nik and I, and I greeted him with a hug. He shared he's from Albania and moved to the UK to start a brick laying company with his brother. He let me know he'd lost his wallet once and felt exactly as I did, that was his whole life in there.

He asked what my story was, who the picture of the girl was, why I had a Spanish ID and a Pennsylvania drivers license. He returned the wallet with everything, down to the coins I had in there and was happy to do so. Of course I asked how I could repay him and offered to buy him a beer, but he didn't accept. Instead he left with the most epic ending to this story. He said "If you remember anything about Albania, remember we are good people," and then went on his way.

As a little cherry on top, Paula and I's flight got cancelled the next day so we sat in the airport for 15 hours. Still an epic last three days of the trip.

Take your important cards out of your wallet if you don't need them, and have a passport sized photo if you're going international. Thanks for reading until the end.

Creator profile: Elijah Larson

The Time I Lost My Wallet in Albania