Easter 2024 vs 2025

Buenos Aires vs Albania (with inspiration from Austria & Germany)

Last year we were in Buenos Aires for Easter and discovered that it was impossible to find egg dying kits. Maybe they existed somewhere, but I had no idea where. It definitely wasn’t like in the US where you can just drop by the grocery story or drug store and pick up a few. So N and I got creative and used a variety of natural things to dye Easter eggs: Berries, flor de jamaica, orange juice, spinach, and other things I don’t remember now. It took a while because first we had to boil and steep the natural ingredients to extract the color, then cool those solutions.

Fortunately, the AirBNB we were staying in had a lot of leftover food jars someone had saved, so we used those to store the colors we created. Boiling and cooling the eggs was, of course, a separate step, and then we were finally able to dye them. In the end, we never did an Easter egg hunt, which is a bummer because that’s a tradition in my family going back to my childhood that I’ve carried on with the girls. But we didn’t do it because…

We spent Easter afternoon at Estefi’s house, which was super fun! They hosted us for a parilla. Unfortunately, it started raining, so we had to move indoors, but it was delicious regardless, though we struggled with the blood sausage; psychologically it was difficult for us to eat. But the grilled/melted cheese and the ginger-mint lemonade were amazing!

Following the meal with Estefi and friends, we headed out to do a very non-Easter activity: Play board games! We met up with some friends we first met in Kuala Lumpur; their South American tour overlapped with our time in Buenos Aires. I had discovered a board game place that was only open certain days, Easter Sunday being one of them, and we figured why not try it? They had board games in English and we picked one called Kill Doctor Lucky. Ha! What a name for a game on Easter. We had a great time, though. Well, except for C having to continually kill mosquitoes. I swear, there was no escaping them during our time in Buenos Aires.

Overall, we learned that Easter in Argentina is way less commercial (if at all) than in the US, which was fascinating in and of itself. Walking around, it wasn’t super obvious that Easter was coming; you might’ve missed it entirely if you weren’t looking at the calendar.

This year Easter was similar, but different. We celebrated in Albania, but it was on the heels of my solo trip to Austria and Germany, where Easter is a BIG deal! I mean, you couldn’t miss that Easter was coming:

• Easter traditions in Austria [click to watch video short]

• More Easter traditions in Austria & Germany [click to watch video short]

Now that I know it’s such a big deal there, I want to be there next year for it! I’m talking Easter trees and branches (sort of like Christmas trees, only decorated with blown, decorated Easter eggs and ribbons), special chocolates and pastries, pre-dyed Easter eggs, and more. It was also very easy to find Easter egg dye kits! I picked up three just to be sure we were covered, LOL.

So back in Albania, we of course made Easter eggs. I had to specifically find some white ones, though, because the ones we eat are all varying shades of beige and brown. Anyway, I boiled and chilled them just as I always do. Then we got out the dye kits and read the instructions. It said to keep the eggs warm. Whoops! And then we saw why.

Instead of little tablets of dye that you drop into a small amount of vinegar to dissolve and then add water to like in the US kits (Paas, I’m looking at you), the Austrian and German kits use a gel dye. No dissolving required! In fact, you don’t even submerge your egg in a cup of liquid (though we did try a version of this). Instead, you dab some of the gel onto your egg and massage it all around until the egg is covered in a base coat. Hence, you get disposable gloves to wear while doing this.

The kids glove was too small and the adult glove too big!

The gloves didn’t work well, though, so the girls just got their hands messy. The instructions also said to lay your egg sideways on an egg cup to dry. I guess those are common in Austria & Germany but they’re not a thing in Albania and we never owned any in the US! So we made do with the egg carton.

The kits also came with these mini sponges you could use to dab additional colors onto your eggs. The girls turned egg dying into a whole art project, getting out paint brushes and even creating animals out of some of their eggs. They spent hours on this! It was so fun to watch.

Because it took so long to make the Easter eggs, though, we never got around to our egg hunt, at least on Easter Sunday. So we did it on Easter Monday instead! (Who knew that was a thing?) We had no Easter baskets, so the girls used bowls. They each took one floor of the villa to hide half the eggs. Then they hunted each other’s eggs. The rule was no precarious positions where the eggs could easily fall and crack (though we lost a couple anyway), and I told them they had to take photos of where they hid each egg in case we couldn’t find some. I did not want stinky surprises later on!

After one round they switched floors and took turns hiding and seeking again. It was so much fun watching them get into it. And then at the end they hid eggs together for me to find. But I missed the most obvious egg right in front of my face! I told the girls I needed to go put my glasses on, so I grabbed them off the kitchen table…

In the process, I missed the purple egg (my favorite color) sitting RIGHT THERE! Like, completely didn’t see it. The girls were dying. I think the takeaway here is: Sometimes the most obvious things are right in front of you.

I took the girls to brunch on Easter at a place that had just expanded their cafe to start offering brunch. S was in a whole mood because I made her take the bus (meanest mom ever) and we saw it arriving as we were walking towards it. Our choices were to run to catch it or wait for the next one, possibly 20+ minutes. (There’s no way to know what a bus is coming in Tirana; it’s a surprise—the technology of live tracking hasn’t arrived yet.) I voted to run and that turned what was supposed to have been a fun outing into a big sour fest. S glared at me the whole bus ride and continued the silent treatment until about halfway through the meal. Have I mentioned lately what a roller coaster parenting adolescents can be?

Anyhoo, I’m so glad we got to do our full Easter egg fun this year. Who knows what next year will bring? How do you celebrate Easter, if you do? How has that changed if you’ve spent Easter outside of your home country?