Tirana - Days 94-95

Tirana has turned out to be a lovely little city and I´ve ended up staying here longer than I had "planned."

Yesterday (4/18) was international museum day, and instead of saving something like 20 Euros had I been in Paris, I saved a whopping $2 and visited the National Museum of Albania for free. The most impressive thing was probably the massive communist themed mosaic on the exterior of the building...

Other than visiting the hand full of attractions in the city, I have been living quite a "normal" life. Sleeping in a little bit, talking to the girls at the flat, watching movies on their laptop, spending time in cafes, and even cooking on occasion. I can´t believe it but I actually miss cooking! Right now I´m sitting in a little cafe with a borrowed laptop where the z and y are flipped so I end up typing things like thank zou and reallz and backspacing more times than I can imagine. The cafe culture here and in Greece (and I imagine other European countries) is infectious and most are filled with people inside or out depending on weather. As a result, I end up having somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 coffees a day. And as a result of that, I´m always hungry and the plethora of street food available is really dangerous. Just yesterday I was eating a piece of tiramusu by the articial lake of Tirana as dozens of joggers passed by. Classic...and no I don´t feel guilty!

On a more serious note, I feel compelled to tell the story of Besa, one of the CS hosts. She was born in Kosovo and her entire family went to Germany when she was an infant to seek asylum while the Serbs were slaughtering the Albanians in Kosovo. Fastforward 16 years when the German military busted into their home at 4am to deport the family back to Kosovo. Can you imagine being forced to leave everything familiar in an instant at the age of 16? And this was moving from Dusseldorf to Kosovo, where their home was dilapidated and left unattended for 15 years. Plus she barely spoke Albanian. There are too many similar and much more tragic stories, but for me it´s another example of human resilience.

Tirana - Days 92-93

Obviously I made it to Tirana. It wasn't easy let me tell ya.

Lefkada to Tirana is about 450km, depending on which route you take, but via public transportation it took me 11 hours to get there. Kostas actually saved me a lot of trouble by driving me to Preveza, which is a town about 30 minutes away. Bus from there to Ioannina, bus again to the border town of Kakavia, walk across the border/checkpoints, minibus to Gjirokaster, minibus to Tirana, 30 minute walk in the rain to my host's apartment. Done.

My host this time is a girl named Nevila. She grew up in Tirana, teaches German at the Goethe Institute, and lives with two other girls from Kosovo and Austria. It's really nice to be surfing with girls again - hallelujah. I didn't realize it but my past 6 CS hosts have been guys, and the most recent one could really be counted as 5 guys in one since I was with his friends 24/7.

I had somewhat of a negative perception of Albania before I arrived. There are many Albanian immigrants in Greece and the Greeks are generally complaining about how they're bad people who steal, cheat, etc... I also heard the same from the Italian when I was studying abroad there years ago. However, my short time here has been nothing but positive. I asked about 8 people for help with directions last night and all but 1 were super helpful, or as helpful as they could be. One elderly man even walked with me for almost 15 minutes while sharing his umbrella. Plus, the general population here are pretty photogenic. The girl next to me on the bus looked like she stepped right out of a fashion magazine, and of course my first thought was "I wish Kostas and his friends were here to ogle."

The country is geographically beautiful, especially the southern part of the country. As I was crossing the border, there were snow-capped mountains and villages built in the foothills. My minibus to Tirana departed from Gjirokaster and I now wish I had spent a couple of days there. Today, I've been walking around town today and Tirana is not a large city. The central part is pretty compact and is a stereotypical post-Communist city. There are the quintessential communist block apartments and the large square in the center of the city with municipal buildings surrounding it and a large statue of some former hero in the middle. In the case of Tirana, it is Skanderbeg. I actually feel a familiar kinship with the Albanians because walking around certain parts of the city reminds me of my childhood growing up in Shenyang (except there are no Asians).

And things also became much more affordable.