Greetings from cold (but sunny) Berat – and onward to Gjyrokaster

It was 30 degrees last night when we walked downhill from Hotel Desaret to the Mangelimi restaurant on the main street. Once again we were the only patrons of the restaurant – one of the “upscale” (by Berat standards) eating places in town. The waiter even had white gloves!

They had an extensive menu and didn’t note that anything that was listed could not be prepared, which was very surprising. We were actually still a bit full from the huge lunch that Lili’s wife prepared. But we figured — “you gotta eat!” We tried to ask for small portions but that didn’t go too far. So we started with the Albanian version of tzatziki (yogurt, cucumbers, spices) which was good, but with far fewer cucumbers than we are accustomed to.. It was served with great bread (bread is really quite wonderful throughout Albania, so it is difficult to turn it down and to think about any sort of diet here). We then had two main courses which we shared (naturally!) – a veal shish kebab that came as two separate large skewers with fairly large pieces of veal and red peppers; the plate included a good salad with thick juicy slices of tomato; and we had a wonderful eggplant dish that was baked in a casserole. We had a half-liter for red wine (local – which means a blend of many different grapes – but thus far all of these local wines have been very very good) and he tempted us with a simple ice cream dessert. – Total bill: equivalent of $17.00… So once again, Albania is looking like a possible retirement destination! – if and when either of us ever move to that step in our lives.

We head to Gjyrokaster in a few hours and I’ll finish up this note from there tonight – after we celebrate Mike’s birthday at a restaurant recommended by the foodie folks in Tirana (so I’m assuming it will be quite good). They also recommended a second restaurant for our final day in Gjyrokaster.

By the way, for those who were sweet enough to ask about the baby (Mike’s grand-nephew?) – he looks quite adorable and we are anxious to meet him when we get to Geneva.

So, we left Berat at about 10:30 this morning.. after breakfast at Desaret – they did not disappoint; yet again a terrible breakfast, despite the fact that we are the only guests, or perhaps because we are the only guests. They had granola which was fine, but then they brought out crepes – stuffed with what appeared to be an entire jar of Nutella and because I think they thought they were making it special they included a few slides of banana (fine!) and also corn flakes!! And on top of the crepes they poured chocolate syrup. Always embarrassing to leave food on the plate – especially when traveling. So we tried to eat some of it.

Anyway, we left and headed toward Gjyrokaster. It was pretty cold and no sun, so I guess it felt even colder than the 38 degrees. The first half of the drive was on pretty miserable roads with minimal directions, lots of pot holes, and such… but we managed to make pretty good time, especially once we hit the brand new road which went for the remainder of the drive until we got to Gjyrokaster’s environs. The drive was interesting as we went through many small villages and roadside developments — all along the way we saw men “hanging out” on the roadside .. very much what you see in other Muslim countries. Men smoking, having strong coffee, and talking – sometimes in cafes, sometimes on street corners, and in rural areas, on the road. Women always seem to be bustling and working — walking in and out of shops, waiting for buses, etc. The landscape was truly beautiful – lush, green, and with snow capped mountains in the distance.

As we approached Gjyrokaster, we needed to rely heavily on GPS – taking us up limestone cobble streets where there was barely enough room for a single lane of cars, but it was two-way and we always seemed to be going in the direction against the rest of the traffic, so we needed to find places where we could step aside to let those cars come down the hill as we went up. This was a slow and tedious process and for a while we thought we were on a one way street in the wrong direction. Alas, we eventually made it to Hotel Argjiro – a recently renovated hotel, originally built in the 1850s. It has 49 rooms and – you guessed it – only one room is occupied – by us!!

We were greeted by a sweet young man whose English was amazingly good. We dropped everything in our room (best in the hotel!) and then headed up those same cobblestone streets for lunch at the top of the hill, next to the city’s large mosque.

Lunch was great and the place was set up like you are eating in a grocery store with shelves lined with jars of preserved and picked peppers and olives and wine. We had three “traditional Gjirokaster” dishes (a marinated eggplant salad, veal skewers, and a sort of arancini accompanied by wine and sparkling water – food was quite good. Total cost $14.00. From there we roamed the town (which is only partially open given the weather and lack of tourists). Stopped in at a very cute store that sells only products from the region – olive oils, vinegars, jams, etc. Trying to figure out how and if we might bring a few things home. Returned to the hotel, rested a bit, did some work (yup, real life must go on). And then we headed out to dinner. I had arranged a dinner place for tonight (Mike’s birthday), using the newly developed and emerging group of friends here in Albania. So we were to go to Kodra (located in the hotel Kodra).  We asked for directions at the front desk (which is operating totally for us). Seemed pretty simple – about a block and a half – we can handle this.

About 15 or 20 minutes into our walk, we realized we were very lost and stopped in a little bar (naturally all men drinking and talking). Very few people speak English except for hotel management once you leave Tirana, so communication is a bit of a struggle – but very interesting as we all use bits and pieces of every language we each know and sign language is always useful (reminds me of traveling in the Soviet Union many decades ago, when Mike and I drew pictures to show what we wanted for dinner).  We kept repeating Kodra (K-Oh-Dr-A).. and then one of the men appeared to know where we were headed. His new directions seemed really strange since it put us back on the path we had walked to get to where we were. Well, turned out the restaurant was about a five minute walk from the hotel, and we had already been walking about 20 minutes. Anyway, made it to Kodra for Mike’s birthday dinner.

Kodra was a very informal restaurant inside (with a large outdoor patio that is probably wonderful in the summer). Food was good, not great (but probably good for winter in Gjirokaster. We were the only foreigners (naturally) but there were two or three tables of people – once again men – drinking, smoking, and chatting. Seems like rural Albania is a great place for older men — lots of socializing, hanging out, and “deep discussions?” .. For women, not so sure.. There seemed to be many things on the menu that looked quite interesting, but they were out of a lot of them (I think they pare the menus down in the winter (good thinking), but don’t change the menus. So you get a pretty comprehensive list of options, but they really only have a few of them at this moment in time.

What did we eat?  We had spankat (sort of a savory pie with spinach – not flaky like spanakopita – but I think definitely in that family), pasta arabiata (which was ok but not as spicy as what we consider to be arabiata sauce), and pork kebabs which were quite tasty (they use a lot of interesting spices), and Albanian wine (which we are now quite fond of)… and the waiter brought out a dessert – oranges with a very nice sweet cheese with pomegranate (they are very big cheese eaters and every menu has lots of cheese options).

The walk back to the hotel was a breeze since we now really knew the route well…  it was also under the twinkle lights that spread across the main street and up the entire two block walk… Made it a bit magical.

All the best — Fern..

More on Gjirokaster tomorrow.

---

 

19 December 2017. Berat, Albania

Greetings from central Albania. We arrived in Berat!

Started the day at the City of Tirana’s Office of Parks and Recreation (an agency just formed two years ago!) I had been asked to give a talk to the department staff, which is led by a delightful, exuberant, and very committed young woman named Erinda. They are advocating for and developing parks within the city, planning bike routes, maintaining existing parks, and managing all recreational facilities throughout the city — and looking for new ways to engage local neighborhoods, to build public/private partnerships to help support their programs, planting street trees, and energetically finding ways for Tirana to be more green. Interestingly, voluntarism to keep public facilities in neighborhoods clean is shunned by many because volunteering wreaks of the old Communist days when “volunteering” was “mandatory.”

Anyway, the department is located in a building adjacent to their large Olympic training facility and both buildings are quite modern. We got a chance to glimpse the facilities of a city department. First, you should know that I don’t think the building has heat. Everyone (except us) seemed accustomed to wearing their coats inside the building. The staff for each section of the department seem to share large rooms without any buffers between staff members… sort of like long tables with computers next to computers. We visited the landscape architects’ office within the department and they had “fairly new” computers but monitors that were quite small for design work. The number of women far outweighed the number of men and most staff were in their late 20s and early 30s.

My talk went over well with lots of questions and then we had some time to chat with Erinda and learn more about the department. She’s very eager to visit the US to see Central Park in NY! But she’s really most interested in learning about partnerships for parks and how to get the private sector involved in funding park development and maintenance. I encouraged her to visit but to go beyond NY (especially since NYC is three times the size of all of Albania – population-wise). I said she should try to get funding to see other cities, especially where there has been strong leadership and community support for parks – and of course offered to help her organize such a trip. Interestingly, Erinda has lived in Japan for 6 years – and is fluent in Japanese! It is amazing how much travel this upcoming generation in Albania has traveled (or lived abroad) since the end of the dictatorship, when no travel in or out was allowed.

Speaking of languages – Albanian children start learning English at age 8, but they are also required to study another language (in addition to Albanian and English) and most learn either French or Italian. Older Albanians (including taxi drivers) speak Italian and people often offer that as a language to converse with us, but alas we know no Italian. That doesn’t stop them from chatting away in Italian.. So we now quite often say Grazie at the end of taxi rides…

The parks department folks drove us back to the hotel (in a work truck) and we quickly packed up and walked to find lunch and to pick up our rental car from Sixt. The drive out of Tirana was pretty hairy – As I said earlier they are very aggressive drivers; there really isn’t any striping on the roads; there are lots of roundabouts (traffic circles) and people seem to just criss cross to get from one lane to the other. It seems also as if many roads are set for three lanes but people create four or roads that are for two lanes become three, etc. We made a few mistakes getting out of Tirana (mostly due to the GPS saying to exit at the third exit of the roundabout but it was really the second – not sure how they count!) People gave us all sorts of calculations as to how long it would take to drive to Berat from Tirana – ranging from 90 minutes to 3 hours. It took us the latter. Once we got out of the city, it was pretty much one lane in each direction, but none of the overhead “highway” lights were working (once we were out of the city). That made it a bit scary. People were crossing the road, dogs were meandering, and buses were stopping to pick up people. Mike did the driving and I navigated. My big take-away about cars in Albania — pedestrians beware!

Given that is was dark for a good part of the drive, we didn’t see much. Then as we approached Berat, we made numerous mistakes (Mike blames the GPS), but eventually found the hotel which is located uphill on the edge of the medieval quarter. The hotel (which costs about $60 per night for the largest room with best view) was recently renovated. I think they took a trip to Italy and found some of the “modern, Italian bougie” decorator stuff and decided that is what guests would like. That said, it’s extremely clean and functional (although we couldn’t get the heat in the room to work for several hours in spite of having staff come up to help). Naturally, when we arrived to check in they didn’t have our reservation… but we had an email saying the reservation was confirmed. But, no problem getting the best room in the place – we are the only guests!

We settled in and then figured we should just eat dinner here because we were tired from the drive and we really didn’t have a sense of the town plan or how far things were.. and it was really dark. So, we were the only ones in the restaurant which was even more bougie than the other spaces.. Food was fair and a far cry from the phenomenal meals we’ve had for the past few days. We shared a pasta (simply prepared) and then I had the chicken (special for the holidays apparently) with bland stuffing and Mike had some kind of breaded veal stuffed with cheese (which he proceeded to scoop out so that he only had a small amount of cheese). The wine (Italian – and very cheap) was quite good. At the end of the meal they gave us dessert even though we didn’t order it… sort of a brownie.

Anyway, it is now morning and we are heading out to climb the steep walkway to the 13^th century castle, where there are still people living in a little village in the castle walls… Then we will explore the rest of the city.. and hopefully find a really good country-style restaurant for tonight. We leave Berat tomorrow for Gjyrokaster. By the way, much as it may not sound like it — we are really excited to see Berat in the sunlight.. It’s a UNESCO heritage town, as is Gjyrokaster.

Onward for the adventure.

Fern

PS – I’m caught up now.. so that tonight’s notes will be about today. Whew… Hopefully I will be able to keep up as I also need to complete my syllabus for Winter Quarter which begins a day after we land in California.

driveway of building where the “art” is the wall of hearts.. couples come and write their names on the hearts as high as they can reach… On this day we stumbled on two women who were there on a mission — to cross out their names… I assume love gone bad!

 

 

 

Përshëndetje nga Shqipëria –  Greetings from Albania (writing this on Day 5, but it’s all about Day 4)–

Following breakfast at the hotel (Tirana – Hotel MonarC) — which has been a buffet for the previous days, but today we were told to just order anything we wanted, because we were the only guests in the whole hotel! We then asked for a taxi to take us to Polis University where each of us was to give a talk, to separate classes. The front desk said getting a taxi would be very difficult and she advised we walk… But Polis University is about six miles from the hotel.  I told the front desk that we had to give presentations/ lectures at the university and she suddenly figured out a way to get a taxi. Turns out there were demonstrations against the present government (Socialist) and many downtown streets were closed; there was heavy police presence in the downtown area. Somehow giving a lecture seemed very impressive and she was able to find the ride for us. I’m not certain but I think that the taxis in Tirana (they are everywhere) have some kind of app system because the hotel always seems to know how far away the taxi is.

Taxi arrived and we managed to get to Polis University which is located about 5 or 6 miles west(?) of downtown. It’s an interesting educational institution located in a very renovated/ repurposed industrial building that has a whole new 4-story front section. Polis is about 10-years-old and offers bachelors, masters, and doctorates in architecture, urban planning, and design. The doctorates are offered in conjunction with University of Ferrara in Italy (I suppose there is a long explanation for this.) It’s a private university (technically for-profit, but clearly is not a business model set up to make profit). Anyway, it’s a truly exciting place with lots of activity – students milling about, making things.. very reminiscent of Pratt in the years I was there. I have to admit to a bit of nostalgia and realizing how much more exciting that kind of school is than the typical academic institution (like where I teach). Made me think a lot about what I had hoped might be created at UW Tacoma. Students at Polis are very focused and faculty are intense – all engaged with trying to solve real social problems in creative and collaborative ways. The building uses a lot of glass, so as you walk through the halls you’re very aware of what’s going in in classrooms, project rooms, etc.

There are several interesting features and historical notes. The school was created by a few faculty who used to teach at the University of Tirana’s architecture department. These faculty were connected to an NGO called Co-Plan – that worked on planning policies and were advocates for environmental and urban issues. The organization still exists, but now it is inside of Polis and seems to blend in easily. Co-PLAN  provides  technical  assistance  to  communities,  local  governments,  and  national  and  international organizations  in the fields of urban management and community-based developments—sort of like community design centers located at some universities.. but somehow this one seemed more intense, more real, and more creative (at least to me).  The mission of Co-PLAN is to enhance the environmental, social, and economic conditions in Albanian cities — promoting self-reliance and civil society development.  Basically,  Co-PLAN promotes self-reliance and civil, society development (civil society is a term used all the time here in Albania, when talking with professionals).

Inside of Polis is also a small architectural firm, called MetroPolis that is for-profit and does architecture and some urban planning (although this subject had never been at the university). They enter a lot of competitions (some with foreign firms) and also get contracts from local and federal governments, as well as from the private sector. Staff from MetroPolis teach at the University and faculty and students often work on project with the organization.

We got a quick tour of the school and then Mike went to give his talk to the architecture students (“Affordable Housing under Capitalism: A Hopeless Quest”) and I went to give my talk (“Strategy + Design — Community Voices to Create Community Visions”) to the planning students. The urban planning program is fairly new and quite small. Polis is considered a school with heavy requirements and a command of English is a pre-requisite. Tuition is considered high at about $3,000 per year (about 40% of students get some kind of aid). The planning program is five years: 3 to get the bachelors degree and 2 for the masters, but that is only if you do the complete 5 years. I think the talk went well, evidenced by strong thoughtful questions. The curriculum of  the school and its teaching philosophy are very compatible with my thinking and politics.

After the talks we had lunch with two faculty, including the one who runs MetroPolis.. Lots of discussion on the transition from a dictatorship under communism into a new democracy, the efforts of the population to not forget the past but to learn from it; the US situation under Trump; life under Hoxha during their primary and teen years; all the work they hope will get done to build change in Albania.

We then headed back downtown in a taxi – with the driver’s radio playing “Sounds of Silence” in Albanian! Lots of traffic.. but eventually got back to the city center. Mike took a nap and I headed to find a new shoulder bag as my strap broke two days earlier – sort of a success; not in love with it, but it will do for the time being.

Then we changed clothes and went to dinner with someone Braden connected us with and who happens to be the former wife of the former mayor of Tirana and current prime minister. An extremely interesting woman who is the director of civil society programs at the East West Management Institute, a US-AID funded program. She travels extensively managing programs in the Balkan countries and has an office in NY. She’s also a foodie – so we had not just political sympatico but also gourmet sympatico.  It was her restaurant suggestions that we have been using over the past few days. She took us to one, not on her list to us (!!) – Estia – located a few blocks from our hotel – good thing because it was pouring last night.

Started with a pasta with some kind of mushroom thing sitting on top of each pasta piece, followed by a nettle soup with foam and sweetbreads and ginger and vanilla, I think, followed by foie gras with wild figs and toast. The main course was walnut encrusted baby lamb chops with vegetable side. We shared three deserts, but they brought all five to our table. Crème brulee, homemade minty-mint ice scream, poached pear, something that was sort of like deconstructed baklava.

Dinner was fantastic and lots of sharing. We closed the place down at about 11:15 or so, and survived the downpour to our hotel.

I finally finished reading all the term papers and posting grades, so I felt pretty darn good.

A packed Monday with lots of information swirling about, and even more questions — especially about what it must have been like to be at the very start of this new democracy (23 years ago) – living in a house that was assigned to you to suddenly owning that house; not being able to leave the country to having a passport and being able to travel as you wish; not having any religion to suddenly seeing mosques reopened and churches being constructed (although from what people say the majority of residents are atheists); not owning cars to a sudden explosion of automobiles on the streets (with absolutely the most aggressive driving I’ve ever seen – said by me as a New Yorker).

So much more to tell you, but I’m fading… we are now in Berat; more about the drive and Berat tomorrow. It’s about midnight here in Berat.

All the best – Can’t proofread, so hopefully no egregious errors.

Fern

 

 

Greetings from Tirana –

Not really sure where I left off, and I’m already a day behind. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to give these notes their just do. We are going 24/7, and everything is incredibly interesting.

So, while eating breakfast on Sunday the sun popped out and we dashed out to have some set of hours without rain (taking our umbrellas with us – just in case).

We left the hotel and walked about a mile or so to the “new bazaar” – located in the Pazari i Ri neighborhood – a residential area in the Old Town. It’s a residential area but the market is interesting and in addition to a main farmer’s market has many side streets that are typical of older parts of cities all over the world – narrow, chock full of cars, housing, people, and little stalls offering a variety of single items (old tires or whatever) being sold in shops no larger than a typical closet. From there we strolled into some other neighborhoods – always on the lookout for those painted buildings.

Eventually, we decided to hop a taxi to head to the National Gallery of Art (it looked like rain was about to eliminate the sun, so this seemed like a good place to be). The building itself is pretty bland and built in the 1950s when “bland” was in in the Soviet-linked capital of Albania. The best part is the entrance – the “cloud pavilion” – a three-dimensional structure, made of open cube frames of white steel… it creates a semi-transparent, 3-d façade that enables visitors to walk through and climb through (or walk on platforms that emerge from the cubes.. and sort of voids the bland façade..

The museum was in the process of installing a new exhibit so we took a few minutes to see some of the permanent collection of social realist art from the 1970s. From the museum we walked a bit more through the central part of the city and had a late lunch at Delicazzo de Mare – another all fish restaurant.. We shared mussels, followed by a pasta with crab (It’s difficult to have a meal without pasta here and it’s all good, always home made and cooked very al dente). We then walked back to the hotel since I needed to finish reading term papers, do grading, and polish up my talk for Monday morning.

At about 9 pm we headed to dinner at Millenium Gourmet – just a few blocks from the hotel, on the second floor, and on a major walking street. Of course by then it was drizzling (and by the time we left it was pouring!) Dinner was quite wonderful, starting with a veal tartare, followed by a scampi dish, followed by a lamb dish with pumpkin and spicy pineapple – and of course we couldn’t leave without desert – an orange cheesecake. Walked back to the hotel in the rain and finished reading term papers.

Lots to tell about Monday (today), but will try to catch up tomorrow… I have to post grades and tweak my presentation to the city for tomorrow. Hope I remember all the parts of today, since it was chock full.

All the best –

Fern

PS – Am keeping up with the nonsense of the US since we get CNN at the hotel. But would love to totally disconnect as it seems to get weirder by the minute.

PPS — For those that asked. Julia’s baby was born three days ago. Mom and Dad and baby are doing well.  The name is Louis (but they are French-speaking, so more like “Louis as in Louis the XV” – Louie..)

 

 

Greetings from Tirana –

First, why Albania? We were already heading to Europe rather than going on one of our more unusual and distant locations because Mike’s niece (who lives in Geneva) was having a baby in early December and we wanted to meet the newest member of the family. This shaped the trip and is naturally the centerpiece of the 2+ weeks. So we will be in Albania until Christmas Eve, then fly to Geneva in time for dinner, then head to Bordeaux for New Year’s Eve and back to the US. For us, this is a pretty relaxed trip.

OK… So after breakfast on Saturday, we headed to the Blloku neighborhood (not mis-spelled, they use a lot of consonants bunched together! — tough language which is seen by many as an “isolated language”). Anyway, we walked (despite drizzling rain) along the Boulevard which is split into two parts –on either side of the Lana River, one going east and one going west. The city feels like it wants to be something special–lots of energy, people walking everywhere, shops open until 10 p.m., restaurants and cafes on every corner. Within Tirana city limits there are only 420,000 people (about the size of Oakland), and the greater metropolitan region has about 800,000 residents. The entire country only has about 3 million people.

It’s hard to imagine that within my lifetime, this little country has gone from being a communist state ruled by a dictator (Hoxha) for a 40-year period, in which he initially was loyal to the Soviet Union but then thought Krushchev was too much of a reformer and turned to Maoism (all of this was preceded by occupation by Italy under Mussolini) and then followed by 5 years of confusion and by the disintegration of the Hoxhaist state during the wider collapse of the Eastern Bloc in the late 1980s. By the early 1990s (and Hoxha’s death in 1985), a large diaspora fled to Italy, Greece, Switzerland, and North America. Somehow in 2009, Albania became a full member of NATO and is now trying to become part of EU. The history is complicated with murders of opposition leaders and the total quashing of the opposition under Hoxha.

We saw this history vividly when we visited Bunk’Art2… a fascinating exhibit situated inside an abandoned bunker in the center of Tirana, utilizing all 24 rooms of the bunker. By the way, these abandoned bunkers (thousands of them) are scattered all over the country. Some have been turned into works of art – another interesting phenomenon in that Tirana is a very arts-oriented community creating a level of funk that is appealing and also creative.

After the death of Hoxha, his daughter commissioned a building in his honor – a pyramid shape — that is now abandoned and in disrepair. But young people climb the sides of it to the top and then slide down sitting on plastic bags… The government is trying to have it demolished. But I must say it’s a bit of irony to see its use today, with lots of young people climbing and sliding – regardless of weather.

Anyway, to continue about Saturday… After walking past the pyramid, we ventured into the Bllilo neighborhood which is quite yuppified. Apparently under communism this was the area where party members lived and it is said that non-party members could not even walk here. We tried to walk between the raindrops venturing out to see the “painted buildings” that Tirana is known for… Story being that when the now-Prime Minister was the Mayor of Tirana, (and previous to that the Cultural Director) he realized that without any budget (the country is still one of the poorest in Europe) he couldn’t do much to address residents’ needs. But he was a trained artist (painter) and figured that he could change the dull grey Stalinist era housing complexes into joyous statements on the outside. I gather that residents were reluctant but agreed and after the work was completed were quite pleased. They say that crime decreased and neighborhood pride shot up. Today many of these buildings have weathered and the bright colors have faded. Everyone is clear, including the then-mayor and now prime minister, that nothing was done on the inside. We are having dinner with a very close confidant of the current prime minister tomorrow evening. Should prove very interesting.

After Bllilo, we went to Bunk’Art, and by then it was pouring rain, so we hopped a taxi to the hotel so that I could get closer to my goal of grading papers, and also to finish each of our talks for Monday (we are woefully behind)…

After about two hours of that, we headed over to a bar we heard about called Radio – it’s set back behind some apartment buildings. It’s a total trip – completely adorned with 1950s era posters, memorabilia from communism, and about 100 or more radios from the 1950s. I had their special house cocktail (whose name I forgot) but which is made with fresh persimmons, fresh passion fruit, and vodka… Quite the refresher (although it’s pretty cold and don’t need much refreshing).

Then we headed to another of the recommended restaurants from these people we are meeting – called Tiko and Muto (described to us as upscale and very expensive for Albanians. It’s all fish… We started with a sea bass carpaccio, followed by a pasta (they eat pasta at every meal) with mussels, crab, and assorted other fish and cherry tomatoes (scrumptious) and then a scampi dish, and finally grilled octopus. We didn’t order any desert but the chef delivered two wonderful panna cottas with fresh oranges and raspberries to the table..  (I think the dinner bill including the wine was about $60.)

Because it was raining pretty hard by then, we taxied back to the hotel and crashed.

A few basic facts — 65% of the country is Muslim and you do hear the unmistakable call to prayer periodically, but it is rare to see any kind of hijab or even basic head scarf. Our hotel is directly across from the city’s largest mosque which is being rehabbed so we have not been able to go inside to see what we hear is an amazing dome. There is virtually no Jewish population here, but we stumbled on a jewelry store that was closed on Saturday and which proudly displayed the Hanukah menorah with electric candles lot for the correct number of days.

It is now compulsory to learn English beginning at age 8. This is new, so we are most often confronted with situations where people do not speak English (and our Albanian just isn’t what it used to be!!).

It feels quite homogeneous, with everyone being white and perhaps the darkest complexions are those of Greek origin.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you more about today (Sunday) – a long stroll to a new bazaar, through old neighborhoods, sun and also rain, a visit to the art museum, lunch, and another great dinner. I’m telling you that this is a great place to retire and where Social Security can go a long way..

Best for this fifth (?) day of Hanukah –

Fern

 

As they say here in Albania —- Përshëndetje (Hello)

It’s now after midnight on Saturday night (Sunday morning) and we are in Tirana for the second night.

Arrived in Tirana last night (Friday) after a long, messy, and somewhat stressful trip involving three planes and four airports (SFO, Paris, Rome, Tirana). We had to have only carry-on baggage in spite of the fact that we were in first class from SFO to Paris. Packing that lightly was challenging considering the weather we were about to enter, so we needed to have boots, sweaters, heavy coat/jacket – in addition to computers, cameras, gear, etc. The issue was that we had to change planes and our carriers were not compatible, and our connection times were very tight—- thus we needed to do only carry-on if we were to make the timing work. Frankly, I’m not sure our connection times were legal.

It’s a given that we were up until the wee hours on Wednesday night packing and re-packing —- especially difficult for me since I am a bit of a clotheshorse. Mike had no trouble.. and I admit to having snuck a second pair of boots into his suitcase. Speaking of Mike’s suitcase (Tumi, but has had a lot of wear and tear)… the handle broke as he lifter the case onto the security device! Flight to Paris was a breeze. Being a status flier and getting into first class always helps. But once we landed at CDG, we were with the hoi polloi. Fortunately we were able to get to the Alitalia counter before changing planes and we each checked one suitcase. But this involved transferring some things from one suitcase to the other. Finally we were headed to Rome

As we landed at Fiumicino we realized that the connection for the flight to Tirana (Albania) was so tight that it was already boarding as we were landing. We were met at the gate by an Alitalia concierge who warned us that we needed to run to catch the flight. We ran and ran — 1.8 miles according to the app on the phone — and barely made it to the Tirana flight. Because we were so late, our bags did not fit on the plane and eventually, the flight attendants took the bags and got them loaded into cargo.

We landed in Tirana about 75 minutes later and took a taxi to our hotel (MonarC) which we booked online. It’s a sweet, small, very centrally located hotel (that lists as part of its amenities: toilet paper!). Actually, it’s quite modern and situated at the intersection of Boulevard and George W Bush Avenue (!!!). We literally dropped our bags, jumped in the shower, and headed to one of the recommended restaurants: Mullixhui (billed as fusion food)/ pronounced Mullee-gee-oh. The taxi had quite a problem finding it and we had to walk the last block and a half in the rain. But dinner was fantastic:

• Started with raki – an unsweetened alcohol made with fruits and very very strong (45% alcohol) as an aperitif
• Squash soup
• Pumpkin salad with cranberries and sundried tomatoes and some kind of pickled onions… Pumpkin was shredded very thin.. not sure what the dressing was, but it was fantastic
• Linguine with wild berries
• Goat accompanied by vegetables and potatoes
• Dessert was incredible – served in a ceramic vessel that had a spout; it had a birds nest kind of edible topping with graham cracker-ish grounds and some cream.. you eat this and then you drink from the spout what is sitting at the bottom of the vessel — some kind of yogurt-y liquid. Totally yummy.

Left there by taxi and crashed at the hotel!

I’ll get into what we did today (Saturday) tomorrow – will combine with Sunday events, I hope.

But for those who don’t know… Mike and I are here in Albania – a destination we didn’t exactly pick initially, but it probably is the only country in Europe that we have never been to. Anyway, turns out that a former student from ASU, on whose dissertation committee I sat had been here three times and he encouraged me to make the trip. Once we made the decision, he linked us up with all sorts of people and now our vacation has turned into part work as I’m lecturing at the university and also giving a talk to city staff here in Tirana.  So far, first 36 hours — Tirana is a bustling city with lots to offer.. wish it wasn’t rainy season. But you can still sense the life and also the intensity of its history all around. It’s also phenomenally inexpensive. The meal I mentioned above cost about $25 including a very nice Albanian red wine and the aperitifs!!  Maybe a good place to retire. Social Security would go a long way. They also have a socialist government – more on that later.

Best –

Fern