Albania, land of…

I went to Albania roughly due to the same reasons I went to Kazakhstan – why not? Voldemort chose it as his random country to hide in, what more random place to choose?

What I knew about Albania before going:

• It had an evil communist dictator for a long time.
• It’s the land of stolen cars. (It was actually funny how 80% of the humans identifying as male that I mentioned this trip to mentioned stolen cars/stolen Mercedes/Beckham’s stolen car being found in Albania.)

So, I spent seven nights in Albania. I went alone, which I think is arguably the best way to get to know both a new culture as well as new people. I learnt a bit more. Let’s share some tidbits.

Albania, land of…

• GoogleMaplessness. Bar the airport shuttle bus, GoogleMaps will get you nowhere by public transport. So it’s back to the tradition of word-of-mouth, tho I also learnt to navigate the Albanian bus timetable webpage (usually found my googling something reminiscent to “giraffe bus”). Luckily there was also this excellent blog page with updated bus schedules, so cross-referencing everything gave me schedules with decent odds of being somewhat up-to-date.
• Bus terminals aka bus stations like busparks. Aka like carparks. Most intercity bus terminals were slightly out of town and were basically just a large parking lot for buses. Each bus had some sort of sign in the window stating its destination. Many webpages recommended you just turn up at the bus terminal and find the bus with your destination written on it. I would take this advice only as an extreme-early-bird – there were buses departing roughly every half hour between the hours of 5am and 8am, and then one at 2pm and that was it for the day. Okay, I may exaggerate (tho only possibly), but you get the point. If you plan to leave any point after midday, do your research coz otherwise you be chillin’ at the buspark till the next day.

• Designated food breaks while on them bus rides. On my 5h bus ride from Tirana to Sarandë I started getting peckish about half way through. I had just enjoyed 1½ bureks (spinach pasty things), multiple mandarins and lemon curd-filled biscuits in the dark bus when we pulled over to a petrol station equivalent, everyone piled out and, after a toilet break, went into the restaurant area to eat their own packed lunches. #ignorantforeigneralert

• Cats. So many cats. More about them later but here are some teasers.

• Packaged-filled croissants.

• And these thingies called “baked rolls”, crispy things that people ate on bus journeys. I sampled the pizza flavour, was yummier and more healthier-feeling than crisps (probably equally as vein-clotting, in all fairness). Would’ve been intrigued to try their “cheese & spinach” flavour, and was entertained when I first read “bran” flavour as “brain”.
• “Mr Bean enemy cars”, aka them three-wheeled little friends.

• Signless loos. Just go to the obscure door with no sign at the café/resto/bar, that’s most likely the toilet.
• Stray dogs. Unfortunately. A lot of them. Especially in Ksamil. Some became my friends, whereas some, the type who didn’t understand my need for physical boundaries in relationships, the love was unfortunately not reciprocated by me. :’(

• Abandoned/half-built houses. Never quite sure which ones they were, often perhaps both. And all excitingly accessible. #liberatedfinn

• Colourful washing.

• And colourful houses.

• And FUNKY architecture. Tirana grand square has both more historic buildings as well as a multitude of very innovative skycrapers being built, one in the shape of Albania, portraying the topography, and one apparently going to become the profile of Skanderbeg the national hero. *reflective emoji indeed*

• Mulliri Vjeter, the Starbucks equivalent, someone said. Also Mon Chéri is a popular chain. But I loved my local Mulliri Vjeter, sounds more local, and their super-sweet iced up rolls were DIVINATION ITSELF.

• Fërgesë – cottage, cheese and peppers, if you go by the menu at the BEAUTIFUL Oda. So divine. This was the one place where the waiter recommended you order LESS food than you’d planned, also the place where there were trees and cats and a signpost that made me wonder what exactly made an entrance “traditional”.

• Also, talking of the pic, SPINACH PIES.
• And SPINACH in general. Me gusta les épinards, omnomnom.
• Petulla, aka fried dough balls with friends. Here the friends were pieces of feta. Fried dough balls are one of my ideas of heaven, but in all fairness these ones tasted a bit plain even with the feta. I ended up surreptitiously adding sugar to the remaining ones (without feta) and hoping I didn’t get caught in the act. Much better.

• A small bar called “Small”. I popped in there, due to its adorability, on my first, SHATTERED evening, and drank a beautiful cocktail prepared by the lovely young bartender, who also was the owner of the place and also became an excellent conversation companion slash Albanian teacher. New friend #1, and drinks on the house. 🙂

• And the Radio Bar in Tirana, recommended to me by a guy at my hostel, the walking tour guide, and a Swiss couple I encountered somewhere near the summit of a Tiranan mountain (tho turns out they were recommended it by the same tour guide, so maybe that doesn’t count), so I ended up going there with one of my new friends from the said walking tour. We had interesting chats and took funky pics with the radios and the phones. Also some of the best music of my trip.

• Friendly people. Many people asked me where I was from and seemed actually interested – Albania still isn’t the #1 tourist spot for most of the world. There were very few people I got weird vibes from. Usually one tends to be apprehensive when in a foreign country, especially when alone and female, and a random man comes to talk to you on the street, but there was none of that this time. The very first random person was someone I encountered on the plane, assisting an elderly American woman with her carry-on baggage, I assumed him to be some kind of carer. The plane was getting full when I entered and I realised there’s no space for my carry-on anywhere in the overhead lockers packed with backbags and coats etc. I positioned myself awkwardly tho hopefully-sufficiently-out-of-the-way-of-others with my carry-on lodged behind the seat in front of me, waiting for the people to get past so I could eventually unhelpfully request the aid of a flight attendant. This man saw my predicament and said “I’m at 8A, I can find a place and put your bag away?” and I was confused but then decided that if he truly does want to do it, it’d save valuable time from flight attendants, so I let him. (Also I figured it’d be pretty difficult – and pointless – for him to make a run for it with my bag since we indeed were in a plane.) He found a spot. Once we arrived at our destination, he’d already taken it down for me and was waiting for me, handed it to me with a smile and a “Welcome to Albania”. I was impressed.
• Murals.

• Bunkers. 750,000 to be precise. Roughly. Souvenirs from times of dictator Enver Hoxha. Due to the secrecy of his regime there is little concrete information on the bunkers (which coincidentally used a lot of concrete). Apparently in 2004 they found a bunker 40km away from Tirana which was home to 16 tonnes of mustard gas. More about these later, tho I must admit I didn’t find any mustard gas during my escapades.

• The longest cable car in the Balkans. More about this later, too.

• The funky pyramid which actually was closed. Tbh, this was one fascination I had with Tirana before arriving. Luckily I found other things of interest. The pyramid was due to be finished in January.

• Buildings being finished in January. Apparently it’s a thing. The year is not always specified. Hence the amount of half-built sites.
• Excellent music. I encountered very little ‘global popular’ music in the restaurants, cafés, bars and buses (the latter being a great place to enjoy loud music). For example the bus rides to and from the Blue Eye were incredibly multilingual – some Albanian, some (mostly older, think *NSync) English, also a fair share of French, Spanish, German and probably some other unknown languages I’d deemed to be Albanian. Especially the Radio Bar in Tirana had exceptionally good music, as mentioned above.
• Funky sunsets.

• Extremely varied history. Albania has been part of a lot of different empires and escapades. More on that later.
• Raki. Their vodka/palinka equivalent. Our epic tour guide (more about her later) shared an anecdote about many Albanians having a shot of Raki with each cup of coffee, then lamenting about stomach problems. “I should really cut down on my coffee.” I tried it three times – first out of interest, when I had a drink with a person I met on a Tirana expats WhatsApp group (I found it some weeks before my arrival and introduced myself and told people to get in touch if they wanted to meet, E from Israel was the first one to message). Trying Raki was The Thing To Do, and when I was confused why the waiter brought us a plate dried fruit and nuts despite us refusing his offer, E said it was due to the faces I was pulling each time I had a sip. The other two times I tried it we were served it traditionally after a meal, and I must say I didn’t manage to finish it any of the times. 🙁

• Espressos. Not that I had any, soz, I just can’t do coffee without milk. But tis the coffee of choice in Albania, with or without Raki.
• Freddoccinos. Iced cappuccino, which may or may not have caffeine in them. Still not sure.

• Straws in the weirdest drinks.

• Ruins and castles. More on these later.

• Noted especially in Sarandë: lots of men. This was a bit odd, and my new hostel friends had remarked on it too. Men in restaurants, men in cafes in the morning, men in bars at night. Very few women. Like Vulgaria in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, except with women instead of children. Again, nothing *threatening*, I guess there’s just some cultural thing here.
• Mother Theresa. As our epic tour guide explained, you can get Mother Theresa in whatever shape or form you desire. Nice statue? Here you go. Maybe see her in a nice stained glass mosaic? No prob. Ah, a picture of her made out of seashells? Thissa way.

• The Mother Theresa airport. Still not quite sure which one is my favourite airport name, this one or Madeira’s ludicrous Cristiano Ronaldo airport.
• A very long-worded language. Faleminderit is thank you. That’s a lot of syllables to remind oneself about when one tries to produce a spontaneous “ta”.
• Mountains. Mountains everywhere. It was amazing having mountains on every horizon. <3

• All in all, an utterly unique experience, an unforgettable country and a magical trip. I had no expectations but I also had high expectations and I returned happy, exhausted but oh-so-refreshed. 🙂 <3

There would be so much to add and, despite multiple future entries in the making, I fear I’m gonna forget something important. But maybe it’s time to stop at some point.

Next up, another cable car. Hope you’re not bored of them yet.

Mwak

Emzy

xxxx