Dead Tired In Europe

Well, my friends, I have finally arrived in Tirana, Albania. And I must say that it is like no other place in Europe that you could imagine. Forget the houghtiness of the French, the properness of the Brits, and the style of the Italians. This is just plain, flat out, hard-core Eastern Europe. I'm looking out onto the main square right now, and I can still see the formation of the old communist parade grounds. It's amazing. It's blistering hot and humid here, and although some places have air conditioning, the power cuts out in the middle of the day. Sometimes in the late afternoon you hear the humming and buzzing of generators replacing the power that is out for usually two to three hours.

Tirana's Rinas Airport is nothing to brag about. It's very small and cramped, and the airport workers literally fake their job when running your bags through the x-ray and metal detector. Neither of the machines work. Police were practically beating off taxi drivers who wanted to take us into Tirana. My teacher, Linda, had her friend Genti pick me up. For lack of better words in using an overused phrase, he drove like a bat out of hell, and I thought I was going to die before I even got to my apartment. Tirana is a city of roughly 1 million people, and I've seen maybe four traffic lights. They don't stop for pedestrians here. It's bizarre. You just better get your behind over to the other side of the street before some 1982 Mercedes-Benz runs it over.

I'm staying in the center of the city. I have a lot of sights from my balcony, including the National History Museum, the National Bank, a large mosque, and a couple of the government ministries. The only other Americans I've seen are my classmates. We went out to eat last night and saw the Parliament and the presidents house. His phone number is in the phonebook here. Also, there is only one phonebook for the entire country. When we walked by the presidents house after dinner, an armed guard with some antiquated Italian machine gun forced us off the sidewalk and into the street. So our only option from avoiding a shooting was getting run over by...yep, you guessed it, some 1982 Mercedes-Benz.

The sidewalks are crumbling here. Many roads are unpaved, even in the city. I fall asleep to the sound of dogs fighting in the street, and wake up to cats hissing at each other on the roof. I typically buy a few bottles of water a day, and maybe a bottle of Fanta if the price is right. My internet time is costing me 250 lek an hour (roughly $2 American).

Yesterday, a classmate of mine named Joe and I were walking in the center, and we literally ran into our other classmate, Nathan, who had just stepped of his bus from Greece. You should have seen the look on his face. Elation is the only word I could use to describe. If you do believe in God, I'm pretty sure he made it so that we ran into each other. Otherwise, Nathan could have been in a whole lot more trouble. His bus deserted him at the Greek-Albanian border, and he had to persuade (and pay) another bus driver to take him the rest of the way.

We felt rather awkward after dinner last night. We had seen a group of rather attractive girls, and Joe wanted to go talk to them. I'm not necessarily here to make such acquantances, but they looked like very clean, good down-to-earth girls. We talked for awhile, but they said unless we had any money, they wouldn't be able to talk much longer. They were prostitutes.

Everyone smokes here. Men, women, children...in bars, cafes, and even in the internet center right now, there are two ashtrays on either side of me. I'm going to brink a distinct Albanian smokey stench back home with me, I'm sure. I'm never dry. I'm either sweating or in the shower. For this very reason, Linda is taking us camping on the southern coast. It'll be good to get out of the heat for a while. But even then, I'm still suffering from some major jet lag.

I have been managing on my own quite well. Most of the Albanians assume that I'm Italian, so they speak to me in Italian first. Then they look at my white shoes, and say, "Ah, ti je nje amerikan! (Oh, you're an American!)"

It's certainly a different place here, but I can tell you that I'm certainly in for an experience of a lifetime.

Until next time...

PERSON OF THE WEEK: Genti the Cab driver for getting me to Tirana alive.
SONG OF THE WEEK: Baila - Zucchero Fornaceri