Big tour Day 16: Tirana, Kruje, Stuttgart

I’m beginning this entry up a mountain, in a place called kruje, drinking Sprite and waiting for my pizza con prosciutto e funghi. I guess it’s as big a tourist trap that Albania sets; castle ruins, views, pizzerias, souvenir stalls run by friendly, pushy locals. I could be wrong, but again these seem like folks whose friendship extends as far as my wallet.

I did have one guy offer me accommodation in his house, and possibly his daughter too, for all i know. I’m getting better at the language and must have all of about 6 words down pat by now. There’s my air conditioned hotel room in Tirana waiting for me at the end of the day. It was about here that I was stalked by a chicken. Welcome to Albania.

My luggage arrived today, having had a weekend side trip to Stuttgart. Feels good to have a choice of clothes again, when I eventually do get my bag back to the hotel. It was easier to just take a taxi from the airport up to kruje, and my attempt to negotiate having the driver drop the truant item back to tirana failed due to my mastery of Albanian. So the bag is staying cloose for now, lugged the bugger up to the castle. I’m glad it’s only about 17 kg, and fits well so my hips carry the weight, not my somewhat weaker back. it wasn’t as gruelling as I thought it might be, trust me, my hips don’t lie.

Kruje is an ugly place in a beautiful location. Architecture in Albania has its own sense of aesthetics — how’s that for a diplomatic way to put things. When I upload the photos this will be self explanatory. Albania, after years of following the Soviets and Chinese, now seem intent to follow the west, polluting everything they can. There is probably no local word for litter, and bin is probably synonymous with ground, or everywhere.

Pizza interval.

Pizza was good, wood fired, yummy cheese, good ham, but I think the mushrooms were tinned or preserved. Maybe the’re out of season here. There was a grey kitten wandering around, hopefully got a picture or two of it.

The path back from the castle is lined with souvenir hawkers. The lonely Planet says something about Kruje being the best place for souvenir shopping. A more accurate description would be that it seems that the whole town is for sale. Every 5 metres there’s be a stall or four. Pushy sales people too, slow down and they’re on you. I bought a couple of souvenirs, some pressies for people (got shafted there, too, somehow didn’t get any change from 2000 leke for a 1700 leke item, oh well, karma will get them). Also got shafted on a book some guy was selling, said it was half albanian half english. Should have looked closer at it, there’s about 8 pages in english at the end, the rest is 100% albanian. It does have some interesting colour plates.

Bought some interesting locally made fabric thingoes, might work as table decorations or something. At least I’m told they’re locally made, maybe they’ve cut off the made in china tags or something. They had a couple of different snow domes, but they were both on the large side, about fist-sized, which is a little excessive to carry. One day, looking back, I may regret not buying a mother theresa snowdome, and if i regret it enough I’ll come back here…

I probably haven’t mentioned how big Mama T is here. She’s the local girl come good, immortalised in every souvenir possible. The international airport is named after her. And, when women get to a certain age, it seems like they all dress like her: i kid you not, there seem to be Mama T clones everywhere, it’s perturbing. Still, says a bit about the place that she’d rather go work among the impoverished in india than stay in Albania.

The other big dude is Skandenbey/Skanderberg (and every spelling in between). Going back 700 years, he kicked invading Turkish arse any number of times, keeping out the hordes for a good number of years before malaria got him. He’s the guy with the sword on various statues, and the home boy in Kruje. Stumbling through Kruje and Tirana, I wonder what the dude would be thinking now: would he think his efforts were worth it? Did he do a good thing, sparing his turf 30 years of Ottoman rule? Or would he think that he could have found something better to do than save somewhere that would end up as a toilet anyway?

I’m guessing Skanderberg would have think that he’d done the right thing, he did what he could in his time, and chances are this armpit of Europe was doomed anyway. The whole die on your feet over living on your knees.

He’d probably be a little disappointed at the way his home town is selling itself to the tourists. It felt like everything was for sale, and “Sa koosh ton” was the standard greeting. There was old leke, wood carvings, scarves, socks, statues, bunker ashtrays, bunker pen holders, silver jewellery, hats, caps, t-shirts, glasses, decanters, tea sets, coffee sets, coffee pots, flags, the ubiquitous pens, flick knives, knuckle dusters, WWII first aid kits, zippos, post cards, key rings, anything that you could stick an albanian flag on, any number of Skanderberg items, Enver Hoxha cups, Mama T cups, shot glasses, brandy, raki, special bottles of brandy…

Everyone, everywhere inviting me into their shops. Almost demanding I enter. Maybe they had me for an easy mark, I didn’t feell much like haggling, so ended up paying asking price. I guess they had a runner ahead of me, telling everyone to look out for the big redheaded man carrying the big bag.

I did get to liking the tea sets, beautiful decorated glass. I could have easily bought one, but I can just see the state it would be in by the time I get home: three glasses (two cracked) and a bunch of shards.

The taxi ride to the airportt to pick up the bag was… interesting. Few roads have lanes marked, and those that do, well those white lines are really just a suggestion — not even that. White lines? What white lines? We weaved in and out as everyone around us did the same. If there was a method then I’m stumped. I even think we cut off a police car.

Caught a taxi back to Tirana, did it the smart way, asking for a price in advance. Here’s my mastery of the lingo:

“Sa koosh ton?” (How much) I asked.
“What is best offer,” he replies
“2000 leke.”
He takes 2500 leke out of his wallet, to show me his offer. I agree, “Po.” Him showing me works on another level, I only have 1000 leke notes, so I can see he has change.
We load the taxi and what follows is an interesting hour drive to Tirane, I’m amazingly relaxed given his driving and the cliffs we cling to. I think it was relief at having luggage.

As we get close to the city square, he asks if I want to go to the station. I tell him the name of the hotel, my garbled interpretation of the street we need, and offer him the card with the map to the hotel. He doesn’t quite get it, so we start driving aimlessly. I try to give him directions, first trying left and right in italian, then digging out the phrase book for the Albanian. Dreke (straight), maitas (left), diathtas (right). He’s not listening, instead tries to get directions from passers by, other taxi drivers, anyone but me. I’m tempted to just stop him and walk, but he’s getting a little shirty with me so I figure I’ll out stubborn him. After some time he begins to listen.

The hotel is down a maze of side streets, not easy to navigate in a mercedes. But I’m going to make him take me through them, as he keeps mumbling under his breath. We find the place, and there’s a hotel staff person out the front. I give the driver 3000 leke, and he makes to take it all. No, I tell him, 2500 leke. He tries to give me only 200 leke change. He’s looking at tthe hotel guy, so am I. I’m being assertive. 500, i say, the hotel guy repeats it for clarity. The taxi driver profers another 200 leke note, and tries to say that’s it. I shake my head, and eventually he coughs up the extra 100 leke as a coin. I nod and say thank you, he mutters some more.

I feel good, empowered from this. I was firmm, assertive, and managed to cope with the language barrier. Still, I’m not sure if the guy wouldn’t have stiffed me had there not been another albanian present. Maybe some might think i was harsh on the guy, but I think I was fair. I could have saved him a couple of laps of the city had he followed my directions from the start.

As i get inside, the hotel guy asks how much I paid. When I told him 2500, he says I got a bargain, some drivers charge 3000 to 3500 for that trip. I was going by the lonely planet guide, that says a standard fare was about 4000 return. Who knows? The book hasn’t been entirely reliable.

I have luggage again, all my toiletries, a choice of t-shirt, underwear that hasn’t been last washed in a sink with conditioner for detergent, charger for the camera batteries, vitamins and stuff. i think I’m coming down with something, i’ve sneezed a lot today, and my throat is getting a little sore, so some extra supplements may come in handy.

The extra shirts are also welcome, as I spilt blood orange juice on the shirt I got in kosovo today. A white t-shirt, too. The juice tasted a bit funny, not sure if it was because I’d brushed my teeth a little while before, or because the use by date was in June (only saw this after I’d had half the carton).

Dinner was deep fried seafood at a fish restaurant. Went for the mixed friter, which was calamari, shrimp and a couple of sardines or similar small whole fish. had a side salad of tomato, mixed green leaves, and parmesan. The table had the standard condiments: olive oil, salt and pink vinegar. They brought over a bottle of balsamic vinegar for the salad (I wonder how balsamic translates here, given balsam is hair conditioner). The sardines were good, crisp, good flavour. The calamari were under nourished and sliced very thin, so there was a lot of crunchy batter but little squid. The shrimp were of the cocktail variety, never tried them deep fried before. They also brought out bread, and a small plate of marinated cheese, roast red capsicum and olive oil. The meal finished with a shot of something lemon and alcoholic, possibly a type of limoncello? It smelt like lemon and cheap vodka, and was certainly warming all the way down. From my seat I could see the icebox where the seafood was on display, fish and crustacea on ice at the bottom, mussels and cockles in bowls on top. The chef and staff would regularly grab handfuls for various dishes, disappearing downstairs to then cook them. The chef dropped a prawn on the floor. It saw for a while, before a passing waiter threw it back into the ice. Maybe they have a 3 minute rule over here, but I’m glad that my food was fried within an inch of its life.

After the lemon shot, it looked like one of the fish was still alive, moving very slowly in the ice. I never verified this one way or the other. Either the shot went straight to my head, or it really was defrosting back to life: both are possible.

Finished off with a wander back to the hotel, stopping to grab an icecream for 50 leke. Creme Caramel flavour, apparently, kind of vanilla with caramel swirl.

I heard lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” a lot today; playing in various stores, in the taxi. I don’t know what that means.