Village Cooked In Wooden Stove

My arrival in Tirana, Albania got off to much the same start as my arrival in Prishtina. I was not dropped off where I expected, but instead of receiving nice straightforward instructions from the driver like I had in Prishtina I got nothing and was forced to figure It out all by myself. There were cabs at the bus stop, but I wasn’t going to waste my money on a cab. I could figure this out on my own and have more money for food. There was a sign that said Qender which I had surmised in Prishtina must mean center, so I followed it, figuring that once I got to the city center I would be able to find one of the roads listed on my map and once I found one of those it was only a matter of time before I came to a cross street that was also on my map and then I would be oriented and could follow my map to the hostel. I got to the city center and began to search for the street names that I had written down. Unfortunately, one flaw in my plan was that many streets did not have proper signage which made things much more difficult. After walking around with my backpack becoming heavier with every step and my stomach grumbling louder and louder for 45 minutes or so, I was about ready to give up and get a taxi. In fact I tried to do just that. I saw a cabbie on the side of the road leaning against his cab. I went up to him and told him the name of the hostel I was looking for and asked if he knew it and if he could take me there. I’m not sure if he was waiting for another fare or what, but he didn’t seem very interested in giving me a lift. Instead he tried to point me in the right direction. His English was limited though and my Albanian non-existent so all I was really able to gather from what he was trying to say was that I had been on the right track and needed to head back down the road I had just come from and keep trying the streets I hadn’t been down yet until I found the right one. I thanked him and headed back the way I had come, then turned onto a road I had not checked yet. After about five minutes of walking I came to a cross street that was one of the streets on my map. Woohoo! Now the only question left was which way to turn. I turned right. I was wrong. I quickly realized it though and flipped a 180 and headed the other way on the road until I came across an intersection that was marked on my map and a few minutes later I had arrived at my destination.

One of the guys working at the hostel in Tirana was an American. I hadn’t really thought about it until my bus ride to Tirana, but until arriving at this hostel I hadn’t come into contact with another American since I left Sofia. Nine days without any interaction with another American. I realized that other than my last couple of days in Greece I had never gone a single day without contact with another American before. Well, except for some really loner days during the brief periods I have lived alone where I didn’t leave the house at all, but those don’t really count. I’ve been rather surprised in my travels so far that I have come across so few Americans. Most of the people I have met heading through the Balkans have been people from the Balkans (obviously), Canadians, Germans, Australians and Turks. I arrived in Tirana on inauguration day so it was good to have a fellow American with me to commiserate with about this tragic event.

When getting dressed to go out my first morning in Tirana it was a welcome change not putting on my long underwear, wearing my walking shoes rather than my snow boots, leaving my big winter coat behind and not putting on a hat, gloves, or scarf. The only snow I saw while in Tirana was up on the mountain and it was typically quite warm getting up to around 13-15 degrees Celsius during the day. It was a nice break from experiencing nighttime temperatures dropping below -20 degrees Celsius a few days prior with constant snow cover since I had arrived back in Sofia. I knew that later in my trip as I began to head north and moved back inland that winter was most certainly going to return, but I would enjoy my spring while it lasted.

Taking advantage of the great weather the American hostel worker and I headed out to go climb the Pyramid of Tirana at his suggestion. I knew nothing about the Pyramid of Tirana other than that it was a pyramid shaped building. I assumed since he said that we were going to climb the building that there were stairs up to the top. I assumed wrong. The angle of the walls is simply shallow enough that with a pair of shoes with decent traction you can walk right up the side of the building. From the top we had a great view out over the city and we sat up there for a bit just enjoying the beautiful weather.

After descending from the Pyramid of Tirana we walked around for a bit and walking past a bookstore, he decided that he wanted to stop there and check it out a bit. We entered and there was a counter that stretched most of the way across the front of the store with a small space at the side to walk around back behind where all of the books were. From the layout it appeared to me that we were supposed to stay on the door side of the counter, but he just walked right around and I figured that he’d been living in Tirana for a little while now so he must know what he’s doing. Wrong. We soon discovered that we were supposed to stay on the other side of the counter. Fortunately the owner wasn’t upset as much as she was bewildered by our behavior.  We had a good laugh about it.

One of my favorite things about Tirana was all of the public parks. Every couple blocks there was another small park, along with a few parks of pretty substantial size. I spent a good chunk of one day just walking from park to park and sitting on a bench in each park for a while soaking up the sunshine and atmosphere. Tirana’s parks can make you forget how big the city actually is and make it feel more like a big town than a big city. It is a beautiful spot made all the more beautiful by the lovely weather that thawed me out.

I visited a few museums while in Tirana and while the National Arts Gallery was quite normal with a pretty nice collection of paintings and sculptures from the last century in a decently sized venue, the other two museums were a bit creepy. One of these museums was the Bunk’Art museum. So, during the communist era in Albania hundreds of thousands of bunkers were built throughout Albania at the behest of Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha. Many of these bunkers are simply abandoned now, but a lot of them have been put to other uses.

The largest bunker, which was supposed to house Hoxha himself along with all of the key members of the government, has been converted into Bunk’Art, a museum about World War II and the communist era in Albania. It is a very interesting museum, but certainly has a bit of an eerie feel to it. The fact that the first sign you read upon entering the museum says that the power is run off a generator and if the lights go out just stay where you are and the lights will come back up soon did nothing to relieve the creepiness factor. The other creepy museum I attended was the National Archeological Museum. I arrived at the museum in the middle of the day and they had to turn the lights on for me because I was apparently the first visitor of the day? week? month? When the lights did come up about half of the bulbs were burnt out, and several of the lights would intermittently flash on and off. I began to wonder if I was in fact in a museum or a bad horror movie.

The Bunk’Art museum is out on the edge of town near the cable car that takes you up Mount Dajti, so after finishing in the museum I went and bought a ticket and rode up the mountain. There is still plenty of mountain left to climb when you are dropped off but unfortunately I hadn’t thought to wear my snow boots and after hiking for a bit the snow forced me to turn back well before I reached the summit. Even so, I was high enough up the mountain from where the cable car dropped me off to get some fantastic views of the city.

After taking the cable car back down I decided to walk back into the city rather than getting back on the bus. I knew the general direction of the city center and now that I had a bit of a feel for the city I knew I would be able to orient myself once I got into the heart of the city. It was a nice walk and I got to see a lot of the city that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise, including this very wise graffiti:

During my time in the hostel I got to test my Spanish comprehension each morning when the American worker (who didn’t speak Albanian) and an Albanian worker (who spoke limited English) would converse in Spanish (a language they both spoke fairly well). I was pleasantly surprised with how much I understood. My comprehension was probably about 80% and I was able to fill in most of the rest with context clues. It was encouraging as I continue to try to learn the language to know that I am definitely making progress. My speech could definitely use a lot more work though. Necesito practicar más español. Lo entiendo bien pero hablo mal.

On my final full day in Tirana the American hostel worker received a challenge in the mail from a girl who had recently stayed at the hostel. It was a picture of a spot in Tirana with three clues on how to locate it. He enlisted another hostel worker from Austria and me to help him locate the spot in the picture. We set out on our mission and found the general part of the city near a fountain that we knew it had to be in and then tried to figure out the specifics of where it was located. We probably would have walked around the park a few times searching for our destination if it hadn’t been for my infantile need to climb on things that had prompted me to walk along a short wall on the edge of the park, giving me a better view and allowing me to spot our target while it remained invisible to my fellow hunters. Sometimes it pays to be a big kid.

The hostel in Tirana had the best free breakfasts I have had from my hostels so far, with homemade French toast and pancakes each morning. And there was never a shortage either. More and more food would keep arriving as I sat there eating. It was wonderful. Other food that I ate while in Tirana included a couple of gyros, because there was a Greek place near the hostel and you know, Gyros. One night I stopped in a little hole in the wall and got a sausage, chicken skewer, bread, onions, and fries. The highlight of eating in Tirana though was a little traditional restaurant called Oda.

I ate there three of my nights in town. The first night I got Supë Perime dhe Oriz (soup with vegetables and rice) and Mish qingji në saç (lamb cooked in wooden stove), along with some bread and a shot of rakia. The next day the American hostel worker asked me and another guest who had arrived the night before if we would like to go get dinner at Oda that night and I quickly agreed to return to this wonderful spot. This time we each ordered two things and ate everything family style. The hostel worker picked out the Fërgesë (cottage cheese and peppers) and Specë te mbushur me oriz (peppers stuffed with rice). The other guy, a Spaniard who had lived in London for the past five years and had a really interesting and cool accent as a result, picked out the lamb cooked in a wooden stove that I had ordered the night before and Sallatë me perime (salad with vegetables). For my part I ordered Sallatë me perime zgare (salad with grilled vegetables) and then I went real adventurous and ordered Kolloface (lamb inner portion, rice, eggs and spices). I was very intrigued by the listing as lamb inner portion, because they had other items that listed lamb liver, stomach, and intestines, but this item was just a mysterious inner portion. I have no idea what part of the lamb it was but what I got was a delicious meatloaf. I was quite satisfied. My final night in town I returned to Oda once more and got two of my favorites items from my first two meals the peppers stuffed with the rice and the lamb cooked in wooden stove. I really wanted to try the Village cooked in wooden stove, but it was a little pricey.

I leave you for now with a fun sign posted down by the river: