Amusing notes about the life of Albanians through the eyes of foreigners
MOVE ME IF YOU CAN.
Albania is a very beautiful country and stuff like that, but there are things that really piss me off.It's about 9 a.m. I squeeze into the Plepa-Durres bus.
One arm is curved in a "Z" letter and trys to pass 40 lek on the fare. Another hand helps me to hang out on the handrail and I immerse in the unique atmosphere of public transport.
There are things I just can't seem to understand with my feeble mind.
What's so damn important reason to stand in the doorway when there's space available in the center of the cabin?
The stubborn passenger is not going to get off at the next stop, but will just stand in the doorway until the final stop. Or the backpacks on their shoulders. Of course it's a handy thing: it relieves your back, it's roomy, but what the hell is it for in the bus...It's better to leave it on the floor, and the back will rest.
It is clear that if you want to ride in comfort - take a taxi. But it seems to me that giving way to elderly people is just an element of culture, am I wrong? To be fair: it's not just a problem in Albania...
Sometimes its really funny to look after albanians. For example, a passenger and a conductor disagree about the conductor's job description, and he asks for support from the other passengers.
Schedule is a separate headache, but we'll talk about it later.
Albania is a very beautiful country and stuff like that, but
there are things that really piss me off.
It's about 9 a.m. I squeeze into the Plepa-Durres bus. One
arm is curved in a "Z" letter and trys to pass 40 lek on the
fare. Another hand helps me to hang out on the handrail
and I immerse in the unique atmosphere of public transport.
There are things I just can't seem to understand with my
feeble mind.
What's so damn important reason to stand in the doorway
when there's space available in the center of the cabin?
The stubborn passenger is not going to get off at the next
stop, but will just stand in the doorway until the final stop.
Or the backpacks on their shoulders. Of course it's a handy
thing: it relieves your back, it's roomy, but what the hell is it for in the bus...It's better to leave it on the floor, and the back will rest.
It is clear that if you want to ride in comfort - take a taxi. But it seems to me that giving way to elderly people is just an element of culture, am I wrong? To be fair: it's not just a problem in Albania...
Sometimes its really funny to look after albanians. For example, a passenger and a conductor disagree about the conductor's job description, and he asks for support from the other passengers.
Schedule is a separate headache, but we'll talk about it later.
there are things that really piss me off.
It's about 9 a.m. I squeeze into the Plepa-Durres bus. One
arm is curved in a "Z" letter and trys to pass 40 lek on the
fare. Another hand helps me to hang out on the handrail
and I immerse in the unique atmosphere of public transport.
There are things I just can't seem to understand with my
feeble mind.
What's so damn important reason to stand in the doorway
when there's space available in the center of the cabin?
The stubborn passenger is not going to get off at the next
stop, but will just stand in the doorway until the final stop.
Or the backpacks on their shoulders. Of course it's a handy
thing: it relieves your back, it's roomy, but what the hell is it for in the bus...It's better to leave it on the floor, and the back will rest.
It is clear that if you want to ride in comfort - take a taxi. But it seems to me that giving way to elderly people is just an element of culture, am I wrong? To be fair: it's not just a problem in Albania...
Sometimes its really funny to look after albanians. For example, a passenger and a conductor disagree about the conductor's job description, and he asks for support from the other passengers.
Schedule is a separate headache, but we'll talk about it later.
MOVE ME
IF
YOU CAN
IF
YOU CAN
Albania is a very beautiful country
SEEDING LOUNGERS
May. By Albanian standards, it's still cold: pants, windbreaker, sneakers. By the standards of the newcomers, it's just right: shorts, a T-shirts and flip-flops. We live near the sea, for God's sake.Every day we go out for a walk along the shore, to stretch our bones, to feel the water slowly but surely warming up. And at the same time, spring fieldwork is winding down all over the northern hemisphere...
Another such walk took us by surprise. I remember how president of Bulbaland used to say: "Not a single piece of land is to be left unoccupied! Plow up all the unimproved land and plant rapeseed!". By the way, there was such a character in Albania, too, but he sowed the land with bunkers, but we are not talking about him now.
Right on the beach, a tractor... with plows, the usual kind of 5 horns.... Plowing this very beach. Back and forth, back and forth. My brain is frantically trying to figure out what's going to be planted or sown here. Could it be rape?
That's how I saw for the first time in my life, how beaches are prepared for the summer season. You live and learn!
May. By Albanian standards, it's still cold: pants, windbreaker, sneakers. By the standards of the newcomers, it's just right: shorts, a T-shirts and flip-flops. We live near the sea, for God's sake.
Every day we go out for a walk along the shore, to stretch our bones, to feel the water slowly but surely warming up. And at the same time, spring fieldwork is winding down all over the northern hemisphere...
Another such walk took us by surprise. I remember how president of Bulbaland used to say: "Not a single piece of land is to be left unoccupied! Plow up all the unimproved land and plant rapeseed!".
By the way, there was such a character in Albania, too, but he sowed the land with bunkers, but we are not talking about him now.
Every day we go out for a walk along the shore, to stretch our bones, to feel the water slowly but surely warming up. And at the same time, spring fieldwork is winding down all over the northern hemisphere...
Another such walk took us by surprise. I remember how president of Bulbaland used to say: "Not a single piece of land is to be left unoccupied! Plow up all the unimproved land and plant rapeseed!".
By the way, there was such a character in Albania, too, but he sowed the land with bunkers, but we are not talking about him now.
SEEDING LOUNGERS
Right on the beach, a tractor... with plows, the usual kind of 5 horns.... Plowing this very beach. Back and forth, back and forth. My brain is frantically trying to figure out what's going to be planted or sown here. Could it be rape?
That's how I saw for the first time in my life, how beaches are prepared for the summer season. You live and learn!
That's how I saw for the first time in my life, how beaches are prepared for the summer season. You live and learn!
GOOD OMEN
To hang a horseshoe for good luck, to spit over the shoulder,to knock on wood, to look in the mirror if you've forgotten
something and come home. You know this nice habits- omens. But in Albania, it's a bit bigger than that... Bears. Big ones. Really big teddy bears. Sometimes tethered, sometimes just mounted on the rebar of houses being built and built.
In different cities and towns. Some of them new and clean, but on some of the houses they're peeling and faded, like something out of a horror movie. We began to wonder why they put them there.
Maybe it had something to do with suicides (here, they say, the place where a man threw himself off - but that's a bit much). Maybe it's like the yellow helmets and yellow vests in Europe - a symbol of a strike of construction workers. Or maybe they were just thrown out of an plane...
But it's simpler than that. These cuties ward off evil spirits. And I'd say some (the ones with the plush insides already popped out) are pretty good at it, especially when you hang garlic around them: that's where a vampire won't stick his fang.
To hang a horseshoe for good luck, to spit over the shoulder,
to knock on wood, to look in the mirror if you've forgotten
something and come home. You know this nice habits- omens. But in Albania, it's a bit bigger than that... Bears. Big ones. Really big teddy bears. Sometimes tethered, sometimes just mounted on the rebar of houses being built and built.
In different cities and towns. Some of them new and clean, but on some of the houses they're peeling and faded, like something out of a horror movie. We began to wonder why they put them there.
Maybe it had something to do with suicides (here, they say, the place where a man threw himself off - but that's a bit much). Maybe it's like the yellow helmets in Europe - a symbol of a strike of construction workers. Or maybe they were just thrown out of an plane...
But it's simpler than that. These cuties ward off evil spirits. And I'd say the ones with the plush insides already popped out are pretty good at it, especially when you hang garlic around them: that's where a vampire won't stick his fang.
to knock on wood, to look in the mirror if you've forgotten
something and come home. You know this nice habits- omens. But in Albania, it's a bit bigger than that... Bears. Big ones. Really big teddy bears. Sometimes tethered, sometimes just mounted on the rebar of houses being built and built.
In different cities and towns. Some of them new and clean, but on some of the houses they're peeling and faded, like something out of a horror movie. We began to wonder why they put them there.
Maybe it had something to do with suicides (here, they say, the place where a man threw himself off - but that's a bit much). Maybe it's like the yellow helmets in Europe - a symbol of a strike of construction workers. Or maybe they were just thrown out of an plane...
But it's simpler than that. These cuties ward off evil spirits. And I'd say the ones with the plush insides already popped out are pretty good at it, especially when you hang garlic around them: that's where a vampire won't stick his fang.
GOOD OMEN
THE SECOND LIFE OF ZANUSSI
Sometimes you can see things in Albania that really make you freeze. One day we were driving in Shkoder. I was looking out the window, and then on the roof of one of the buildings I saw a disassembly of... machines..."Ha!" - you'll say, "Car junkjard in Albania don't surprise anyone."
That's right, just one thing, there were washing machines on the roof. Separate casings, separate drums, hoses hanging from ropes. I hadn't even seen anything like that in China. So now I know where to drop off old appliances and give them a second life.
Sometimes you can see things in Albania that really make you freeze. One day we were driving in Shkoder. I was looking out the window, and then on the roof of one of the buildings I saw a disassembly of... machines...
"Ha!" - you'll say, "Car junkjard in Albania don't surprise anyone."
That's right, just one thing, there were washing machines on the roof. Separate casings, separate drums, hoses hanging from ropes. I hadn't even seen anything like that in China. So now I know where to drop off old appliances and give them a second life.
"Ha!" - you'll say, "Car junkjard in Albania don't surprise anyone."
That's right, just one thing, there were washing machines on the roof. Separate casings, separate drums, hoses hanging from ropes. I hadn't even seen anything like that in China. So now I know where to drop off old appliances and give them a second life.
THE SECOND LIFE OF ZANUSSI
ALL INCLUSIVE
Albania is a seaside country. Greece is a seaside country. Norway, Italy, Spain, Portugal... the list is long, because only 44 countries in the world have no access to the world ocean.However, the price of seafood in Albania is not that low. But what I like is that you get your fish cleaned and washed in the store, and it doesn't depend on its size or quantity. You came to get a couple of small tails for dinner - no problem, several minutes, and the bag in is your hands, just sprinkle your fish with spices, add a lemon and put it on the griddle. And for those who do not like or do not know how to make their own mush, in some shops for very little money it can be coocked for you.
Albania is a seaside country. Greece is a seaside country. Norway, Italy, Spain, Portugal... the list is long, because only 44 countries in the world have no access to the world ocean.
However, the price of seafood in Albania is not that low. But what I like is that you get your fish cleaned and washed in the store, and it doesn't depend on its size or quantity. You came to get a couple of small tails for dinner - no problem, several minutes, and the bag in is your hands, just sprinkle your fish with spices, add a lemon and put it on the griddle. And for those who do not like or do not know how to make their own mush, in some shops for very little money it can be coocked for you.
However, the price of seafood in Albania is not that low. But what I like is that you get your fish cleaned and washed in the store, and it doesn't depend on its size or quantity. You came to get a couple of small tails for dinner - no problem, several minutes, and the bag in is your hands, just sprinkle your fish with spices, add a lemon and put it on the griddle. And for those who do not like or do not know how to make their own mush, in some shops for very little money it can be coocked for you.
ALL INCLUSIVE