Out of Albania

And into Greece.

From Kruja last week we headed down south to the touristy heartland of Albania- Gjirokaster and Saranda. I spent nearly a week in Gjiro for this past Christmas, so I already knew about its cobble-stoned charms. But as it is the beginning of summer and the busy tourist season and I was traveling with my parents, this was a completely different visit. First, I noticed how many tourists there are. I mean, we get a few way word souls that decide to get off the beaten path and go to Peshkopi, but nothing like the south. When we went to Saranda and Burtrint (ancient Greek ruins- really cool), there were even more.

And then we came to Greece. I won’t even talk about the touristy-ness of Greece- you already know all that. I’m joining in on it- doing a double-decker bus tour with my parents, climbing up to the Parthenon, wandering through museums with my nose stuck in a guidebook.

What I’ve been thinking about a lot since I got here is the contrasts. You hear a lot about how Greece is a county of contrast- old and new- but for me, I see the contrast in another way. I see Greece as a major contrast to Albania. Albania has the old-new contrast too, but the new has been hard to come by and isn’t really working yet. Greece on the other hand is truly modern (at least the little bit of it that I’ve seen- Corfu (directly across a short channel from Albania) and Athens.) Athens is this crazy, busy, full city of course with amazing history. And it is so very different than anything in Albania. The thing is, that it is easy to imagine that 1000 years ago, 500 years ago, even 100 years ago, that wasn’t really the case. The Greeks and the Albanians have a lot in common historically and culturally (more than most Greeks would probably be willing to admit, probably). Maybe it’s not fair to compare modern Albania and Athens (for one, the city of Athens has more people in it than the whole country of Albania). Maybe I need to go out into the Greek country side to find the “real Greece” of villages and small towns and maybe these are still not so far removed from modern day Albania, but at the moment I’m really struck by the contrast between these two neighboring countries and amazed at the effect that some choices can make on a whole society (like what if Albania had gone in a different direction after WWII?).

Shi, Shi, Largoheni

(rain, rain, go away)

Today was another rainy, cloudy day. It was actually not bad because we were inside the museums in the Kruja citadel for most of the day and the clouds and fog were really beautiful for all the pictures that we took at the top of the mountain. Kruja is the one place that I have been to in Albania that really has it together as far as touristy things. The history museum is very well done (very Skanderbeg-y, shume mire!), and the ethnographic museum was great. The man running the ethnographic museum is simply adorable. Kruja also really has it together for souvenir shopping. I decided to go ahead and spend some money while my parents are here and buy some things that they can take home with them, so I bought a nice hand woven rug. I also bought myself a necklace and my mom bought me some hand made silver earrings (did I mention it's my birthday?). I really can't imagine a better birthday then exploring a castle in Albania with my parents . . .

Parents in the country

My parents have come to Albania!

Albania was one of the few countries that they missed on their way home from their own Peace Corps service in the Philippines over 30 years ago. At that time, Albania was completely closed to the outside world (they also missed Greece because of a war going on in Cyprus), so they were really excited to be able to come and visit me (oh, and they also maybe wanted to see me a little bit). Being good parents that they are, they brought me lots of presents, including a 5lb block of cheddar cheese and huge jar of peanut butter. Because my mom is currently working for an airline, they were able to fly for very cheap.

After they arrived (only 12 hours later than we had hoped- oh the joys of flying standby), we headed up to Peshkopi to meet my friends and see my place. It was a bit of a whirlwind of a few days with lots of coffees and lots of people. Dylan, my new sitemate came up the next day; Kenji, my current sitemate is still around for a few weeks; and Meredith, our closest neighbor right over the border in Macedonia came for a visit. The three days we spent in Peshkopi would have been perfect if it wasn't for the rain. Now, I have to be careful here, because in general I would say that rain in Albania in the spring and summer is a good thing- it means 24 hour power and cool temperatures that are not unbearable to live in. Unfortunately it also makes it a little hard to really explore town and means that the hike I had planned with the Outdoor Ambassadors kids was not a roaring success (we had 3 kids show up and went out in the rain anyway, by the end of the hike, the weather had cleared up and it was lovely). Even with the rain, we had a good time and my parents got to meet most of my friends and coworkers, if only briefly.

The next part of the trip is what I like to call the "Albanian travel experience." Now first, I really wanted to go on this boat trip in the north that goes down a river/lake from the town of Fierza to Koman (or more usually from Koman to Fierza). I tried for weeks with some of the volunteers in that region to figure out a way to do it in two days from Peshkopi. For the life of me, I believe now that it is not possible. Because the ferry leaves at 7am from Fierza and it is not possible to get to Fierza before then without spending the night there and it is also not possible to get from Pehskopi to Fierza in one day . . . Anyway, so we gave up on the boat trip. I guess I will just have to try to do that before I leave when I have more time (3 days instead of 2). Even though we couldn't get on the boat, we went up north anyway, over the mountains to Kukes. The road between Peshkopi and Kukes is only 88 km-about 55 miles- for those of you in CO, think Denver to Fort Collins. Normally the drive from Denver to Fort Collins takes about an hour, maybe and hour and a half if you have traffic leaving town. Ok, now imagine that road is unpaved and goes winding through some crazy mountain peaks and valleys full of switchback turns . . . the drive takes about 4 hours and you get out of the car (or in this case an old van with almost no shocks or suspension). My parents are tough travelers (former PC and all), but I may have overestimated them on this one.

Once we got to Kukes, the plan was to continue on down the road a bit, but the volunteers there convinced us to stay the night there (which I am really happy we did). We got to hang out with the truly cool PCVs of Kukes (who are now my new neighbors) and got to see a children's day festival in the morning. Think combination field day, talent show, dance team performance, and three ring circus . . . it was fun.

We are now in Tirana, staying with Jan. Today we did the grand Tirana tour including the history museum (not bad, but not great- it helps if you speak Albanian because not everything is translated). Tomorrow we are headed up to Kruja to see Skanderbeg's castle. Then it's on to Gjirokaster, Saranda and Burtrint before heading to Corfu and Athens in Greece. Happy travels!

Where is Illyria?

Oh, yeah, that's right, it's Albania . . .

This weekend I went to a nearby town (by nearby I mean only 5 hours away!) to see a performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, directed by my friend Sarah. They adapted the language quite a bit (honestly now, Shakespeare is usually difficult to understand even for most native English speakers), but I think that they did a great job with the adaptation in making it still sound formal and Old-Englishy but understandable. The kids did a great a job- I was sooooooooo impressed with their acting and comedy as well as their memorization (now tell me, could you do a two hour play in a foreign language? No? Neither could I!). They used physical comedy well, were generally easy to understand and seemed really comfortable in their roles. I really have to give a shout out to Sarah because she has done great work with these kids. I saw some of the same kids perform A Christmas Carol last fall and although that was also a good show, I have to say that there was great improvement in this production. It was easier to understand, funnier and better acted.

So if you didn't remember (been a while since you read Shakespeare . . . ) Twelfth Night takes place on the mysterious shores of Illyria when a ship wreck washes up on shore. And just in case you didn't know, the mysterious shores of Illyria are now the (not so mysterious) shores of Albania (and also parts of Croatia and Montenegro). Albanians in general are really proud of their Illyirian heritage, especially that the Albanian language is supposedly the last of the Illyrian tongues (and why the Albanian language is different from all the other languages surrounding it- not Slav, not Latin, not Greek, but Illyrian!). The name that most of us use when referring to this country (Albania) was actually the name of an Illyrian tribe that lived here (the Albanians themselves call the country Shqipëria, the land of the Eagles). Anyway, so the costumes for the show were traditional Albanian clothing (kostuma populore), which, when you think about it are probably very accurate as far as period clothing goes- it is much more likely that the Illyrians (at any point in history) would be wearing traditional Albanian clothes than they would be wearing Victorian English clothing . . .

One of the best parts of the show was a guest appearance of another PCV, Dan. He had a non-speaking background role, but for the PCVs in the audience he was a dose of extra comedy in an already funny show. First, seeing any American in Albanian garb can get a chuckle, but he was also playing a çiftelia, prancing around stage during scene changes and making eyes at the high school girls . . . At the end of the show, the students did a special presentation for Dan as he is leaving in a few weeks. Many of them were also on the MUN team that he ran and he took some of them last year to a theatre camp in Texas with another PCV. Their words about his effect on their lives teared up almost everyone in the audience.

Anyway, great job Dan and Sarah and the Rreshen Theatre Company!

This feels like when my seniors graduated . . .

When I was a freshmen in high school, I was adopted by some seniors. They had known my sister and they must have thought I was cute or something (like a kitten) and so they allowed me to follow them around for the year. I had friends in my own grade too, but particularly that year, I hung out mostly with older kids. When it came time for graduation, I nearly had a breakdown. I mean, the people I had gotten closest too in that year (and remember high school is hard) were all of a sudden leaving, and many of them were going far away to scary places like California and Colorado Springs. I was afraid that I would never see them again! Of course, that didn't happen. I e-mailed with some of them regularly, hung out with them when they came home for holidays and when most of them moved back to Denver at some point after college, we became close again. In fact, a few of these kids are still some of my closest friends more than 10 years later.

Right now, the volunteers from Group 10 are getting ready to leave. This has a big impact on me since my sitemate (read platonic husband) is in this group. I was worried when I first moved here that Kenji and I would not get along. Of course this didn't happen and we have become great friends. I'm really excited about having a new sitemate (Dylan, I'm sure you'll hear about him soon) but I'm sad that Kenji is going to be leaving. And just like at the end of high school, this time is full of goodbyes, parties and questions (that I'm sure they are tired of answering) about what will come next. Most of the group is doing some sort of traveling before eventually ending up back in the states, although a few are either staying here and looking for jobs or going to some other far off land. The first of them left last week (I miss you JK!) and there is a big group leaving this weekend. Kenji won't leave until the middle of June, but that seems to be coming faster every day.

The difference between when my seniors graduated and the group leaving now is that my seniors (for the most part) all ended up back in Denver for a time (some of them went off again for grad school or jobs), but with this group there is a good chance that they will be far flung forever. This is not a bad thing really, it just means I will have lots of people to visit in the future . . .

Anyway, good luck to all of G10 on your next big adventure wherever that may take you and I hope our paths cross again someday . . .

Why haven't you visited me yet?

It turns out that Albania is the new, hip and cool place to take a vacation. At least according to all these guys:

The Guardian
National Geographic
The Daily Camera (Yes, the one in Boulder. Actually from their community blog, but cool nonetheless!)
Lonely Planet Slide Show
Reuters (not really on tourism, but on general development)
The Independent
South Eastern European Times

So seriously- why haven't you visited me yet? There is only so much time left when you can say "I visited Albania before it was cool to visit Albania" and actually be telling the truth! You may even be too late! I have a couch and will travel . . .

In lew of anything real today I am going to point you in the direction of the blog of an American guy that has been living in Albania off and on for the past 9 years. He is really funny and has some great insight on Albanian culture. A few key posts:



On women and men: Beauty and the Beast

On tourism: Tourist Boom?

On religion: Life in a Muslim Country

On traffic: A Dance with the Devil and on roads: Highways of Death

On money: Who wants to be a millionaire?

On superstition: Very superstitious


He also has quite a few good pics of the country and links to lots of articles about the increased appeal of Albanian tourism. Anyway . . .