Part 19: Trapped in Tirana

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Welcome to Albania, the quirkiest country in the world

What a strange place.

Brightly painted poverty, the worst roads in Europe and Mercedes-Benzes everywhere.

Throughout the Balkans, I encountered squabbling people with petty disputes with their neighbors. The Slovenians didn’t trust the Croatians. The Croatians mistrusted the Bosnians. The Bosnians mistrusted the Serbs and the Montenegrins. But all of them agreed on one thing: Albania was the most dangerous, perilous and shadiest place in the world – or so they shared with me. None of them had ever been there.

“There isn’t a dumpster in this town that some gypsy hasn’t laid claim to.”

There are more cops than trees in Tirana and urban Albania. In fact the only quantity that compares is the number of scabby homeless dogs. The funny thing is that besides standing on the street, pretending to direct traffic and look impressive in their clean, pleated uniforms – the COPS don’t do a lot. I laugh at them because they are actually pretty nice, easy-going people, but they don’t even attempt to make a dent in this reckless and disorganized state.

It was pissing down rain almost all day long, and I was soaked by the end of it. I tried to solicit an offer for my Vespa from a motorcycle dealer, but missed the chance to talk with the boss – so I will return tomorrow. The hostel host, a young lady named Lira, is interested in buying the bike herself if she can somehow afford it, but is also helping me by fielding local calls from a newspaper ad we placed. If she is able to help me sell it, I promised her five percent of the take.

My own degenerative volcanic state

I have a riddle for you. What do Icelandic Volcanoes have to do with hostels in Tirana? Well, if you happen to be staying in a hostel in Tirana, Albania, when the explosion of volcanic ash starts disrupting European air traffic, and you happen to be waiting for important mail coming from London… you may have to extend your visit.

When I learned it was required to sell the bike, my good friend Picot had mailed me Olivia’s ownership papers overnight via DHL, but when flights have been cancelled across the continent, there isn’t such a thing as “overnight” anymore. The overnight rate was about 80 pounds to reach Albania. Suddenly my overnight package turned into an open-ended mystery that had me rawer and more on edge every day.

Volcano Postal Showdown Blues

This was written with the help of my friend Zoe from Sarajevo, to the tune of the Kraft macaroni blues.

"Weeeeellllll..... When I rolled into Albania, I was runnin' low
and then one day, I decided, I decided I had to go
it was time to sell…
that two-wheeled mean green bicycle

harmonica

but then I took it to a man, he said he wanted to buy...
but I had no legal papers, and we really couldn't fly
no no no... no papers!!!!!!! We got those Tiranian Volcano blues

harmonica

so Picot mailed em' from London............. and they floated down the Loire
Well ain't got me no money, and I’m really getting sore

Feeling like a rascal
Feeling really poor
Even told my hotel hosts I just can't pay no more

I got those Tiranian…
Icelandic …
Volcano …
Baaaalueeeees!!!"

sad wailing of harmonica
now I just need help rhyming something with Eyjafjallajokull...

In the land of Benzos

I’ve been asking every Albanian I meet about an explanation for the unmistakable Mercedes presence on the streets (honestly 7 in 10), and the most common answer is that in acknowledgement of how terrible the roads are here, it is believed that the Mercedes-Benz is the only vehicle capable of comfortable traversing these deadly streets. And that’s nearly true.

The Mercedes was also described to me as the ultimate status symbol, meaning someone from your family had gotten out of the country, made some money somewhere and then imported it for their relatives back home. Fueling this fire was the bureaucratic near-impossibility of registering a 6+ year old vehicle in any other Western European country. This made the Mercedes easier and cheaper to come by for export to countries like Albania. Actually, there are no other countries like Albania; there is only Albania.

What seems legitimate is the story that in the communist era, only high party leaders were allowed to possess vehicles. They built Albania’s roads in a day when there were only about 100 cars driving on them. Today there are perhaps 100,000 cars driving on those same roads.

Traffic in Tirana is like a breathing wild animal. It was suitable that I saw many horse carriages in small country villages outside the capital – traffic in Tirana is like an unbroken horse. The only predictable element is that, at any given time, you can expect every driver in your proximity to perform the most dangerous and irresponsible maneuver possible from their standing position. At one point it simply felt natural to disregard my red light and cross a busy street to make a left turn in front of a dozen police officers.

I saw my first (overdue) traffic accident in Tirana. I would have expected to see one already, given the way people drive here. However, this was only a minor smash, as someone rear-ended another car. You could hear the skidding and then the impact. An SUV hit a sedan, and it looked like the SUV’s front end was destroyed, but the rear of the sedan was intact.

Outside of Tirana, the situation isn’t much better. A wide new road began 30km north of the capital, yet was incomplete on either side. Every kilometer or so, drivers are directed to cross over the median to the other side of the roadway, making swift progress in either direction impossible.

Albanians’ love of America

I walked across the town and passed most of the tourism attractions today. I visited a couple of small record labels before I went to hit the big one (BBF).

I stopped to ask for directions from a man outside of a coffee shop. When he realized I was American, he was overjoyed. When I told him I was trying to reach the television studio, he told me to hop inside and drove me across town. Kaleb enumerated all the reasons that Albanians love America, and described the wonderful pro-American propaganda school he had attended as a youth.

This episode caught me completely by surprise, as I had no idea that European Moslems had such high regard for America. According to Kaleb, the American Ambassador to Albania runs the country like a benevolent Don, deciding elections and policy to the cheers of Albanian citizens. All public support lies with the representative of the USA.

It certainly had me wondering what other Americans would think if they knew there were actually living, breathing nations of Muslims who celebrated America with flags, fireworks and parades.

Kaleb dropped me off at BBF records, and I thanked him for the ride.

Joining a Detroit rapper’s crew and making dance videos with floosies

I was treated to lunch with Albanian pop stars today, and watched the filming of a rap video, complete with a blond hip-shaking mama and a sideways Yankee hat.

When I walked into BBF Studio today, the execs looked at each other like I’d answered their prayers, as they had been searching for an American distribution avenue.

Inside BBF, I met several popular recording artists, and the execs took me out to lunch at a local restaurant where I watched their channel of continuous pop music videos. Some of them were quite well produced, but the content is mostly pop music that is currently without value to my company (until we develop highly targeted population graphs for major American cities). I spent a couple of hours talking with Shpot Kasapi, one of the country’s top stars, and his girlfriend who had lived many years in Detroit. Detroit apparently has a huge Albanian community.

One artist I met, Ledi, was straight out of New York, just arriving back in Albania in the last month. She had the same observations I had, and we talked for about half an hour about the country’s peculiarities.

I spent four hours talking to a 46-year-old Albanian rapper named Vagabondi, who had lived many years in Detroit. He was admittedly “blown-out” and wearing dark shades when I sat down to chat, and he showed me his giant Detroit Tigers tattoo on his chest, and another on his arm (in case the chest tat wasn’t hardcore enough). Since many Albanians live in Detroit, the tattoos may give him street cred out here.

Tagging along with “Vaga” everywhere he went was his hommie, a hideous character he called “Baby Vaga.” My friend permitted it because he’d been impressed when the guy tattooed “Vagabondi” all over his body.

Loneliness catches up

One night, as my stay in Tirana rounded up to its first week, finishing my pasta in a dark room by myself and listening to the violin in the Doctor 3 jazz band pour out the emotion of The Beatles “She’s leaving home,” I felt a loneliness I hadn’t endured for perhaps my entire trip. It felt welcome and familiar in a way, but just a little bit painful. For all of these months I have been gone, I have been able to fight loneliness with more travel. The promise of new faces and experiences … but here I am trapped until my Vespa papers arrive. God knows how long that will take, with this volcano going crazy all over the place.

A rotating family of friends at hostel Albania

Sunday night we had a new guest at the hostel, a deaf Japanese girl named Tomomi. Tomomi was on a two-year adventure across the globe, and we had a written conversation that grew to include four persons by the end. One miscommunication involved my offering of some of my onion and bread for her cooking purposes. Tomomi apparently thought I was giving it all to her, and stuffed it in her luggage. The next morning nobody could find my precious food anywhere.

Tomomi told me of her difficult travels across the globe, especially in Africa. “African boy try play sex with Asian girl,” she wrote disapprovingly on one of her notes.

Also arriving this night was a young lady named Hanna, a Vancouver Canadian on a six-month trek. Hanna, polite, pretty and 23, gives exaggerated feedback to everything you tell her in the style of a stage actress who wants the audience to know what she’s saying even if they can’t hear her words. Appropriately, she is considering a career as a psychiatrist. We received a backgammon tutorial from the Claas, the German hostel host, and then went out to meet some of her friends who had invited her for a drink, but when they didn’t show up we found a bar and did our own thing. We came to the most famous and well-appointed bar in the country, enjoyed four drinks and a desert between us, and the bill came to just under $15.

When we returned, we were treated by a Japanese hostel guest named Yugi to a 30-minute ramble session about Middle Eastern travel (Hanna mentioned to him that she was planning to visit the Israel and Egypt). He was, in the Japanese fashion, unable to pronounce the word “city,” instead making constant references to “big shitties” and “small shitties.”

When he finally finished, I turned to Hanna and said I was convinced that Yugi could do Hamlet, as he was apparently the master of extended soliloquy.

Linn mentioned to me that the beds here were specially designed by and for this hostel. They were made by a local craftsperson, but by the order of the hostel (Lira and Claas). They are the most comfortable hostel beds I’ve stayed in. In fact, they are high in the running for the best I’ve ever slept in for my entire life. This is a very convenient fact, considering that I’ve spent far more time here than I’d intended, so at least it has been comfortable. I am considering getting the construction notes and duplicating it when I get back. Could build my own.

Graham (gets his own header)

A new, 6’6 English guy named Graham came. A hilarious character, Graham said he was looking for someone to do some horizontal dancing with. He mentioned that among his travels, he'd had the chance to date the Columbian president's niece. Seems like a dangerous pleasure.

I bought some grapes at the hostel, and they were chilling in the fridge.

Next morning Graham and I are sitting for breakfast and he bites into a grape and grimaces in pain, “Ahhhhh!!! Cold grape! cold grape! cold grape!” in genuine pain and fright. He has an untreated cavity and this strikes him with alarm. He explains the pain with a charade of violent gabbing motions. And I am helpless but to laugh sincerely and uncontollably at his pain.

Graham, who lives in Australia, walked the Eastern edge of town with me and stopped for an early lunch. We each had bread, yogurt and lamb stew and beers, and the total was less than $7.

Took a picture of an old four-foot grandmother hauling two huge bags of garbage. Down the road a security guard armed with an automatic rifle from the communist-era refused to pose for a shot.

Graham told me about his travels through China on motorcycle during winter, with the temperature dropping to 20 degrees below (Celsius). He said his head was so frozen that the skin hardened and when he shaved, he sliced off a strange bump that he had been accommodating for many years. In a single stroke, it just came right off..

Graham had a unique perspective on prosititution in the third world. He looks at receiving hand jobs from them as a type of charity. “you really want to help them,” he says. You don't want any diseases from them, and you want to give them money, but not humilate them by actually gifting the money, "it's charity."

National Attractions

One day, I toured the National History Museum with a German hostel guest named Linn, seeing three stories of exhibits, some of them fairly interesting. Apparently their national hero was 7 feet tall and carried a sword that was about 5 feet long. Pretty intimidating actually.

There was a mannequin in the museum, dressed in traditional Albanian village attire. What we noticed though was the head of the model though, with a 1950s hairstyle and eyebrow design. It was quite distracting, and it would be later that same night that I discovered the exact same mannequin and head in the store window of a second hand shop. It makes you feel strange when as a humble tourist you are able to directly tie the country’s national museum to the purchasing budget of a second hand clothing store.

I went to the national art gallery today. The exhibits began and ended with suicide. The first was a 16^th century depiction of a woman stabbing herself in the heart. The last was a mirror, with a noose painted on where your head would be. I took a photo of myself in front of it.

School kids playing on the pyramid. The rain started to come down, even as the sun still shone. The building is essentially abandoned, housing nothing but spiders. Windows are broken all around, and there is an incredible danger to these children, as just next to the concrete they were playing on lie weak and broken glass windows.

Nightlife frustrations

This is the worst city for achieving anything ambitious. By the end of my time here, I was 0-for-9 in trying to have a night out and sing some karaoke.

Last night we went out to hear Claas do a bit of DJ work at a bar. We chatted most of the night, and then I went off to find the Karaoke bar and I left my camera at the bar. Luckily Claas saw it and brought it home for me.

One night, I found myself at the highly recommended “Magic 4” karaoke club. After nursing a beer for an hour, waiting for them to set up and watching the staff move furniture all over the place like animated crack heads, it was explained to me that this bar only played music in the Albanian language: English karaoke songs were strictly forbidden. I decided to make the best of it, and began chatting with some of the locals who spoke English. They were nice enough and urged me to stick around and hang out with them.

As I was speaking with a local girl, about two hours after arriving at the club (still waiting for the music to start), a gentleman in a suit came in through the back door and approached my friend. He asked her in Albanian if I was officially a member of her party, and when she said I wasn’t, he sternly led me outside. There, he informed me that all the space inside was spoken for by reservation, and though I still had half a beer and had been there for two hours, I would be required to leave. I was completely appalled. They were kicking me out of a club that I didn’t even want to be in! You can’t kick me out of here! I’m leaving because I don’t want to waste my time at your stupid club anyway!

Wandering for a while and asking for directions, I was pointed toward another karaoke bar nearby called “The Cannon Brewpub.” This sounded quite promising, and I ordered a pint of their fresh-made beer. They told me that the only beers they had were Corona and Heineken. Then they told me that Karaoke would be tomorrow night.

Determined to get my jollies, I put on my headphones, bought some cheap beer and drunkenly belted out the lyrics along with Billy Joel, ignoring the stares as I trudged mirthfully back to the hostel – vowing to return the next night.

It was 10p.m. on the dot Saturday night, when I entered The Cannon again. It was a complete ghost town, and they confirmed there would be karaoke (first time in six months I’d done karaoke at a bar), but said it would be at 11p.m.

Having no money to blow, and no desire to see anything else in the town, I found a well-lit underground nook, and read The Travels of Marco Polo for an hour.

When I returned, I went to buy a beer, and was quoted a price that was exactly twice what I’d paid at any other bar – costing all the money I had on my person. When they saw me begrudgingly accept this price, they offered me a free shot of tequila, and this cheered me up. It cheered me up right until they happily announced that there would be no karaoke tonight – they had specifically modified their routine and were now featuring a DJ instead. I laughed out loud, to myself, at myself, in spite of myself, like a crazy person. Karaoke would be literally impossible for me in Tirana. I gave one last try to the first karaoke bar I’d found, on the way back to the hostel. It was completely closed, not even an Albanian keyboardist or a DJerk.

Tirana, the town that smashes small-time dreams.

You and your Gelato

This came to me one night, as I was walking home after another failed endeavor.

Every night, when I’m walking home
All I want’s gelato
All I want is you and that gelato
But it never comes to be
No it never comes to be.

And tonight
All I wanted to do was sing.
I just wanted to hear you sing
You and that gelato.
But it never comes to be
No, it never comes to be
Not you or that gelato.

Dinner with Elvis, the honest insurance salesman

Last night I had dinner with Elvis. Elvis is an Albanian engineering student I met at a car insurance place just outside of town. I stopped to buy insurance to protect my Vespa in case it were to be stolen here, or in case I got in a horrible accident on these atrocious boulevards. The car insurance people told me I didn’t really need to buy insurance if I didn’t want to. I paused to appreciate that moment – the moment where insurance salesman, the hardest working and most desperate sales people on the planet, told a customer who came out of his way to visit them that he didn’t need to buy their product. Seriously. Willy Loman eat your heart out.

In any case, to assure that I would not need to purchase insurance on my vehicle, Elvis offered me use of his garage to securely park my Vespa. We decided to meet later, and had dinner at a traditional Albanian restaurant. He selected the food, and we shared three dishes and a whole bottle of sweet red Albanian wine for €18.

Under Durres: A trip to the national port town

It what I hope was my last escapade with Olivia, I took her to Durres, which is the main seaport of Albania. Just 40 kilometers from the city, the road is the best in the country. They only forgot one thing: exits. Even though one destination was just a few meters off the road , on a side-road, I had to drive as many as 10km out of the way just to reach it. But even with a dual carriageway in each direction, it doesn’t keep Albanian drivers from honking at every opportunity. As I rode, I took a picture of one Mercedes driver who had tied two couches to the roof of his sedan. Only in Albania.

Today was the first day warm enough that I was actually able to ride without my jacket on. Fitting, for what may be my final ride. I suffered through the worst of winter, and now must sell the bike once it heats up.

I found Durres quite boring. The beach was dark and muddy, while black pools washed ashore from the direction of the five tanker ships anchored a couple of kilometers off shore.

The most interesting feature of the beach area was a large ship that must have washed ashore sometime in the mid-20^th century, it is now primarily used as a play structure by the local children.

My biggest disappointment was my inability to find any ice cream in spite of my best effort.

Customs conundrum

I was waiting for the owner of a Piaggio store to arrive so I could gauge his interest in my bike, when a man walked by and stopped – he said, “how much?” I told him seis cento euro. He said, “seven hundred – great,” in English, so I didn’t correct him. Weeks later, once the papers arrived, I re-approached him to complete the deal.

We thought it would be simple to take care of the customs work.

Fatjon met me at the national library at 830am, and he held on while we went to the local customs office.

(When I finally sold Olivia, I originally told the lie about importing the bike via sea to Albania… but when I had to admit this story was fabricated, nobody cared. They skipped over it without a beat)

That was the end of the easy part. We entered an office, where a woman explained to us that it would be impossible to import the vehicle without an official customs form, obtained upon entry at a border checkpoint.

My first idea was to go to Durres (30km away), go through the checkpoint like I was going to ship my bike to Italy, and then turn around. This idea was dismissed as impossible by some of the local authorities, and thus my only option for selling the bike was driving 65 miles north, to the Montenegro border at M_____, and then doubling back.

I began to feel like I really would never leave. And the thought entered my mind – maybe I never had left. Maybe this was my Groundhog Day/1984. Maybe every day I tried to leave in a different way, and each time was stumped by an unpredictable and bogus roadblock.

It was a brilliant and sunny day for the ride. I hope to be able to make the trip in 3 hours, but of course Albanian roads and traffic are a permanent hazard.

The weather was so nice that for the first time ever, I didn’t have to wear my jacket. Instead, I wore my brown shirt, and got to feel the pollinating bees and other spring bugs splattering all over me, stinging sometimes when a big one struck me.

About 20km outside of Tirana, on an open stretch of road, I felt what I thought must have been the biggest bug yet smack into my right foot. I thought it funny at the time, being so low and having a different feel to it. It was about an hour later, pulling into the border station (the first joint border crossing in South Eastern Europe), when I noticed that the plastic engine cover was missing. I had previously noted that the idiots at the Zagreb official Piaggio service center had neglected to replace the tiny screw that kept this piece fastened on.

My goal here (after driving a treacherous hour and a half) was simply to cross to Montenegro, turn around, and come right back. I got that far. The next step was to return with a customs import form so that we could pay duties on the bike (about €125). This was where the problems occurred. When I explained to the border agent that intended to sell the bike and needed a customs form, he ran off to ask for help. After several discussions, he came back and assured me that I didn’t need one. I was livid. I’d just gone on what became a five-hour trip with my last few Euros in gas to get this form (after the advice of another customs agent), and now they were telling me I didn’t need one? He explained to me that the entire system had just been overhauled two months ago, and now motor vehicles were simply entered into a registry that could be accessed by computer at the Albanian DMV. He assured me that everything was fine, and urged me to head on my way. But even if I believed him (which I only partially did), I had nothing with which to prove this to my buyers at the motorcycle dealership. I begged the man to give me a piece of paper, verifying what he was telling me. He said there was no paper to give me. I asked him to sign a handwritten note; this he also refused. I then asked and offered to pay him to take a photo with the bike, giving me a thumbs-up signal. Still no dice. I asked everyone in the vicinity if they could call Fatjon and explain the situation to them. Nothing. I had to settle for my passport stamps and an offsite picture of me with Olivia, with the border crossing in the distance – just to prove that I’d really driven all the way out there. I was very surprised when they found my explanation to be sufficient upon my return.

Goodbye Olivia

There was only one way that Tirana was going to end. Weird.

Weird man, weird.

In the end, I just tossed my wad of money in Claas’ hands and said, “here, you’re German, take what I owe you” I trust Claas more than I trust myself. I had NO doubt that he would take exactly what I owed.

(bus is playing… "I wanna dance with somebody who loves me")

It was a very sincere goodbye. Life forced us together, and damn it, we were going to make the best of it. Those two are really sweet, wonderful people. There is no one in this completely insane city whom I would rather have spent my weeks here.

If you EVER get to Tirana, you must stay with them at Hostel Albania.

When I think of all the amazing, interesting and weird people I met here… from the Elvis the day I came to town, to Shpodka Seda and Vagabondi, to Fatjon (I just love his name), Kaleb my un-official taxi driver and the hostel guests … it’s just crazy to think of it all.

I lived in Albania for two weeks.

In the end, it was Olivia who saved me. We flew through traffic, with me on the back for the 2^nd and final time. The only other time I rode on the back was when I test rode on her with Jim in London. We arrived a couple of minutes late, but Claas and Lira had actually held up the bus for me. The bus driver mentioned, as we left, that another option would have been to take a taxi, and catch up with the bus –waving and honking alongside – until the bus pulled over to take me aboard. For some reason, this tactic had not occurred to me as practical, but apparently it’s acceptable in Albania.

The last time I saw Olivia, she was waiting with Fatjon in front of a bus that was leaving the station. I thought I was getting on that bus, but it turns out that several buses leave all at 6pm, and they managed to find me and direct me to the one they were holding up. I didn’t look back. I waved to Fatjon and ran in the other direction.

She’ll be alright.

I wrote her a goodbye note and breathed it to her today. It was coming from my expectation that I couldn’t tell the buyers how we’d crossed the world together; it went like this:

“Baby, when I say goodbye to you today, you know I gots to act like it don’t mean nuffin. But that ain’t the troof, and you knowzit. These people… they just couldn’t understand us and all we been through together – so we got to jus keep it between us. So baby, you know I loves you. And I always gonna love you, no matter who you wit. You always near my heart.”

Cut from the Story

There is a hound outside this hostel that likes to team up with a nearby rooster, never letting up for a minute. What kind of torturous existence that must be, where the animals actually remember to howl and crow with that kind of reliability.

After Graham left, a beautiful young German girl named Linn Cyra arrived. She speaks fine English and smiles a lot, so I have taken to her. She is very inquisitive about history, and we’ve talked about much. She has lived many years in Finland, and I’m connecting her with Zoe to try and help her in her Finnish attempts.

She has two younger brothers. Wants to work in Brussels, helping the EU ID projects for funding and see how it can benefit from the results of research. Told her a bit about Dr. Palmer.

Linn and I had some beers last night. She’s headed for Greece soon, going to Crete. She had this month off prior to starting up work again.

When I got to my Karaoke bar, I saw that they had live music for the night, and I was accosted by a waiter who wanted to know what I wanted to drink before I had even decided if I wanted to stay or not, and I bailed out of there.

Still trying to sell the bike. I was waiting for the owner of a Piaggio store to arrive so I could gauge his interest in my bike, when a man walked by and stopped – he said, “how much?” I told him seis cento euro. He said, “seven hundred – great,” in English, so I didn’t correct him. He gave me his info, but needed me to get my title papers. I called and emailed Picot to DHL them to me. Every day I spend here is getting expensive, as even the hostel is costing 12€/day. Picot had a headache, and was non-committal about everything. I’m only slightly worried.

(on the bus, Albanian comedian pretending to act retarded. Completely intolerable. Apparently making fun of handicapped people is alright in this country)

My departure from Podgorica was during a break in a rainstorm. I waited all day, lying in bed, cold and hungry. When the rain stopped (and the forecast was even worse), I got up and left – having eaten nothing for at least 30 hours.

The central post office had been shut down for remodeling, and all the facilities were moved to the modular unit across the street, like the ones we used in middle school. Hundreds of people waited in line, impatiently waving and yelling like the New York Stock Exchange. It was alarmingly stressful just to claim a couple of postage stamps.

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Photos

Mercedes Couch
How to move a couch in Albania.

Traditional farm transport
This was the first vehicle I encountered when I entered Albania. Wow.

How to move a sofa in Albania
Mercedes' are used for EVERYTHING in Albania.

Busted mausoleum
Albania's most famous building ... gone to rot.
AKA: Albanian International Centre of Culture.

Found my beach
At Albania's top record label.

with my homeboy Vagabondi
Vaga is the top Albania rapper.

My Albanian Family
Klaas and Lira at Hostel Albania.

Friends Lira and Linn
Lira runs the hostel Albania, Linn was a guest and friend.

Postcard of a bridge
Very simple, very beautiful.

Safety cones
These cones sit on these inviting, exposed pipes. The cones make it impossible to use the pipes to cross the ditch, discouraging trespassers and looking cool!

Best album cover EVER!
Can you say "Coach" from Cheers?

Shipwreck beach
This landmark decorates the main beach at Albania's beach town of Durres.

Border trip
Re-importing Olivia, had to drive several hours just to re-cross the border.

Prestigeos
Nothing shows more respect for your neighboring countries than to give them a sign announcing their embassy in painted plywood.

Mormons!
They really are everywhere.

VagaCrew
Vaga, chilling with his crew.

Flotilla
These four ships rest just outside the harbor.

Old people in the park
Old people like to sit in public.

At a very nice restaurant
On a Saturday night, in front of the nicest restaurant in town.

Hangman's art
From the national gallery

Comments

[Laurel]

Olivia letter
Reading that made me laugh and cry.