Up at 4:00 again to catch the 5:00 bus to Tirane, capital of Albania. We show the driver our iPod message. After three bumpy, weavy hours going about 40KM per hour max on the state "highway" our bus dropped us off, the driver grabbed a taxi driver, told him to deliver us to a Furgon stop to Shkoder. We were dropped next to a red van (17 seats, all filled now for the trip) and told we had five minutes to get a coffee at the corner café. We ran in to use the WC instead, bought a "thank you" water to go and grabbed our seats. On our way at 8:15, feeling good, like we are really getting the hang of this country.
We made it to Shkoder by 10:00, and got dropped one block from the hotel (Sheshi Demokracia, the Democratic Park: we are getting the hang of this mini bus thing.) checked in and went to the nearest pedestrian zone to find a café for lunch. We walked the entire area and settled on San Francisco Café, whose owner lived for 20 years in...
San Francisco.
He spoke English, so we were excited, and since we live near San Francisco, he was excited. We had a nice lunch, decent wine, and noted how much more "European" rather than Albanian it seems here. Even the gypsy beggars (Roma) are back. In our hour long lunch beggars, from mothers holding stricken babies to dirty barefoot big eyed kids, seven different beggars came by and had to be shooed away by the waiter, or one time by the neighboring store owner who came to our rescue. Here the Roma think nothing of grabbing your arm while they mumble, hand out, empty brown eyes locked on yours. You can shoo them, yell at them, shake your finger and "tsk tsk" them, even swear at them, but they just stand just outside your personal space and stare. Much more aggressive than other places we have been. The one offset is that the business owners are pretty aggressive in pushing them on. Our waiter worked overtime to literally push them on away from us. One local guy at the next table over even threw an empty soda can at a particularly passive-aggressive kid. As we were walking around one kid kept jumping in front of us, I finally lost it and literally shoved him out of the way. That worked, and so for the rest of our time in Albania, when the Roma came up, I pushed them away. (I watched people who were too timid, too polite, or who hadn’t learned that trick, and they were often surrounded and hounded aggressively into giving money. One pair of young women were even hit with a stick by the oldest boy, as they tried to dodge the beggars. But once I started pushing, like the locals, we were left alone.)
Interesting town: there are two huge mosques and two big cathedrals, one of each a block apart in the middle of town, then the other church at one end of town with the other mosque at the other end. The cafe owner tells me Albania is unique because everyone gets along. At Christmas, for example, they hang a huge green banner on a wire that goes from the minaret to the bell tower.
The mosque here is very unique, with big (alabaster? Glass?) windows that take up the four sides. No matter where the sun is, it shines in one side and the other three glow.
After lunch we walked a couple km down to the lake-front, where we sat in a café and drank mineral water with ice! A lady walking her pet sheep (!?) happened along. We watched a guy dive off a bridge, on a dare.
After another pass through town to see the sights, and we stumbled across a statue of Mother Teresa. It turns out she is Albanian by birth.
Very hot now, we retreated indoors to read a while before searching out a place for dinner. This was going to be important, as the Euro-Cup semifinals game, heavily favored Germany vs. Italy, was on. We ended up on a terrace over the street (safe from Gypsies and random soccer madness) where we not only had a great view of the game, but the packed streets and overflowing bars below. Drinking slowly we notice the mosque is lit from within and glows, just glows so beautifully it seems to float, like radiating an unworldly light. At 21:00 the call to worship and the church bells chime at the same time. Haven't heard that one before. Over the course of a slow dinner and bottle of wine we watched Italy trounce Germany 2-1. The crowd was about evenly split, and after the game the German fans went home while the Italian fans went out in the streets and celebrated. The entire street was gridlocked, people yelling, waving flags, fireworks and horns honking and yelling and singing; people on cars, on benches, running around wearing the Italian flag, waving it wildly... We fell asleep after midnight. When I woke at 2am the party was still going strong.
One of my favorite things: watching soccer in Europe.