Travel to Tirana

Left from JFK airport in NY via Lufthansa, which, with its usual efficient service, left the gate in perfect time, but, unfortunately, had to wait for 1 1/2 hr its turn on the tarmac for take off due to the normally congested traffic of this airport.

I was happy to travel on a huge Airbus (A340-600), which allows a bit more leg room than the usually cramped 767s, and we arrived in Munich way ahead of time. The service on board was excellent, but, during the night, I found the on board temperature rather uncomfortably hot for my taste. This did not allow me to sleep at all, but, thanks to the incredible number and variety of programs available at the individual seat monitors, I was able to pass the time watching 3 beautiful documentaries from Discovery Channel, and a funny movie.

While being whisked from one gate to the next one in the immense Munich airport, a heavy morning fog was setting in, and this delayed arrivals and departures for almost 2 hours all over the place.

While at the gate to connect with the flight to Tirana, I had time to observe much more German work efficiency in a variety of ways. First of all the gate was manned full time, continuously, and the staff patiently answered all queries and even handled special situations.

One of them had to do with a disabled elderly woman, on a wheel chair, who spoke only Turkish, and was traveling alone from Atlanta to Ismir. She was left alone by her handler at the Tirana gate, to wait for her connection to Turkey due to depart only 4 hours later from the same spot. While a couple of travelers unsuccessfully tried to talk to her, assuming she spoke Albanian, I managed to communicate with her with gestures and numbers until the desk staff intervened with a translator. They even offered to take her somewhere else for some refreshments, which she kindly refused.

At a point in time there were more than 30 planes in the area waiting for permission to land, and some had to be rerouted instead to Nuremberg. Finally the small craft scheduled for Tirana was able to land and we were speedily whisked to it. I realized how huge this airport is when it took more than 15 minutes of traveling by bus to reach the far away spot where the plane we needed to board had just landed. Quickly the 100 available seats were all filled and in 1 and 1/2 hour we landed in sunny and hot Rinas airport of Tirana.

Met my driver in no time, and after a brief stop at a huge supermarket (Euro-Max) that is on the way into the city, where he suggested I may want to shop for my immediate necessities, we reached my apartment within 1/2 hour. I shopped there many times previously, but, now I almost did not recognize the place. It's located inside an immense shopping mall and it has now doubled in size!

At the apartment, I was happy to find that all utilities functioned properly, and within a few hours here I am also online!