Autumn in Tirana

October has started and the trees are beginning to show their fall foliage in this capital.

The weather has been very good since my arrival, alternating cloudy days with a bit of rain, with full, splendid sunshine like today.


Online I read that the US Eastern coast continues to experience wild weather changes with high winds and plenty of rainfall due to the very active storm season, and consequently is suffering power cuts, floodings, damages, and scattered evacuations.

Here in Tirana we currently have temperatures that range from 76F in midday to 55F during the night. One can still sweat at noontime and have beautiful cool nights for sleeping.

As usual, having a washing machine at my disposal inside my apartment is a blessing. Thanks to this gorgeous weather, my wash this morning dried in no time.

No wonder here no one owns, or uses a drying machine, and the same can be said for in Italy. That's why in these countries quite a variety of laundry is always seen hanging inside or even, perilously, outside balconies or windows.

My housekeeper took care of my apartment during my absence from town, and even transplanted into larger pots a couple of plants that are growing in it, and yesterday, she presented me with a lovely doily that she crocheted for me during the summer!


What can I say? I am blessed to have such good, friendly service and wished I had something similar in NY....meantime, I am getting spoiled by it!!

Back in Albania

Here I am back in Tirana, where I arrived, safe and sound, less than 24 hours ago. The trip, via Lufthansa, was excellent as usual, and the Airbus used for the transatlantic flight was packed, as it was JFK airport when I left New York.



During this trip I met some interesting people. Next to me sat an ex CBS reporter, now a mother of 3 kids, who did some reportage from Albania in the late 1990's. She had planned to go through a stack of papework while traveling, but, after a few glasses of red wine she slept all the way to Germany.

During this first leg of the trip, I had a long chat with an Italian maritime inspector from Naples, who was returning home with his wife and 3 grown up children after spending 24 days on a cruise along northern Europe, then across the Atlantic to the Caribbean area, and finally to the US. He spent quite a bit of time telling me why he did not like, and would not return to NY in the future.

In Munich I had a longer than usual waiting time for the Tirana connection because the flight from NY was much shorter than the normal 8 hours thanks to strong tail winds and a more northern route taken by the pilot.

The efficiency of this airport always amazes me, and I took the time to enjoy the comings and goings while sipping a delicious capppuccino at a bar that was doing a booming business serving large breakfasts to lots of travelers. The display of food was incredibly big, varied, and enticing, but the dinner and breakfast served on board within the space of 6 hours did me in.

I refused also the sandwich and sweets offered on the smaller aircraft that Lufthansa operates between Munich and Tirana, while I had a nice conversation with an instructor from North Carolina, who was on a field trip in the company of two of his students . The 2 teenager girls were eager to discover Albania, which they had to research before leaving, as part of their currriculum. Next year they both will graduate in Hotel Management, and their instructor has given a one week course on tourism several times previously in Albania. He told me, in fact, that this was his 10th trip to the country, and was thrilled to have with him now 2 of his students.

One of the girls had never travelled by plane before and looked tired and tense. She had not slept at all during the night and would not even look out of the window, but her companion kept snapping pictures, and being very exited about the whole trip and its expected unknown. She and the instructor kept teasing the other, and talked about their plans in the next 2 weeks, to be spent mostly in the northern city of Shkodra, with a couple days in Tirana at the end.

The trio was going to be picked up by the Director of the University in Shkodra, and being driven there upon arrival. The girls expected to be housed within the University dormitories, while the instructor was booked at a hotel. Their overseas flight was also by Lufthansa, but direct from Charlotte, NC to Germany.

Another American gentleman from Texas, still young, but needing a walker and a portable oxygen machine, was also returning to Tirana, where he indicated having been several times in the past 15 years. I believe he was originally connected with a missionary unit (one of the many still operating in the country today) and he is now running some courses on how to fight corruption.

As usual, I was met at Tirana's aiport. In less than half hour I was in town, where the air was visibly clear after some earlier rain. My friends insisted in taking me to lunch, nothwithstanding my refusal attempts, and then delivered me to my apartment.

It was so nice to find the apartment cleaned by my usual housekeeper, and have the electrical and water connection all setup upon arrival.

My friends also stacked my fridge with all sorts of food and staples, with the big basket overflowing of fruit, and even some flowers on my dining table.

They strongly suggested that I stay awake as much as possible to diminish the effect of jetlag, and I did so by unpacking and getting settled, while enjoying the beautiful strong breeze that was coming through my opened balconies. The nights are quite cool in Tirana.

My Internet connection was re-established this morning after I renewed my contract with the local provider.The temperature today is 23C degrees (~ 78F).

Visiting

Yesterday I ventured outside Manhattan to visit relatives that reside in suburbia to catch up with family news and see how quickly the younger generation is growing.

I use the word ventured because, notwithstanding my many decades in New York I must confess of not being really very familiar with the other four boroughs that make up this city (sorry..... no offense meant, suburbanites!!). Transportation from and to the main island of Manhattan has improved greatly over the years, and it is now serviced extremely well by express, and very comfortable buses that speed along our avenues day and night at pretty frequent intervals. Thus, it was no hassle at all to board the bus in midtown that delivered me northward, to destination, in no time!

In the morning I left a quiet Madison Avenue, where, however, several tourists were strolling and shopping in some of the most luxurious stores and boutiques in town, and 45 minutes later I landed in the hustle and bustles of a very busy, and lively community of the Bronx, which is located close to the huge, most famous NY zoo. The heavy pedestrian and vehicular traffic whizzed by incessantly along the wide avenues that criss-cross this very green area that also houses New York's Botanical garden.

The Bronx is also the area of NY mostly populated by Albanians and Kossovars, and locally houses many ethnic, mama and papa stores and restaurants, as well as enormous supermarkets. Here everyone seems to know everyone else, and, I am told that when you shop, store owners that know you will give you credit if you happen to forget your wallet at home!

At home, young Marcel was happy in his grandfather's arms, or on mama's lap, while his dad was in the garage fixing his car that was recently involved in an accident.



After a deliciously home cooked meal and lots of conversation, especially with the father of the household who is currently visiting from Montenegro, we made plans to be visiting each other abroad, since I'll be back in Tirana soon.

By late afternoon I returned to Manhattan, which turned out to be also very trafficked in midtown.

Tokens of remembrance

Thanks to a current article in The Economist's blog, entitled "Postcards from Albania", I was able to enjoy the brief video mentioned in it and to connect to the interesting site of OBC, mostly written in Italian language.

The above reminded me that I should also dust off my family's old files, where I know I have quite a few similar postcards, and many letters and stamped envelopes of the 1930's and 40's.

So many things to do, and so little time to do them......but now am preparing for my next travel to Albania, where I'll be for a few weeks. More to come about it soon.

International Literacy Day

On Wednesday, September 8th, I attended a symposium held at the United Nations NY headquarters on the occasion of the annual International Literacy Day.

[a similar composition used to be also in the middle of the World Towers complex before its destruction 9 years ago]
For this symposium more than 600 people filled one of the huge conference rooms that have been recently built in an annex building to the UN Secretariat (partial view of it is on the right in picture below).

This new UN wing, erected on what used to be a beautiful green lawn along the East River, has a very insignificant, outside look with its white wash color on a structure that resembles very much an hangar.

Walking inside it, however, it reveals quite a different aspect, with huge, long hallways, draped with sculptures, tapestries, exhibits from different world countries, and computerized boards similar to the ones one may find at airports, that display the various ongoing activities within the complex.

[foreign children's paintings]
This new building contains many enormous, high ceiling,and stark looking conference rooms that are equipped, however, with high-tech facilities.

Comfortable sitting and table arrangements have communication equipment available for each attendee, in addition to several computers and projecting units, mammoth screens, and even a special platform for the disabled to access the staging area.

This event was moderated by Bryon Pitts, CBS News Chief National Correspondent and author, and focused on different areas of literacy (digital, emotional, women's, etc.) and creative partnerships (government, civil society, social innovation, etc.).

The keynote opening address was delivered by ex First Lady, Laura Bush, advocating cooperation at all levels for successful implementation of literacy, followed by two moderated panel discussions re: "Literacy for Empowerment" and "Accelerating Progress through Creative Partnerships".

An emotional ending was provided by the keynote closing address of a Sudanese young man, Jacob Atem. He described his life from his humble beginnings as a herder like his father in his native country, later lucky to have been exposed to literacy that allowed him to pursue studies and even earn a degree in the US. He is the Founder of the Home at Southern Sudan Health Care and a former "Lost Boy" of Sudan.

The UN complex is a busy place and, notwithstanding heavy security checks, is always full of visitors. Many are the tours offered in different languages, such as the one I saw below as I was entering the main building on Wednesday. Personally I accompanied there many guests over a period of years, and I also had the privilege once to be included in a special (professional) group for which an evening tour was conducted after the general public access had ended.

[pictures of UN General Secretaries]
Before leaving the place this time I went to one of its shops in the basement to purchase some small flags that needed to be replaced at home. They represents the triangle of the stages of my life in 3 different countries.

Etiquette & good manners

The more we plunge into technicalities and so called modernization the more I find that good manners are being forgotten or discarded, and are instead replaced today by gruff and impolite behavior especially in business related telephone dealings.

As the world continues its speedy transformation into a more mechanized and highly technical arena, human behavior, in my view, seems to degenerate in business contacts. Driven by the erroneous concept that the application of any expedient or shortcuts is the key to success in business, natural politeness and good social etiquette fall in disusage. These patterns in communication are also transparent in email exchanges that are becoming less fashionable due to new twittering facilities. Differential behaviors are even more noticeable, and in some cases even striking, as one travels around in today's global society.

Above observations are reinforced almost daily. Lately I have had to deal a lot with services of all kinds that required quite a bit of phone calling. When one is lucky to eventually speak with a person, after going through mechanized responses of all sorts, one may also be put on hold for quite a long time, or loose the connection because the line is dropped after a while. Some of the respondents may rattle out incomprehensible answers, others may not offer further help in understanding the problem, or pursue a solution, and some even display aggressive manners in their responses.

Other behavioral differences in customer service are noticeable daily also in stores. One thing is to be serviced in a large city like NY (when you are lucky to get a salesperson's attention), another is when you are shopping in the country, away from the hassle and bustle of a metropolitan area. Greetings as you enter a shop are a norm in Europe, but not in NYC, although here, nowadays, there seems to be an effort of attitude change due to the more difficult economic times.

This reminds me that when I was a youngster, I came across a telephone etiquette guide that could be helpful to some people today [LOL]. It was a small booklet of simple examples and suggestions on how to answer a phone call. After many years of learning experiences I am still convinced that staff training is the name of the game for good business, but, unfortunately, today's employment practices have also shed such an effort.

New discoveries

Not too far from the city of Fier in Albania, there is a jewel of an archaeological site named Apollonia, which dates back to Illyrian times. I visited and enjoyed the place with some Italian friends as per my post dated May 2nd, 2009, but did not go back since then because I heard it was temporarily closed to the public.

Now am happy to read that new exiting findings are taking place in this ancient city as per current CBS News and AFT reports.

With the development of tourism in Albania and the increase of visitors to the country, there is also an incremental interest in historical places and ancient grounds, which have been studied in the past, but continue to attract curiosity and new digging projects, also on the part of some American universities and their students. One of them I know is currently involved in this type of work at the site of Butrint (in southern Albania) as part of her curriculum, and I look forward to hearing about her experiences upon her return.

With her I shared an old report and pictures taken by one of my paternal uncles, when he did a study on that site in the early 1930's. He had archaeology and photography as hobbies and the following couple of pictures are an example of what he dealt with then, and I hope that these artifacts are now hopefully and properly stored somewhere.

Back in business

Pleasantly surprised, I received back my fixed desktop computer way ahead of schedule, and, naturally, I eagerly began to restore all my applications and data. Within 24 hours I am back in business on this machine and so far everything I loaded works like a charm.

As expected, the manufacturer returned the unit reloaded with the operating system (Windows Vista) that was originally furnished when I purchased it one year ago. Before adding my additional programs, and reconfiguring the peripheral equipment, I thus proceeded to update this OS, and was amazed to find that it needed to apply more than 100 updates to become current (all these changes in one year time!!). I ended up spending more time doing these updates (that require also many reboots) than reloading all the other applications I normally use. My data, thank goodness, remains readily available on my other offset media, where I usually store it.

Bottom line: all is well that ends well, and there is always a silver lining behind every cloud. In every situation such as this, and I've had a few in the past 20 years or so, there is always something new and interesting to learn. The unfortunate part is that one must have patience and time to convince suppliers that there is actually a problem, which requires their attention and it's their responsibility to fix it.

Hardware problem

My desktop computer began to misbehave since early July. It would freeze and shut down intermittently and I had to do extensive testing. This is not what I had planned to spend time on this summer because I had a few other projects to take care online, but I had no choice and had to succumb to boring troubleshooting instead.

After several, and long telephone sessions with the manufacturer's tech support, located half way around the world, I finally convinced the U. S. company to take back my machine for fixing. Fortunately, it 's under warranty for another year, but I miss it terribly.

It's funny that even tracking the repair order, or getting acknowledgment and input from the manufacturer is always handled through email, instead of by phone. The implication is that one should always have a backup system at hand, to avoid going out to use a public one, which may not be nearby or readily available elsewhere.

To write this and briefly handle email during this time, I resorted to revive an old laptop that I still had around. I had cleaned it up and stripped of all programs since it was destined to be eventually discarded, but it's a life saver for now.

It will take time before I can go back to use my desktop again. After the repair is completed, and the computer travels back to me, I'll have to spend a few hours restoring all my applications to get back the functionality of the system I'm accustomed to. I forecast that all this will probably take until the end of this month to complete. Meantime I decided to dedicate myself to another boring task : cleaning up old paperwork and files that I can never see the end of........but this, thanks goodness, can be accomplished in the comfort of my air conditioned place during this unusually hot and steamy NY summer!

Mini vacation

This past weekend I traveled to Amherst (MA), via an Amtrak regional train, to spend a couple of days with a friend that invited me to visit. He had moved out of New York 3 years ago to work at the University of Massachusetts and, in the last 1 1/2 year, lives in a lovely, and comfortable house in a peaceful and quaint area of this state.

The train, named the Vermonter, originates in Washington, DC, and its final destination, 13 hours later, is the state of Vermont, close to the border of Canada.

It runs on a single rail bed, and, along the way, the electric engine is substituted by a diesel one that blows its horn at all road crossings (and there are many in the countryside!). During the engine switch operation in CT, which takes about 15 minutes, passengers are allowed to step out onto the station platform for a smoke or a stretch. Good service and regular announcements accompanied us all along the way.

I had reserved discounted seats in the business class car, where the snack bar/cafe` is located, and where some passengers also can use table equipped booths. Needless to say some passengers entertain themselves by using their laptops, which can be easily plugged into power strips next to each seat. I was perfectly happy to have left the steamy, and extremely crowded NY station, and to just read a bit, snooze, and plain relax!

My friend was waiting for me at the station, and after a short ride into the countryside we both relaxed for a while, sipping champagne in his house, which was pleasantly air conditioned throughout, before he prepared and served a delicious dinner.

Nothing beats the spaciousness of a home. His has a beautiful large, well equipped, windowed kitchen with a roomy breakfast dining area from where one can watch the occasional local animal life that hops across the backyard, or appears and disappears into the thick bushes of the surrounding areas.


The master bedroom where I was accommodated has a large bathroom with lots of closet space and is well designed and equipped with seniors or disabled people accessibility in mind.

After a full breakfast the next day, my friend gave me a real tour throughout the huge valley around Amherst, the tranquil surrounding towns, and a great view from the top of Sugarloaf mountain, where one can see the entire Connecticut river valley.





The weather was very hot and humid, as in NY, and by lunch time the dark clouds began to release a heavy rainstorm. My friend informed me that the area needed water badly, thus, the local agriculture would benefit greatly from the downpour. From all the information he furnished while driving me around, I learned a lot about this area of MA, where the main activities relate, only and mainly, to academic institutions of all kinds and farm life.

The institutional campuses cover extensive areas, as do the farms, some of which are owned and operated by these schools, also for educational purposes. I noticed large fields of tobacco and learned that the "Commonwealth of Massachusetts" (as they like to call it) is one of largest producers of this crop. One interesting note regards the practice of large shopping centers in the area that normally close at 10pm, but, during the opening of an academic year, they remain open for an additional 2 hours, during which only students can shop at their hearts' content until midnight.

After a relaxing and delicious lunch at a local inn my friend suggested we change our previous plan to eat dinner out, so that we didn't have to cope with the storm, the heat, and humidity. Instead, on the way home, we shopped at a huge center that has branches throughout New England, called "Big Y" .




There he picked 2 live lobsters, which were steamed for us within 15 minutes, and became part of the risotto course, cooked at home, where, after dinner, we watched a nice movie on his enormous tv screen.

Early Sunday morning we went out to a local bakery that serves full breakfast from 7am to 2pm, and the place was packed and business there was brisk!

By midday my mini vacation was coming to an end, and I re-boarded the Vermonter to return home. The train, which was fully booked, became the victim of another storm when it was just a few miles outside of NYC. We stopped in the middle of nowhere for over an hour, and the cafe` on board did a booming business for over 2 hours, after which we finally reached NY Penn Station. A taxi ride through NY traffic brought me home in a relative short time, relaxed and reinvigorated, thanks to my friend, and ready to tackle the week ahead.

Discovering Albania

More and more travel reporters are finally discovering Albania, and their articles now appear on Internet almost daily. Some of them also created lovely blogs about their experiences in the country, such as Carol Pucci, who writes for The Seattle Times.

Her recent article prompted me to read her blog about Albania. There she discloses the fact that she may have Albanian ancestry, as proven by her extended trip into southern Italy, where she could find family roots.

I can attest to the changes mentioned in her article because of my frequent trips to Albania over the past 17 years. Overheard comments from foreign business visitors while traveling to Tirana always confirmed my judgment.

In the early days it was hard to impress upon the locals I knew that what was evolving after more than half a century of hideous dictatorship was noticeable and remarkable. They were too busy trying to grasp what it meant to emerge from a long term isolationist past, and learning how to deal with sudden regained freedom. Now, after almost 2 decades of slow, and at times painful development, there is a greater awareness, thank goodness. With it comes more positive thinking, and greater hopes for the future, but also a host of other drawbacks, which naturally stem from being free. They are too complex to be discussed in this context, but need to be watched, studied, and eventually conquered.

Summer in NY

When I left Tirana, Albania, last month the summer heat was felt there with midday Fahrenheit temperature in the mid 80's. Most boulevards, however, offer some shade to pedestrians, flanked on both sides by long lines of mature trees, and the evenings are very pleasant. Although there is not much wind such as we experience in NY, the clouds there would appear in the morning and, after a brief shower, disappear quickly giving in to the sun that can scorch heads by noontime.

This month in NYC we have constant higher temperature in the 90's, and last week we even went over the 100 mark! Many hats and parasols that are quite common in Albania have also appeared in NY streets these days. The air conditioners are working full force, and the city electrical grid is overburdened. Some area have experienced blackouts and the media is reminding everyone to conserve usage of electricity by running appliances during the night hours, if possible.

NYC has opened hundreds of cooling centers to help some people, especially elders that may lack air conditioning at home; small children can enjoy being splashed by sprinklers in the playgrounds, and the outdoor public pools are quite crowded.

Three weeks ago I resumed my aquatic sessions at the indoor pool, where I am a member to exercise and enjoy aqua aerobics at least twice a week when in NY, even in winter.

Although it takes time to go and come from the place, for some of us that cannot take a good, long vacation away from the city, it's a great feeling to be able to sweat in the water rather than on pavement, and be ready to tackle the rest of the work day after a refreshing shower.

Happy Independence Day

July 4th, 2010!!