Sunday outing

After weeks of rain and sunshine yo-yoing back and forth every few hours, this Sunday we experienced a real summer day in Tirana. There was not a cloud in the sky and the sun was hot. Perfect day to be out of the city, where friends drove me for a relaxing midday dinner. 

 

  The restaurant, like many others that have sprung up in the rolling hills that make us the suburban areas around the capital, is situated in the commune of Ndroq, in the middle of a very agricultural zone, well laid out along a mature river.

 

From a country road one enters a very large complex that has a hotel-restaurant, a separate huge hall for large receptions, manicured green lawns interspersed with rose bushes and a variety of trees that include very old olive ones, with their crooked trunks distorted by age.

 

 

Attractive foot and vehicle paths allow for pleasant walks at different land level with beautiful views of the valley below, and above an entire aqua complex consisting of two large pools, one of them for children. 

 

There was no sparing of details in this entire place on the part of the owner, who gave us a tour when we took a walk around.   

Two gardeners were quietly attending to their chores, some clients were lulling around the pool, and the outside patios of the restaurant were filled to capacity by diners.  This country setting offers all sorts of comforts and is well equipped with modern facilities, and it pleases the eye everywhere you turn due to an excellent taste of furnishings, gardens layouts, and flower arrangements artistically positioned everywhere. 

Here I had the chance to taste different dishes, typical of the local cuisine. After an assortments of antipastos that included a mixture of grilled vegetables (which I love!), the waiters presented us with 2 varieties of poultry dishes. 

Actually, my friends explained, the meat came from small, not yet grown chickens (chicks!), raised on the premises, like all other foods used by the restaurant, all fresh  and delicious. One was roasted chicken over rice pilaf, while the other was baked  in a very thick sauce that can be soaked by hot, home made, soft bread.

Three hours went by quickly and we returned to Tirana by 5:30pm, a typical time for some rest in Albanian daily living. It was a very relaxing afternoon and now I am ready to tackle another busy week ahead!

An unusual Friday

An unexpected, and sad call on Thursday informed me of the demise of a friend’s mother, and the invitation to attend the traditional lunch offered by the family of the departed to relatives and friends.  It was taking place at a restaurant nearby my apartment, which specializes in these kind of events.  In fact, very often when I look out of my balcony I see a bus unloading a bunch of people mostly dressed in black, evidently representing the closing of a funeral. 

In Tirana funeral parlors are open 24 hour a day, and funerals and burials are arranged and take place within 24 hours of the demise. The meal follows the return from the cemetery and it is quite traditional and observed by most religions. This was the 2^nd time I attended a similar event here in Tirana, the first one being a few years ago. That one was for a departed Muslim, while this one was for a Catholic. In both cases, I was treated as a special guest, and, as such, seated to the right of the hosts, somewhat to my embarrassment. What I found out and interesting is that the mourning periods vary not only according to religious customs, but even from area to area of the country, and from city to city.

The sadness of the morning changed toward evening, with an unusual distraction for me.

At the end of a busy and hectic work month of May, I had planned to attend a musical event organized by the Italian Institute of Culture, which was being presented on the stage of Tirana’s House of Opera and Ballet. The program sounded intriguing and I extended my invitation to a young couple of friends of mine, who happily joined me in attending.  

The theater was packed and the performance was quite fascinating due to its particularly unusual style.  Named ‘Musica Nuda’ (naked music) it was a presentation of Italian popular songs and even classical pieces by only two performers: a bass player and a young lady singer “Voice’n’bass”, who have been performing together for 10 years and tour all over. 

They kind of ‘strip’ the original pieces and produce an eclectic effect  type of sound and singing by a mixture of jazz, rock, and punk that easily grows on you as you listen to it for a while.  Their web site gives a gist of their production. Although I was skeptical about the outcome of this event, I ended up really enjoying the performance, as much as my younger friends.

By 10:30pm we all felt like having something to eat, and  went to a new local pizzeria that apparently has become quite known in town for its good food.  Their pizzas are all the same size (about 2/3 of the large NY pizzas), with very thin and crusty bottom, but an extensive variety of toppings. 

The place was very crowded, but we managed to get a good table. Each of us ordered a different type of pizza and they were all exceptional.  Mine, named ‘Saida’, had a combination of mozzarella, gorgonzola, artichokes and pepperoni (couldn’t finish it, but took home a care package of it).  Real, real yummy!!  

Adding the pleasant company, it was a nice way to wind down the day and the month. 

Frightening moments

This past Thursday I witnessed an unexpected, scary happening, a bit too close for comfort.  

While at the office, in the midst of a discussion related to work, I happened to notice from the window I was facing, a puff of smoke across the street. My coworker and I approached our window out of curiosity and, practically within seconds, we were facing a fire that was engulfing an entire café, which is a popular spot with young people in our area.  

Made entirely of wood, and surrounded by very tall trees that reached the height of the 7th floor of an attached apartment building, the fire took off with raging force producing massive amount of very dense and black smoke, while the flames quickly enwrapped the tree trunks upward.  Rushing out of the place some young customers began to push away some of the cars parked in front, and some bystanders and others began to fill our yard to get away from the heat.  

Having been involved and affected personally, decades ago, by a fire that developed next door to me, and completely destroyed my apartment in NY and all its content, while watching this fire across the street in Tirana, I was reliving frightening moments of the past, and I fretted to see the firefighters’ arrival.  They did eventually show up and began to douse the fire, producing additional clouds of smoke that permeated the entire neighborhood while the wind blew away from the area particles of burned wood that landed also in our yard. 

Needless to say, the pandemonium attracted lots of attention from the neighboring buildings with tenants watching the on-goings from their balconies and eventually the press also stepped into this momentarily chaotic situation.  To my knowledge, fortunately, there were no casualties, but a nearby school was also affected and destroyed.  

We temporarily lost water and electricity, but, thanks to cell phones we contacted the people we were expecting and got them inside our offices where our planned meeting finally took place. Too much unwelcome excitement for one day!  

Saturday outing

After a few very hectic weeks of work, today I accepted an invitation from friends to go out of town for lunch. They usually prefer to leave the city and eat in fresh air, country surroundings for more natural, local products, or along the sea coast for the freshest fish. They picked me up around 1:30PM, but I knew that, by riding outside of Tirana, it would take at least another hour or so to reach destination. 

In Albania, the meal of mid afternoon is the actual daily dinner, when people, whether employed or not, usually gather around the table around 4PM to consume their daily meal with the family.

State employees end their work day at 3pm, and others break the work flow and go home from their store or business about the same time. The latter, after dining and some rest, may return to their tasks, while the elderly and youngsters usually take their daily stroll. Meeting friends at a café completes their day, where, by the way, any kind of business is being transacted, day or night. 

Today it was decided to drive south, past the port city of Durres, to have fish dinner at a well known restaurant in the suburbs of the city of Kavaja. I have been there a couple of times in the past years, and I knew their food was exceptionally good.

Since the meals in Albania are usually served family style, I was able to enjoy every one of the courses ordered by my hosts, by just tasting and picking the portions I could deal with from the serving trays. A mound of mussels, followed by a taste of cuttlefish marinara style, were the appetizers, followed by large cuts of pasta (‘ai frutti di mare’) with mixed seafood, as first course, and a huge seabass (‘branzino’) as the main entrée.

Two hours went by quickly. After a dessert of ‘panna cotta’ surrounded by sliced fresh fruits, and an Italian espresso, we headed back toward  Durres, where I knew I could be the one to treat my friends to homemade ice cream (‘gelato artigianale’) in a very large, outdoor ‘gelateria’ along the boardwalk that faces the seaport.

 

The smell of sea water hit my nostrils, mostly used to air conditioning and indoor living. The place was packed, the weather gorgeous, very sunny, but with no  breeze, thus keeping the sea very calm.

I was delivered back to Tirana by 7:30pm, rested and relaxed! It felt like a Sunday, since for me it was a real vacation day, but…..one more leisure day is ahead, thanks goodness.  Tomorrow I can attend to some personal and household chores before tackling another work week, which, as usual here, may offer, who knows, all sorts of surprises!

Short update

Time flies while in Albania, while daily life here seems to crawl most of the time…..what I mean is that while in this country my days run out quickly for me, at the end of each day I feel that I have not accomplished as much as I wanted to.  Used, as I am for decades in the States, to plan and carry out projects in a pretty speedy way, I have to ‘put on brakes’ here, and ‘go with the local flow’, which is a more relaxed way of living, but less efficient in fulfilling plans.   

  

I have been pretty busy since my arrival to meet some immediate, strict deadlines, while, as usual, trying to shake off jet lag, re-adjust daily life to European style, and cope with a drastic change in climate. Left 11C degrees in NY, and found myself dumped into 32C a day later, after the lengthy and laborious travel described in the my previous post. 

Tirana continues to be a very busy city, bustling with activities around the clock, and its traffic is maddening! Just like in NY, now one must allow more time to move around the city, reach destinations,  and then have the headache of figuring out where to park a car. They are everywhere, on sidewalks, on curbs, double lining the streets and boulevards, leaving free just one lane for traveling.  

The city seems to quiet down a bit only on weekends , when everyone seems to hit the countryside and the beach areas, easily reachable in a country of such a small size as this.

The tourist traffic continues to increase yearly, as also described in the following couple of recent articles that I am sharing with you here: 

-       - from Travel – Mail Online “Europe last corner:beaches and beauty in Albania, the hidden bargain of the Balkans”

-       - from the Huff Post Travel “One Insane Day inAlbania” 

I hope to be able to also enjoy a bit of leisure time during the upcoming few weekends here, meantime, work plans are waiting for me now at the office……