Another day of rest

Another Sunday with Albanian friends, who insisted I spend the day at their home. I planned to reach their apartment after a visit to the family plot at the cemetery, where I hadn’t been yet since my latest arrival in Tirana. It’s not the only burial ground of the capital, but this one that I am familiar with, and houses 3 different sections, has doubled in size in the past 13 years that I have come to it.


On the way this morning, I made some observations. The traffic in Tirana, for the past few years, has always been heavy, but, this time it seems the number of vehicles must have dramatically increased, for two reasons: very often now, one moves a bit forward and then must come to a full stop because of a car jam, and the smog is so thick it could be cut with a knife! Both conditions have been experienced in the past, but not to this excess, and when I observed the smog today, it was only 11 o’clock in the morning!

Another culprit is also the large amount of dust everywhere due to continuous large buildings’ construction, as well as upgrading and repaving of streets, which still necessitate a great deal of intervention to meet today’s telecommunication and traffic requirements. There are still, however, many very old, one/two story houses in town, which are quite a contrast to the modern means of transport, as the following pictures shows. As shabby as the house on the left looks, I was surprised to see that it accommodates a restaurant and a bar!


The bountiful, and delicious, full course lunch at my friends’ home was followed by a few hours of interesting conversation on a variety of subjects and I am always thankful and delighted of learning something new, as it was today. I even came home with a ‘care package’ that was sneaked into my bag!