Guided visit of Tirana

As forecasted the rain began to soak Tirana on Monday, and the city traffic became impossible to handle. The bad weather, unfortunately, continues and may not end soon!

A friend, who lives in NY, made a short trip last week to the northern Albanian city of Shkodra, where she has relatives, and, on her way back home, we agreed to meet in Tirana. I invited her to stay with me and she readily accepted when I suggested to arrive here at least on Monday night, since she had to fly out of Albania on Wednesday morning.

She visited Shkodra repeatedly since 2006, but had not yet had the chance to really get acquainted with the capital.

After her arrival on Monday night we had a late dinner at an Italian restaurant, located just one block away from my apartment. The plans we made on how to spend her only full day in this capital went out of the window the next morning, when we had a leisure breakfast. Somehow, however, we ended up doing a lot during the rest of the day, and by the end of it we were both exhausted.

As we went along, we laughingly kept on telling each other that this was really a typical Albanian way of living. Without rushing, we were able to move around and see several things and places, and also tour the National Albanian Historic Museum in the center of the famously large Skanderbeg square. This city center area is now really messy and difficult to navigate for both cars and pedestrians because, according to an ambitious urban plan, it's being reconstructed and completely repaved.

We managed to have an aperitiv at one of the hundreds outdoor bars of Tirana with another American woman, widow of an Albanian. She resides in California, but at the tender age of 80, spends about 6 months a year in this city, where she rents an apartment, goes to a gym twice a week, and even teaches journalism at a local private school.

Afterwards, we had a satisfying lunch at one of my favorite places in town. Their, so called, salad bar offers a large variety of very tasty vegetarian dishes, in addition to meatballs in tomato sauce, and the typical 'bykek' (the appetizing phyllo dough that comes stuffed with spinach, or ham, and cheese).

Although normally one cannot take pictures inside a museum, I opted to copy what another tourist (part of a visiting German group with a guide) was doing. The museum staff never stopped us, thus we merrily went along and walked all 3 large floors for a couple of hours.

Starting from the main floor upward, the exhibits cover prehistoric periods that lead to the Illyrians (Albanians' ancestors), then, throught a variety of beautiful maps, display also the many foreign invasions that took place over the centuries (from Roman times to the Ottoman 500 year occupation of the balkan territories), and so on.


the model of the 3500 years old southern citadel of Berat

representation of the Congress of Lezhë of 1444
The above northern city today houses the grave of the national hero Skanderbeg. Here he had formed a league of Albanian princes to fight the Ottoman empire.


costumes of the Arbëreshë
These are ethnic Albanian communities still living today in southern Italy and Sicily, where they maintain their own distinct culture and identities. They migrated there since the 15th century when Skanderbeg helped militarily both King Alfonso V of Aragon and King Ferdinand of Naples and received from them land as compensation.

collection of old rifles with carved silver handles
The League of Prizren was an Albanian political organization founded in Kosovo in 1878, which aimed to unify all Albanians.

November 28, 1912 - Albanian Declaration of Independence lead by Ismail Qemali, who was the 1st Head of State of modern Albania.

Sami, Naim, and Abdyl Frasheri: 3 brothers, and prominent figures of the National Renaissance movement in Albania in the late 1800's.

The most interesting floor displays for me are on the 3rd and top floor of this museum. They represent the more current history of modern Albania, with the Fascist occupation of 1939, the resistence movement during WWII, and the formation of the Communist totalitarian dictatorship that lasted for more than half a century.

Thanks to some friends of mine, my guest and I concluded the tour of Tirana by riding in they comfortable car when they picked us up in the late afternoon, after work. With them we were able to observe the immense number of constructions that is ongoing in the outskirts, and hilly areas of this capital, which includes also another mega shopping center - the 6th of this kind in this city.

Finally, we rode upward toward the Dajti mountain and had drinks at a cafe` that overlooks the city. It was already dark, but the view of Tirana could still be detected in the distance.


After a quiet dinner, again in a restaurant within the condo complex where I lodge, my guest could not even tackle packing. We both hit the sack, totally pooped!

Weather watch

The weather forecast for Albania, although available on local news and TV, is also observed through the Italian TV channels that most Albanians follow on a daily basis.

They have done this for years, even during the communist dictatorship, when watching foreign programs was strictly forbitten (but that's is also how most of them understand the Italian language)!

This reminds me of when I was a child in Italy, during WWII and the fascist era, when it was also forbitten to hear Radio London, which broadcasted every evening a program destined to Italian audiences. Everyone would listen to it, on a queue tee, in complete silence and with ears close to the radio to keep the volume at the lowest possible level.

Getting back to the weather forecast, everyone here knows that when southern Italy experiences clouds and precipitation, Albania can can expect the same within the next 24 hrs.

This past weekend was really gorgeous and the sunsets worthy of being transposed into paintings. Fascinated by the clear lines of Tirana's surrounding hills and their coloring as the sun was disappearing prompted me to snap the couple of pictures below.


The scene below also struck me for its chaotic look. Myriad of buildings keep on spreading toward the hills of the capital, and from my balcony it all looks like an untidy behive!

On Saturday I took advantage of the good weather to go shopping for food and other necessities, while on Sunday I had lunch along the beach area of Golem on the Adriatic with a couple of friends, who invited me there.

I was told that most Albanians hit the beaches mostly during the months of July and August, but who could resists this beautiful sunny, Sunday afternoon in October?

Several were the families with children playing, and street vendors, who also displayed kytes that easily flew around in the nice sea breeze. Some even ventured swimming, while some speed boats drove, dangerously for my taste, too close to the coast line.

In the distance some merchant ships were anchored in the bay waiting to discharge their cargo in the port of Durres.

Daily life in this city

Good weather turned ominous for about 24 hours earlier this week.

To avoid an expected downpour I went out on Tuesday to do food shopping at one of my Italian favorite stores, and came home loaded. Now, of course, it means more cooking has to follow...

I made it home just before the storm, which lasted throughout the night and the next day.

Here the clouds seem so close, especially from my apartment, perched up on the 12th floor along one of the main boulevards of Tirana.

Just like in NY mother nature can create havoc in city traffic during and after a storm, and Tirana is no exception, as seen below.

So far, on alternative days, I go to my old premises, which remain for now in deplorable conditions, and are in need of huge repairs.

However, in a separate wing of it, I continue to set up, as started last spring, some rooms destined for office use in the future. Some areas are beginning to take shape, and the telecommunication facilities are fully functioning.

Have also began to unpacked some of the stuff shipped from the States, which arrived here during the summer.

Except for a small refrigerator, which will be purchased soon, there is even a budding kitchen corner....

where a coffee machine would also, eventually, find an appropriatey place. It's a must in the Albanian society where everything takes place over a cup of coffee, whether prepared in turkish style, or with an expresso machine.

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!