Skodra
Food: excellent
Environment: foul
Tourist infrastructure: nonexistant
Languages spoken: Albanian and Italian
After Montenegro I wanted to go to Macedonia. The only thing in my way was Kosovo; a giant knotted muscle of ethnic tensions. I definitely wasn't going to go alone. Fortunately one of the Swiss guys (Fabian) wanted to go to Kosovo, so I figured I'd be OK travelling with him. When we got to the bus station in Podgorica, there weren't any busses to the Pristina, or through to Macedonia. So I said... hey, Albania is probably easier (what the heck do I know?)
We met another American also going to Albania and we decided to split a taxi to the border. Getting in was easy enough, but when we got to Skodra we found... no bus station, no helpful old women offering rooms (like in Serbia and Croatia), and no one spoke English. Fortunately, Fabian speaks German, French, English and Spanish... but everyone in Albania seems to have studied Italian. Being a miracle child, he spoke enough Italian to find us a great hotel, and bargain down the price.
That night we had a massive dinner and got the opportunity to find out more about why Grady (the other American) was in the Balkans. Turns out he's a missionary from the charismatic protestant church of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Final destination: Iraq. He's covering all of Europe before heading off to the Middle East. He had stories about the summer he spent rescuing girls out of prostitution in Thailand, and missionaries in Mexico battling shamanic shape shifters. And of course, the US was right to go to Iraq. Fascinating what a diverse country the US is, eh?
After dinner we went back to the hotel and heard music coming from the restaurant downstairs. Turned out to be a wedding. Canned music, but they were dancing, which was fun to watch.
Environment: foul
Tourist infrastructure: nonexistant
Languages spoken: Albanian and Italian
After Montenegro I wanted to go to Macedonia. The only thing in my way was Kosovo; a giant knotted muscle of ethnic tensions. I definitely wasn't going to go alone. Fortunately one of the Swiss guys (Fabian) wanted to go to Kosovo, so I figured I'd be OK travelling with him. When we got to the bus station in Podgorica, there weren't any busses to the Pristina, or through to Macedonia. So I said... hey, Albania is probably easier (what the heck do I know?)
We met another American also going to Albania and we decided to split a taxi to the border. Getting in was easy enough, but when we got to Skodra we found... no bus station, no helpful old women offering rooms (like in Serbia and Croatia), and no one spoke English. Fortunately, Fabian speaks German, French, English and Spanish... but everyone in Albania seems to have studied Italian. Being a miracle child, he spoke enough Italian to find us a great hotel, and bargain down the price.
That night we had a massive dinner and got the opportunity to find out more about why Grady (the other American) was in the Balkans. Turns out he's a missionary from the charismatic protestant church of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Final destination: Iraq. He's covering all of Europe before heading off to the Middle East. He had stories about the summer he spent rescuing girls out of prostitution in Thailand, and missionaries in Mexico battling shamanic shape shifters. And of course, the US was right to go to Iraq. Fascinating what a diverse country the US is, eh?
After dinner we went back to the hotel and heard music coming from the restaurant downstairs. Turned out to be a wedding. Canned music, but they were dancing, which was fun to watch.
posted by Ana at 10:59 AM
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