"Wag the Dog" Had it Wrong

Back in the 90s, there was a great satirical movie called "Wag the Dog" about getting a U.S. President's affair out of the news by starting a war with a random country. The country was Albania and Kirsten Dunst plays the actress brought in to play a refugee, complete with a shmata for her head and a facial expression that suggested she might be shelled at any moment.

Tragically, although the movie is hysterical, its depiction of Albania does the country a great disservice. Tirana is a legitimate, affluent urban center (although its sources remain unknown...) Filled with a variety of homes and apartment buildings painted in various bright, pastel patterns on narrow, tree-lined streets, the Blloku neighbhorhood, formerly home to the communist intellegentsia (including the now despited dictator, Enver Hoxha), is now Tirana's trendiest neighborhood. While there are many communist structures still standing, an art movement to rehabiliate the buidings and emrbrace Albanian culture involved encouraging local artist to use their imagination and rehabilitate the old gray, concrete apartment buildings. The result is a startling combination of centuries old mosques, massive (untouched), communist government buildings and multiple story structures that resemble lego creations or a set from a Tim Burton movie.

I arrived at 5am after a 11 hour ride from Kosovo, which was relatively painless despite the Albanian pop videos of girls lip synching and doing some variation of the white-girl dance (i.e. not moving their feet). Oddly, they all shared an expression that suggested, "I know something you don't know." Apparently, since the music was terrible and their gyrations confusing. Luckily, I was so exhausted that I slept through virtually the entire trip.

We arrived in Tirana just as the sun was coming up and the city came alive quickly -- restaurant and cafe staff pulling chairs and umbrellas onto the sidewalk in preparation for their day. People's appearance is more mediterranean and ranges from the standard, haggard Slavic look (for men, this means track suits with leather shoes, for women, this generally means stilettos, red hair, tight jeans or skirts) to ostentatious designer ensembles. Expensive cars line the streets, which reminds me of an anecdote that is supposedly told to Western Europeans when they visit. It goes, "don't worry about transportation, your car is already here." Tirana really isn't so different from my land of potato-heads to the northeast, except for the palm trees.

Although the country is 70% moslem, few people seem to practice with any regularity and I am slowly learning that although Albanians are moslem and Serbs orthodox, the ethnic differences are more important than the religious ones. Albanian culture and history is closely tied with Islam, but the national hero, Sheshi Skenderberg, was responsible for defeating the Ottomans back in the 15th century and preventing further spread of Islam. Albanians trace their ethnic/linguisitc heritage to the ancient Illyrian tribe, making Albanian one of few the languages in the world that escaped Roman and Slavic influences.

On a culinary note, Italian cusine seems to be much more popular than Albanian dishes. I learned from the receptionist at my hostel, that Albania receives many Italian tv channels, so for many, that is the preferred second language, and presumably, a more easily adopted culture. And anyway, who doesn't like pizza?

Tonight, I actually get to sleep in a real bed, but tomorrow morning I head to Montenegro, just a few hours north by bus. I am looking forward to lying on the beach and doing a whole lot of nothing for a bit, before I resume my insane travel schedule.

More soon.

Skopje, Pristina and Still No Sleep

Well, the title of this post is overstating things a bit. I got a couple hours of sleep on the Bucharest - Sofia train, then, last night, the bus from Sofia to Skopje, I managed to sleep about an hour, so I'm averaging about 4 hours of sleep per 48 hour period.

This morning, I arrived in Skopje around 4am. Now, bus stations are fairly shady in broad daylight, so you can imagine my joy to find myself hanging out at the bus depot in the middle of the night with a bunch of drunk Macedonians. Totally exhausted, I managed to buy tickets to Pristina for later in the day and curl up to nap on top of my luggage, so no one walks away with it.

A nice Macedonian employee at the bus station helped me with my ticket and, after my nap in the main hall, came by and offered me a ride into the city. Clearly, he had somehwat of a school-boy crush on me, but he was very polite, spoke great English and ended up being a fantastic guide of the city. We walked into the Albanian/muslim neighborhood, stopped in at one of the world's largest Orthodox churches and he showed me the biggest open air market in Skopje, where his family runs a flower-selling business.

We parted ways after a couple hours and I continued wandering on my own, managing to find the old train station that was destroyed by the 1963 earthquake and the monument erected in it's honor bearing a quotation from Tito.

I returned to the bus station around noon for my bus to Pristina, which is only a couple hours north of Skopje and the capital of Kosovo. The border crossing was relatively uneventufl, although the UN have their own special stamp, which was exciting. Upon arriving in Pristina, I was very surprised that it is very modern and Western. Presumably, this is due to the thousands of Western UN/NATO workers that have lived here over the last decade, but it remains shocking that Pristina, with its population of 150k, is more Western than Sofia - pop. 1.1 million - and Bucharest - pop. 2 million.

Pristina doesn't have much in the way of sites, but there are few mosques weren't harmed. Although this is supposed to be a muslim region, you can hardly tell given the popularity of mini shirts and low rider jeans, with the exception of the occasional headscarf. Mostly, the city consists of alternatively dilapidated and pretty streets littered with hundreds of outdoor cafes. If not for the civil unrest, this could be a great place to retire.

Anyway, I am about to head to the bus station for my trip to Albania tonight. Luckily, the ride to Tirana is about 10 hours, so I should be able to get some real sleep.

More tomorrow.

Sophia is in Sofia!

I arrived in Sofia this morning at 630am, which was way too early to be sightseeing, though I really had no choice, since my hostel wouldn't open for hours. After buying my tickets to Skopje for tomorrow, I wandered into the city. It's actually fairly nice to explore at that hour, since you feel less like a tourist when there's no one on the street to watch you take pictures.

Beginning in the main square in the center, I took in St. Nedelya Catherdral, which didn't really look like the Orthodox churches I'm accustomed to seeing. Specifically, the dome is more melon shaped, than the onion-bulb in northern Byzantium, which I can only attribute to Middle Eastern influences. Nearby, one of Europe's oldest synagogues stands just a two blocks from an equally old and impressive mosque.

Sofia has a multi-cultural history and the Bulgarian language reflects a great deal of that. Although the alphabet is Cyrillic, much of the vocabulary has Turkish influences, which makes it tougher to parse out a menu. It is also much less nasal Russian (which really requires either plugging your nose or speaking through it to speak properly), so I continually have moments where I think I'm hearing English - of course, it also could be that the exhaustion is finally getting to me.

As I has been warned, Sofia isn't really a city of sites and monuments, although, it is very charming and intimate. By mid-morning, I found a picturesque open air market that went on for several blocks, filled with flowers, fruits and vegetables, olives, honey, various apparel and gadgets. Unlike Bucharest, which is mobbed by cars, in Sofia, most people walk or take public transportation. Now that it's warm, the main drag has many cafes outside along the tree-lined boulevard. In this way, it reminds me of Chisinau, since it is also lacking in tourist attractions, but friendly and charming.

Bulgarian cuisine has more Greek influence than I anything else I can pinpoint, including "sirene" (Bulgarian feta) and yogurt in many dishes. Tomatoes, cucumber and olives are staples and a lot of meals involve grilled meats and kebaps. I should get my fill tonight at a dive-y, Bulgarian restaurant known for a flavorful plates and cheap beverages, as well as a poster that reads, "full sobriety leads to instant death." Can't wait.

Anyway, it looks like the rain stopped and the sun has come out again, so I'm off.

More from Macedonia/Kosovo tomorrow.

Bucuresti

I finally arrived in Bucharest after 29 hours on a Ukrainian train. Bleh. Luckily, my kupe mate was a Spanish guy returning returning to the EU after teaching in Russia for two years. Strangely, although he spoke English, he insisted on communicating with me in Russian. Wasn't sure if he did it so we wouldn't draw attention to oursleves or so that we would both be speaking our third languages with one another. Maybe his English just wasn't that great.

I got into the city around 7pm. After buying my ticket to Sofia and checking into my hostel, I wandered down to the center to have dinner at a Lonely Planet recommended joint called "La Mama." They served taditional Romanian cuisine and I had a giant glass of dry, red wine, tomato/cucumber/radish salad, grilled pork neck with romanian style potatoes that cost about $10. It was both awesome and cheap, which made it even better.

There is striking difference between Romanians and my Eastern European bretheren - on a superficial note, they are darker and oval-faced, unlike my fairer, potato-headed kin. Linguistically, Romanian is trying, since it is a romance language. I've had to dig deep into the recesses of my brain to remember those years of French and that summer in Paris that seem so long ago. Although there are many cognates with French and Spanish, there are smatterings of slavic, for instance, yes and no are "da" and "ne." It's a little confusing at first, but I've found that most people in the city speak some English, when I'm in doubt.

Today, I started at Piata Unirii, the south most square and wandered by the massive, marble Palace Parliament (notoriously the one of the largest buildings in the world - second only to the Pentagon - built by Ceacescu while the Romanian people starved), the old town area, where I saw the old Prince Palace, former home to Vlad the Impaler (the basis for Dracula) and up through more squares and main thoroughfares to the Museum of the Romanian Peasant. Generally, I have found Romanians to be relaxed and friendly, prefering to spend their days lazily chain-smoking at cafes during the day, and eating late (and smoking more) at night, rather than frantically racing through life. Notably, they smile, a far cry from the FSU.

Anyway, my train to Sofia leaves around 7:30 this evening, so I only have a few hours of wandering left. Looking forward to Bulgaria, since it has a lot of Turkish cultural influences, plus, they use a cyrillic alphabet, so communication should be less of a chore.

More later.