First Impressions: Tirana

Sometimes, it's difficult to start in a city. There are the plus sides: a more gradual immersion into our new language, transportation options for moving on and around the country, helpful hostel hosts who make figuring out the next step a little easier. But the urban sensory overload often leaves us a little dumbstruck when we've just arrived somewhere. We wind up walking around and making the simplest observations. "Gee, there sure are a lot of coffin shops here." Above, a man looks at death notices posted outside of a funeral home.

There are also a lot of vegetable stands, eclipsed only by clothing stores and cafes. The city runs at a steady bustle. Even on Sunday morning, people woke up and went about their business. The lines of vendors are punctuated by small grill or hot plate stands, providing the sellers with grilled minced meat sausages and soup throughout the day. The Central Food Market still shows some sign of life well after dark - its skeleton frame flanked by bulb-lit piles of carrots and pickles still for sale.

There are also a lot of black, leather jackets and motorbikes. Albania's population is young - it has a median age of 28.9 - and you definitely feel a strong youth presence in Tirana. Teenage boys have sculpted hair and good posture. Teenage girls hold hands with each other as they walk, their long hair hanging all the way down their backs or piled up in a bun atop their heads. Self portraits are taken with cell phones on Saturday morning. Sunday, they join their parents for late brunch up on Mount Dajti - trading in high tops for high heels and dress shoes. We took the cable car up to join in the brunch fun. On our way down, after soaring over farms and waterfalls, we heard several bursts of gunfire.
Dogs lay around, men sell loose cigarettes, sports betting cafes are full night and day. The buses are packed, bicycles are plentiful and there's just not enough room for all the trash. Then, behind it all you have rainbow bright buildings and the mountainous landscape. There's just too much to notice, too many interactions to take in. Even with all the rain, the city has been at a steady bustle. An old woman sold us an umbrella, upping the price as she quoted it with her fingers. The handle would fall off later that day.
Knee-high Roma boys tug at my shirt sleeve or circle so closely that we almost trip over them as their pregnant relatives beg in the middle of a dangerous intersection. A man stumbled out of a betting cafe to declare, "Two euros!" when he saw us snapping photos of the bizarre, foreign owl in a cage outside. When I made a show of deleting it, he slapped me on the back and grinned as if to say, "I didn't really mean it, silly!" And, you know what, I kind of believe him. People here have been extremely nice. Things are just complicated sometimes.

The city is dynamic, that's for sure. But the high octane energy we feel seems to run through everyone else with ease. Even with all of this going on, overlapping, people exude a sense of calm. This is just life. A life, for which, a good number of dapper dans still dress up for in the morning.

Head First Into Albania

The best part of the lamb, to an Albanian, is the head. Called kokë qengji, lamb's head is what's served to the guest of honor, or to the most important man at the table. Here, spit roasted alongside golden chickens, the heads spin over charcoal. They are the whole thing, save the ears - eyes, cheek, tongue, teeth, nose, gums, brains and skull. Pinched, drawn out faces and snaggly underbites, wide-set eyes, streamlined noses - they look, in this state, like something aquatic rather than citizens of the pasture.

On our first night in Tirana we first saw them. On our second day we saw more of them and began to be really intrigued. Today, our third in Albania, I decided to try it.
There's a corner of Tirana, on Rruga Shenasi Dishnica and Avni Rustemi Square, where four or five little rotisserie joints crowd together, all selling chicken and lamb heads and not much else. The takeout customers seem to prefer the chicken, but the men (they are all men, as far as we could tell) who sit inside get the kokë qengji. Some of them drink raki with it, some have Korça beer, everyone gets a pile of sliced bread. At the establishment we visited - without an apparent name - the smell of roasting meat wafted in through the open door and a man with one hand served us proudly.

This diner, sitting at one of the four tables, was enthusiastic about having his picture taken.
The central market is just up the street, and here the meat is presented a little more gruesomely. The butcher's hall is small and wasn't very busy when we visited - there were many more people buying vegetables and squatting around the tobacco vendor than in with the meat - but there were plenty of wide, ovine eyes and lolling tongues. We were perplexed by the left-on eyebrows that graced many of the faces. They seemed to have been saved only for comic effect, to give the grimaces a hint of ghastly surprise.
The one-handed proprietor shooed a man away from one of the tables so that we could sit down. At a table across from us, under old pictures of soccer squads and strings of fake peppers, four customers sat with the wreckage of their meals before them. They had picked the bones down to white, crunched up every bit of cartilage and left impressively small piles on their plates. I began to be concerned - how much skill would this dissection take? How does one pick apart a head?
It turns out that it's more a matter of persistence than know-how. There's not a lot of non-bone that can't be eaten, but there's precious little in any one place. My kokë qengji arrived already split in two, which was helpful. Crisped, chewy and greasy, the cheeks were the most accessible - and probably the best - part of the whole endeavor. The brain was curious mostly for its deep lamb flavor - sort of like a very soft piece of liver. Tender, fatty meat hid in the crevices above the palate and behind the eyes. There was firmer stuff (still very succulent) around the back of the jaw. Unfortunately, roasting doesn't seem to treat the tongue well - it was dry and tough.

In all, a very tasty experience. The other patrons seemed pleased with how clean I'd left the skull, which made me proud. The proprietor cheerfully tucked the bill into the bread basket. One kokë qengji, one salad, one large beer and one bottle of water: 580 LEK. I left 700, which is about seven dollars. Not bad for the best part of the lamb.

CRF: Czech Republic

"CRF" is not a crime show you've never heard of, it stands for "Cutting Room Floor." Below are some of our favorite pics that never made the blog. We figured we'd reminisce a little while we vacation "off map." (Back on the trail April 14th).

The Czech Republic is one of the more impossibly romanticized countries we’ve been to – everyone thinks they know something about it, but very few tourists visit the countryside outside of Prague. It’s alternately rough and glossy, with vast green spaces and prettily painted towns. We camped by this lake, called Lipno, for a while. Most of the campground was empty, but a small cluster of permanent residents lived together in much-extended mobile homes. They played music at night and the men went out fishing in the mornings and evenings. It was very peaceful. Our license plate got stolen.
This was in the vast museum-church complex in Olomoac – a few cupids hanging on a golden chain.
Something we don’t often show on the blog – normally, whenever we eat a strange or local candy or sweet, we take a picture of it. Who knows, now, what this Fidorka tasted like? It was probably mint, but that recollection may be influenced by the green background. We do remember that the blue Fidorka was the best, filled with coconut.
Prague is certainly beautiful, but was also awash in the full rush of tourism that taints the early summer months. The brooding, bohemian city of reputation is hardly visible anymore. There were more American tourists per local than anywhere else, it seemed.
This little icon was affixed to the wall of an old wooden church, preserved in a skansen in the town of Rožnov pod Radhoštĕm.
The second city of the Czech Republic is Olomoac, capital of Moravia, far off in the east of the country. The Czech student population makes it somewhat more interesting than Prague, and one can carouse more easily and cheaply (if that’s the point).
This was a market square, sans produce.
We stumbled upon a country fair in the town of Štramberk. This woman was selling spices. There were monkeys doing tricks and lots of frying foods. It was a confusing, crowded mix of carnival barkers and wide-eyed Czech farmers – a cascade of noise down the main street.
The pretty, carp-pond and lily pad town of Telč, where we explored a terrific old pile of a manor house. Unfortunately, they didn’t allow pictures – so we couldn’t include it on the blog.
Schoolchildren running back to their lessons.
An old stove and wooden paneling in Olomoac.
We spent a few nights at a very bizarre, much neglected campground near Rožnov pod Radhoštĕm. Our tent was nearby to the fence around the place, and not so far away from a little bar/café. In the summer evening air, a group of men used to sit and play the guitar, singing American songs translated (we think) into Czech. One night, a group of young school children were staying there – this was part of the remains of their dinner, cooked in the faded grandeur of an old canteen.

Read all Czech posts, including a few about castles, one about the original Budweiser (and a beer named "Merlin"), greasy food, greasy fish and "the prettiest town in central Europe."

CRF: Austria

"CRF" is not a crime show you've never heard of, it stands for "Cutting Room Floor." Below are some of our favorite pics that never made the blog. We figured we'd reminisce a little while we vacation "off map." (Back on the trail April 14th).

Austria was rainy. It’s too bad, because it’s such a great outdoors place – but it’s true. Our time there was damp, drizzly and overcast. But we had a good time, camped in some beautiful places, took a few nice hikes, enjoyed Vienna and ate a lot of Schnitzel (which was both horrible and fun).

This bottle of gentian liquor was particularly awful in an intriguing, highly drinkable way. The taste was bitter beyond belief, the stuff smelled like turpentine – but this is the endearing thing about any obscure tipple: it makes you feel very warm and enthusiastic about the experiment of drinking it.

We camped by the Danube for a while, and took a few swims near this little beach.

If there’s something about the country that makes us feel remorse, it’s that the Austrians seem incapable of being saved from bad food. How can a country so well off, so serious, so committed to health and hiking, be so obstinately tied to fried, ground, slab-sided, stuffed, cheese-covered, heavily-sauced meats? The food is beyond heavy. We left feeling a kind of permanent heartburn.

This is Hohensalzburg Castle, which sits like a grand duke above the stately streets of Salzburg. We took a few stabs at getting a castle hunting post out of it, but the weather was uncooperative and there were other things to do.

One of our favorite drinking places in a city full of them, Bunkerei was set down in the verdant shade of Augarten park, near our rented flat in Vienna.

Yet another view across the Danube, of a storm curling up over the hills toward us. At this campsite, near Rossatz Amsdorf, we struck up a pleasant friendship with a Polish father and son who were bicycling along the river. The son, about seven or eight, was very enthusiastic about befriending us, and dragged his more reluctant father to our picnic table. The boy wanted, first, to discuss camping stoves.

Drinking is more than a casual pastime in Austria – we still laugh about this, though. A vending machine dispensing liquor in the little town of Admont.

I crawled out of the tent one night, during a pause in the rain, to take this picture. The mountains were glorious, but the valley we were in attracted and held storms, so that they rolled down over us as though caught in a groove. Despite the wet, we still very much miss the tent.

Read all our Austria posts.

CRF: Switzerland

"CRF" is not a crime show you've never heard of, it stands for "Cutting Room Floor." Below are some of our favorite pics that never made the blog. We figured we'd reminisce a little while we vacation "off map." (Back on the trail April 14th).

Switzerland is a magical place. It’s one of the few places where everything you’ve heard about ends up being true – the mountains soar, the lakes glisten, the pastures are verdant, the towns cheerful, the cows peaceful and the people straightforward. We spent our time hiking a lot and falling in love with every nook and cranny. Switzerland is definitely one of the most picturesque places on earth.
This picture was taken on one of the ferries of lake Luzern, on the Ursee. We spent quite a few days close by the water here, camping at a beautiful ground in Brunnen. Our tent was just a few feet from the shore.
This is the first place we stayed, near Gruyere. It was a pretty old farm with about thirty Swiss browns and nice views. For breakfast we were served thick cuts of cheese and glass jars of sweet, clotted cream along with honey and plum jam.
This picture was taken at another campground, which Rebecca wrote about lovingly.
An old couple in the city of Luzerne. This was when we were walking back from the verkershaus museum, a few minutes before a torrential rain began.
This was on our hike up into the land of berggasthauses. A family was sitting at an outdoor table at the little farm. They had a sign advertising fresh goat cheese and they waved for us to join them. We regret not stopping, but we were in a hurry.
Thinking of Switzerland is to conjure images of the Alps, but the country is just as much about water as it is rock.
This was at a market in Bern, the capital (did you know that?) that we fell in love with.
On an amazing hike, looking down at the majesty of lake Luzern.
On this hike we were headed towards a castle that turned out to be just a stone house. This is the amazing part about Switzerland – the hills are teeming with hikers, cows and farmers.
The national sport may very well be paragliding.
We stayed at a berggasthaus on the shore of this little pond, which had the clearest water we’ve ever seen.

Read all Swiss posts, including lots more about cheese and some about chocolate.

CRF: San Marino

"CRF" is not a crime show you've never heard of, it stands for "Cutting Room Floor." Below are some of our favorite pics that never made the blog. We figured we'd reminisce a little while we vacation "off map." (Back on the trail April 14th).

A little over a year ago we were in San Marino. Every microstate is strange, but this little country is one of the strangest.

We explored San Marino with a kind of frantic, springtime jubilation. The weather had finally warmed up after our long, soviet winter. There were flowers and plenty of sunshine. We hiked to every corner.

We had a goal of having an Aperol spritz in each of the country’s nine municipalities – we can’t remember if we actually accomplished the feat or not, but we came really close. This was what remained after a group of young kids shared a bucket of “sprizz” (as they call it). We look back pretty fondly on the “apperativos” they serve with drinks.

Tiled roofs in the capital, which has some of the best views in the country and some very cool towers.

We camped for more than half our time in San Marino, at the country’s only official campground. The on site restaurant was called “Garden,” and we ate there more times than we should have. The pizza was so good we couldn’t help ourselves.

A police car hood – we thought about doing a post about all the different military and police divisions, but never ended up doing it. Somewhat comically, tiny San Marino has two different types of police and six different divisions in its military - including the fearsome Crossbow Corps. (We're not making that up).

Flowers at the weekly market in Borgo Maggiore.

One of the few gas stations.

A burnt tree near where we illegally camped one night.

Read all Sammarinese posts!