WhyNot: Tirana, Albania (07-16.9.2014)

Fuck, police is stopping us. Hmmm…where do I put my beer? Shit, I’m not buckled up. Oh yeah, there’s no seat belt for buckling up. What the hell is going on? Shit times two, now Claas tells us it’s time to get out of the car. It’s gonna be a long walk from here back to hostel if this is the end of the ride”.

How did Teemu end up in this situation? How is he gonna get back to the hostel? Why earth is round? Is there life in mars? Stay tuned! Answer to at least two of these questions are going to be answered in this blog entry!

As soon as I landed my feet in the soil of Tirana I knew that I’m gonna end up spending more than the original two nights I had booked. Entering the hostel with it’s calming garden with lemon trees and meeting the owner, Claas, just made that feeling stronger. And finally getting rid of all those stray cats that are everywhere in Balkan and being ignored by the owner’s huge golden retriever was all but negative issues. I do prefer dogs, big time, even if they ignore me at first. I knew we would be friends at the end.

I became a peace of furniture in hostel Albania even breaking my own record when it comes to nights spend in one hostel. 10 days in Tirana, baby! I just didn’t wanna leave the place for various reasons; staff (thank you everybody especially Claas and Martin), the hostel, other guests and Tirana itself.

Me, Danish guy (upper left) and the hostel staff and Shira,
the spoiled golden retriever and not to forget B.Nana

Me and Christanbul in our favourite place doing our favourite
thing, nothing. From this position we also checked all the new
noobies coming in to the hostel, or "fresh blood" as we called
them.

What the f***??

Muahhahaaa. I just had to eat there.

You know that my blog is no lonely planet-guide book but a few words about Tirana. (I’m gonna do one post also about the whole Albania as I felt it). The truth about Tirana from my point of view; Is there plenty of sights to see in Tirana? No. Is there much to do in Tirana? No. Is Tirana any good? Yes, one of my favourite cities so far on this journey. Tirana is one of those cities you just need to feel. Go out, have a coffee or Raki. Eat cheap as hell. Just enjoy the people and the vibe. Let your body rest and save the “I have to see everything in two days” attitude and energy for some other place. Tirana, although being really hectic city is all about enjoying yourself and chilling.

I ate so good food for so little money that I almost cried. Kebab and a Coke for 1,80€ or a complete meal with a beer for 4€. Life for vegetarians is also easy in Tirana even thought Albanians love their grilled meat.

They sell interesting literature in the street

I also have to tell you about this Finnish guy that I shall call Tinder-Finn (nickname given by me to protect his real identity). I’m chilling in the hostel’s garden when this guy comes to the hostel and as he sees me he says hello. I had no clue what so ever who he was until he told me that we met in Kotor. Oh fuck, now I remembered. He was in the same room with me but we basically just exchanged hellos. Please don’t let him be in the same room with me. I know what you’re thinking but come on, I’ve been only traveling for over three months so I’m not ready to hang with Fins yet. Luckily he stayed in other room since all he did during those 4 days he stayed in Tirana was to check if there’s a match for him in Tinder. Im not even kidding. The guy must have serious index finger injuries because of Tinder. He finally managed to find two matches from Tirana and started chatting with the girls. The other of the girls had a picture in which she had dreadlocks and a picture without them. Tinder-Finn don’t like those so the opening line in chat was: “Do you still got dreadlocks?” Muahhahaa, the girls was stunning btw but so was the other. So finally Tinder-Finn manages to get some action online with the girls and the others of the two asked him to meet her at a club where she is going with her friends. So what does Tinder-Finn do? He doesn’t even go there because: “It’s too difficult to find a girl in a club. Well there will also be her friends. Too this, too that” This guy just almost had to amputate his index finger because of over use and in the end he doesn’t even go. AAAaaaaarrrrggghh.

At this point I also have to say that we all travel or live our lives as we like and there’s no right or wrong way to do it. Tinder-Finn was a decent guy but we just had nothing in common and since there was not that much people in the hostel it was kind of mandatory to hang with him also. I was so glad he finally checked out.

This is for the Finn's only.

Oh yeah, I promised to tell you why we got stopped by the police.

We heard that there is a techno-festival about in some village about half an hour from Sarajevo. I was like there’s no way I’m going there but the feeling lasted only couple of minutes. It was my last night in Tirana and Claas was also heading there with two Danish people from the hostel. it was once again one of those “why not”-moments that I’ve had so many already on my trip. So were heading for the bus stop (there are no bus stations in Tirana, and only a few bus stops. You just need to know where to take the bus) when an old employee of Claas is heading to the opposite direction so we decide to follow them since there was no busses leaving from the place where we were originally heading. After half an hour or so we see this small bus which is totally packed with people. The more the merrier. So we just somehow manage to get ourselves inside the bus and at that point this Danish girl gives me a sign to inflate B.Nana. Why not! As you can imagine the bus goes nuts about my B.Nana. The bus driver is holding her as a penis as he is driving only with one hand I’m trying to take a picture of him whilst trying not to fall on other people. We drive around 30 minutes when we decide to hop off from the bus since the road is so full of people and cars that we only managed to proceed 50 meters in 10 minutes. When we finally reach the festival area I see one stage and maybe about 1000-2000 people on tuesday night listening techno. I have to admit that I even l liked the first “band” ‘cause there was live instruments on stage. Trumpet, sax, trombone and a violin and they even did nice improvised solos on drum&base background.

I guess they haven’t seen that many people dancing over techno music ‘cause I felt like being in a Zoo as one of the main attractions but it was nothing compared to the impact that Claas’s moved had. Albanians just stopped watching the band and stared at Claas but I have to give it, Claas had really classy moves. That German knows how to dance!

Of course we hanged with local people also and drank their beer. Suites ‘em right! There was about ten campfires and people cropped branches from trees to get real nice bonfires. At first police didn’t mind but at some point three policemen came to tell us that it was enough with the fire. Last year the festival lasted till 9.00 am but this year it was almost done at 2.00 am so from mutual understanding we decided to head back to the hostel. Easier said than done. No busses, no taxis, no nothing. Luckily Claas speaks some Albanian and as we saw a restaurant with some people Claas went inside to ask for a ride. We were waiting outside the restaurant when Claas shouted that we should also enter the restaurant. Second time in one night that I felt like I had no trousers. The owners family just kept staring us like we were aliens. I a way we were. The negotiations went on and we got bottles of beer and soon after that we also managed to get a ride. The owner of the restaurant promised to take us to Tirana for 2500lek (18€ including 4 beers). So the first question from first paragraph is now answered. Basically only thing I’m a bit afraid is to get in trouble with the police when abroad since you never know what’s the procedure so when we got stopped I was a bit worried to be honest. I knew that as a tourist in Albania you're completely safe from cops ‘cause they have a high tolerance policy with tourist but still if you get stopped in the middle of the night being a little drunk with some beer in and no seatbelt and only thing you can say in Albanian is “meat” you’re not in your comfort zone. So as Claas told us to get out of the car I thought that we’re gonna have to walk rest of the way back to the hostel. Some frustrated Albanian with lots of hands happened and then finally Claas told us that we can get back to the car now. What happened was that the police blamed the driver for running a red light which was a total bogus accusation but that was the case. The police took the restaurant owners driving license and gave him 20 minutes to take us back to the hostel and then get back for some more negotiation. At that point we knew that he has to bribe his way out of this. Claas asked if it was ok for everybody to give a total of 1000 lek (8€) from each for the bribe and of course it was but the difficult part was to get the dude take the money. Albanians are proud people so the driver throw the extra money to Claas’s face at first but finally complied to take the money. Hopefully every things fine whit the him. So question number two is also answered and the answer to the fourth one is yes and for the third one you can check wikipedia.

ps. Sorry, there’s no footage from the festival because I managed to lose my camera that night. Maybe the restaurant owner has got a little bonus in his backseat or it got stolen.