Albania, 2009

Feb 21 - Mar 9, 2009
This year Melissa had the opportunity to teach a two week class in Durres, Albania. I tagged along for the vacation. The program alternates in six months rotations between classroom courses and practical experience with the sponsor company. The courses are a series of two week intense classes taught by guest professors. The program advisor, Alexander, was a smiling German fellow that made sure we had all we could want.

Durres
We stayed in a nice hotel on the beach near the center of Durres. The classes were taught in a hotel in the tourist area a little south of town. Every morning a taxi would pick Melissa up and take her to the classroom hotel and return her in the afternoon. I attended the classes about half the time. The town of Durres is a major port for Albania and has been since pre-Roman times. There is an Illyrian amphitheater and a small archealogical museum (both less than a block from the hotel). Not much remains of the medieval walls and fortifications: just a strip behind our hotel with the 'Venice Tower' on the end which now hosts a bar. This seemed to be a theme as the Petrela castle outside of Tirana is a provate restaurant. There is also a very nicely improved shopping street leading from the Durres port up to the center square. There was some kind of inscription saying that it was provided by a European group. On the central square is a pictureesque mosque and just off the square was our favorite pizza place.
On our first Saturday, the school driver took us to Kruja. This was the home of Skanderbeg, the Albania hero that fought the Ottoman Turks for many years.
Kruje
On the students study day we went to Berat, a finely preserved walled town. I got a lot of great pictures of the town and the environ. There was a really old church in town that had all it's frescoes destroyed during the Communist era. A real pity.
Berat

Tirana
After the course was over we spent the last weekend in Tirana, the capitol. This really reminded me how small Durres was. Whereas Tirana was a bustling city with traffic lights, shopping, and all, Durres had only one traffic light which everyone ignored. In Durres (and the rural areas), a policeman would stand by the road with a little red sign in his hand. When he held it up the driver really would pull over for a ticket! Anyway, we met one of Melissa's student at the wine bar where he worked and the next day he (Erald) and his girlfriend took us out sightseeing to Petrela castle and the cable car to Mt Dajti.

Overall I liked this trip to Albania; it was a very unique and interesting experience. Of course I liked seeing the castles and walled towns and learning about their long resistance to Ottoman rule. But I was also intrigued by the transistion from Communism to a free market. You can see the inconsistencies in the new (and in many cases incomplete) construction with no infrastructure, e.g. dirt roads between new beachfront vacation apartments. Yet throughout Albania the people are very open and friendly. There may not be much traffic control (personal ownership of a car was not allowed during the Communist period, -1992) yet the drivers did not seem to get upset; everyone went every which way with courtesy. Alexander thought the Alabanias should export their hospitality, a rare trait in our indifferent Western countries.