Hotel Crystal Tirana

... army to various victories against the Turkish empire. <br>On the road from the bus station (stop) there is a street of wooden shops (that ironically looks very turkish and was selling predominantly turkish goods!).

... have little impact on behavior. <br><br>I tour around with the "girls" on the LP Soviet walk. Albania has attempted to escape the dull concrete through extremely colorful use of paint. It definitely helps but is taken to an extreme. My travel partners have a very mellow philosophy about touring. Every 10 minutes or so is a good time to sit down and rest. Not bad but so different than my non-stop approach. There is one nice pedestrian area of cafes (but only a few restaurants ...

... Italian I know, giving the low level of English I've encountered so far. It works. Whether the words are correct or whether they think I'm Italian or whether they use Italian as lingua franca between the local dialects of Gheg and Tosk I don't know, maybe never will. International English sucks till you need it. Anything's better than mute barter. Albanians seem nice enough, though hardly 'the nicest people in the world' as one local describes ...

... a refaire);- je suis fier d'avoir eu la sante, l'energie et le gout de faire ce voyage et ces decouvertes, meme seul, a l'age de 66 ans;-j'ai su equilibrer voyage et repos et je n'ai pas ete malade;- ce que je manquerai le plus: les cafe-bars ou on peut passer des heures a flaner et a regarder les gens passer;- ce que je manquerai le moins: l'odeur de la cigarette;- les bons souvenirs: sarajevo, mostar, kotor, okrid, gjirokastra, berat et ...

... was somewhat alien to the majority of Albanian's and I was going to have to get tough or at the very least assertive or I was going to take the whole day getting into the country. With a new found self-assurance it was not long before I reached the counter but much to the annoyance of the tutting Albanian's in the queue behind me it would be some time before I actually managed to get through. It must have been a long time before an Irish, or a foreign passport for that matter, was ...

... prepared for an imminent attack. From 1950 to 1985 about 700,000 were built and they're nearly impossible to destroy. When the first one was built, the chief engineer was required to stand inside one while it was bombarded by a tank. He emerged unscathed. Now there really isn't much anyone can do about them, so they remain cluttering the countryside. In addition to concrete bunkers littering the landscape, there are also partially built ...

... a day trip to the Skanderbeg Castle (Albania's National hero) in Kruje. I saw my sister Cindy and her husband Paul, who had driven over from Macedonia. Too bad she collapsed of heat exhaustion. It was 100 degrees and the electricity was out for at least 5 of the hottest hours of the ...

... been built entirely by our host, Zeneli. We went throught the formal greeting process, and were given Turkish coffee. Basically an espresso shot with lots of sugar, I really liked it! Zeneli proudly showed us his photos, and I think I managed to 'ooh' and 'aah' in the right places. They gave us a shot of the national drink, raki with lunch. You're meant to clink glasses and say 'gazoa' before ...

... NBN) takes like Fanta. I crashed at like 9pm after it taking so long and it taking nearly 90 bucks to make it 100kms. The hostel was cool, had a cat, that sat with me. Different kind of traveller in albania. No party crazed aussies or pomies, just people with beards. There was an outdoor kitchen. But it was cheaper to buy food. Everyone in Albania has a Mercedes. Apparently most have been stolen from the rest of europe. For such a poor country with broken pavement, no bus ...

Efter en backpacker tur med 2 gange Jacob hvor vi besøgte New Zealand, Australien (hvor jeg købte en bil i Sydney og kørte op ad øst kysten til Cairns), Bali, Singapore, Malaysia og Thailand -blev tiden til en anderledes tur i udlandet med forsvaret. Efter 2 måneders hård træning i Slagelse GHR, landede vi i Kosovo og blev kørt fra Pristina til ...