<\/p>\nMy long awaited trip to Albania is finally happening!<\/p>\n
After scrambling at work up until the time I left, I packed rather quickly.<\/p>\n
I was dropped off in Santa Monica, and partied with Professional Debriefer Paul until the bartender at TRiP threw us out.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Paul dropped me off at the airport at 3:30 AM and I was off to Washington D.C. for a four hour layover.<\/p>\n
Paul told me, “If you want to make friends, bring cigarettes.”<\/p>\n
The guy at the Duty Free shop asked me, “Where are you going?”<\/p>\n
“Albania.”<\/p>\n
“Sorry Sir, this is only for international flights.”<\/p>\n
“I’m going to fucking Albania, how much more international to you want to get?”<\/p>\n
He got pissed and asked to see my boarding pass.<\/p>\n
I handed him the pass to my next flight.<\/p>\n
He responded, “Oh, you are going to Munich, that is okay.”<\/p>\n
I asked, “So, why is Germany okay, and Albania is not?”<\/p>\n
He said, “I am sorry Sir, I thought you meant Alabama.”<\/p>\n
So, the flight from Dulles to Munich was long – over eight fucking hours long.<\/p>\n
I traded a row seat for a row seat, so some elderly woman could sit next to her husband.<\/p>\n
I had loaded my MP3 player with free downloads of the radio shows “Dragnet” and “Amos & Andy.”<\/p>\n
I must have listened to about six episodes of each, before falling asleep, only to wake up and watch “21 Jump Street” on the airline’s movie channel.<\/p>\n
The last two hours, my back started to hurt and I was getting claustrophobic.<\/p>\n
The reason?<\/p>\n
United Airlines is communist and no longer takes American money!<\/p>\n
United Airlines only takes credit cards, and when they refused me a beer because I wanted to pay with American money, the sky waitress told me, “You are an American and don’t have a credit card? You are weird.”<\/p>\n
We landed in Munich without issues and I was able to chug down two real West German beers before the flight to Tirana.<\/p>\n
It was a 9:25 AM departure time – I thought that’s what time the flight was going to take off.<\/p>\n
Nope – I walked through the terminal, past the airplane that was at the gate, to be taken to a bus…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
… that drove us to the other side of the airport, to where the airplane was.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In under two hours, We landed at the airport in Tirana, Albania.<\/p>\n
There was a really hot chick sitting next to me the whole time.<\/p>\n
She spoke fluent English and Albanian, but lived in Germany; I’m not sure what her story is.<\/p>\n
Then it dawned on me – Holy shit! I’m in Albania!<\/p>\n
Another bus took us from the airplane to the terminal.<\/p>\n
I handed my passport to the lady at the entrance – she looked at me, looked at my passport, stamped it, and handed me the address to the U.S. Embassy. <\/p>\n
I grabbed my check in bag from the conveyor belt and walked to the end of the terminal.<\/p>\n
A big sign read “Customs.”<\/p>\n
One door was painted red, and lettered on it, it said, “Customs, things to declare.”<\/p>\n
The other door was painted green and said, “Customs, nothing to declare.”<\/p>\n
I went through the green door, following everyone else, and all of a sudden, I get mobbed by dozens of taxi drivers.. “Taxi?” “Taxi?” “Taxi?”<\/p>\n
That was Customs?<\/p>\n
I started walking to the bus stop, per my instructions.<\/p>\n
It was hot as hell, and the next bus wasn’t for another 40 minutes.<\/p>\n
The most determined of the taxi drivers got my business to drive me to my hotel.<\/p>\n
I was shocked as shit to see two cars – one with a New York and the other one with a New Jersey license plate on them, driving around in traffic, in Albania!<\/p>\n
The cab driver told me, “A lot of Albanians live abroad to work, but send their cars home to their families.”<\/p>\n
More on that later.<\/p>\n
After a short rest, I met my guide Idit.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We dined on traditional Albanian food – Beer, salad, “meat balls shaped like sausages” and bread.<\/p>\n
The spread for the bread was some concoction of olive oil, ricotta cheese, tomatoes and liver.<\/p>\n
It was really good!<\/p>\n
In Albania, the farmers are so poor, that they can’t afford pesticides; so by default, everything is organic.<\/p>\n
Idit showed me around downtown Tirana, and gave me careful instructions on how to cross streets.<\/p>\n
Basically, you wait for the green man to tell you to walk, but jump out of the way of any car that ignores this.<\/p>\n
Seriously, if there is a small gap in pedestrian traffic, a car will squeeze through.<\/p>\n
I only saw one beggar, but people selling roasted corn on mini grills or selling cigarettes or exchanging currency is common. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Idit had to explain to this man that I am an American “tourist” after taking this picture, and not a cop.<\/p>\n
Apparently, all this street activity is illegal.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Me with the Albanian flag and the statue of their national hero; notice that I’m trying to look like a European.<\/p>\n
There is so much more to write, but it must wait.<\/p>\n
We are headed to Porto Palermo by car today.<\/p>\n
Internet availability will be spotty.<\/p>\n
Thank God for Idit though, I would be clueless here without him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My long awaited trip to Albania is finally happening! After scrambling at work up until the time I left, I packed rather quickly. I was dropped off in Santa Monica, and partied with Professional Debriefer Paul until the bartender at TRiP threw us out. Paul dropped me off at the airport at 3:30 AM and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,9,31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}