Diary

MEXICO THREE: The Road to Tijuana

2010-12-13T15:11:00.002-05:00

BREAKING THE BOYCOTT... OR MYKEL SELLS OUT TO HIS EGO__ part 3
The Road To Tijuana

Quick recap: Despite a pledge to boycott Arizona because of it's ethnic cleansing law, Mykel agrees to go to that state as part of a tour of Mexico. Mexican fans have put together a cover band of Mykel's old tunes (previous band: ARTLESS) and invited him to sing. He'll tour with Cojoba, a Puerto Rican band he knows from New York.

Despite the worse case of jock itch he's ever had, Mykel, in his Fuck You Arizona t-shirt and combat boots, has boarded a plane for Phoenix. (His doctor warned him against those boots, but Mykel feels that ten days can't do much harm. he will be wrong.)

On the plane, Mykel sits next to a coughing/snot dripping yuppette. He immediately catches her disease. In Phoenix , Mykel meets up with Gilberto who he teaches to lie to get a car rental with a debit card.

Then on to Tucson.

As we start this entry, Mykel has made the trip to Tucson where he has stayed one night in Mexico-town with Güera ( bass player of the ARTLESS cover band: Sin Arte), her dog Mona, a big guy named Beef, the band Cojoba, and Ivan from La Merma, another band that will tour with Sin Arte.

The first show is in Tijuana, a long drive from Tuscon. And Tucson is where we start this story:

The plan is to get up at 8, hit the road by 9 and drive leisurely from Tucson to Tijuana.We can be at the show just at 8 when the first band will go on. It's the only show that Sin Arte won't play, but among the bands scheduled that night is SOLUCION MORTAL. A band I've known through mail correspondence for more than 20 years!! It's a reunion, and one I don't want to miss.

Up at 8? Who are you kidding? These are punk rockers... and MEXICANS (mostly). The only time they see 8AM is when they stay up for it. At about 9:30 we groggily make our way to the corner Tacqueria. Anna's. (Best tortillas in town, and that's not only my word.)

I try speaking Spanish to the owners of the place, but they answer me in English. Maybe they think I'm the Arizona secret police trying to entrap them into revealing their alien identities.

We order tacos and coffee and by 10:30 are back at Güera's and almost packed. Of course, tacos and coffee do what tacos and coffee do, so there is a line at the bathroom. Unfortunately, I'm last on line, and equally unfortunately I forget to bring my gasmask.

If I was starting to cough from my tubercular plane neighbor, I'm now near vomiting. And those spices! They're great going in, but coming out.... ¡Ay, caramba!

It's gonna be 12 hours from Tuscon to Tijuana...

“Hey Mykel,” breaks in Gilberto. “It doesn't take 12 hours from Tucson to Tijuana. It takes 7 hours... 8 if we have to wait at the border. Waddaya talking about?”

“It's the story,” I tell him. “It's gotta sound good or it'll be boring.”

“Don't worry,” he tells me. “It won't be boring.”

So at eleven AM we're off in Gilberto's Phoenix-rented van.

Before we leave, Donn, the Sin Arte drummer who is not making the trip, suggests stopping in Yuma.

“It's a weird little town,” he said. “You gotta go to Mr. G's. It's got the best refried beans in Arizona. You'll love 'em!"

From the best tortillas to the best refried beans. Okay, we'll see.

In the van, I DON'T get the hump. Being 5 foot 3 inches and... er... small boned, I ALWAYS get the hump.

This is a bit of luck that portends trouble ahead. I hate it when something good happens. It means something awful will happen later to make up for it. Not much goes on between Tuscon and Yuma except a bunch of cactus.

And some really weird mountains that look like God just piled a bunch of stones on top of each other until they were big enough to make a mountain... Then moved on to the next pile of stone.

Ray complains about the tight quarters and the long drive. He thinks things should have been better planned. It's his first tour, so he has yet to learn that every complaint, everything that goes wrong, every pain, fuck-up and annoyance is PUNK ROCK.

About three hours later we're at Mr. G's

It's not really too impressive: a drive in with a Pepsi sign bigger than the restaurant sign.

Inside is a long line waiting to be served. We are the only people here who wear less than a size 52 belt. Well, some of them don't wear belts.

One guy, gray crewcut, Diamondbacks t-shirt, wears his jeans so low he could be on a NY guy from the hood. Except, that those jeans have a belt. Pulled tight below his huge belly. He looks like a balloon tied at the bottom. I wonder if there's any circulation in his legs.

There are three menus on the wall and you can choose one. One of the others has expired and the third one... I don't get.

Ray doesn't look to happy with the exotic food: fish tacos, refried beans. All kinds of delights.

Ahead of us on line is a cop. In uniform, weighing in at about 300 pounds. The flab from under his chin hangs to his chest. His face is nearly hairless, like an adolescent's, though his body says he's in his late 30s. His right cheek sports a band-aid. But I can't imagine it came from a shaving accident. I can't imagine him shaving.

“So what's good?” I ask him.

He smiles... grins actually. Not a malicious, cop-like grin, but a real howdy stranger it's nice to meet you grin. It's infectious.

“It's all good,” he says. “This place used to be a little bitty place. But they's so good. They jus' expanded. Clean cross the road. Yessir, it's all good.”

“I heard about the refried beans,” I tell him. “They're famous.”

“Oh yeah,” he says, “get them. But the hamburgers. They got hamburgers here... Hoooeeey.” He clicks his tongue. “You get a wet mouth just thinkin; 'bout 'em.”

Ray orders a hamburger

I get a fish taco and, of course, the refried beans.

They are good. They look like my morning experience in the Tucson bathroom, but the taste! I don't know how they do it. Something about the pork fat or the chili. Wow! If I weren't boycotting Arizona, I'd eat this stuff. Ah, wait a minute, I AM eating this stuff. Ok, I feel guilty, but it is fuckin' good.

Ray is off in the fixin's corner with the cop. They're chatting up a storm. Ray's laughing. The cop's laughing.

They're old friends. The cop says bye to him... then to us... then walks out the door.

“What were you talking about?” I ask him. “You sure got along well.”

“He told me I look like Eddie Murphy,” says Ray. “I told him he looked like Andy Griffith.”

After Mr. G's we get back in the car and head for San Diego. There's more cactus. More rocks. Some pretty nice scenery. From Arizona we immigrate to California.

We have to stop at the gate while the uniformed people check us out, and maybe tear the car apart. They are looking for neither drugs nor Mexicans.

“Are you carrying any fruits or vegetables?” says the Agricultural officer at the border.

“No sir,” says Gilberto.

“Ok, you can go,” he says.

In San Diego we head for the airport. We have to return the car in the U.S., then figure out how we're going to get to Tijuana. First, we follow the signs for the airport. Then, we find that the car rental space is miles away from the airport. We hit the first airport sign just as we approach San Diego. Then there's a sign for CAR RENTAL RETURNS with an arrow pointing right. We turn right. Nothing. Just a long empty road for a mile or two. Then a tiny sign CAR RENTAL RETURNS with an arrow pointing left. We turn left. This right-left-right continues for miles. Finally we get to a large sign with an arrow straight ahead. (Actually it points up, but we assume it means straight ahead.) CAR RENTAL RETURNS THIS WAY. And here we come to a huge parking lot... several parking lots. Each rental company has it's own set of spaces.

“What's the name of the rental company?”asks Gilberto.

“How the fuck should I know?” I tell him.

“You rented the car.”

“Well, it started with A, I know that.” he says.

“Avis?”

He shakes his head.

“Alamo?”

Nope.

“It was Advantage,” he says with italics. “I think we passed it awhile ago.”

Once we find the place, there is no trouble returning the car, though we lied when we rented it. We (actually, Gilberto) did have to pay a drop-off fee, but that was expected. From the car rental office we take a van back to the airport. I ask the driver the best way to get to Tijuana.

“There's a cheap city trolley,” he says.“The Blue Line. It goes right to the border.”

“How do we get it?” I ask.

“Don't tell anyone I told you,” he says, “but if you take the Alamo van to the Alamo office, the trolley is right next to them. It's easy. You guys have bags. You look like you're going to rent a car. Just get in the Alamo van like you're customers. It's no problem.”

I thank the driver, then we get out of the Advantage van.

I explain the situation to the gang. We wait for the Alamo van. We don't have to wait long. When it pulls up, Gilberto goes in first.

“Does this van go to the Blue Line?” he asks.

The driver shakes his head. “This van is for Alamo customers only. Sorry. You'll have to take a taxi.” and he waits until we get out.

“What the fuck?” I yell at Gilberto after the van pulls away. “We've got 6 people and all that baggage. It'll cost a fortune to take a taxi.”

“I guess I fucked up,” he says. “But let's just wait here for the next Alamo bus.”

“Are you kidding?” I say. “It'll be who knows how long til the next bus. Besides, I know how this works. It'll be the same driver. You think he won't remember six Hispanic punkrockers with instruments... and me? We stick out like a chili pepper hemorrhoid. Come on, let's find a cab.”

Ray shakes his head. “This should have been better planned,” he said. “You had all this time. You could have arranged something in advance.”

“You're right,” I tell him.

“You're such an idiot.” I tell Gilberto. “We cudda been there by now, and you have to go spoil it by asking stupid questions. It's so obvious. We're gonna be late for the show in Tijuana. Are those guys gonna wait for us at the border if we show up at 8? The show starts at 8! What were you thinking?”

I'm on a roll.

“Don't you know when to keep quiet. Is that a Mexican thing...” you don't want to know the rest.

“It's punkrock.” He tells me.

So we wait. It's about fifteen minutes before the next Alamo bus shows up. It is NOT the same driver.

“Alamo car pick-up?” he asks.

“Yes,” I answer, giving Gilberto a little kick as we enter the van.

“Yo se. Yo se.” he says to me.

When we arrive at Alamo, Moe needs to relieve herself and rushes into the rental office to use the facilities. I tell the rest of the gang to wait outside (and scope out THE BLUE LINE) while I check on the rental. I walk inside.

“Can I help you?” asks a cheery young woman as I walk in the door.

“I want to check on a rental,” I say.

She motions to the counter and I walk up and ask the nice bespectacled lady if she has my reservation for a van for today.

“What's the name?” she asks.

“Diego Rivera,” I tell her.

I'm thrilled when it doesn't even raise an eyebrow. I've been dreaming about the day when this Latino thing would rub off on me. Once a Dominican friend told me I was an honorary Hispanic. But can I actually pass? That would be a dream come true.

“I'm sorry Mr. Rivera,” says the woman. “But I can't find your reservation...”

Just at this time, Moe comes out of the Ladies Room. I call to her.

“Honey,” I say, “there seems to be a problem with our reservation.”

She catches on immediately. Plays along like it was rehearsed. (What a woman!)

“See dear, I told you it wasn't Alamo," she says. " I'm pretty sure it was Avis.”

“Really, darling,” I say. “I think it was Alamo. But maybe we'd better check with the others outside.”

All this time, the woman behind the counter is smiling in sympathy with our predicament. I turn to her.

“This is a bit embarrassing,” I tell her.

“That's all right, honey,” she says. “You check and come back. Even if you don't have a reservation, we can help you.”

“You may be right, Frida,” I say to Moe, who takes me by the arm. We walk out. Meet up with the others (who've discovered where the trolley station is)... and head down the hill to that station.

Buying our tickets in a vending machine, we're on the trolley and at the border in no time. In order to get to Mexico, we have to cross a highway, then go through a maze of tunnels and bridges to immigration, dragging instruments and luggage all the way. Ray has his drum hardware, cymbals, and a huge suitcase. Moe has her guitar, and a smaller suitcase. Javier has his guitar and a backpack. Gilberto, Tainia, and I have backpacks only.

“You were great back there,” I tell Moe. “You go to acting school or what?”

She laughs. “Comes naturally,” she says.

We talk some more while we walk the maze to immigration. It turns out that both of us have new passports and we want them stamped at the border. We heard that some people just go through and don't get stamped. I know from experience, though, that if you ask for an immigration stamp, you'll get one.

As we walk, I notice that my boots are beginning to rub against my heel, like new shoes do. That's not supposed to happen. These are old boots. Not worn in awhile, but still old. Ah well, it's not so serious, and the walk is not long. We're going to meet our friends from VERBAL ABUSE just on the other side of the border. They'll be giving us a ride to the club. After all, this is Tijuana... the second most dangerous town in Mexico... and that's saying a lot. We're certainly not going to walk the streets without knowing where we're going.

After an interminable walk just through the immigration maze, we arrive at the customs area.

“Just tell them you're going in for one night.” says Gilberto. “We have our instruments because we are playing at someone's birthday party. Got that?”

We all nod.

“No problem,” I say.

So we get to the border. Gilberto leads the way. Most of the others crossing are Mexicans going home for the weekend. There are a few college students from San Diego looking to buy drugs or drink at 16. Our crew looks as suspicious as an airplane headed for the World Trade Center.

(Here's the band IN Tijuan.. Farinda was not with us at the border crossing... still pretty shady, huh?)

The path forks strangely on the other side of the bridge. By this time, I'm starting to limp because of the strange pressure of my boots against my heel and leg. Gilberto leads us along the right branch of the fork.

Of course, we're stopped by some guys in uniform. The guards ask Javier and Ray to open their bags. They look at the instruments and ask if we're going to be working in Mexico.

“Oh no,” Javier tells 'em in Spanish. “Our friend lives in Tijuana. We're just playing at her birthday party.”

He waves us through.

The rest of us pass easily, although along the march to the exit, we're required to push a button that lights up either green or red. It's supposed to be random, but I swear I see an agent's leg twitch at each press of the button. Like she's controlling the process.

Once inside the country, I remember that our passports weren't stamped.

“Let's get 'em stamped,” I say to Moe.

She agrees and since her Spanish is better than mine (born in The Bronx, but her family's from The Dominican Republic... which accounts for the WOW), she asks a man in uniform how we go about it.

The nice immigration agent points to the other side of the fork. Moe, carrying her guitar, and I walk over there.

We face a long line of windows. Through some we can see empty offices. Others have bored or eager-looking young bureaucrats behind them. We ask at one, the man behind it, pale-faced with a white shirt and loosened tie, points down to another. Then another. Finally we end up in an office.

Behind a desk sits a middle-aged guy. Glasses, thinning hair, he could work in any government office anywhere in the world. Moe does the talking. I understand about half of what she says. Trabajo (work) fiesta de cumpleaños (birthday party) no vamos a trabajar o tocar en un lugar público (we're not going to work or play in a public place)... you get the idea. It takes some time, but eventually he stamps our passports and wishes us a good time in Mexico.

We walk back to meet the others.

“There they are!” shouts Taina when she sees us emerge from around the corner.

“Where were you?” asks Ray. “We thought you were kidnapped by druglords. Jeezus. You just disappeared without telling anyone.”

“We were just talking with the officials,” I explain. “We wanted to get our passports stamped, but they gave us a lot of shit about working in Mexico and stuff like that.”

“You what?” says Gilberto. “Fuck! That's just what I wanted to avoid. First, we were worried about you. Second, we don't want them to have a record of us. That shit can stay with you. You're such an idiot.” He tells me. “We cudda been there by now, and you have to go spoil it by getting your passports stamped? It's so obvious. We're gonna be late for the show in Tijuana. Are those guys gonna wait for us at the border if we show up at 8? The show starts at 8! What were you thinking?”

He's on a roll.

“Don't you know when to just keep walking. Is that a gringo thing?...” you don't want to know the rest.

“It's punkrock.” I tell him.

--More later.

Mykel's homepage is here.

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MEXICO TWO: Viva la corrupción! (Long Live Corruption)

2010-12-10T10:52:00.007-05:00

VIVA CORRUPTION!

Man's need for rules and his propensity to follow them is equaled only by his desire to reject rules and be free of them. --Thomas Szasz

==========================

I meant to blog this trip chronologically, but certain events connect dots bigger than those connected by the simple scythe-carrying Chronos. Sometimes those events change the way you think. An epiphany, the Christians call it. A flash of insight that makes you realize something you've never considered before. Take corruption. I used to think it was a bad thing.

Here are three stories:

Guaymas: (Northern Mexicans don't like to pronounce G's when they start words. So the town is pronounced Why Mas? I say, Why not?) I wasn't exactly in the middle of this story there, but heard about it from Gilberto. Here's Story 1.

It's late. Sometime after the show. There are weird laws in Mexico. You're allowed to drink in the bar, but not in the attached music hall. After 10 you can drink anywhere. You can only buy beer retail until 9PM. After that you can only drink in a bar... until 10, when you can also drink in a music hall.

We'd just driven 15 or so hours to get to this town. From Tijuana. By now, beers were needed by all. While the early bands played, those of us not playing ran back and forth from the bar to the band area. I'll have some details of that show later. Sin Arte, the Mexican version of Artless, had to cancel. Ivan, the bass player, was evicted from his Arizona apartment that day, and had to move to Tuscon. It was gonna be our first show. Sad.

Some of us went out to stock up on booze before the stores closed. We hear there are a couple illegal places that sell after hours, but only Gilberto has the details.

I drank while Cojoba plays. Despite 38 seconds of sleep the night before, they played a good show. Also playing is one of my favorite bands in the world, VERBAL DESECRATION. I've probably already said it, but I'll say it again. Alan Jr., the singer, is one of the best performers in punk rock today. I could watch him all year.

Gilberto, who had driven the whole way, was enjoying beer number I can't count. I was racing back and forth from bar to stage, Gulping from a can of Tecate and then racing back to see the band. Suddenly, Gilberto disappears to buy some of that illegal late nite booze.

(On the left, you can see Gilberto with his RELAX GRINGO I'M LEGAL t-shirt with Taina, singer of Cojoba.)

When he returns, here's what he tells me:

He's driving along the streets of Guaymas, no idea where he's going. Completely sloshed, with a truck full of illegally bought beer. He' careening our pick-up truck right and left across the streets of the town which is pretty much shut up for the night.

Sure enough: AAAARRR RAAAAARRRR WOOOOWOOOOWOOOOWOOO.

The flashing red and blue lights in the rear-view mirror. Uh oh. The cop gets out, flashlight in hand. He's not a big guy, slightly chubby, a bit haggard looking. I'll translate the conversation for the gringos.

Cop: You know why I stopped you?

Gilberto: I...uh... I... who? Where am I?

Cop: I think you were maybe having something to drink? And you maybe were buying it after hours?

Gilberto: I... uh... huh?

Cop: You know, I've had a long night. Just give me money for a cup of coffee and then get out of here.

Gilberto hands him 20 pesos (about $1.80). The cop shakes his head, gets back in the cop car and takes off. Somehow Gilberto finds his way back to the club.

Story 2. We've just been to a beach near Guaymas. Only Ray actually went in the water. The rest of us just took our shoes off and played with the scorpions in the sand. We were with Sabo, aka The Buddha of Guaymas. He's a really fat guy whose nicknames for everyone catch on immediately. Ray is Michael Jordon. I'm Pinche Viejo Mariguano, (loosely translated: Old Stoner).

The waitress at a seaside restaurant is Verijas Lilas (Purple Snatch). On our only free day Sabo takes us on a tour of the area. He has his own pick-up truck. Moe and Ray ride inside, the rest of us in back.

Taina & Javiar in the back of the party truck.

What a glorious trip! Riding in the back of a pick-up. 6 people, among the cactus and desert. Mountains and sea. Downing can after can of Tecate. Wow! Did I feel Mexican! Here's a toast to Mexico and Mexicans! We all raise our cans to the passing cars. It's a steep road from the beach to the highway. It takes careful maneuvering, quiet, sober, thoughtful.

Then there's us. SLAP! Sabo hits the curb. We back up. BAALOO BAALOO! Some one leans on a horn behind us. We toast him too. We're off. Down hill. Seems like we're going pretty fast. Do the breaks work? SCREEEE!

BLAM! We're all thrown to the back of the truck. I manage to grab kind of lead pipe that keeps me from being flung over. I guess the breaks DO work.

BLAM, we hit the curb on the other side.

Careening through the street, toasting every cute chiquita and necktied businessman we see. Salud! Salud! (I try Potato Salud!) but nobody gets it. We all grab more beers. I don't know how they do it, but Mexicans have developed an endless sixpack, similar to the bottomless cup of coffee at IHOP. You take a beer out of the cardboard and there are still six beers left. It's magic! The beer just keeps coming.

Uh oh, we're suddenly in a land of strip malls, McDonalds, Walmarts. Did we cross the border and not even know it? We park in a parking lot. Sabo and Moe go into THE GENERIC GIANT SUPERMARKET to do some shopping. The rest of us wait in the lot, sitting in the back of the truck, continuing to exploit the endless sixpack. A car pulls up next to us. It's a black and white car, with lights on top. Uh oh.

Three cops get out. Two short ones, about my height. One taller with heavy jowls and a bad complexion.

Although Taina and Javiar both speak perfect Spanish, they are Puerto Rican and their accents would stand out like a hard-on in church. Gilberto, our only real Mexican, gets out to talk to the cops. He speaks to the big one. I translate.

Gilberto: Hello. Is there a problem?

Cop: You know there is a problem. You were all drinking. Where's the driver?

Gilberto: He went inside with a friend. They're going to buy groceries.

Cop: We can take you all to jail. If anyone is drinking in a car or drinking in public we have the right to take you to jail.

Gilberto: Come on. I'm Mexican. I know you can't do that.

Cop: Okay, you're right. But we can make trouble. We can wait for the driver and take him to jail.

Gilberto: I understand. How's a hundred pesos (about $9)?

The cop nods.

Gilberto hands him the money. The cops go on their way. And the party continues.

Story 3: Agua Prieta is a dusty Mexican town just across the border from Douglas Arizona... a dusty American town. It's where Gilberto's aunt and uncle live and it's now one of my favorite places in the world. According to Gilberto, it's controlled by the drug cartels, and all the fancy restaurants, bars and clubs in town are owned by them. Gilberto's uncle owns the best “non-drug cartel” restaurant in town. You'll read more about this amazing city in future entries. It's filled with colorful characters, a great strip club, and the world's only BURGER QUEEN.

Right now I need to introduce you to one of the local characters: Barichu. He's a tall handsome guy in his mid-20s. He wears a black leather jacket, is talkative, and notorious in this small town. His picture was on the front page of several local newspaper... under the headline: POSSESSED BY DRUGS? OR BY SATAN? The story tells how he started yelling at the police and as they surrounded him. He pulled out a plastic gun and shouted BANG! BANG! at them. In America he'd be dead.

Another paper talked about "Fire Arms Threat to Police" without mentioning (in the headline) that it was plastic:

In Mexico, he got beat up and thrown in jail for awhile. Check out the bandaged nose. Every cop in town knows the guy. He often suffers from black eyes and bloody noses.

One of the many other reasons I like him is he said to me “Mykel, tu eres una leyenda aquí.” A third reason is that he's known as “Sonora's GG Allin.” (Sonora is the Mexican state where this blog entry takes place.) One of his more notorious tricks was to pound dried dogshit into a powder... and snort it.

Here's a picture of me and Barichu in front of the strip club, Guau Guau, in Aqua Prieta.

So it's the middle of the night. We've been at the strip club (boy, THAT'S a story) finished a couple buckets of beer, seen... well you'll hear later. Right now we're piled in Gilberto's rent-a-car. He's driving. There's me and Barichu in the back, rolling a joint from a shoebox full of weed. Gilberto is in the front with Paige, a visiting friend from Boston, and another local guy whose name I can't remember.

The town looks deserted. Good thing too, as we're careening across the street, from side to side, like a stripper's hips against a pole. Up ahead is a red light.

“Go! Go!” shouts Barichu in Spanish. “There's no one around. Just go.”

“Er... I don't think that's a good idea,” I say. “Cops don't sleep at night. They may be looking for...”

Gilberto steps on the gas, ending me mid-sentence. FOOOOOOT. Right through the red light. And the next red light. And the next. Although it's physically impossible to drive both on the right and the left sides of the street simultaneously, Gilberto does it. I cover my eyes.

I do not cover my ears, however, and so hear the police sirens coming from behind us. I knew it.

We stop. Pull over. Lights flash in the rearview mirror. Gilberto gets out of the car. Jeezus, drunk driving, running three lights, speeding. It'll probably cost us $20 to get out of this one. Then Barichu gets out of the car.

I hear some yelling behind us. Some shouting. Lots of Spanish words I don't know. What sounds like boots stomping in mud. Suddenly a cop gets into the driver's seat of our car, the place vacated by Gilberto. He wears no hat, but he does wear a turtle neck sweater. Pulled up high, the turtle neck covers most of his face. Everything except the eyes. He looks like a giant uncircumcised penis... the glans just peeking through above the foreskin. With three of us in the car, he starts it and drives... somewhere.

“You're taking us home?” asks Paige.

Wishful thinking.

Without a word to us, the cop pulls over... somewhere. It's even more deserted than the already deserted center of town. He gets out of the car. A few seconds later, Gilberto gets in the car and kneels on the front seat.

“Barichu pissed them off. We got to get a thousand pesos together or we go to jail,” he says.

Barichu gets in the back seat. The rest of us pull out our wallets. I've got 300. The guy whose name I forget kicks in a couple hundred. Gilberto puts in what he has. Paige has no pesos, but throws in about thirty U.S. dollars. Barichu yells at all of us. he has no money.

Gilberto counts what we give him. Twice. “I think we got it.” he says. “Let's hope so.”

Barichu yells at him.

Outside, there is more talking. Barichu gets out of the car again. Uh oh, this is gonna do it. I'm gonna spend the night getting buttfucked by the Frito Bandito. But no. They got their money. They let us go.

Barichu and Gilberto get back in the car. Barichu says he wants to move to Boston where Gilberto lives because the cops here always beat him up. I tell him that in Boston he'd be dead. He doesn't believe me.

On the trip back to Gilberto's uncle's house, I think about corruption. Three times. In the U.S. each one would've landed us in the slammer. We'd have to spend days in court, probably get licenses taken away, have a criminal record, spend thousands on fines and lawyers fees, and what do the cops get for their work? Bubkas.

In Mexico, we're stopped by the cops three times. All for legitimate reasons. It costs us a total of around $60 dollars to get off. (I later found out that Gilberto gave the last cops only $50, telling 'em they weren't worth a hundred.) Every cent of that goes into a hard-working cop's pocket. We have no criminal records (at least not here in Mexico). No time in jail. That is corruption. And contrary to what I'd long thought, I now say.

VIVA LA CORRUPCIÓN!

MEXICO ONE: BREAKING THE BOYCOTT... OR MYKEL SELLS OUT TO HIS EGO

2010-11-27T23:17:00.002-05:00

BREAKING THE BOYCOTT... OR MYKEL SELLS OUT TO HIS EGO

Imagine twin clown noses tightly squeezed together. Glowing red, so bright they seem lit from within. Those are my balls. Worse case of jock itch I ever had. Jock itch. I hate that term. How about jungle rot? Crotch mildew? I donno. I've got so much fungus growing between my legs that every time I take a piss, the air smells like mushroom soup.

I read on the internet that something called tea tree oil will fix you right up. It comes from Australia and costs $20 for 4 ounces. It smells like Eucalyptus... Halls cough drops, Dr. Bonners... I try it. Hurts like hell.

It makes my balls redder than ever. The itch... the pain has spread to my legs, to the taint. Used to be I couldn't go a minute without thinking about my dick. Now it's my balls that provoke even less noble thoughts.

And we three... my balls and I... are on a plane to Phoenix of all places. But let's zoom out a bit to get some perspective.

I'm glad I already wrote a column in praise of hypocrisy. Here I am... the month after urging my surging fandom to boycott Arizona. Here I am, Mr. Vivan Los Chicanos. Here, I am, Mr. Ethnically Correct. Sitting on a back porch in Tucson, waiting till Mr. Beef finishes the steak on the backyard barbecue grill. Do I get points that this house belongs to a Mexican American? That it's in a Mexican neighborhood? That the whole purpose of being here is Mexico... not Arizona? I don't think so.

Not by way of excuse, but by way of ego boost, I'll tell you why I'm here.

“Hey Mykel,” writes Gilberto, “some of your Mexican fans want to put together a band, learn your songs, and then have you come down and sing with them. You'll tour Mexico with Cojoba (a Puerto Rican band). What do you think?”

What the fuck do you think I think? I'm so there!

“Umm...,” he continues, “a couple shows will be in Arizona.”

“I'm boycotting Arizona,” I tell him.

“You're with Mexicans, Puerto Ricans. It's okay,” he says.

I'm convinced.

So the tour will be Sin Arte (the Artless coverband), Cojoba, La Merma in a reunion tour, plus shows with other groups in other places. It'll last 10 days, 4 shows in Mexico and 2 in Arizona. Every band will be Mexican or have Mexicans in it... except Cojoba. And they are half Puerto Rican, and a quarter each American Negro and Dominican American. Gilberto will be the tourmeister, pay for the van rental, take care of our special needs. He's also invited me to his birthday party... with his family in Agua Prieta.

Juarez is the most dangerous city in Mexico. Numbers two and three are Tijuana and Nogales. My pal Ivan, who lives on the US side near the Nogales border was awakened one night by a hand grenade. I will not be going to Juarez. The rest, oh yeah!

I wear my Greetings To Arizona from Mexico t-shirt. It shows a sunset behind a cactus... the cactus giving the finger to the gringos across the border.

I wear the boots I gave up because of severe leg pains. I can't tour Mexico wearing Payless sneakers. It's gotta be combat boots. Only ten days, what harm could they do in that time? Yeah right.

Flash to now: Medium shot inside the plane, still on the ground in New York: Me, my red balls and my combat boots. There are only a few empty seats. One next to me. Pretty good luck, I think.

Then they let on the stand-by passengers. A 30-something blond wearing a business suit. Her expression so stern and her demeanor so I-Mean-Business, that I don't even look at her tits. She sits down, crosses her legs, pointing the top one away from me. Then she begins to dribble snot.

Coughing, sneezing, nose blowing. By the time the plane takes off there is a Berlin Wall of snotty tissue between me and her. Fuck, just what I need on the way to Mexico, some dorky gringa to make me sick.

When the plane lands in Phoenix, I load up on vitamin C, but it's too late. The cough has already started and there's more to come.

It's 3 hours in the airport until the others show up: Gilberto, the best thing to come from Mexico since Texas, Pamela, a cute little chicana whose got more balls than most guys and Ivan La Merma, a pal and the guy from Nogales who heard the grenade. They're coming from Spain via Boston.

A recorded voice comes through the airport speakers: Welcome to America's friendliest airport. The current terror alert level is orange. When you proceed to the gates, please be advised that all liquids must be in containers of no more than three ounces each. They must be placed in clear plastic bottles, sealed in a ziplock bag, and put separately in a tray. You will be subject to search at any time. Do not accept any gifts from strangers. Do not accept any ride offers from drivers inside the airport. The airport is equipped with surveillance cameras.... Welcome to America's friendliest...

Inside the airport are empty food concessions. A Starbucks. No. A McDonalds. No. I go to DICK CLARK'S for some too-expensive food and a beer to take care of my waiting time.

I remember Dick Clark's from a Michael Moore movie. Something about taking welfare mothers away from their babies. I can't recall the details.

When I walk in there is no one on the floor. A blond bartender is talking with the only customer, somebody commenting on the football game on the TV. I'm trying to get someone to help me, but there is no one. The place looks deserted.

Behind the cash register is a bored-looking white woman-- as bland as daytime TV. Blond, mid-40s, completely forgettable. I ask her if I should just take a seat.

“See that sign behind you?” she says, pointing with her thumb.

PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED it says.

Couldn't she just say, “I'll be happy to show you to your seat?”

Does she have to be an Arizona equivalent of Wassamatta you dumb?

She's the first of the Arizona White Girls. You'll hear more about them. One of 'em was elected governor. They are serious. They are nasty. I do not like them.

“Can I get you something to drink while you're waiting?” she asks when she shows me to my seat. I'm the only customer and it's 7PM. Maybe the boycott's working.

“I'll have a Sam Adams,” I tell her.

“Can I see your I.D.?” she says.

I'm 70 years old, pretty bald, with gray chin hair. I can only guess she wants to check my ID to make sure I'm not an illegal Mexican.

I show her my driver's license. She nods and leaves.

The beer is okay. The food is awful. Before long Gilberto, Ivan and Pamela arrive at the airport. I meet them at the baggage collection area. Gilberto and I go from there to the Phoenix car rental office. He hands his debit card to the woman behind the counter.

“Sorry,” she says. She's a white girl with a scrubbed face and an I'm gonna grow up to be Sara Palin smile.

“I see this is a one way rental,” she says, staring at Gilberto's RELAX GRINGO, I'M LEGAL t-shirt. “We can't rent one way to... I mean on... debit cards. Only real credit cards.”

“What do you mean...” starts Gilberto.

I kick him subtly.

“No, problem,” I say. “We'll bring it back here.”

He looks at me with wrinkled brow.

I flash a wink, then rub my eye like it's got something in it. The white girl takes the debit card.

As we walk to the parking lot and the 7 person van, Gilberto speaks.

“You mean, all you have to do is lie?” he asks.

I nod... Then cough... uh oh!

“You tell 'em what they want to hear,” I say. “It's like speaking to the cops. Yes officer. I realize I shouldn't have run that red light. My mother is in the hospital I was just trying to reach her before she sucks in her last breath of air. I panicked, but it was wrong and I know it. I'm sorry. Just tell 'em what they want to hear. They don't care about truth anymore than your girlfriend does when she asks How do I look?”

I don't know what happens to Ivan and Pamela. I guess they take her car. It's only Gilberto and me who drive the 2 hours to Tucson.

“This is the only Mexican neighborhood I know that's right downtown,” says Gilberto.

“I wonder why?” I ask. “Don't they have any pretentious white artists to move in and kick out the Mexicans? In any case, we'd better lock the car doors and turn on the alarm when we get out.”

He knows me well enough to laugh. Others in the neighborhood, it will turn out, do not.

When we arrive, Gwera meets us at the door. She looks like your typical Arizonan. Blonde, light skin, cute in a tough-looking country way. Weird that she lives in this Mexican neighborhood.

“Hi,” says I.

“Ola,” says she. She Mexican.

Also at the door is Mona. Mona doesn't bother with the formalities. She's all over me. Passionately kissing me, right from the start. Just on me, like a dog in heat. In fact, she is a dog in heat. And she's shedding like a rattlesnake in the sun.

Then comes a rumble, a shake. Do they have earthquakes in Arizona? No. It's just the train passing. Right outside the front door. So THAT'S why the Mexican neighborhood is right downtown. It's next to the tracks!

On Gwera's back porch is Ivan, and this huge white guy with jet black hair combed Elvis style... Presley not Costello.

Ivan and I hug. The huge guy is broiling some meat on a tiny barbecue. Smells good.

“I'm Beef,” says the huge guy, shaking my hand.

I don't get it, but figure it must be Mexican-Arizona dialect that means I'm cooking beef.

“I'm hungry.” I say. “All I ate today was Dick... Clark.”

Then I cough some more-- God's punishment for breaking my boycott Arizona pledge. The bitch-goddess pays me back for my hypocrisy. After three hours next to the sick blonde on the plane, I've suddenly got a cough--- and I'm starting to drip snot myself. Are my glands swollen or am I happy to see you?

Beef takes the beef from the grill, carrying the hot meat in the aluminum foil it was cooked in. He does not offer it to me, but takes it past all of us into the kitchen. There, he delicately cuts the pieces, seasons them, rolls them into soft flour tortillas, and hands them to us: me, Gwera, Ivan, and Gilberto.

“Here you are,” he says with more than a touch of modesty. “I really hope you like them.”

They're delicious. Such a big guy, but such a good cook, and so delicate with the spices. Such a meek and modest guy.

The next time I see him, he'll be pouring a drink over a white girl's head. He becomes one of two white guys I like on this trip.

Cojoba shows up: Taina, the singer and personality of the band, Javiar, boyfriend of Taina, guitar player and Hell's Angeles wannabe... long hair and a headscarf (they're both GG Allin fans), semen-inducing Moe, bass player and Dominican American, and Ray, the black drummer born in the USA. It's his first time on tour.

(At Gwerna's house l to r: in back: Mykel, Ivan, Moe, Javiar, Gilberto. In front Taina, Mona)

Those guys brought their sleeping bags. Me? I sleep on a mattress on the floor, covered with dog hair. Soon, I'm also covered with dog.

My cough gets worse during the night. And we have to leave tomorrow and drive all night to reach the show in Tijuana.

(By the way, the U.S. government has issued a travelers advisory against visiting Tijuana.)

It's the only Mexican show Sin Arte is not scheduled to play, and we have to drive 16 hours to get there. But that's grist for the next blog entry.

The Yellow Chili Pepper or Project Nice Mexicans

2010-10-31T16:37:00.000-05:00

The Yellow Chili Pepper or Project Nice Mexicans

The critics of Arizona's tough anti-illegal immigrant law is that it encourages racism and racial profiling. The law requires law enforcement officers to stop and question all suspected illegals. If a person is found to be without documentation, they are arrested and after some time in the refrigerador, deported to Mexico.

Critics of this law have two main points. First, that the law encourages discrimination and racial profiling. After all, how would you suspect illegal immigrants if it weren't for a Hispanic look or accent? The law makes all Arizona Hispanics a target for stop and ID checks, whether they are legal or not.

The second criticism is on the entire concept of illegal aliens. In the early years of this country, anyone who chose to enter could do so. There were no illegal immigration, people just came. In short order, it became obvious that the new immigrants weren't as nice and law abiding as the older ones. The government began passing laws.

Franklin Roosevelt, for example, was famous for turning away a boatload of Jewish immigrants. Those illegals attempted to flee to the United States from Germany in the months before World War II. They had no papers. Pow! Back to Germany!

American history is filled with other examples of racial and religious quotas, defining who is and who isn't legal. The morality of these laws is the topic for philosophers and historians. It does not concern us here. The law is, after all, the law.

In order to mitigate the racial criticism, however, Arizona has created a new system to identify illegals. Those here legally would not be subject to random ID checks, and possible mistaken deportation. Arizona calls the system: Project Nice Mexicans. And it works like this:

Legal Mexicans (those with citizenship or other documentation) must register with the state government. When they do so, they will receive a yellow chili pepper, registered to their name. These legals then sew the chili pepper onto their clothes, identifying themselves as legal immigrants. The police know that no matter how sinister or foreign someone looks, if he's wearing a yellow chili pepper, he's legal.

Each chili pepper will be numbered and registered. No need to scan for race or listen for Heeez instead of his or to look for swarthiness.

Arizona is proud of its good Mexicans. Many of them can even speak English. They are religious, family oriented people, who work as hard as any real America. Project Nice Mexicans will identify those people, making the job of the police... that is identifying the bad Mexicans... so much easier.

Below, we can see some nice Mexicans taking a break from a day on the farm. They are all studying English. Some of them hope to be citizens some day, proudly showing an AMERICAN passport when they go to visit their families on the other side.

========================

The are the BAD Mexicans. See how they cluster at the fence? Could you imagine how over-run we'd be if we just open the gates and let them in? But... consider that hole on the bottom of the fence. Someone small could slip through. The illegal child of a legal, for example. And, once in, how do we find them? It's easy if we use the YELLOW CHILI PEPPER. That's why we do it.

Albania 22: Ode to Italy

2009-11-30T12:44:00.003-05:00

"We must remember that we are vulnerable to the repetition of our insights so that they tend to come to us not as confirmation of something we already know but as genuine discoveries each and every time.” – E.L. Doctorow

So, I got little sleep in Naples. On the floor in the bedroom of an office with a roommate near death's door with some kind of contagious glandular disease... He sleeps constantly-- when he's not rasping for some drug or other. I can never do anything in that room for fear of disturbing him. I can't even turn on the lights.

I try to stay away all day. Museums, castles, the myriad bookstores and bookstalls of Naples. But I feel like I'm walking in circles. I even call my dentist to schedule an appointment to reattach my gold inlay. Remember? It pulled loose the third night in Albania. I put it in an empty Zyrtec case, and stuffed it between the condoms in my wallet. It sure as hell won't be disturbed there.

I want to go out at night. I've got a couch-surfing host, Fabio, who took me out my first night in town. We went to bars, clubs, met people. Since then, I've hardly seen him. He's not even my official host. He's the friend of my host, Maurizio, who I saw on that first night and haven't seen since. That guy never answers his phone, and when I text him, he calls Fabio instead of me.

Tomorrow I'm going to have to move to a hostel. A girl is coming to stay and she has priority. I wonder if Fabio will put my roommate's moribund body on the street. It's been raining on and off (mostly on) since I got here, fitting weather for my mood in this country.

Is that tingle in my throat psychosomatic or the start of an even more fitting end to fucking Italy?

[NOTE: I do not want to disparage Fabio. He is as good as the circumstances permitted. He tries hard. It's just not in the cards.]

Ah well, I have my backpack protector chain link with cable, so a move to a hostel won't be so bad. As it turns out, (the ONLY (good) luck I have in Italy) the expected girl-guest calls to tell Fabio that she'll be a day late. I can stay another night in the deadly disease ward.

Maybe I can go out with my new friends. Meet that sexy Luxembourg girl again. Go drinking in the bars for my last night in Naples. Yeah right.

Fabio is visiting Mom and I'm on my own. But before I leave, he's gonna call this American girl, Jeanne, who is also traveling to Rome tomorrow. That way, I'll have company.

He gives her a call and turns the phone over to me. I usually keep away from Americans when I travel, but since I've made NO friends here in Italy... even an American is better than nothing. We agree to meet at the train station, in front of the ticket booth, 45 minutes before the train leaves. She tells me she'll be wearing a black leather jacket (always a good sign!). I tell her I look like Dick Tracy.

[NOTE 2: Lately I usually use “Inspector Gadget” rather than Dick Tracy. Seem like more people know who he is these days. But Jeane seems to me like a Dick Tracy kinda girl.]

That night, before I lay down the mattress on the floor of the leper's room, I look one last time at the gold bit of dentistry in my wallet.

It is gone.

Disappeared.

That's at least a thousand dollars. Poof.

Impossible. Never touched. Even if it fell out of my wallet, it couldn't be missed. It's just disappeared in the morass that is Italy. I know it's unfair to blame the country for the disappearance, but I do.

The next morning, Fabio comes early to make me coffee and say good-bye. Then I'm off to the subway and the train station. It takes me a full quarter hour to navigate the labyrinthine station asking several times for biglietti, and getting a different answer each time. I reach the ticket window about 10 minutes late. It doesn't matter, because Jeanne is half an hour later.

So we meet, buy tickets, run for the train. We make it. Are we on time? No. But the train is even later than we are.

I chain my bags to the seat and sit opposite Jeanne. There are two seats on each side of the aisle. Jeanne and I face each other with a table in the middle. Next to each of us is an Italian female. Both pretty. One completely is lost in her cellphone texting, the other in her iPod.

Jeanne and I talk. I ask her how she knows Fabio. She tells me she's a couch-surfer who originally stayed there, but left because the man had roaming hands.

“I thought I was beyond that stage,” she says. “I figured men would just see me like a mother. Which I am... did I tell you my daughter lives in New York?... But he was just... Italian. I don't know. But I couldn't stay there.”

I tsk-tsk properly. Then change the subject slightly.

“I don't know where I'll be staying in Rome,” I tell her. “I contacted several couch surfers there, but I got form rejections... or no answers at all.”

[Note 3: Rome is where I first ran into the STROKE ME couch-surfers. This is a group of people who want poor couch-surfing travelers to read through their profiles carefully, and refer to something in it, before sending a request to stay on the couch. They want to be stroked.

Gee, you're a 60 year old punk rocker who's written two books? What a coincidence. So am I!

I can only imagine these egotists have never had to contact dozens of hosts themselves. Sometimes, you have to send out scores of requests for one positive answer. Can you imagine having to read each profile before writing and then being rejected? It could take hours! It's easier to find a hostel!

And in Rome, it seems like all the hosts are males. All the guests leaving RAVE reviews for those hosts, are females.]

“I'm staying at a hostel,” Jeanne tells me. “It's called THE BEEHIVE. It's fifteen euros a night in the dorm room. Maybe they'll have space for you.”

“Sure,” I tell her. “I can stay in a dorm one night. My bag locks with a steel cable.”

She laughs.

When we get out of the train, she follows some computer directions to the dorm. We find it quite easily. They have space for me, they say. But not in a dorm room. I have to take a private room with two beds. I have to pay for both beds. 70€ a night.

That's more than I paid the kidnapper in Albania! And this room doesn't even have a toilet or shower. Just a sink to piss in.

Fuck it! It's one night. My last in this fuckin' country. I'll take it.

I set my phone to wake me up at 6 AM to catch the train to the plane. I go to bed at 9, wake up mysteriously at 12:30, then switch beds to get my money's worth. Then, I get up at 6, piss in the sink, and head for the airport.

Ok, it's time to go through security, my least favorite activity in one of my least favorite locations (an airport) in one of my least favorite countries (except Torino).

I take off my coat, my shoes, empty my pockets, take the computer out of its bag, take off my belt, heft my steel cable-protected bag onto the x-ray conveyor. I walk through the metal detector. It beeps.

“Spread your arms and legs,” says the uniformed man on the other end. He runs the electronic paddle over my body finding the gold inlay in my back pocket. Yeah right.

Actually, it's a one lek coin, left over from the Albanian part of this trip.

From the x-ray machine, I go through immigration. They stamp my passport; then on to a final customs inspection. Uh oh, I get the female.

MYKEL'S TRAVEL LAW NUMBER 431: Female customs officers are always trouble.

She's looking at my bag. She holds the metal that protects it. With obvious pride, she calls over an older male colleague. She points to the cable and then motions to her neck, like she was hanging herself. (I only wish she had.) The man nods and she turns to me

“You cannot take this,” she says. “You have to send this bag.”

Send? I think. How the fuck can I send it? This is just too much. I hate Italy. I hate Italy. I hate Italy.

I find myself saying it out loud. Feeling the rage bubble up inside. I fish for the key. Unlock the cable. Pull it off the protector and its cable.

“Take it!” I say. “I'll leave it here. Just take it! I only want to get out of here.”

I throw it onto her desk. She talks with the inspector and tells him I'm leaving the cable here. He seems surprised. Then the woman gets out her gunpowder testing kit, rubs some on a pad, rubs my bag with the pad, and feeds it to the testing machine. Much to her annoyance, it comes back negative.

I'm at the gate, waiting, an hour early. Every 5 minutes the public address system announces another gate change. It seems as if no planes ever leave from their scheduled locations. Mine is no exception. Before changing gates, I go to the restaurant counter for my last Italian meal. It is one of those pressed sandwiches. This one is slightly warm on the outside. Inside, it's as cold as the refrigerator it was kept in.

It doesn't matter if the plane leaves late. I have a five hour layover in Amsterdam. It does matter that, at the gate, there's another security check. Temper (barely) in check, I go through the gate and board the plane.

While flying to Holland, I compose bad poetry:

Ah Italy, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.

I hate thee for thy

Train waiting room passport checks

Phone calls not returned

Lying ticket agents

Luggage security stolen by airport security

Seventy Euro hostel rooms with no toilets

Cars that don't stop at crosswalks

Drive-by shaving-cream attacks

Penises of Pompeii without signs to them

Grilled cheese and a Fanta for 10 Euros

Being the place I discovered my gold inlay went missing

Rooming with a leper

Having more tourists than natives

Having beggars who, when you give them something, ask for more

Closed ticket windows with use machine signs, next to machines that give error messages see clerk at ticket window

Roman couch surfers who want to be individually stroked

Male couch-surfing hosts whose guests are only females

Airport change-of-gate announcements every 5 minutes

Airport and plane waiting rooms without electrical sockets

Africans afraid of being photographed

Citizens who ignore calls of Help! Police!

Pressed sandwiches, ice cold on the inside

Promises of nights out on the town, beer and bars... only promises

Vesuvius, what are you waiting for?

========================================

NOTES: Below are some notes from this trip that I forgot to include in the original posts

-->I'm guessing the cellphone quality is really bad in Albania, though Jim Ballushi does a commercial for, EAGLE, one of their cellphone companies.

People yell into the phones as if their voices have to carry directly to the listener, without the intermediary of microwaves. Or maybe, as if the receiver lived in on the top floor of the building on the other side of the street from the phone, and the caller had to speak directly to him, from the street.

--> In the bus from Berati to Tirana, my window is fogged... it looks permanent. I can only make out impressionistic views of the countryside. For the passengers in front of me, the glass is perfect. The glass is always cleaner on the other side of the seat.

-->Unused first line for something I haven't written yet: I think the trouble started when Plato refused to have sex with Socrates.

-->“A computer is not an instrument.” --Andi in Tirana

-> De të të vras o të qifsha nonën! (Albanian for: I want to kill you you mother fucker.)

-->When you travel, you always see foreign versions of people you know, or famous people. I've already seen the Albanian version of my sister. Today, I saw the Albanian Jack Nicholson. Too bad it's dangerous to just pull out a camera and shoot. I learned that lesson in Italy.

-->Fancy restaurants in Albania do not have Albanian beer, though they might have Budweiser. The usual choice is Heiniken, Becks, or Stella.

--> I don't see people pissing in the streets in Albania. Despite all the coffee... despite all the bars... despite the high numbers of … er... older gentlemen...despite the crazies. I haven't seen one street pisser... or even smelled the remains of one (other than me).

-->I really like the way Albanian adolescent guys show friendship. The casually walk with their arms around each other's shoulders. They'll touch each other in conversation. They'll even walk arm-in-arm. In individuality America, they'd be asking for a homo-baiting. But here, it's as natural as kicking a rock.

--> Tired of the child beggars, in Italy, I finally see an old woman to give change to. I give her 30 cents. That's more than I give the bums in New York. She asks for still more. It triggers THE RAGE.

I want my money back! You ungrateful bitch!

The reason you give money is to feel good. To get thank yous!! Asking for more spoils the whole thing. What's the matter with you!

--> Albanian and Italian souvlakis have french fries and mayonnaise in them. It's part of the dish. The locals expect it. Weird, huh?

-end-

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Albania 21: Naples and Pompeii

2009-11-14T20:16:00.007-05:00

"That's what moving about, traveling, is; it's this inexorable glimpse of existence as it really is during those few lucid hours, so exceptional in the span of human time, when you are leaving the customs of the last country behind you and the other new ones have not yet got their hold on you.” --Celine

I'm writing this, in the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. Right now, I've got 2 hours until boarding time. I expect there will be a last minute gate change... they're continually announcing them. The gate change will make me late for the flight, even though I've been here 5 hours, already. Through the public address system, I hear a new gate announcement every few seconds. I'm waiting for mine...

*****

It's now an hour after the flight should have left. There's no action at the gate. (Yes, it was changed.) The curse did not remain in Italy. It follows me to the end of the trip. What will yet happen at the NEXT security check? Customs? I expect to get home at two or three in the morning. I'm sure there'll be no ground transportation. Maybe I can get a SuperShuttle. That's probably best. Naw, they won't be running at that hour. Will my key work in my apartment door?

I'm losing computer battery power, and there are no sockets here. I don't understand how my fellow passengers can take it so well. I guess they didn't start at 6 in the morning... from Rome.

***

Backtrack: I'm in Bari, waiting to get on the train to Naples (not Naples, exactly... There is no train from Bari to Naples. The guy at the train station sold me a ticket to Benevento. From there, I need to get out of the train and buy another ticket to Naples. I have an hour wait in Benevento, said the ticket seller. Plenty of time to buy another ticket. He lied.)

Now, on the train, I text Maurizio, not the Tirana one, but the Italian couch-surfer who responded maybe to my request to stay at his place in Naples. He wrote: Even if I can't host you I can help you find a place and see something of this crazy town.

I text him that I'll be in Naples around 5:30 and ask him if he's free. I actually talked to him once. Texted, several times. Called several times. No answers to texts. One answer to the call. Since then, nothing. Still, I figure it's better to try. Even though things won't work out.

The train arrives in Benevento at 4:10. Only ten minutes after the scheduled time. In Italy, that's on time-- or maybe early. So I leave the train and run to the ticket office. There are half a dozen windows, all over them closed. There is a sign in one of them. It says something in Italian. Under that, it says, in English, Windows closed. Use machine. <-------

There is a small line at the machine. While waiting, I look at the schedule to confirm the leaving times. Next train to Naples: 4:25. Next after that: 7:30. Where's the 5:00 train the ticket seller told me about. Oh, there it is. It doesn't run on Sundays. Today is Sunday.

I get to the machine at 4:15. I can still make it. It looks pretty advanced. It even has an UNION JACK flag that you touch and it gives you (a kind of) English.

I tell it that I want to leave on the next train. (I still have 5 minutes.) It asks how many passengers. I press ONE. It asks if I want to buy the ticket. I press YES. It flashes TRANSACTION NOT AVAILABLE. PLEASE SEE AGENT AT WINDOW.

Ok, I pressed a wrong button somewhere. I hear the train pull into the station. I push the Union Jack. I push the Naples. I push the number one. I push the YES! It flashes TRANSACTION NOT AVAILABLE. PLEASE SEE AGENT AT WINDOW.

“You fucker!” I yell at it. “I'm only using you because I CAN'T see the agent at the window!”

The line has grown rather large by now. I ask the guy behind me if he speaks English.

“Un po,” he says.

I explain the problem. He says he'll try in for me. He does it in Italian and gets the same mystery message. He shakes his head. Tries again and then shrugs.

“You should go to the café there,” he says pointing. “You can buy a ticket there.”

Of course. Why didn't I think of that? The window signs say USE THE MACHINE, WINDOW CLOSED. And the machine says SEE WINDOW AGENT. All you have to do is see the cashier by the espresso machine. How could I be so stupid and not have guessed that?

The train pulls out of the station.

I buy my ticket from the lady selling water and croissants. While waiting, I sit down and text Maurizio: Train trouble, will be there around 8.

After a long wait, I get on the train, arrive in Naples, switch to the subway as Maurizio explained, go one stop. And there at the station is Maurizio waiting for me. Yeah, right.

Actually, though, it's only a few minutes. In the middle of another text message, he shows up with his friend, Fabio. We shake hands.

“Mykel,” says Fabio, “welcome to Naples. You can stay right near here. In my office... like an office... for two nights. Then, I have another guest coming. But we found a hostel for you. Sixteen Euros.”

That's okay. I can stay in a hostel for one night. I've got my trusty steel cable bag guard, so my computer and the rest will be safe. “That's fine,” I say. “Gracie.”

So we go to “the office.” It's like an apartment that's been converted into an office. There's a bathroom, with a bathtub, toilet, sink... and bidet, with a single dingleberry hanging on to the edge by a hair ...a kitchen, and a bedroom. The bedroom has a double bed in it. In the middle of the double bed is a long black lump, like a huge dog turd.

“You will sleep here,” says Fabio. “You can either share that large bed, or we can put a mattress on the floor....

He looks at the lump on the bed.

“That's Jonathan,” says Fabio. “He's an English couch surfer, who suddenly became sick. He hasn't left this room in days. He's just too ill.”

“I'll take the floor,” I say.

So, I'm be sharing a sickroom with a leper... or at least a swine flu victim. Just what I deserve, huh?

That first night in Naples, though, is fun. We go for pizza (of course). We go bar-hopping. I meet Oli, a boistrous young woman and my first person from Luxembourg. The guys promise to go out with me again the next two nights. More bars. It'll be a great team, me, Maurizio, and Fabio. Finally, some spice in my Italian life. Yeah, right.

That first night. That's it. That's all there is.

Maurizio doesn't want to come out in the rain the next night. Fabio takes me for fried pizza (not bad), and then leaves me with a take-home box for breakfast. The next day, I text Maurizio: Yo! I hope we can meet up before I leave tomorrow. Call Fabio.

He calls. He can't go out. He has to stay home with his mom. Fabio also is gonna see his mom. Sorry, Mykel, you're on your own.

I go out to an experimental film festival. I picked up a brochure about it at the Italian tourist bureau. Ah, Italian experimental film. There'll be some naked bodies in those, I bet. The Italians like naked bodies.

The festival is in the back of an alley near Piazza Dante. It's on the second floor of an art gallery, probably in the ninth circle, someplace. Admission is free and there are about 30 seats. The “films” are actually projected video, but I guess they all are these days.

The first one is animation. There is a woman's body attached to some tubes. Some dots move along the tubes. Electronic music plays in the background. That's the film.

The next film is a close-up of a young woman with a bad complexion. Just her face, balancing a sugar cube on her nose. When the cube falls, she tries to catch it in her mouth. She misses. This happens five times. Finally she catches it, and eats it. That's the film.

Next, we see a naked foot. It rests on a linoleum floor. Slowly, the foot rises, the arch flattens, the foot rises higher until it stands on its toes. That's the film.

The next movie is a close-up (waist to mid-thigh) of a woman wearing a somewhat shlubby blouse and loose black skirt. She sits down. Then the film jerks to a stop. DISC ERROR it says on the screen. The message stays for a few seconds. Then we see a naked foot. It begins to rise. DISC ERROR. We see a black skirt. It sits down. DISC ERROR.

Next movie: a guy and a girl, both 20-something, not particularly attractive, run in the snow. They are wearing clothes. Lots of them. Ski gear, without the skis. They slide around and drag each other across the ice. That's the end of the show.

I leave the theater. It's raining out, as it often is when you leave a theater.

I go back to Fabio's. Steven is up. He rests on one arm in bed. His face is eerily lit by the screen of his Apple notebook.

“Myyyykeeeeeeeel,” he gasps, horse as Mr. Ed. “Did you see a pharmacy out there?”

“I saw many,” I tell him.

“Could you get me some ibuprofen and some declemarinka” (That's not really the name of the drug, but I can't remember what it was. Something extremely pharmaceutical-sounding.) He speaks in a hoarse painful whisper.

Then, he writes down the drug names on a slip of paper and fishes ten euros out of his pocket.

I'm reluctant to touch that money, fearing I'll be next when that ferryboat driver comes to bring him across the river Stix. Finally though, I take it and walk out into the rain.

Few people are about. One woman hurries past me, running, like the shaving-cream terrorists who attacked me yesterday, before I can ask her anything. A fat man with an umbrella comes toward me. I corral him.

“Farmacia. Farmacia. Dove?” I ask.

“No capisco,” he says, shaking his head. Then he gets it. Farmacia! Farmacia!

“Si si,” I say.

He points straight ahead; then moves his hand back and forth like it's miles.

I walk about a half a mile. During that time I ask again... and again. It's always straight ahead... or some answer I don't understand. I walk another half a mile. Then I give up. Soaked and cold, I walk back. Empty handed and drenched, it won't be long now before I need some declemarinka myself.

“Sorry,” I say when I get back, shaking myself like the wet dog I am. “I walked a mile. Couldn't find a pharmacy...” I fumble through my knapsack. “Here,” I say, pulling out some of the pills I bought in Albania. “Have some aspirin.”

“I called my girlfriend,” whispers Jonathan. “She says not to take aspirin and ibuprofen together.”

Then he shuts the lights out.

I get up at 7 AM the next day. I decided the night before that if the weather is nice, I'll go to Pompeii. Even though I hate Italy, I shouldn't be cutting off my balls to spite my dick. Pompeii is one of those places you have to go to in your life. I didn't even know it was close to Naples until I saw all the books about it in the tourist shops, and local bookstores.

[Note: I have to give Naples credit. They have bookstores. Book stalls. Book booths. They have places to buy books like Albania has places to buy coffee. Every third shop is a bookstore. I bought a book for one Euro. I have no idea what it is, but it looks cool.]

Yesterday, I saw Mount Vesuvius... from yet another castle. I stopped for lunch on the way. A half-size can of Fanta (not as good as Albanian), and a thin grilled cheese sandwich. Ten Euros!! Ah, it's the gringo tax. Pisses me off, but that's travel biz-- everywhere.

Anyway, the castle (called the Egg Castle for some reason), houses some offices, and art galleries. It's strange. You walk into this ancient building, and there are guys at work, wearing ties, pushing paper around.

In the distance, is a cloud-covered mountain, that looks like it could be steaming. That is, it could be making the clouds that are covering it.

That must be Vesuvius, I think and take a picture.

Later, Fabio confirms I'm right.

[Oh yeah, I should mention a nice visit to the local synagogue, a Sephardic shule. Fabio brought me there. I would have never found it... tucked away in a courtyard in the rich part of town, by the castle.

Fabio says, “Of course it's here. Jews are rich.”

I ask him for my cut. He doesn't get it.

The caretaker, the only person here, gives me the tour. He tells me it's the only synagogue in Southern Italy. They have about 180 members: mostly old people, without so much money. The synagogue was founded by the Rothschilds. They had money.

My guide tells me that now, most of the money for the place comes from the Italian government which gives financial support to various religions. Not a very American idea... though, unfortunately, that is changing here.

He tells me lots of interesting things about the Italian Jewish community. One of them is about the city of Trani (Wow! Could you imagine living in a city called Trani? Could you imagine going out with a Trani tranny?) That city has is a community of Jews that has festivals, a monthly magazine, a regular active community. There are 18 Jews in the city. There are no synagogues.

“How come there aren't 19 synagogues?” I don't ask. “One for the religious variations of each Jew, and one that none of them would ever set foot in again if you paid me!”

(Sorry, it's old joke that the goyim won't get, I'm afraid.)

Anyway, I got a copy of the Trani Jews magazine, a few leaflets about Jews in Italy, and a nice calender. I was never asked for money. So much for the Jews and money myth.]

Back to today: If it's nice, I'll go to Pompeii. If it's raining, I'll hit the museums. Weather report is rain. But at 7AM, it's a beautiful day.

So I'm off to Pompeii. Fabio gave me directions. It's a Metro to the main station. Then a regular train to Pompeii. From track three... It's easy. Yeah, right.

Track three is deserted, except for a young American couple who must've just started their European journey. All-American looking. Clean cut, the guy looks like a young Dave Matthews. The girl is slightly more exotic, with a touch of henna in her bobbed hair.

They're lovey dovey. They talk to me, then stop to gaze longingly in each other's eyes. It's a good thing I haven't eaten yet.

“We're from San Diego,” they tell me. “I heard the Pompeii train leaves from here.”

“I heard that too,” I tell them. “I can can't find it on the timetable though.”

The young guy does. We're on the wrong track.

We've got three minutes to catch the train on track one.

We race up the stairs, over to Track One, just as the train is pulling into the station. The guy and his girlfriend are ready to board, but I've been in Italy long enough to know better. (Almost two and a half days, by now.)

“Wait,” I tell them, walking over to the engine and speaking to the guy sitting in it.

“Pompeii?” I ask.

He says something that I don't understand. But it's definitely NOT Pompeii. We don't get on the train.

In about 10 minutes, the train pulls out. Another comes into the station. For some reason, the Americans seem shy about asking if it's the right train. I don't get it. It's not like you need to speak Italian to say Pompeii.

I ask.

The second train goes to somewhere else I don't understand. But it's not Pompeii. The third train doesn't go there either. The fourth does... I think. At least the engineer nods when I say Pompeii? I hope he's not Albanian. (Remember? In Albania a nod means NO!)

We get on the train.

During the trip, we talk jobs. I tell him I'm a teacher, writer, the usual. The guy says he's a musician, in a band.

“We sound like Dave Matthews,” he tells me.

We talk travel. They're on some cruise. This is a port of call. All they do is eat, they say.

“We call it THE FAT CAMP,” says the girl.

We talk about Italy. They say it's their first trip to the country. I say the last time I was here before this trip was 1998.

“I was in elementary school,” says the girl.

“Yeah, well....” says I.

When we get to Pompeii, we share a cab to the old ruins. After the cab-ride, before entering the ruins, we stop at a food stand. They buy some water. Me, I'm hungry. I order a melted cheese sandwich.

“We'll meet you by the entrance,” says the guy.

It takes awhile for the cheese to melt. When I finally get the sandwich and pay my 11 Euros to get in, I realize I've been ditched.

So I'm on my own in the ruins of Pompeii. It's a huge place. After all, it used to be a city.

There are several gates in what used to be the city walls. As I step through the one closest to the ticket booth, it begins to rain.

Already worried about my health (rooming with the leper, out in the rain in the cold last night), I find myself depressed. Besides, I'm walking through a city where everybody was killed in the Mount Vesuvius eruption. not really cheery.

The guidebook that comes with admission tells me a few things. There is an ancient BEWARE OF THE DOG “welcome mat” floor tile mosaic.

There's a snack bar.

There are a few well-preserved corpses. My favorite is one where the lower half of the face is preserved in lava dust, but the upper half has disintegrated, revealing the skull.

It's interesting enough... but I'm wet, and how many walls and empty rooms can you look at? About an hour and a half's worth, it turns out. I head for the exit and just past the point of no return, there's THE SOUVENIR shop.

They've got postcard pix and ceramic re-creations of all the good stuff. It's pornographic. Penis upon penis. Where was all that? I can't believe I spent money for a train, a cab, entrance fee, walking in the rain, and I MISSED THE PORN! Now I feel even worse! I don't even want to buy a postcard!

I take the train back to Naples and walk to Fabio's office. It's about 3 in the afternoon.

Fabio is at work with some others in the large office.

I head right for the bedroom. Maybe I can take a nap.

The room is pitch dark. The windows are shuttered tight. On the bed, I can just make out a long lump, wrapped in a blanket.

Albania 20: Return to Italy

2009-11-10T22:42:00.003-05:00

"There's no tyrant like one's own brain.” Louis Ferdinand Celine

Back in Italy: I start writing this in the train, just leaving Bari... heading for Benevento... then on to Napoli (Naples) for 3 days... then Rome for 1 more... then back to NY (with a 5 hour stopover in Amsterdam). In a week, it'll be like I never left.

There are no direct trains from Bari to Naples, so I have to get out of this train in Benevento and buy another ticket from there to Naples. You'll read about that in the next installment.

So far, I've been in Italy about 8 hours and already there are tales to be told.

Right now, a single beer, drunk at 12:15 PM [I never drink before noon] has forced its way down to my bladder and is not sitting peacefully there. It wants release. But I want it to wait until the conductor punches my ticket.

Here was the plan: Maurizio... a different one... was the only response to my inquiries from couch surfers in Naples.

Call me when you get to Italy. Even if I can't host you, I can at least show you a bit of this crazy town.

Sounds good to me. And would be too, if he answered his subsequent emails, text messages or the phone.

[Note: Folks in Italy and Albania... maybe all over Europe... don't have voicemail. I can't leave a message for someone to say they didn't get. I can only leave email for people to blame an errant spam filter.]

Backtrack:

Back in Italy for half an hour. The 7 hour ferry from Albania behind me in the water. I just passed customs.

I walk, bag laden, a full kilometer the wrong way, trying to leave the port. I'm following signs to an exit that turns out to be closed... locked up tight. Not an exit at all.

Then, I try to take a cab from the port to the train station. A local (of which there are very few in the port at 8AM on a Sunday morning) says it would save me a 40 minute walk and only cost 5€.

I hike back to the main port building. The same one I left half an hour and a 2km round-trip before. In front are a bunch of cabs. Around the first cab are, what look like a bunch of cab drivers. I walk up to them. One of them, a beefy guy, looking like a cab driver, takes my hat off my head, spits into it and puts in back on my head.

Taxi? he asks.

Estacione, I say.

Vente (20) Euros, he says.

Cinque (5) Euros, I say.

Ok, he says. Then someone else exits from the station and speaks to him.

OK, he says, You go together. I forget the Italian. In English it means: Ten Euros from him. Ten Euros from you.

Not knowing how to say fuck you in Italian, I wave him off and walk back into the main port building to ask about a bus. The woman at the ticket window says, in English, I should take Bus Twenty- Slash.

Where can I get Bus Twenty-Slash? I ask.

There, just outside, she says pointing over her shoulder.

I walk out, in the direction she pointed. There is nothing but a fenced-in concrete platform. No bus stop. Not even a way for buses to enter.

I walk some more.

About 40 minutes later (a lot of asking, a lot of pointing, a bit of being ignored), I arrive at the train station. I ask for a ticket to Naples. The guy behind the window tells me I can't get there from Bari.

Actually, I have to take a train to Benevento. Then I get out, and buy another ticket to Naples.

“How much time do I have in Benevento?” I ask the ticket man.

“The train arrives at 4PM,” he says. “The train to Napoli leaves at 5.”

OK, I think, that gives me an hour to change trains. Easily enough time. Yeah, right.

After I buy the ticket to Benevento, I head for the waiting area, a dingy room with metal benches along the walls.

What a collection of characters! It's like a Greyhound bus station in the U.S. You got the nodding out junkie on crutches, the bag lady, the old guy with eight suitcases, the screaming looney. Then come the cops, or maybe it's the army. I donno. There's one older guy in a blue uniform. With him are two younger guys.. barely in their twenties.

The younger guys wear green uniforms. They also wear army boots, and these floppy maroon hats that looks like a fez crossed with one of those Jamaican rasta hats. It sits on the back of their head where a pony tail would be if they had pony tails. I don't know how it stays on, unless it hides official Italian army dreadlocks. At the tip of the hat is a long blue tassel that hangs just about to mid-back.

The man in blue asks everyone for papers and train tickets. There are a few people who don't have everything in order. The young guys in green write some information in an official-looking notebook. One old guy, apparently illegally selling cigarettes or phone cards or something, is booted out. I pass the inspection. In my three weeks in Albania, I was never stopped for ID. Two hours in Italy, and already I've been passported. Ah Italy, you really deserve a black spot on my map... except Torino.

[Note: As I type this in the street bar, at 5:30 in Naples, a bunch of kids run past me. One of them sprays me with shaving cream. My face, my computer, my hat, my jacket. They laugh as they run and turn the corner. An old man offers me a tissue to clean off. The kids had no reason, just malice, the fun of children nailing a cat to a tree. But that's Italy to me. Only three more days here. I hope I don't return. But now, I will return to my narrative.]

Right now, I have three and a half hours until the train leaves. I'm hungry.

I find my way to the train station restaurant. A ham sandwich for breakfast. That's about right for this trip. Now that the dollar is so low against the Euro, I can figure U.S. prices by doubling what I pay in Euros. OK, a $6 ham and cheese on a roll. Sounds like New York prices.

I sit by myself at a table next to some guy with a long red beard and his Little-Mary-Sunshine braided-hair girlfriend who crosses both her arms and legs when she speaks to him. Maybe they've been having an argument. They speak English with American accents. I'm tempted, but I don't speak to them.

In the corner is a young Italian. About 20, a handsome guy. I watch him take something from his pocket that looks like a lipstick tube. He touches the end to his finger and then rubs the finger on the side of his neck. He does this a couple times. Then returns to just sitting.

In the corner, closer to him, is what looks like an Italian family. Some hefty females and slightly less bulky males. The young guy motions to them to watch his bags. Then he makes a smoking sign. Two fingers to his lips. I guess he plans to go out for a smoke and wants that crew to watch his bags. He looks at me too. I move two fingers to my eyes then direct them toward his bags.

I'll watch 'em. Is what I want to say.

Once outside, he keeps looking in to check the bags. I guess he knows what Bari is like, and wants to make sure his stuff is safe. I take my Charles Dickens book and move to his table. When he comes back, he thanks me with a gracie.

Then he takes note of the book I'm reading.

“English?” he says. “You like English?”

He opens his bag and pulls out a couple beginning English readers. One is a Bram Stoker short story anthology (rewritten for beginning readers). The other is what looks like a children's book by someone I've never hear of.

Wow, a friendly Italian. A nice guy. I wonder what he wants.

“That's nice,” I say. “Are you learning English?”

“Yes,” he says. “I love English. Are you learning English too?”

“I'm American,” I tell him.

“You are from the U.S?” he asks.

I shake my head, then remember I've left Albania. I nod.

“You are my first American,” he says, shaking my hand.

“You live here?” I ask.

“I live in Torino,” he says.

I shudda known. The only decent Italians are from Torino.

“But I am not Italian,” he continues. “I speak French, Italian, Spanish, English and Arabic. I am from Morocco.”

Figures, not only is he from Torino, but he's not Italian. So much for my idea of finding a nice Italian.

“You want some water?” he says.

“Sure,” I say reaching in my pocket for half a Euro.

“No,” he says, “I pay.”

When he returns with the water, we talk. We talk about English. We talk about life in Italy.

“I'm here with my uncle,” he tells me. “But I don't like Italy.”

“That makes two of us,” I don't say.

“ The people here are stupid,” he continues. “They know only Italian. You speak English. They don't know. You speak French. They don't know.”

“Most Americans only speak one language,” I tell him in weak defense of people I don't like very much.

“America is big,” he says. “You travel. It's still America. In Italy, you travel it's someplace else. How do you live?”

“You mean my job?” I ask. “I'm a teacher. I teach English.”

“A teacher? You teach me.” he says, leaning back in his chair and waiting for some bon mots. I have none to offer except a smile.

“My name is Hachim,” he says ruffling through his bag. “Here is a notebook,” he says pulling out a notebook. “I write my feelings. In English. I read to you.”

I wish I could have recorded it. It's part unintelligible, part French, part Italian. Lots of “I want my life. I need to live my life. I know what happens is Allah's will. I think Allah will provide. Allah will help. But I cannot live this life here. I need to be free...”

“Do you want a beer?” he asks.

Hmmm, must be reform Muslim.

And that's never a question I can answer with the shake of a head.

He goes to the bar. Due birre he says.

The bartender gives him two bottles of Becks beer and tells him some amount. He reaches into his pocket and begins to count coins. I can see he doesn't have enough money. I hand him a five. He takes it with an apology.

“I want you to keep my English books to remember me,” he says. “And here is a picture.”

He fumbles through his wallet and finds what look like two passport pictures. He separates them and hands one to me.

“So you will remember me,” he says.

He looks at his watch and tells me, “I have to go now. My train his coming.”

I look at my cellphone. I still have an hour.

“I'll walk with you.” I say.

On the track, when the train pulls in, we hug good-bye like parting siblings.

“Don't forget me,” he says. “I won't forget you.”

“Don't worry,” I promise him. “I won't forget you. I have your picture.”

He waves as the train pulls out.

A tear nearly wells up from it's ducted depths. But I realize how ridiculous that is. And besides, now I have to gird myself for my new reality. Now I have to face ITALY.

Albania 19: Good bye Albania

2009-11-08T04:39:00.005-05:00

"It isn't shopping, or the arts, that makes a community but that duty we all owe to each other as neighbors." J.G. Ballard

I start to write this, my last blog entry from Albania, in one of the scores (hundreds?) of coffee shops in Durres. I sit overlooking the plastic debris on a narrow stoney beach

Out in the Adriatic, the water color changes sharply. From dark to light, in a tipped rounded M, like a sideways McDonald's arch. As I type, the light water expands slowly to the North and East.

To my left, three ships are visible in the distance. One looks like a ferry. One is a container cargo ship, its crane down, pointing like a gun, at the Durres harbor. The other is too far away to make out clearly. Further in the distance is land. I don't think it's Italy. That's too far. My guess: the other side of the Durresi Bay.

I am not the only one here.

Of the thirty or so tables, about half a dozen are manned. Actually three are manned. Three other tables are womanned. None are mixed.

This is my last full day in Albania. I have a few minor errands to run. Then it's over. I have lots of free time, but I'm bored. I cannot shake the need for stimulation. I need people. I need laughter, arguments, adventure.

Peace... the time to write... sitting at the seaside... watching the boats... I SHOULD need these things, but I don't.

[Suddenly a loud disco bass thumps from somewhere behind me. I have to be careful what I wish for.... Speaking of which, last night. In bed in the Durres hotel...windows closed... shuttered. There was some time, five minutes? An hour? I donno. But there was silence. Absolute silence. Silence like all there was was the disco thump of my heart and the high whine of my nervous system. No sound outside of me. A wonderful new experience, like skydiving, I imagine. But like skydiving, I might want to visit, but certainly not live there.

Now the thump of the disco distracts me. How can I be so sensitive to noise and live in New York City? (Note to self: BUY NOISE CANCELING HEADPHONES or at least bring earplugs next trip. Unfortunately, they'll be much more useful than condoms.)]

There are a lot of characters here in Albania. Many of them street crazies. One walks the streets shouting fake reportage of a soccer match... AND HE KICKS, MISSES, AND PASSES THE BALL TO... Not that I understand it, but a local translates for me. There's more tolerance of characters here than in New York. This is a pretty tolerant country. Maybe it has to be. It's been through a lot.

Example: Except for hotel registration-- and not always then-- I have been asked for my ID a grand total of zero times since I passed through customs. I've had to open my bags zero times for inspection by store clerks, building staff, transportation officials, police or anyone else.

Once, I had to leave my bags (actually a book!) in a locker to go shopping. I was royally pissed off at that. But it happens every day in New York. Here, I feel neither watched nor controlled. Maybe that's the way it is most places.

Next day: I'm pissed. I was just now sitting outside at the awful Continental Bar-Restaurant here in Durres. The bar reeks of snobbery and xenophobia, but it takes me awhile to smell it.

I thought they forgot me because I was on the wrong side of the sidewalk, or each waiter thought the other took my order. Nope. A proper little Albanian family walks in after me. Sits at the next table. The waiter is right there. What can I get you? Not one waiter has approached me. It's been half an hour.

Ah the joys of the Internet, and-- if not revenge-- the feeling of revenge. Trip Adviser Dot Com, how do I love thee?

Right now, melancholy is my main emotion. I try to distract myself with worries about my plane to New York, accommodations in Italy, my fallen out gold inlay (in my wallet). But the melancholy returns. That's what happens at the end of a trip, any trip.

It's mostly about leaving behind. I left a pair of jeans... worn beyond repair, in my hotel room. I left innumerable pairs of sunglasses in innumerable cafés around the country. I left thoughts, feelings casual acquaintances who I wanted to be friends... and real friends (Andi, Harold, Maurizio). All these I leave behind. They'll fade from my life like the shore will fade as that ferry pulls out this evening... STOP! This is getting maudlin.

I have a list, now up to twenty-five things, I have to do when I get back to New York. A haircut, trimmed nails, fix that tooth, visit Dad, commiserate with my sister who flew all the way to the tip of South America for a cruise to Antarctica... and the boat breaks down... a cruise ship... luxury line... breaks down. That doesn't happen in real life. Things like that happen to me all the time, but I do not lead a real life.

Now, I write lying in on the bottom bunk of my cabin in the boat back to Bari. I'm slightly soused (2 beers on an empty stomach). The ship has no bank, so I I'll be stuck with the 1800 lek I have in my wallet. Not too bad, actually. About $18... not so much of a loss.

I do have a few Euros, they only thing they take on board. I don't want to spend them on the crappy food and drink in a ferry. MAYBE I'll get some breakfast tomorrow. Usually, I like ferries. I meet people... hang out with a beer... but now I'm in no mood. I've already hit my head twice on the upper bunk. I nearly tore the bed apart in end-of trip rage after the last time.

It's an isolated ignominious way to end the real part of the trip. My Italian couch-surfing contact has not answered his phone or CS email (what a surprise!). I'll call again when I get to Bari, but I don't have much hope. (Why don't Europeans have voicemail?)

I dread returning to Italy. The country is expensive and unfriendly. I'm not in a hurry to get home. I just want to get out of Italy.

Ah, but what about Albania? What last words about a country so filled with history that it piles it on itself in layers. Car-loving capitalists on Communists on Turks on Byzantines on Romans on Greeks. A country where Christian religious icons show mosques. A country where the hotel concierge wants you to say hi to his son in New York. A country of high foreheads and high pollution levels. A safe country filled with child beggars. A country that talks about the American dream, but refuses to serve us in their fancy restaurants. A country where if you speak three words of their language, they compliment you. Four words, they laugh. A country where everyone drinks. Everyone smokes. And no one eats.

What about Albania? A country with thousands of concrete bunkers and as many sidewalk cafés. A country where the women are neck-breakingly beautiful, and the men... er... are with these beautiful women. A country of awful Cochos and wonderful Andis. A country with a Jesus Christ Café and a Synagogue-Basilica.

A country where, right now, I watch a woman in tight jeans and super high heels drag a baby carriage over a gravel street.

What can you say about such a country?

Albania 18: Last Tango in Tirana

2009-11-06T20:14:00.006-05:00

"Unknown towns are fun. That's when and where it's possible to imagine that everybody you meet is nice.” -- Louis Ferdinand Celine

“Sometimes, there are towns when and where everybody you meet IS nice!” --Mykel Board

Monday: The plan is to meet my couchsurfing host at the hostel at 9AM. Check-out, move in with him, and let him show me the town. Albanians are punctual people. They tell me that, and up to now I've seen that. So at nine, I'm waiting in the lobby. At nine fifteen, I go back to my room, take out the computer and begin to write. At 9:20 comes a knock on my door. It's Freddy's father... I think.

He motions to me and I walk out into the lobby. A tall blondish guy, about 30, is standing there.

“Christoph?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says. “I thought we would meet at nine. I was waiting outside.” The guy has a weird accent. More German, than Albanian.

“I was waiting inside,” I tell him. “Sorry for the problem. Should we go now?”

“I'm sorry, Mykel,” he says. “My roommate returned unexpectedly. He absolutely refuses to allow couch surfers here. I cannot host you.”

“What a surprise!” I don't say. “Something goes wrong.”

“Let's at least have breakfast,” he says. “I know a place that serves seven different kinds of breakfast.”

“Fine,” I say. “as long as it's not a breakfast pizza.”

“What's a breakfast pizza?” he asks.

So, I finally get real eggs. Christoph just orders toast and jam.

It turns out he is German, not Albanian. He's here teaching German. He shares quarters with an old guy... more than fifty years...The guy is set in his ways and he won't allow couch-surfers. It's a pity, he says, he usually has people almost every day.

“In Tirana?” I ask. “In Tirana you get guests every day, from where?”

“America, Australia, Italy, everywhere,” he tells me.

Damn, isn't there anywhere I can go where Americans haven't beat me to it? How 'bout Nuk? It's worth going there just for the name!

After breakfast, we hike way up hill to catch a cable car (the hanging kind like to Roosevelt Island, not the dragging kind like in San Francisco). There's a famous 15 minute cable car ride up the largest mountain in the Tirana area. I love those kind of areal trams. Just over tree level... you feel like a bird, ready to lose the ability to fly every second. Fun and slightly scary. Knowing the karmic debt I must be paying (is there a Jack-the-Ripper in the woodpile?), you probably figure that after arriving at the cable car entrance, we find out that it isn't running today. You figure correctly.

The hike back down does bring a nice break for a decent pizza, great cheap ice cream, and FANTA. I never drink soda in the U.S. But the Fanta here is delicious. Something real, tasty. Christoph says all his American visitors say the same thing. (That hurts. I hate being like all the American visitors... I even hate that there are all the American visitors.) He thinks it's because they use real sugar in the soda-- not high fructose mono-glyceride corn-derived benzical. He may be right.

One positive adventure was finding one of those bunkers... right near the base of the cable car. Christoph says there are 70,000 of them in the country. I saw at least 200 of them on the trip between Gjirokastra and here. But I never got a chance to see one up close. Here it is. I just need to push through the weeds and climb on top of it. Do I do it?

After the hike back, the soda and ice cream. We split. I go back to the hostel, sweaty (It's warm again.), ready for a shower. I can do that in comfort, it's 2 in the afternoon. No one stays in their hotel room at 2 in the afternoon. My Italian roommate will at least be gone for enough time to bathe, and towel off in naked comfort, right? Yeah, right.

Why is he here? In the middle of the day. Playing on his computer.

Ok, if you've got a lemon... So we go out, hit a coffee stand or two, look at the perfect gluteal fullness of Albanian women. Then we go to dinner.

Young Albanian women almost always wear high heels. I think that pushed-up butt is the real attraction of high heels on women. Some people think it's something phallic. You see fetish mags where some guy is sucking a high heal. Doesn't attract me... I figure it tastes like dirt. But those heels, push up the whole leg. The wonderfully rounded lower-back-connection-points bulge out like the top of a turkey drumstick... Mmmm, just as tasty.)

After a bit of jean-tailed warbler watching, we go for some dinner We do not go to 24 Non

Stop Rina.

After dinner, we stop in at the TIRANA ROCK. We're the only two customers-- and it was packed yesterday.

We sit out on the balcony, overlooking the city. It would be romantic with other company (sorry Maurizio, but I sure you understand), but in any case it is fun and an interesting exchange of philosophy:

I think Tirana could be the next Prague which was the next Paris. Maurizio thinks before that happens, it needs some infrastructure and a bit of pollution reduction.

[Note: The air in Tirana and Durress is really polluted. Why not smoke? The air is certainly no worse than what comes out of a cigarette. Every morning, I blow the soot from my nose... car exhausts, coal produced electricity, general dust I have to scrape out what doesn't flow easily. It's mostly from cars. Old cars. New cars. Mostly Mercedes, for some reason. I find myself with the constant cough I attributed to universal smoking. It's universal breathing.

I don't hate the pollution, though. I feel about it like I feel about crime in New York. Without it, the ugly rich move in and take over everything. You could never live there. Pollution keeps out the creeps.]

Being Italian, Maurizio prefers wine to beer. Since we're drinking beer, he stops at two. I have an extra for the road back to Freddys. Maybe it'll help me sleep better.

It doesn't.

The next day, I meet Andi for lunch at THE LAKE. It's a little hike to the lake, and I see that Andi is still limping from the soccer injury. Of course the way is Uphill. Everything in this country is uphill.

On the walk, we talk about some of my observations about the country. For example, though you can usually find an Albanian yelling at other Albanians, you never see them fight. This whole month, I never saw one thrown punch. What's up widdat?

“If you are fighting,” says Andi, “the police come and beat both sides. They don't ask questions. You know, if you get into a fight, the police will beat you. So, you don't get into a fight.”

Interesting alternative to New York's shoot the blackguy method of problem solving.

We reach The Lake. Andi tells me it's a man-made construction at the edge of Tirana. It's where the locals go to relax. There may even be some fish in it. I see a skinny guy nursing three fishing poles. He didn't seem to have caught anything.

Andi buys some Albanian sausage cooked on a homemade grill. He talks to the large square-shaped cook who is being helped by a boy, about 10. I guess the kid is his son. It's Sunday, so there's no school. I wonder if Dad pays him a few lek for his help, or if it's just part of his duties as a kid.

[Note for non-American readers: In the U.S. there are two philosophies about kids' allowance. That is, the weekly sum they receive from their parents for their own discretionary spending.

One group of parents pays the kids for jobs done. You was the dishes, you get two dollars. You mow the lawn, five more dollars.

Other parents pay a fixed amount, say $10 a week, to their kids. This money is just for being a part of the family. The kids mow the lawn and wash the dishes because they're family members. It's all part of the same deal.

As you might have guessed, I favor the second way. The first encourages that awful work ethic. It also turns humans into economic machines. You do something, you get money. Your boss, your father. No difference.]

Andi and I sit by the lake and talk like old friends. I hope, now, we are old friends. I really like the guy and am sorry it was so late in the trip that we met.

Ah, we'll meet again in New York. That's an advantage (the only?) of THE CITY. Almost everyone you're likely to meet will someday get there.

After the lake, we part ways to meet after dinner. Andi has family obligations. He's been away from his family for four years in Paris. Now, they can't get enough of him. I understand.

So, after a short rest, I'm off for dinner again with Maurizio. We do not go to NON-STOP BAR RINA.

Instead we go to ERA, one of the oldest restaurants on the rejuvenated Blocku. Recommended by Andi. It's easy to find. Just walk around asking people Era? Era? Everyone knows and points with a long detailed explanation, none of which I can understand except drait (straight ahead).

Still, it's not long before we find it. It looks a little fancy.

Mostly, it's a closed in area, built out onto the sidewalk in front of the wall of the building. White table cloths. Of course, Maurizio wants wine. I give in, though I need water to quench my thirst.

The menu is several pages long. We order some bread, some yogurt dish, some meat dishes. The food is excellent, and the price much less than at Rina 24 Non-Stop.

Andi meets us at the end of dinner. He has his guitar with him. He sits with us for a bit and off we go. Back to Silver (or is it Steel) Wings. We meet Harold there, and it's not long before the two of them take the stage. My camera card runs out before I can get a whole song. But I did get part, and after I get back to New York, it'll be on You Tube. If you don't see it by the middle of November, remind me and I'll post it.

They play Another Brick in The Wall. They do not play Sonic Reducer or Anarchy in the U.K., so I do not join it on the stage.

I take pictures, Mauri watcheS and drinks. I sing Sweet Home Alabama when they play Hotel California. We all get a little soused. What a great night! What a great gang!

I make the mistake of leaving for Durress a day early. There's no hot water at Freddy's and it had been days since I had a shower. I was longing to lose the smell of myself, and to sit and write a bit without an adventure. Too late now. Durress is as boring as a cricket game. Nice, oceanic, but boring. Tirana was something else.

Ah well, better to have Tirana-ed for such a short time than never to have Tirana-ed at all. Thanks guys. I won't forget you.

Albania 17: To Tirana!

2009-10-30T12:16:00.008-05:00

In the 1960s, James Lovelock proposed his Gaia hypothesis. He described the earth as behaving like a super-organism, its soil, atmosphere, and oceans composing a circulatory system regulated by its resident flora and fauna. He now fears that the living planet is suffering a high fever, and that we (human beings) are the virus. --Alan Weisman, The World Without Us

[A note on place names: Albanian is a case language. That means that nouns have several forms depending on whether they're the subject, direct object, object of a preposition, etc. If I say, the menu is here. I use the word menu. It's the subject. If I say, bring me the menu, I use the word menuin. Because menu is the object and has a different form.

So it is with cities. Maps, street signs, guidebooks, all use different forms of the city names. It's tough to look things up. So if I sometimes write Tirana, and sometimes Tirane, and sometimes Berat and sometimes Berati, you'll know why.]

Some random notes:

--> Written in Himana, on the short respite from my kidnapper, Co-ocho:

Lots of the guys here look like mafia. Dark sunglasses, dressed in black suits. Expensive cars. Expensive-looking girlfriends.

It's 10 AM, and one of the girls is wearing a black skirt, slit up the side, earrings, snazzy high heels. In another country, I'd say she's a working girl, but here she's a moll-- I'm sure of it.

-->In front of a pass from the mountaintop to a narrow beach is a carved sign. It's a kind of arch with only the narrow path entering and leaving below it. The sign says: ALOHA.

--> I think my tiredness, lack of energy, weird sleep was from lack of protein. Finally, I got a little meat into me. Just that generic meat with rice. Even better with biftek! I feel great. More human. Less nauseous. I don't know how vegetarians get out of bed in the morning.

-->If I didn't have so many adventures... If I just stayed on the balcony of my $25 a night hotel, Albania could be a good place to write a book. I got nature, no tourists, fresh air, what else do I need? (Well, in Tirana, I lack the fresh air.)

-->Unlike everywhere else in the world, here, in restaurants, the food comes out first, before the drinks. This awful pizza's been here for a quarter hour, and I still don't have anything to drink. Not even water.

-->All the blonde women in this country must be bottle blondes. There are no blond men. Whoops, this was written before my visit to Tirana. Here, in the capital, are a lot of blond... or at least light haired... men. I guess the natural blond girls visit the capital every once in awhile... or their moms did.

-->Tirana is a weird city, but what did I expect? The Time Square area is dominated by a huge equestrian statue. It's Skanderbeg, the 15^th century hero of Albanian independence. Around he and his horse is a large rectangle called Skanderbeg Square. (Wadja think?) This is a good reference point and, it turns out, a good meeting place. Meet me at the horse. It's easy. Like the Grand Central Station information booth. I'm meeting my internet friend here later.

--> I now write this lying in bed at Freddy's Hostel in Tirana, the place I've been warned about. (Tirana, not Freddy's). And-- get this-- I'm nursing a new coldsore... on the other side of my mouth.

I've got a roommate here. I decided to live more lower class in the big city. Like in capital cities everywhere, things are more expensive here. So I go for the backpacker-priced hostel. Freddy's, it's called, and it is indeed run by a guy named Freddy.

(Add Freddy to the Albanian names list: Denis, Andi, and Freddy. Albania or Kansas City?).

I go for the 15€-a-night price. That gets me a roommate. in an otherwise private room. Something like a college dorm.

The hostel has free wifi and a “croissant” breakfast. (The croissant turns out to be something like a chocolate-filled twinkie.)

My roommate is not here when I enter. But his stuff is. All over. The first thing I notice is a hairbrush. Then pointy fashion-like Italian shoes. And what's that black book on top of everything. Is it a Bible?? Uh oh, this is scary.

It's not long before he arrives. A nice surprise. He's Maurizio, an Italian guy who is moving to Tirana to study tourism. Lived in Paris and London for awhile. He speaks good English, though my Albanian is better than his. (I don't think he can say faleminderit yet. )The only problem, I later find out: he snores. Not a little girly-like kakakakaka snore, but a manly brutal HHHRRROOOOO-HHHRRRROOOOO- HHHRRRROOOOO snore.

Meeting, we exchange the usual vital statistics.

“You're sixty?” he says. “I thought you were forty-one or forty-two and just didn't take care of yourself.”

With the roommate, I'm paying as much per night here as I did for a fancier hotel room in Berati. But hell, I'd pay more for a dump hotel in New York than a hoity toidy one in Spokane. That's the way it works... all over the world.

Yesterday, I finally got through to Andi in Tirana. The plan is to meet at 5 today. At 4:45, I leave Maurizio at Freddy's to meet Andi at The Horse.

Andi has a pick-up soccer game. He asks if I wants to come along. I say sure, as long as it doesn't require me to kick anything. Andi laughs and says no, I can just watch.

His friend Harold (another one of those Albanian names) drives us to the soccer “field.” The quotes are because the place is inside, underground. There are four or five mini-fields (each about the size of a city basketball court), separated by cyclone fences. They are covered in something closer to green carpet than astroturf.

Most interesting is that the players change from street clothes to game clothes on “the field.” Take off the street pants, dance around in (mostly) tighty whiteys, and then slip into soccer shorts and special soccer shoes. In America, they'd be arrested.

I turn a plastic garbage can over to use it for my personal grandstand. It collapses under me. I stand. The game is interesting, though Andi and Harold's team seem to be getting the worst of it. Then, there is an injury. Player on the ground. In pain. Can you guess who?

Flash Ahead to the evening: I have to meet Andi for my late night exploration, so Maurizio and I look for an eating place that's fast and interesting. We come to:

Here was the plan: Have dinner with Maurizio. Then meet Andi and Harold at the horse. Then, go out for a Saturday night on the town. I'm supposed to meet the natives at 9. It's only 7:30 now. Maurizio and I can have a quick bite. I can return to the hotel, pick up my me-gifts for Andi (a Mykel Board t-shirt, an ARTLESS CD, and some promo-postcards for my books) then go to the horse.

I tell Maurizio I want to eat at someplace close. Maurizio says he knows a place so we walk. During the walk, we converse about our experience in Albania. Since he's only been here 3 days, I'm the veteran. We both agree the girls are beautiful, people are generally friendly, and, with exceptions, there's much less exploit-the-tourist mentality here than in either the U.S. or Italy. (That previous sentence is known in literature as foreshadowing.)

The walk drags on, and I begin to complain about my appointment and my lack of time. So we settle on a place just off the main drag. It's called NON STOP BAR KAFE RINA. The prices listed on the outside menu are reasonable: 150-250 lek for a decent entree. Unless, you go to an expensive place with a Guide, food in Albania is usually a bargain.

There are two women inside. They huddle together at a table, running through a few pieces of paper that look like the daily receipts. We walk in.

` One of the two women, a hefty blonde, nearly knocks the table over to greet us.

Mire mbroma,I say to her in my best Albania.

Oh! Sh....... she goes off in Albanian.

Une flac shëm pak shqip. (I speak very little Albanian) I say.

“Lei parle Italiano?” asks Maurizio.

And off she goes in Italian. She and Maurizio have a grand old time. He orders a couple beers, some yogurt and some chicken to share. I add some buka, bread.

In a few seconds, the woman is back with two large cans of Amstel beer.

“Yo!” (No!) I say. Une dua Tirana birré. I want a Tirana beer.

“Tirana no.” she says. “You Amstel. Good. Very much good.”

By this time, she's got both Amstels open and has poured them into our respective glasses.

Soon the food comes, Some chicken, some yogurt dish, some bread. It's okay. Nothing special.

“Italiano,” she says to Maurizio. “Mi amici Italiano.”

She grabs her cellphone and dials a number. There is some conversation and then she turns to Maurizio and speaks Italian. I have no idea what she's talking about. Then she turns to me and says something long and complicated in Italian. I have no idea what she's talking about.

Then she looks at me again. Red Bull, she says, Red Bull.

Then in English, You buy Red Bull for my friend and me? Red Bull, Red Bull.

If she's the owner, she can get her own Red Bull.

If she only works here, she can steal her own Red Bull.

I shake my head no... but then remember. A headshake in Albania is YES!

Too late, she's, Thank you. Thank you. Gracie, Faleminderit.

I never actually see her drink the Red Bull.

About two-thirds through the meal, some guy shows up, wearing a sweater, slacks and Italian shoes. He introduces himself. I forget his name, so we'll call him Luigi. Immediately, he starts speaking to Maurizio in Italian. He sits at our table, but does not eat or drink anything.

It's getting late. I have to leave and meet Andi at the horse.

Maurizio and his new Luigi get up too. They have decided to go out for drinks together.

Maurizio says something to the waitress in Italian. I take out a 500lek bill, figuring the total will be about 300 each. Maurizio also throws down 500.

The waitress scribbles on her pad. Then she brings us the bill: 2300 lek.

“I'm not paying that,” says Maurizio. He gets into a long loud conversation with the fat blonde. Suddenly, the fat blonde completely ignores him.

“You pay,” she says to me... in English. “You pay more this much.”

She shows me the two 500 lek bills. “You pay this again.”

“I won't pay more,” says Maurizio.

I shrug and start to walk out. The woman stands in front of me. A blonde wall.

“You pay. You pay.” she yells.

I look at my cellphone. It's 8:50. I don't have time to argue. I pull a thousand out of my pocket and throw in on the table.

The woman tsks and hrumfs and takes the bills. We get out of there..

I reach the horse at just about 9. In ten minutes, Andi and Harold meet me, and we're off to THE BLOKU (the block).

Background: During Communist times, there was one section of the city closed to everybody except party leaders and a few others in high positions. Andi tells me that all you had to do was step on the wrong side of the street and you'd be shot. Like East LA today.

The whole area was patrolled by army guys in bullet proof vests, carrying machine guns. Like Grand Central Station today.

Things have changed since Commie times. Now, The Bloku is like New York's Soho ... minus the Japanese. It's bars, clubs, fashion shops, It's where young people hang out. It's expensive and fashionable and probably economically excludes people the way the commies did politically. There are no beggars here. I guess the shop owners keep them away, without machine guns.

[A note about beggars: I usually like beggars. It's a noble profession with a long history. Giving money to a beggar is the purest transaction in the world. You do it only because you want to. You come away only with a feeling. No commodity. There's no destruction. No tree was cut for you to buy something. No electricity was used. No one was exploited. Beggars choose their own hours and place of work. They don't need to buy anything to do their jobs. They are harmless.

In New York, I spend maybe five dollars a week on beggars. It's probably the only money I don't mind spending in that city. Some beggars are my friends.

In Albania, most of the beggars are children. And they don't take no. They follow and ask and ask again. They crowd you, pull on your arm, whimper. They're destroying the nobility of the profession. Instead of a pure transaction (you give because it's the right thing to do), they degrade it into sympathy, or worse extortion. You give me money or I won't leave you alone. I hate it.

In Albania, I only give money to old ladies sitting on the side of the street with a little box. I don't give to kids... maybe that's why I attract them.

In any case, in The Blocku, there are no beggars of any kind.]

Our first stop is at the TIRANA ROCK CAFÉ, an obvious knock-off of the Hard Rock Café. It's packed.

[A note here about knock-offs: One of the many things that attracted me to Tirana in the first place was its notoriety as the only capital in Europe without a McDonald's. But that doesn't stop spurious copies who try to play off Mickey D fame. My favorite is KOLONAT Check out their logo. It's quite a feat making a K look like an M. Pretty creative, huh?]

The TR Café is packed. We have to shoulder through to get up the stairs to the third floor. Andi wants to check if there's live music tonight. There isn't. It's rock'n'roll karaoke. We leave.

Next it's Silver Wings (or maybe Iron Wings, I can't remember). It's the Albanian Hell's Angels club with Harley this and Harley that on the walls. There 's a small stage with a drum kit, two mics, two stools. On the stools are two guitar players, playing the hits. From La Bamba to Shake it Up Baby, to Sweet Home Alabama.

(Note: After 1975, I lost touch with mainstream music. I can sing along with the real oldies, but Sweet Home Alabama sounds just like Hotel California to me. And I don't know the words to either.)

Still, the atmosphere of the place is so friendly, and the crowd... well, it rocks. The pure irony of being in a motorcycle club in Tirana Albania only adds to the thrill. I do recognize Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.

“Pink Floyd are my favorite,” Andi tells me.

“I saw them in England,” I say. “But after Sid Barret.”

So Andi, Harold and I are drinking these liter glasses of Tirana beer, singing along, joined with the crowd, including a big guy at the next table with the exquisite taste to be wearing a Motorhead t-shirt.

“I saw Motorhead... and The Clash,” I tell him. “And The Rolling Stones and The Doors.”

“Did you see Jimi Hendrix?” asks Harold.

I start to nod, then remember about this head-shaking thing. I shake my head.

“I saw him in New York,” I tell him. “In 1966, before he was Jimi Hendrix, he played under the name Jimi James. I saw him then,”

I can see the wow look in their eyes.

“And Van Halen?” he says. “Did you see Van Halen?”

“You got me on that one,” I tell him. “I never saw Van Halen.”

The duet on stage are rolling into Sweet Home Alabama (or maybe it's Hotel California). And the lights go out. Everything stops.

I've heard about Albanian electrical blackouts before, but that is an infrastructure failure. It's common when private enterprise takes over from government run utilities. (Take Enron. Please.) But this is not an electrical blackout. It is a police blackout.

It seems that the newly rich who've moved into this fashionable neighborhood, complain about the noise. The clubs are too loud. The police have shut some down. They have to be careful. Someone said the cops were on the way. BANG! Lights off.

How long before only the rich will be allowed in THE BLOCKU? How long before it becomes a rich zone, young people and fun prohibited. Like in the old days.

We pay up by candlelight and go off to the next club.

It's a fancy place. A Jazz club with a live band from Italy. It too is packed. The waiter picks up a table from the back of the room, plunks it own next to the stage. Three chairs later, we're seated.

It's hard to say how many people are in the band. The number on stage keeps changing. For sure there is a singer/guitar player, a drummer, a percussionist, a baritone saxophonist and a keyboard player. There might also be another singer and a tenor sax. I can't tell.

Usually, I hate jazz. With the exception of Dixieland and Louis Armstrong belting out When the Saints Go Marchin' In, to me jazz is like teeth on a blackboard. The instruments fight each other. They wail me me me, but they only wail. They don't really say anything. Jazz, like red wine, gives me a headache... but not tonight.

This band is fun. The sax guy smokes... I mean smokes, putting a cigarette in one of those extra holes that saxophones are lucky enough to have. Puffing away and playing at the same time. Amazing.

The percussionist takes a turn at the microphone. Playing bass. Not really playing, but vocalizing, like one of those rap guys, but with perfect stand-up bass sound. He mimes playing, and the bass string-for-string comes out from between his lips. Strange people (mostly with shaved heads) get up from the audience to join the band.

One of the baldies, stands in front, grabs a mic, and the band starts in... when the saints go marchin' in. I shitje not!

The beers keep comin', I'm singin' along in my best Louis Armstrong voice. They guys at the table are right there. I'm drunk and the happiest I've been on this trip.

Oh I want to be, in that numberrrrrr. When the saints come marchin' in!

Somehow, I get back to Freddy's. I stumble into the room at about 2AM. Maurizio's sleeping, and it's quite a feat to sleep through my drunken stumbling.

I tumble into bed, happy and exhausted. Andi and Harold took me out for my best night since my first night in Trinidad!

Now, all I have to do is sleep off the booze and I'll be fit as a fake stand-up bass tomorrow.

At 6:30AM, the snoring starts... in a fury.

Albania 16: Onifuro Red

2009-10-29T13:46:00.013-05:00

Change the setting and the commonplace becomes wondrous. --Mykel Board

It's about here that I should make an obvious but important comment. When traveling, the best stories are the worst experiences in real life. If you almost died, it's exciting. If you sat down and watched some old guys play dominoes, it is not. So even though the second scene is more enjoyable that the first, the first is better to write about.

So it is with Albania. People here are not filled with avarice, or hostility. They are, in fact, friendly. In Vlora, I sat on a bus next to an elderly man with a cough. I was new in the country then, and did not realize that since, everybody here smokes, everybody here has a cough. Then, I was worried. I'm gonna get sick. Swine flu. I'm sure of it

When we pull into town, I'm anxious to get away from him. I also need to find my hotel, booked by the chatty and attractive concierge of the Nais Hotel.

When I leave the bus, I say the name of the hotel Pavareso several times, hoping someone will be able to direct me. Someone does. The old man from the bus. Not only does he direct me, but he gets on the city bus with me, pays my fare, and turns me over to an attractive young woman (he has to get off earlier), who takes me within pointing distance of the hotel.

That's the kind of people Albanians are.

In a restaurant, or on the street, people will call you over for a chat. They'll ask you where you're from, if you're married. What religion you are. (I finally found out how to say JEW in Albanian, Izraelit.) How long you've been in Albania and more. They're curious people, and enjoy your company.

Yesterday, I went from Gjirokastra to Berati. I caught the 7 o'clock (AM) bus. At 6:30 I'm at the bus station-- not the station, exactly, but the holding pen for the buses where they rest overnight.

On the glass doors of one building entrance, it says, Agjensi. There's also a sign that says, Gjirosatra-Ateni.

I figure that's the ticket agency. Strange, because the buses I've taken so far have no tickets. You just get on the bus, tell the conductor the name of the town you're going to, and he makes up a price. Unlike scam-the-tourist rest of the world, the price seems to be the same no matter where you're from.

Inside the agjensi, a bunch of men drink coffee at a bunch of tables.

“Autobussi Berati ërstë ku?” I ask.

“Yo yo yo,” comes the answer.

What is this, the Bronx?

Actually, it means: no no no.

One of the guys drinking coffee makes a motion to follow him. (Very close to the Japanese motion for come here... palm pointed downward, fingers together in an open-close wave.)

“Italiano?” he asks me.

“American,” I say.

“Bene, bene,” he says.

“Non Berati këtu,” he further tells me. “Lushnja, Lushnja, Berati. Ju koptoni?”

“Koptoj,” I tell him meaning I understand. Though I only think I understand: Here to Lushnja. Then change buses to Berati.

We walk around the corner to another café, where even more men drink even more coffee.

Lushnja? Lushshna? the guy asks each of the men. One of them shakes his head to show he's going there.

My caretaker explains that I'm an American and I only speak a little Albanian and can he make sure I get on the right bus. He shakes his head yes, and my caretakers says good-bye walks out.

The new guy (who turns out to be the bus driver), motions for me to sit down, drink some coffee and he'll return at 7 o'clock.

“Yeah right,” I think.

At 7 o'clock, he's back.

He waves me to follow him, picking up one of my bags. I do and sure enough, there's a bus with TIRANA on the front. It's the right direction. Lushnja is on the way.

I watch relatively unworried as he puts my bag in the luggage compartment under the bus. So far, buses have been the only crowded thing on this trip. Otherwise, it's been only me. Buses are full, at least when they start off. They may empty out toward the end of the line.

Not this one.

There is the bus driver, the conductor, one shaved-headed guy who talks continually with the driver and may or may not be a paying customer... and me.

A few times during the trip someone gets on and soon gets off again, but for the most part, it's just us.

Bertati is like a smaller version of Gjirokastra. It's as vertical, but not as high. There's a castle at the top. There's also an ethnographic museum, and lots of ruins.

The most interesting museum is the Onifuro (I'm not sure if I'm spelling the name right) Museum. It's got mostly icon art, but it's named after the most famous Albanian painter. He even has a color named after him: Onifuro Red.

I'm not allowed to take pictures in the museum, which means I have to turn the flash off and do it very quietly. Everything is dark and blury but you can see the red at least

In order to understand what I like best about these icons, you have to come with me back in time, and half-way around the world.

We land in Cuzco, Peru. Cuzco is famous as the stopping off point on the way to Machupichu. It's also famous as being one of the highest cities in the world (I got altitude sickness there. It was like the flu!) Finally, it's famous because the locals, especially the K'chua Indians, eat guinea pig. It's called cuy.

There is a church in Cuzco that has a large renaissance-looking painting of Christ at the last supper. At first, it looks like a run-of-the-mill last supper. JC and the Disciples. But a closer look shows you that on Jesus' plate is... you guessed it... roasted guinea pig.

This is relevant, because it shows how Christian artists bend their versions of history to include something about themselves.

In my previous reports about Albania, I've made comments about the large foreheads the local people have. Massive Frankenstein-like bridges that probably indicate some kind of uber-intellegence. (For some reason, younger people seem to have smaller foreheads than their elders.)

I imagine this is a very old trait. So if you look at the paintings here... especially the iconic apostles, you might be able to guess what you'll find. Yep, apostles with huge foreheads!

Almost as interesting are a series of icons that make Jesus look black.

Some: Arab/North African black, some Negro-black. One of my favorites looks like my pal Bryan from Trinidad.

Here's a bad picture of that icon, but I had to take it on the sly... without a flash.

After the museum, I take a walk up to the castle. It's another vertical trek, not quite as bad as Girokastra. About half-way up, I come across a wall, about nipple high. Flat on top, perfect for a rest and view of the city. Already resting there, is a middle-aged guy with a very big forehead.

He pats the place next to him, motioning for me to sit down. I do.

“Italiano?” he asks.

“American,” I say.

Then he starts talking about the castle, the hillside, the history of the area. He's speaking a weird mix of Albanian, Italian and English. I can understand about ten percent. Then he jumps down from the wall, and motions for me to follow him. He takes me inside. We pass a small café that seems to be part of the castle, like the one in the last castle. Hmm, a good place to stop for a cup-- or a glass-- of something.

“Here is a wall,” he says pointing to a wall.

Then he points to hole in the ground, surrounded by concrete. “Cistern,” he says.

There are concrete steps (railingless as are most staircases in Albania). They lead down to nothing, just three steps down and a drop, 30 feet? more?. At the bottom of the drop, faintly visible in the limited light, is brackish water. All around me is the loud buzzing of insects who know their lunch has just arrived.

“You go first,” I gallantly suggest. “I want to take your picture.”

In a short time, we leave the cistern.

Un dua të shkoj café. (I want to go to the café) I tell the guy, as the first few drops of rain splash against my hat.

“Wait,” he says, “go café soon. Just little more.”

He has me follow him to a hill on the side of the castle. He point to what looks like a giant TV broadcast antenna.

“That is the TV broadcast antenna,” he says.

Then, there is the well, the prison, and the door.

“Now we go to a café. Very traditional. Old kind,” he says.

“I want to eat in the castle café,” I tell him.

“It's not open,” he says. “Not open.”

He takes me there to prove he's telling the truth. It is, in fact, closed.

“Now,” he says, “can you give me some money?”

Resigned to the scam, and knowing he probably needs 200Lek more than I do, I give him 200. Delighted, he takes me to a tiny cafe. There are three tables. At one, two guys play dominos. At the other, a single guy sits drinking Raki, Albanian vodka.

At the other table is me.

The bartender, who looks very ownerlike, asks me what I want. I order a coffee, and sit by myself at the table, for a bit.

I watch the guys playing dominoes, and every time I think I have the game figured out, they do something (like putting a FIVE against a FOUR) that totally baffles me.

Un duo te koptoj dominos. (I want to understand dominoes.) I say to the older of the domino players. He looks like a Turkish pasha.

He pulls an empty chair from my table and puts it next to his table. Then he motions for me to sit down.

He asks me where I'm from, how I like Albania, the usual. He's friendly. He does not ask me for money.

I order a raki for myself and ask him if he wants one. He says no.

Then I figure he must be Muslim and regret asking. But he takes it in stride. The rest of the afternoon is just peaceful drinking and watching dominoes. Thoroughly enjoyable to do, not so thrilling to read about.

Now, I sit at a restaurant near the main square in Berati. I'm waiting for my dinner to arrive. I've ordered something I don't know what it is, but is cheap. I read my guidebook while waiting. My chin rests in my hand. I'm careful not to put too much pressure. I might loosen the temporary cement that holds my $600 gold inlay onto the tooth beneath it.

My cheek itches. I move to scratch it, and feel a raised bump, like a tiny scab. I pick at it and it comes off under my fingernail. It's red, but not bleeding. It's too small to see if it's just a mini-scab, or if it's some tiny insect, red with my own blood, just picked from my skin.

Carefully, I set it on a page in my notebook. Exactly at the center of a crosshatch. I'll give it some time. If it moves, I'll know it's alive, and not some kind of effluvia that my body throws onto the skin every once in awhile. It should be easy to see if it moves. It only has to reach a line on either side.

After a minute... two minutes... it's in the same place I put it. Safe! I think.

Flash ahead: I write this in my hotel room in Berati. It's 10PM. I did nothing touristy today. I wrote a bit, called (and got through!) to Andi in Tirana. I went to my local internet café. (They know me by now.) I uploaded Albania 13 to my Blog, and Facebooked a bit. I even checked my long neglected MySpace pages.

(I rarely use MySpace because of its censorship. I can't post a link to my blogspot-blog and I can't link to anything using TinyURL. It “fails the spam filter,” they say. Yeah, right.)

Tomorrow, I get up and leave for Tirana, the city that Masuda felt dai-kirai (I hate it), and the one that Dave, the British tourist mimed a slit throat over. I've got about a dozen days left in this vacation, only about half in Albania.

Then, I return to the dreaded Italy, before returning to the even more dreaded New York to go back to work to pay for this trip.

Downstairs at the hotel, the concierge tells me his name is Lula, the same name as my favorite South American political leader. He's a kindly old gent who tells me his son lives in Queens and works at JFK airport. He can't remember his son's address or phone number, but he gives me his own phone number and I promise to call him and retrieve it. I'll contact his son when I get to New York, tell him I saw his dad, and he's fine.

He promises to walk me to the bus tomorrow, to make sure I get on the right bus to Tirana. I'll be safe if I come with him, he says.

“Sure,” I say.

STOP! If you want to shake me and say, Mykel, stop it. You should have learned your lesson, then you don't get it. The Albanians are nice. They're friendly. They're good people. But just like everywhere. There are monsters.

The next day, Lula does walk me to the bus station and puts me on the right bus. The bus leaves Berati and passes more than a hundred of the 70,000 bunkers that are everywhere in Albania. They're a ubiquitous reminder of the bunker-mentality of the past. You can buy bunker mugs, bunker ashtrays. They're a national symbol. I wish I could see one up close.

Ah well, tomorrow TIRANA! Maybe I'll see one there.

Albania 15: Jimmy

2009-10-28T16:01:00.006-05:00

Change the setting, and the commonplace becomes wondrous. --Mykel Board

Jimmy's Tale

I write sitting in the Cuçi Bar Restorant in Berati. My plan was to sit all day in an outdoor café, drinking a cup of coffee, very Parisian, and just write. But, such are plans.

The outdoor café is louder than a sports bar during the world series. It's right across from a mosque. Pretty setting. But over the general din, the guy at the next table kept shouting. Like he was in an argument about a sports team. But I kept hearing the words iszhrael or something like that. People who know me know I'm not the biggest fan of the country of Israel, though I have Israeli friends. (Hell, I'm not the biggest fan of the country of America, though I also have a couple of American friends.) But I also know Izraelit in Albanian means Jew. And hey, you talkin' about me?

I could be completely wrong. The guy cudda been screaming about something else. The local soccer team for all I know. In one of his movies, Woody Allen talks about how Jews are so sensitive, that they hear Jew in everything. People talking on the street:

“I didn't go. Did you?”

Jew? Jew? Did he say Jew?

So maybe I mis-heard. In any case, the guy is so loud and annoying that I can't stay. So I go for a walk, go down a side street. Find this restaurant and figure, if so many flies like this place, the food must be good. And they have Fanta. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the sugar and not high fructose corn poison. But the Fanta in Albania is really great... And the restaurant doesn't care if I use their electricity to write this entry.

This is my third day in Berati. It's a nice town, somewhat vertical, but not as dramatic as Gjirokastra. It's not about Berati I want to write, though. It's not really about a town at all, but about a person.

In my last entry, I wrote about my climb to the castle. On the return trip, after meeting some Peace Corpsers, I found myself a long way from town, and very high up in the mountain. I knew the way from the Post Office, so I asked a local directions there, figuring the rest would be easy.

I asked an ancient Albanian guy. One tooth in his mouth... and it was gold. Thinning gray hair, and that large Albanian forehead that is so distinctive of the people here.

(Actually, the entire Albanian headshape is distinctive. There's no back to the head. Just a straight line up from the back of the neck to the crown. The face is rectangle, like a brick on end. And that forehead. That high forehead, like a caricature of an intellectual. I don't know much about brain geography. I think intelligence is what's behind the forehead, so maybe Albanians are really smart. I don't know what's at the back, though. That, they're missing.)

The guy told me his name was Jimmy. I told him mine was Mykel.

“I speak Italian, Russian, and French,” he said. “I'm sorry. I don't English. My son, he speak very well English.”

I asked him where the post office was. He told me it was closed. Communication from this point was difficult, but he showed me, I thanked him, and found my way home from there.

I return to the castle the next day. First, I want to go to the information center again... find out about the bus schedule to Tirana. Second, I want to see the Zekate house, a Byzantine house, reconstructed in the original style. Third, I wanted to go to the Ethnographic museum. I had such a good experience at the one in Saranda, I figured I'd see another one, just for the photos and the guides.

As I climb the cobblestone path toward the castle, I hear a voice.

“Mykel! Mykel!”

It's Jimmy.

“Mykel,” he says. “You go to the post office? You mail things?”

I tell him yes and thank him. There's not point in trying to explain again.

He moves to my side.

“I speak Italian, Russian, and French,” he said. “I'm sorry. I don't English. My son, he speak very well English.”

“Une koptoj.” (I understand) I tell him.

“You have a cup of coffee with me?” he asks.

“Sure,” I say.

That's why I travel. I don't travel for buildings, though some, like the Gjirokastra castle, are pretty amazing. I don't travel for scenery, though the Albanian mountains are amazing. I travel for people-- and adventure. If I don't say yes to every invitation, I may be missing something. I'll never know.

So we go to a café on the side of the mountain. I don't know how it stays there. Certainly one wall must be longer than the other. I wonder if they have special chairs, two legs longer on one side, so you can sit outside without falling over.

Jimmy and I both order coffee. He talks to me.

“I taught Russian, but I love democratzia. I love American song: Elvis Presley. Michael Jackson. Gloria Gaynor (?????)...”

I nod. Then remember that I might be saying NO with that nod. Jimmy doesn't seem to notice.

“I speak Italian, Russian, and French,” he says. “I'm sorry. I don't English. My son, he speak very well English.”

“Une koptoj,” I tell him.

“Now I have no work.” He says. “Four years no work. I have son. He in Tirana. He study medicine. I have daughter. She in Italy. She also student.”

Just then the waiter comes out. I ask him to take our pictures. The sun is, for once, so bright, that the shadow from the restaurant awning, divides our faces.

“I'm a teacher too,” I tell him. “I teach English in New York. All my students are Japanese.”

One of the many nice linguistic coincidences is that teacher in Albanian is mësues (pronounced masseuse). It's much sexier sounding to say I'm a masseuse, than a teacher. Though Jimmy is not a guy I particularly want to be sexy with.

We finish our coffee. Jimmy says to me, “I'm sorry Mykel. But I have no change for coffee. You have change? You can pay?”

The total is around 150 lek. I think I can spring for that. But it's a weird culture where people invite you out, then expect you to pay for them. It's like my guide in Durres. Don't worry about the money... you're paying.

“We go to the Zekate House,” says Jimmy. “I show you.”

So up we walk. Up is the only way to walk to see anything in Gjirokastra. Down is the way back.

During our walk, Jimmy talks some more.

“You teach English,” he says. “Everybody use English. I teach Russian. I teached Russian. Little children. I not teach dictatorship. (He pronounces it dictatorship). I teached Democratzia and music: Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Gloria Gaynor. But I teached Russian. Now in Albania, no more dictator. No more Russian. I no work four years.”

“That's too bad,” I say, turning to look into his impossibly weary eyes and unavoidably staring at his single gold tooth. Is he eighty? Ninety? I don't know. He's strong enough to take this hike. Straight uphill, it's leaving me breathless. I wish I smoked. Then I'd have an excuse.

He continues talking, but hides his mouth with his hand as he speaks.

“You have lots or little a teacher?” he asks, rubbing his thumb against the other four fingers in a near-universal sign for money.

“Not a lot,” I say, “but I live.”

“I don't live,” he says. “Mykel, I don't live.”

Luckily, about this time we come to the Zekate house. A dog barks at our approach. It's looks like a poodle, or something poodlish. White, fluffy, with a harness instead of a leash. It's pulling against that harness, yapping away. I guess it's a kind of automatic doorbell, informing the occupants of an approaching visitor.

The house itself is an interesting old building: two towers and a stone foundation. The house is so wide and the street so narrow, it's impossible to fit more than one tower at time in the camera lens.

The top, white part, has rectangular windows, very close together. There are long wooden support beams holding up the black roof. In the lower, stone, part, the windows are arched at the top, and rather small compared to the whole wall space.

It's an incredibly impressive building, looking not quite like anything I've seen before.

It is also closed.

“I'm sorry Mykel,” says Jimmy. “It is closed.

I shrug. At least the return is downhill.

“No problem,” I say. “Let me take your picture here, and we'll go to the ethnographic museum.”

He nods.

When we get to the museum, Jimmy says goodbye.

“Here is the museum,” he says. “I will not go in. You go in.”

“Thank you, Jimmy,” I say, shaking his hand. “Faleminderit shum.”

He turns to leave. There is a deep sadness in his walk.

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. During our conversation, Jimmy tells me how old he is. He's younger than I am.

***

I enter the museum and am immediately greeted by a photograph of an old Praktica (East German) camera, with a big red X over it.

Okay, that spoils have the fun, since the stuff in the music is stuff you want to remember, and, if you have a brain like a... like a... I can't remember what... like I do, then you need pictures. Just to spite, I take a picture of the no picture-taking sign.

Looks like I'm going to have to take this tour on my own. No host and hostess like last time. That's a shame, but then again, I can take pictures. Who's gonna know?

I walk upstairs. A middle-aged woman is sitting on a couch talking to a much older woman. The younger of the two wears a long dark dress and has dark stockings rolled to mid calf. She wears sunglasses... on top of her head.

(I already wrote that few Albanians wear glasses. Many Albanians, however, wear sunglasses... always. When it's sunny, they wear them over their eyes, looking like mobsters or Secret Service. When it's cloudy or rainy, they wear them on top of their heads. Looking, like tourists in their own country.)

The woman sees me and pulls up her stockings.

“Ju flicni Anglisht?” I ask.

She shakes her head yes.

“You want to see the museum,” she says.

“Po,” I say.

“200 lek,” she says.

I pay her the money. And she takes me to a large room with a window in the ceiling.

“This was the kitchen,” she says.

Then she takes me to another little room. It's all white with a little carved-- or more accurately broken-- space in the floor and wall.

“And this was the bathroom... the toilet,” she says.

Then a room with what looks like red shag carpeting on all the furniture. Everything is on the ground. Just pillows around a round central table. On the table are half a dozen place settings with metal plates, forks, knives and spoons-- all on the same side of the plate.

“And this was the dining room,” she says.

And so it continues, room to room, until we're back where we started.

“And now you have seen the museum,” she says. “Good bye.”

Hmm, a bit different from the last ethnographic museum.

I walk downhill to go back to the hotel, wondering if I should have given Jimmy a thousand lek or something.

Albania 14: The Vertical City

2009-10-26T02:39:00.009-05:00

All generalizations are wrong... including this one. --Mykel Board

1. Albanians don't eat. They drink, especially coffee. Cafés by the dozens are filled with locals, sitting, staring at the passing parade of people. Or in heated conversation, with one person yelling something as if in rage, and the others shaking their heads in agreement. There are restaurants, fast food joints, and pizza parlors galore. It's just that there's no one in these places. Albanians get everything they need to live in liquid-- and inhalant-- form.

2. Albanians smoke. (Tobacco... though once I did smell the good stuff. By the seaside, in Vlora.) They smoke everywhere. On the street. In cafés. In bars. When you sit down at a table to eat or drink, the first thing a waiter does is bring you an ashtray. It's like America in the 50s and 60s. The aroma of tobacco is in everything. It's great.

I realize how much I miss the smells suddenly disappeared from American life. A smokey bar is a real bar. Not the fake TV-watching, music-blaring, meat markets that pass as bars in America in 2009. In this small corner of the world, people appreciate the smell, the sensuality, the toughness of cigarettes. By the way, Albania was one of the first countries in the world to legalize gay marriage. Smoking and gay marriage. I think the two are related. That brings me to...

3. Albanians show affection without it being a sign of conquest-- or even sexuality. Teenage boys walk with their arms around each other. Middle aged men walk arm-in-arm. There's nothing sexual about it, but there is real friendship. Friends, not afraid of showing their friendship-- by touching one another. It's a joy to see, though it makes me sadder to think about what Christianity's hate-the-body/hate-the-touch has taken from us in America.

Now on to Gjirokastra:

Gjirokastra was a steep city, perhaps the steepest in the world, which had broken all the laws of town planning. Certainly this was the only place in the world where, if a passer-by fell, instead of sliding into a roadside ditch, he might end up on the roof of a tall house. This is something which drunkards knew better than anyone. --Ismail Kadare, Chronicle in Stone

Gjirokastra-- coldsore day 13. (Yeah it's still faintly there.)

I sit in my hotel room in Gjirokastra. It was probably the right move to leave this morning, instead of yesterday. It did rain today, but not the torrential Noah's ark rain of yesterday. And, it stopped before the bus left from Saranda.

It's been raining in this town too. It just stopped, but the sky is dark and threatening. It's 1PM, I'll give it half an hour. If it's still not raining, I'll go to the old (vertical) town. Right now, I'm in the new town, not far from the bus stop.

The ride here from Saranda was uneventful. Saranda, by the way, was my favorite town so far. Several people talked to me, asked me where I was from. I didn't make any friends, but this was the closest to friend-making I've had in Albania.

Goni, the hotel owner, managed to joke with me, and tell about his surgery in Michigan... all without English.

(I find that the only way I can remember Albanian names is to relate them to other languages. Goni is FIVE-TWO in Japanese. Just like the evil Co-ocho was TOGETHER (co)-EIGHT in Spanish.)

I even had a glimmer of hope with my cellphone this morning. Playing with the settings got me a few seconds of connectivity. But then it failed, and I haven't been able to get it back since. Ah well, another thing on my todo list when I get back: Complain to t-mobile and see if I can score another phone.

I wish I had a thermometer with me. Not the health kind. It would be too easy to find out I'm sick and then act accordingly. I mean the room kind. It must be 40^oF in this room now. I've got on my 200 lek sweatshirt and still I'm cold. My feet too, through my army boots.

Ho ho! Look what I found! A remote control for the heater. I set it to 30^oC. (It doesn't go any higher).That's about 90^o Fahrenheit. There's no way it'll actually reach that temperature in here, but it may just get warm enough to let me take my shoes off.

Ah, that's better, now onwards and upwards...

*****

It's been a tiring, yet peaceful day. I walked uphill through the old town to the castle. It's a hell of a walk. First through the entire new town. Then practically straight up on a cobblestone street,through the old town.

Then to the top of the mountain.

The city is so steep-- not hilly, just steep-- it makes San Francisco look flat. The castle is at the top, and it's pretty spectacular.

Of course, I'm the only one in the place-- and it's huge. Bigger than Grand Central. It was first a castle in the 1200s. Then a prison from the middle ages through the 1970s.

I take a piss in one of the cells, makes me feel like I'm getting revenge for one of those nameless prisoners who probably died here. Most of the cells are just block rooms, cement cubes almost as small as my New York apartment.

Some have a little raised area in back.

A few are below ground level. These were the punishment cells. When water reaches these cells it stays, ankle deep, puddling the floor, attracting mosquitoes. The punishment was hot water in summer, cold water in winter. You can only imagine.

The castle has it's own café, a stone and wood room, in what looks like a bunker of some kind. The weirdest part of the castle walk, though, is the plane.

The Albanians say it was a U.S. spy plane shot down in the 1950s. At least that's what they used to say. The current sign, near the entrance lists it like this:

U.S. Spyplane???

The question marks, I guess are post-Communist.

Why it's in the castle, and what the story is, I don't know. Just coming across it, sitting on the castle grounds, lends the adventure an even greater air of surreality than it already had from the tanks, and the anti-aircraft guns.

The museum of armaments, contained inside the castle is not open. My guidebook says there's not much there anyway. Most of the good stuff was looted during the riots of the late 90s. Those were caused by the collapse of a national pyramid scheme. Like Bernie Madoff.

People in Albania got angrier than Americans did. There were riots all over the country. In this city, they broke into the weapons museum, stole the displays, and used them.

The castle was also used as a storehouse for heavy weapons,

and when you enter you go down a poorly lit, very spooky hall with heavy artillery pointing from both sides. At the end of the hall is an entire tank, along with a giant statue of someone with a gun.

Then comes the prison, then an open field, then the small café, where I have a Turkish coffee, as the only customer, of course. There is a very loud cat, though it doesn't seem to be having coffee.

On the way back down from the castle, I find a tourist information center. I go in.

There are three guys in there, all in their late 20s. Two of them wear glasses.

[Note: very few Albanians wear glasses. It's strange. I haven't figured out if it's because they have good eyesight, or no opticians.]

“Ju flicni anglisht?” I ask the young man behind the counter.

“Pak” he says. He nods toward one of the other guys. “He speaks English,” he says.

“Sure,” says the guy. “You want a map of the town? One Euro. You want one only of the old town. It's free.”

The guy has a perfect American accent.

“How come your English is so good?” I ask him.

“I'm from Cincinnati,” he says. “My friend and I are with the Peace Corps. We're working here in Albania.”

“Ju flisni squip?” I ask them.

The guy behind the counter answers. “With a very bad accent,” he says. “You're Albanian is much better. Maybe you have an Albanian in your blood.”

I figure out what he means and thank him.

The Peace Corps guys walk me to a local restaurant. On the way they tell me today is a national holiday: Mother Theresa Day. Schools and some businesses are closed. The restaurant is not.

I should order the qifqi (pronounced Chief-chi), they advise me. It's a specialty of the area.

I do and it's not bad. It's a fried riceball with various herbs and spices. I also get fried green peppers... and a beer. Cost me 500 lek. Not bad, huh?

I don't really have a good sense of how to get back, except that I need to walk downhill. Way downhill. As long as I get back before nightfall, I can make it to the hotel with no problem. It gets dark around 6, so if I leave by 3, I'll be fine.

Then I check my useless phone. It's 4:30. I'm outta here!

The locals don't seem to be able to read maps. I show them mine and ask where different places are, but they can't relate the places outside to the marking on the map. I've seen it several times in Albania. People can give directions, but they can't read a map.

I know that the post office is a good reference point. I think I can find my way down from there.

I ask a vegetable seller where the post office is. His only customer, a nearly toothless guy with a scruffy bit of white beard and one of those high Frankenstein foreheads, asks me if I'm Italian.

I say no, American.

“I speak Italian, Russian, Greek, Albanian,” he says. “I don't English. I go with. My name is Jimmy.”

“Uh oh,” I think. “Here we go again.” At least this time, I already have a hotel.

“Post office closed,” (he pronounces closed like closet) he says.

“That's okay,” I say. “I only need to find it.”

“You come tomorrow. Open. Open.”

I try unsuccessfully to explain that I don't really need the post office, but am only using it as a landmark to guide me back to my hotel.

“Tomorrow, open. Open,” he says again.

He takes me there anyway... or at least within pointing distance. And... it's all downhill from there.

Albania 13: Noah in Saranda, Albania

2009-10-23T10:56:00.009-05:00

[NOTE: This blog/diary of Mykel's Italian-Albanian trip starts several entries before this one. Due to the oddities of Blogging, the entries appear in reverse order. Because much of the reportage is based on the previous days, I recommend reading from the start, at the entry ALBANIA 1. Also, because this computer lacks search capabilities, and my brain needs a RAM boost, I fear I may repeat some tales already told... repeat some tales already told.]

For bounty cheers not his delay, nor there will weary stranger halt. --Lord Byron
Saranda (Coldsore day 11,12 almost disappeared, just an off-color red spot)

I write this at one in the afternoon, lying in bed in my hotel room in Saranda. It's my third day in this town, the only Albanian city I've spent more than 2 nights in. It's not because I like it so much (though it is my favorite city so far), but rather is it uneasiness that keeps me here-- and water.

I feel vaguely sick, and vaguely exhausted. My eyes close even as I type these words. My jaw aches... and that will only get worse. I have a chance to nap, but I feel like I'm missing something if I don't get out and enjoy the few hours of warmth.

FLASHBACK: My escape from Qeparo is relatively easy. After getting on the bus, I just ride. No one speaks to me. No one offers me accommodation. Nothing good, nothing bad. A stop here and there to pick-up or discharge, but we arrived in Saranda with ease. I find a guide-book recommended hotel, and am paying 15€ a night. Less than half than what Co-ocho extorted... Naw, no more about THAT GUY. Let sleeping evil men lie.

[Note: brushing away a bee reminds me to write that there are bees everywhere here. Not just in the countryside, but everywhere around the city. I haven't been stung yet. So, it's good to see them.

In America, they're dying out. Victims of too much insecticide and too much overbuilding. They try to overbuild here, but it doesn't work. They've made a resort, but nobody stays in it. In summer, I guess it's crowded... but not enough to kill the bees.]

After adjusting to the hotel room, I take a walk in town. I need to find a sweater for the cold that has taken over the country. I'm headed to the local tourist information center which has the unfortunate Albanian acronym of ZIT.

Walking around, I see that this town, like others in Albania, is built on the ruins of an older city that was built on the ruins of a still older city, built on the ruins... (imagine the imagination imagining itself-- William Gass) At the corner, near the ruins of a Basilica, built on the ruins of a synagogue, is a bus stop. Waiting at that bus stop is the Japanese girl I helped in Durres... so many days ago. She has her nose buried in a Japanese guidebook.

“Masuda-san!” I call.

She doesn't answer.

“Masuda-san,” I call again.

I guess she's trained herself to block out any sounds from the outside. She certainly doesn't expect anyone to know her or call her name.

Me? I jump at anything that vaguely sounds like Mykel. I'm always expecting to meet a friend or have to quickly run.

I cross the street and walk up to her. She's startled, but then happy to see me. I remember that she speaks no English.

Suddenly, I'm faced with speaking entirely in Japanese. Not only is my Japanese bad to start with, but because my brain switched to Albanian, it's even more of a struggle to remember. But we do manage to communicate.

She tells me she's going to Butrint. It's an ancient city, not far from here. She asks if I want to come along. Company! An Asian female who I can (almost) talk to! I jump on the chance like an old Albanian jumps on an ignorant tourist.

On the bus, she tells me that she's just come from Gjirokastra in the mountains. It's a beautiful city, but even colder than here. I explain that's my next stop. Then on to Tirana.

She makes a face.

“Tirana-wa suki ja nai desuka?” (Don't you like Tirana?) I ask her.

“Tirana-wa dai-kirai,” (I HATE Tirana) she says.

I ask her why, and she explains. I don't understand most of it. Something about getting hit in the back of the head.

Butrint is a U.N. identified World Heritage Site. The shape of the town and amazing ruin layout reminds me of Machupichu, although the architecture is thousands of miles and thousands of years different. Being a WHS means they get money from outside. It also means they can charge an outrageous (for Albania), 500 lek to get in.

(In case you haven't figured it out, one lek equals about one yen equals about one U.S. cent.)

Masuda is bothered by the flies and mosquitoes. She walks through the site waving a handkerchief in front of her face. The flies don't bother me, and the mosquitoes seem to like her more than they like me.

During our walk through the ruins, we stop and take lots of pictures. The ruins date from Greek, pre-Roman times (we are withing spitting distance of Greece), through Roman, through Byzantine, and everything in between. I wish I knew more European history. I could put all this in perspective.

We both take lots of pictures, mainly of each other, with each other's camera. In other words, she takes pictures of me with my camera. I take pictures of her with her camera. I use the self-timer to get one of us together. In an ancient stadium, of course. Everywhere, there are ancient stadia.

As we leave Butrint we run into some British tourists. I recognize them as English-speaking because they carry the same guidebook I do.

Dave and Marge have rented a car in Tirana and driven it this whole way.

“The driver can't look at the scenery,” says Dave. “Just keep an eye on the road.”

“Isn't it just terrifying?” I say, thinking about buses passing each other on the no lane highways.

“It sure is,” he says.

“By the way,” I say, “I haven't been to Tirana yet. What did you think of it.”

He grimaces, and using his thumb, makes the sign of slitting his own throat.

“That good, huh?” I say. “Masuda here agrees with you.”

I translate for her and she nods vigorously.

After returning to Saranda from Butrint, we have dinner at a restaurant Masuda found yesterday. Between us we have a small dish of salad, a bowl of bean soup, and a plate of Pilaf. The latter is just a small pile of white rice with a tablespoon of meatsauce. It's enough.

After dinner: Soshite ima? (And now?) I say, hoping my voice does not betray a wink.

“Umi-wa mimashitaka?” (Have you seen the beach?) she asks.

The rest I'll just translate. It was too much of a struggle the first time.

“No, I haven't,” I answer.

“You should go to the shore,” she says. “I'm going to my hotel. Sayonara.”

We split up. I go for a walk along the beach, have a cup of coffee by myself. Drink a beer by myself. And come back to the hotel, by myself.

I see her very briefly the next day. I had planned on climbing the highest mountain in Saranda to see the castle at the top. On the way, we pass each other. I tell her my plans. She looks at the mountain and says, “Good luck!” in English. That's the last time I see her.

I never make it up the mountaintop. I try. I follow some paths that lead upwards, but they deadend. I retrace my steps and try again. By the third time, I'm so tired, I give up.

The only adventure of the next day is breakfast. It's about 10AM, and I'm out looking for breakfast. Maybe because this is a seaside resort town, people do seem to occasionally eat here. Probably only tourists.

First, I sit outside in a small cafe near the beach. Inside, someone is already drinking coffee. Maybe they have food. I'll ask. I sit down. And wait. And wait some more. I feel like a colored guy trying to get service at a southern sodashop circa 1962.

Ending my private sit-in, I walk across the street to a nicer café, built on a wharf curving out into the sea. The waiter comes up to me.

Un dua te ha ditchka. (I want to eat something.) I say.

“You can't eat here,” he says in English. “You can eat over there.” He points to a pizza restaurant on shore.”

I thank him and head to the restaurant. On the menu are 20 different kinds of pizza and one entry OMELET. That would be the perfect breakfast: just an omelet. Just too perfect. I know it's on the menu, but there's no way in hell they're going to have a real omelet. It's for show. I'm sure.

When the waiter comes I point to OMELET on the menu.

“Nuk kemi.” (We don't have it.) he says. What a surprise!

I order an O SOLO MIO pizza instead. It is to pizza, what a breakfast burrito is to a burrito.

In other words, It is a pizza, but instead of mozzarella, and tomato sauce, it has ham, sausage, cheddar cheese and eggs. A pizza McMuffin. It is really bad. Maybe the worst pizza I've had in my life, though Polish pizza in 1980 comes pretty damn close.

I can't get the taste out of my mouth for the rest of the day. It's one of those tastes.

I go to the Internet café to do a bit of posting and couch-surfing. My computer is agonizingly slow and I've been feeling a headache coming on all day. Now it pounds as I wait for the screen to redraw.

The headache is almost like a migraine, but in three strips. They all start at the bridge of my nose. One goes straight down the middle of my head. The two others travel back on the sides where a part would be, if I had enough hair to part. I feel nauseous, and completely exhausted.

It's the swine flu! I know it.

I pay the internet guy and stagger out of the I-café. I just hope I can make it back without collapsing in the street.

Back at the hotel, I collapse in bed. It's 7:30. I awaken at 11PM, without the headache.

I've still got the taste of breakfast pizza running between my molars. I take out my trusty toothbrush (to be discarded after this trip... coldsores, you know), and Tom's of Maine travel size, and scrub away. Then in a fit of dental responsibility, I floss for the first time this trip... and dislodge a gold inlay on my last molar.

That inlay cost $600 in New York. I did bring emergency dental repair glue. I know what happens. But I've used it before and the stuff only lasts two or three days. What if I swallow the inlay? I'm gonna have to strain my shit. Maybe make impromptu enema, squirt up one of those plastic bottles of water. Shit in the shower, with a window screen over the drain.

Right now, I paste in the gold. I use too much cement and it's too high on my jaw. It makes me bite at an angle. It's gonna give me a another headache, I'm sure.

Besides, I'm a nighttime tooth-grinder. I may even dislodge it at night! I could choke on it. Die! I sleep fitfully.

At six AM, I awaken to the Muslim call to morning prayers. I like these 3 or 4 daily calls to prayers. They're eery melodies, but somehow calming. A great change from the honking and dog barking on the street. As I type this, the 7:30, evening, call is coming over the speakers on the minaret of the local mosque. (I wonder what they did before loud speakers.)

This morning though, in addition to the prayer call is thunder. Big bangs of it. I see lightning flash against the curtain. I count the seconds. One... two... three... four... five... six... seven... eight... nine... ten... eleven... twelve. Then the thunder. Twelve miles away. That could be Greece. I don't know. In any case, it's weird for there to be thunderstorms so early. They should be in the afternoon or evening. I fall back to sleep.

Again lightning wakes me up. It seems like it's been several hours. Thunderstorms don't last several hours. I fall back asleep.

It's nine o'clock and the thunder, lightening and rain continue. Not a normal pitter of rain. But a deluge. A downpour. A torrent. I look out the window. The sky is black. It's raining so hard it sounds like someone has turned a firehose on the hotel.

I walk downstairs. Go into the bar-café.

Without asking, the pretty blonde waitress brings me a double espresso. I am not the only one in the café. At another table sit two men. One speaks loudly into his cellphone. The other jokes with the waitress, then turns to me and makes a NICE BOD shape with his hands. The waitress plays insulted.

He asks me if I'm Italian. “Yo, American” I tell him.

Then he points to his friend on the phone. “America,” he says in English, “Chicago, Boston. You where?”

“New York,” I tell him.

Then he looks outside and says, “Shi!” which I figure means RAIN, and which sounds enough like the Mongolian word “shess” which means “piss,” for me to remember.

(Ironically, the word drink in Albanian is pi, pronounced pee.)

“Madh shi!” (big rain) I say.

I look out the window again. The streets are flooded. So flooded, in fact, that although the hotel is on a hill, water is running the other way. I mean the lower streets are so full of water that it's forced back, running uphill. This is not a river. It is whitewater rapids. And it shows no sign of letting up.

Do I take the bus to Gjirokastra as I had planned? If I do, the way will certainly be treacherous. I won't be able to see THE BLUE EYE, a famous Albanian landmark, and I'll have to wait some time in the rain for the next bus.

On the other hand, if I stay another day and it doesn't stop raining. I'll never be able to leave. How much space in The New York Times will they give to a fatal Albanian flood? Probably won't make it to page 10. It's not like the Thai tsunami, where TV stations grabbed American survivors right and left. Whose even gonna know there was an American in the flood?

I picture myself in my hotel, climbing up to higher and higher floors as the flood rises around me. Even if the rain stops, I won't have food or water. I'll parish here, $600 tooth or not.

I decide to risk the flood and stay in town one more day. I sit in my hotel room and watch the water on the street rise up past the curb.

-end-

Albania 12: Tale of Terror pt.2

2009-10-22T11:46:00.005-05:00

[NOTE: This blog/diary of Mykel's Italian-Albanian trip starts several entries before this one. Due to the oddities of Blogging, the entries appear in reverse order. As much of the reportage is base on the previous days, I recommend reading from the start, at the entry ALBANIA 1.]

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Qeparo (Coldsore day 9, but will it matter anymore?)

I don't sleep very well that night. When I do manage to drift off the dreams are terrible. Fortunately I can't remember most of them. Only one where I was standing outside, just standing, my eyes closed, seeing nothing. I feel a hand grab the front of my shirt, just about solar plexus level. In the dream I know it is a dream. This is not real. I read down and feel the hand. A human hand, masculine, holding tight. I grab the hand and squeeze. It crumples in my grip. Then I wake up, again.

I must have drifted off yet again, because I'm again awakened. This time by the sound of the glass door being slid open. There he is, unsmiling, with a large cup of coffee and more fruit.
The only thing I've eaten in the past days was fruit. Figs, pamagranite, and a mysterious cactus fruit. It all grows in the garden 30 or so feet directly below. Fertilized, I'm sure, by many others who have stood in this exact spot.

I understand why he asked me how long I'm staying. He really hates what he has to do, and wants to postpone it until the last possible minute. I could escape, maybe. But I'm so far out of town, so lost, how would I ever get anywhere? And he'd see me with my backpack, that'd be a... er... dead giveaway.

Finally he tells me his name. Coocho. I'm horrible with names, but I know if I don't remember this one, I'll be in even worse trouble. Somehow it becomes the most important task of my life to remember. Let's see: Ocho is eight in Spanish. Co-means together like co-worker or cooperate. Two eights together. I fix the image in my mind and superimpose it over his face.

I take out my camera and motion that I want to take his picture. I figure when my remains wash up on shore, they'll find the camera and then catch the guy. Surprisingly, he agrees. I guess he figures on taking the camera after the act.

After the photos he points out to the sea. He asks me if I'm going to go swimming. I tell him it's too cold. He says maybe tomorrow. I say, no I'm leaving tomorrow.

I can see the sadness in his face when I make it clear I'm not staying another day. The longer he can wait the better. I know doesn't want to have to do this, but he's got to. But now it has to be tonight.

Dua te shikoj Himara. (I want to see (the town of) Himara.), I tell him. Not thinking clearly, that if I manage to get into town I could never find my way back to this place. I get lost in Soho, for God's sake.

He points to me, then himself, and then makes the two-fingers-next-to-each-other sign that means together.

Ok, at least that will get me back to the death chamber.

Together we climb the stairs to the alley that leads to the tunnel that leads to the ditch, that leads to the stone steps that lead to the road where the bus will come to take us to Himara. We wait for a bit. The bus does not come.

I take a picture of the stone staircase, another of the garage door close to it, another of a sign that says QEPARO FSHAT, right near the descent from the highway. I have no idea what “fshat” means, but maybe some cab or bus driver will recognize the sign. Besides, if I escape, like the girl in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I can use the photos as clues for the cops to find Albania's Ed Gein.

Still, the bus doesn't come.

A car pulls out of a nearby driveway, off the main road somewhere. Slowly, it makes its way to the outer street. Coocho walks over and signals the man to stop. He has a conversation with him and opens the front and read doors of the car. He motions for me to get in the rear. I do. Then he closes both doors and waves good-bye to me. We head into town.

The driver lets me and the other passenger off at the post office. I look up the word return in the Albanian-English dictionary: kthim.

Ku kthim? I ask him. (When return?)

He shows me two fingers, one bent halfway. I guess that means in an hour and a half. I figure he'll park his cab here and return to it when it's time to leave. That doesn't give me much time, but I can buy some stamps and mail my postcards, go for a stroll down the beach, look at the ocean, have a cup of coffee. When I get out of the post office, the cab is gone.

I'll never find my way back now. My bags, most of my money is there. My computer. I know the only logic is death, but what if I'm missing something? What if he's just this nice eccentric old coot who does want to take care of me. It's not logical (or true, it turns out), but what if?
I walk to the taxi stand near the post office. Maybe the driver will be there. He isn't.

Most of the cabs are empty. In the only one with a driver, the driver is asleep on the front seat with the door open and one foot out of the cab. Knowing my own consciousness on just awakening, I decide not to wake him for the drive.

From a nearby restaurant, another guy, late thirties, needing a shave as do all Albanian men, walks toward me. [Note: Albania joins that list of countries: Turkey, Mongolia, Brazil, where the women are neck-wrenchingly beautiful, but the men are as ugly as the Bush family.]

Taksi? he says.

I pull out my camera and flip through the pictures until I find the garage on the main road.

Ju dini ketu?I ask. (You know here.)

He squints at the picture and then shakes his head. “Po (yes),” he says.

Then he says 13 Euros in English. I try to bargain, but he sticks to the price.

Taxi-meter he says.

During the ride, he never turns on the taxi-meter.

But he does get me to the garage. And actually a little past where the QEPARO FSHAT sign is. I get out and go down the stairs, trying to remember the way to the house of horrors.

A strange kind of trance music comes from someplace. It's like a pop version of Phillip Glass. I never heard it before, but it may be what's popular these days. It sounds spooky to me.

I walk down some steps, through a tunnel, another tunnel, past a ditch, through an alley. I see a
pile of bricks I never saw before. A door with a large round knocker... never saw it before. I'm lost.

I turn to retrace my steps. An old man comes the other way.

“Co-ocho?” I ask him.

He laughs, and points back where I came from. Then he makes a downward motion with his hands, and a sweeping curve with his arm. I retrace my steps, and soon get lost again.

“The sea, the sea,” I think. If I can find the sea, I can look up at the houses. I'll recognize it from the blue front and the sheer drop. If I go down, any path down, I'll find the sea.

I pick a downhill path. The music is louder here, more menacing than mellow. Like a horror movie soundtrack.

I follow the path until it ends... dead ends, then I go up a little and take another path through a bunch of fruitplants, and then down again. Sand, plastic debris, I've found the sea.

Turning my back to it, I scan the houses. There it is. Blue, in its glory, ready to fall with me, into the sea. I head right for it, up the path to the lower gate to the house. I know this gate, Co-ocho took me through it yesterday, to show me the fruit and the path to the beach. I'm sure this is the way back to the house.

The gate is locked.

I do not scream. I do not pound on it. Instead, I keep the house in view, and go up through the trees, catching my sleeve on the cactus, then pulling free. The music continues, insistent, droning. Up to a small trail. I've lost sight of the house, but I think I know where it is. I follow the path. The house comes into view again. I can see it slightly below and to the right. I reach the set of steps I recognize. They lead down toward the house. They end at a gate.

The gate is not locked.

I walk through it and escape into my room. It's warm. I collapse on one of the two beds in the room and fall into a dreamless sleep.

I awaken when it's still light outside. There is a rattle as the glass door slides open. Co-ocho brings a tray with more figs and other strange fruit on it. Much of the fruit from yesterday lies rotting by the sink. He doesn't seem to notice. He moves the food in smooth motions, like a robot. Gliding the tray to the plastic table in my room.

He makes an eating motion, putting his hands to his lips.

Bukë? (Bread?), he asks.

Po (yes), I say. I need something besides all that fruit. It'll just go right through me. I'll be a pretty messy corpse after all that fruit. He'll deserve it.

“Did you take a shower yet?” he mimes.

“Yo (no),” I say.

He shrugs, goes away and comes back with a couple slices of bread and a few cubes of cheese. He also brings about a cupful of cold spaghetti with tomato sauce. Everything looks homemade.

Then he goes away for a bit and I write a little more. Just as the sun is setting over the Adriatic, he returns. He looks grim.

Opening the sliding glass door, he takes a chair and puts in next to mine.

The miming starts again. You eat. You sleep. Now you pay. I recognize the Albanian word.

Pagoni. (You pay.)

Pay with my life? I don't ask.

He holds up one finger. A thousand Lek?? That's ten dollars. Hah, that's wonderful. I give him two thousand.

“You're my friend (I use the Italian word amici, since it was a word I never needed in Albanian),” I say. “Take more.”

He nods NO.

I don't understand. One night, four thousand lek. Two nights, eight thousand. That's robbery. That's more than I paid in my jacuzzi hotel in Vlora. This is a haunted house! $80, that's ridiculous. I'm not going to...

I hand him the money. It's most of what I have left from my last trip to the bank. But, he's only robbing me! He won't kill me. It's just extortion. He's a hustler, a con artist, not a murderer. Take my money, please! I cudda kissed the guy.

I ask him what time the bus leaves for Saranda tomorrow. He tells me 9 AM. I say I'll get up at 8.

Too late, he says.

OK, I tell him. Statë ore. Seven o'clock.

I set my phone alarm (that's all it's good for, it doesn't work here) for 6:30, just to have time to clean myself up and empty out all the fruit.

At 6:15 he opens the door to wake me up. He stands and watches as I get dressed, stuff my remaining clothes into my pack and go out the door with him. He leads me back upstairs through the alleys and ditches to the road. His wife joins him.

My bus comes and I get on it. He does not say good by. I watch him cross the street to go back to Vlora, and wait at the bus stop. Someone not from around here, will get on a bus headed South.

He will ask them where they're staying, then he'll offer his own place. Eventually, someone else will say yes, and move into the room I just left.

Albania 11: Tale of terror

2009-10-20T13:15:00.006-05:00

Qeparo, Albania, find that on a map! Coldsore day 8

It's time to begin the terror tale. Though it's not over yet. But life also is a terror tale. After it's over, it can only be written by someone else.

This tale starts in Vlora. The concierge at the hotel told me that all the buses from Vlora to Saranda had left. My only choice was to go to Himara, about half-way. That bus doesn't leave from the regular bus station, but one a bit out of town. I can get there by taxi. No problem.

(My guidebook lists S'ka problem! as Albanian for “No problem.” It also has this note: Often turns out to mean there is a problem.)

The bus leaves at 1PM. It's now 9 o'clock.

“Is there anything I can do at the bus station for some hours?” I ask the concierge.

She nods. “There is nothing there,” she says.

She makes a plan for me. The plan is to take a walk, return to the hotel and eat lunch in the hotel restaurant at 11. Then, after lunch, take a taxi to the bus terminal. I'll be there in plenty of time.

Maybe that's why I don't see people eat. They have lunch at 11AM. Maybe dinner at 4. Who expects people to be eating at that time? But nope, that's not it either.

I walk along the beach for a little bit and sit to watch a bulldozer push the plastic garbage around. I go to the post office and mail some postcards. Do other people still send postcards? Well, they still make 'em, so I guess so.

At 11, I return to the hotel and go to the restaurant. It's empty, though the door is open. A heavy-set woman mops the floor.

Une dua te ha ditchka. (I want to eat something.) I say. She tsks once and motions for me to sit down. I'm the only one in the place.

I ask for the menu. She brings it to me and stands over me while I decide what I want to eat. It's my first meal of the day. The menu has beefsteak, fish a la hoity toidy, pizza, pasta. I order a salad and a mineral water.

“Vetem salada?” (Only a salad?) asks the waitress, clearly meaning You disturbed me, made me open the kitchen and neglect my cleaning duties for a salad? What's wrong with you?”

“Vetem salada.” I reply.

It turns out that the salad is enough. It's weird, but on this trip I have less of an appetite than I do in New York. I drink more beer here, but eat a lot less. I wonder if I'm going to lose weight. The food is so salty, I expect I'll gain blood pressure.

My stomach is strange, as it always is when traveling. It suddenly clenches, in extreme pain. A rush to the bathroom clears me out, and I'm good for the rest of the day. After my salad, come the clenches.

I have a long bus ride ahead. So after I pay the bill, I'll clean myself out, and be ready for the long ride to Himara.

I stand to signal that I'm finished. The waitress come to me, collects my money and through the open restaurant door walks a burly guy wearing a black and white knit sweater. He walks right up to me.

“Taxi bussi Himara,” he says grabbing my bags. “We go.”

So, me, my stomach ache and I are off to the bus station, It's just a space in the street out of town, barely big enough for a bus or two. I get in one that says HIMARA on the front.

The driver takes my backpack out of the bus and puts it someplace I can't see. I'm the only passenger in the bus, but not for long. People arrive about 15 minutes before the schedule leaving time.

One of the first of the new arrivals is an older guy. About my height, he wears a typical Albanian tan straw hat. He has a worn-but-clean tweed jacket, and black slacks. His eyes are deep-set, and half closed, like they've seen too much. He sits in an empty seat, the one behind mine. He taps me on the shoulder and I turn to face him. I can see that his eyes are watery-- not sad watery, but sick watery. And one doesn't look exactly in the same direction as the other. He says something to me in Albanian.

“Une nuk flac sqip,” I say.

He shrugs, then motions for me to come and sit next to him. I do. It's not long before I begin to fear that is a mistake.

The bus leaves about a half hour past schedule.

With very few words, THE GUY speaks to me: some Italian, some Greek, some Albanian... but mostly with sign language... like he's done it hundreds of times before.

He asks me where I'm from. New York.

Where I'm going Himara.

Where I'm staying in Himara. (He puts his hands together and tilts his head on them. Then closes his eyes meaning “place you sleep.” I don't know, I shrug.

You (he points to me). Sleep (the sleeping gesture again.) My place. He points to himself, makes a little house-like triangle with his fingers, and then the sleeping gesture again.

I know. I know. But I'm sick of hotels, and Albania is supposed to be safe and small-town people are always friendlier than city people, right? I shake my head in agreement.

There's not much more to say as we ride along. Once he taps me on the shoulder and makes a straight ahead motion, then up and down, as if he's explaining the torturous mountain road ahead. I say koptoj (I understand). But maybe I don't.

During the next hour or so, I look at him every once in awhile. I'm trying for human contact. A smile or something. There is nothing. He looks straight ahead, eyes half closed as in worry, or very serious thought. Sometimes he looks at his knees. His forehead furls. I begin to feel uneasy.

After about two hours of silence, the bus pulls into the Albanian equivalent of a highway rest-stop.

It's a small mountain restaurant called: BEGO

The bus empties. Most everybody goes inside to eat. A few have a smoke first, then join those of us inside. THE GUY stays outside. He walks around. He does not smoke. He just walks, looking at the ground most of the time. I eat a simple rice dish and have some water. Just as I'm finishing, THE GUY walks in and sits at my table. Juu doni te ha ditchka? (“You want to eat something?”) I ask. He smiles weakly, shrugs and leaves again. A few minutes later, I leave and take some pictures around the restaurant, then get back in the bus. THE GUY looks at me without smiling and pats the seat next to him.

We take off, going up and down mountainsides, hairpin turns, just like buses in the mountains always go.

I look at THE GUY and smile. He doesn't smile. He looks at his hands. In them now are rosary beads. He's running them through his fingers. Squinting in something between worry and sorrow. I begin to read his thoughts.

Forgive me mother Mary for what I am about to do. I know it is evil and against your ways, but I must. I have no choice. This is my life. You know me, mother Mary. I know it is wrong to take a life. To inflict so much pain, spill so much blood. But I must. You know that, mother Mary, don't you? I pray for forgiveness.

The beads run through his fingers, one after the other, until they run out at the cross. Then, he starts again.

The bus stops to pick up some school children. They look somehow off. Especially the boys. High foreheads and small jaws. And they're quiet. Ages that from six to ten... and quiet. It's spooky. Like Children of the Damned. They don't stay on the bus very long.

We pass a roadsign. 5km to Himara. Somehow that's a relief.

When we reach what looks like Himara, most passengers get off. We do not.

An old woman, wearing all black, with a black babushka gets on the bus. THE GUY excuses himself and talks to her. She glances at me, a sad look on her face. Then, he shoos me to the window and sits down on the outside, blocking my exit.

The bus closes its doors and heads out of the city.

THE GUY taps me on the shoulder and points to the woman. Then to a ring on his finger. I guess that means she's his wife. They sure didn't act very friendly. Maybe she doesn't approve of what he feels he has to do.

For the next quarter hour, he's back to his rosaries.

In the middle of a hill, the bus doors open and the women gets out. The only two people left are THE GUY and me. A little while further, the bus stops. The end of the line. THE GUY gets out. I do too, retrieving my pack from the back.

Then we walk, through a little opening in the wall. Down a long street. Through a tunnel twisting and turning, to a gravel path, through a ditch. Turn here, there's a staircase, probably built by the Romans, or the ancient Greeks. They'll never find the body in a place like this.

Will I be slowly tortured in the basement? Tied to a cross like Jesus? Helpless, THE GUY wraps his rosary around my balls and asks mother Mary for forgiveness before he bites them off. Will it be quick? Have a seat, I'll be right back. POW! Between the eyes. Will he drug me, then do things to my unconscious body before slitting my throat, severing my head, and boiling it for dinner?

Finally, we end up at a building that overlooks the sea, sheer cliffs to the rocks below. THE GUY brings me to a room that has glass doors and enters from a balcony-- like a motel. The room has two beds, a small unplugged refrigerator, a sink, cabinets, and a bathroom.

THE GUY takes a plastic table and a couple chairs from MY ROOM. He motions for me to sit down. Then he walks away. While he's gone I run my eyes over the tile floor and plaster walls, looking for bloodstains, stray pieces of flesh. There's a dark spot. Some discoloration along the wall. I wonder who that was.

Then, he comes back with some coffee, some strange looking fruit, and a bottle of water. I see by the plastic ring that the bottle has previously been opened, then refilled. I guess that's what's drugged. I don't drink from it.

The coffee is delicious. Turkish style, made by boiling water and coffee grounds together and pouring the mixture into a cup. After you drink it, it leaves a thick black sludge on the bottom of the cup. Heavily sugared, it's the best.

It's hard to find in New York. The first time I had it was in the former Yugoslavia, with a friend whose mother read coffee grounds like old gypsies read tea leaves. I wish I could read my future now.

“Kafé Turke?” I ask.

He nods, “Kafé Grek! No Turke!”

Yowsah some rivalries die hard.

Then he asks if I'm married, do I have kids. All the things that will tell him how much the world will miss me when I'm gone. I guess he's relieved when I say I have neither.

He asks how long I'm planing to stay. An encouraging sign. If he were going to kill me, why would he care? I tell him two nights.

He shakes his head. I realize it's a trick. Something to make me feel more at ease.

Then he asks me if I want a shower, Duche, he uses the Italian/French word.

“Uh oh,” I think. “Here it comes. Get me naked and the fun can begin.”

“Yo, falaminderet” (No thank you) I say, shivering to show it's too cold to bathe.

Actually, it's unbelievably cold. In Italy, and the first two days in Durres were summer. When I got to Vlora a bought a bathing suit, a $30 Armani-- the only one they had left. It was hot. I planned to do the beaches in the south. Then came the rain and since then, cold. Now, it feels barely above freezing. My Inspector Gadget hat and coat are not enough to keep out the cold.

THE GUY wishes me good night and I open the glass doors and enter the room. I try not to think about what will happen later that night. I try not to think about how none of it makes sense in any other way than MURDER.

If he was just being generous, why didn't he take me inside and introduce me to his wife? Why didn't he offer me a little family? Why the lack of smiles? The questions about who will miss me?

Inside the little room things are so cold that I wrap myself in the only blanket in the place and sit with the computer, typing this, photoshopping my pictures, playing spider solitaire, planning as if there were going to be a tomorrow.

It's then that I notice that the glass doors to the room-- the only entrance and the only escape-- lock from the outside. Only the outside. What kind of place is this? What hotel has rooms that only lock from the outside? What house?

At about 9:30, I go to sleep, fully clothed, wrapped tightly in that blanket. Outside a dog barks incessantly. But it's not the dog that keeps me awake. I'm still freezing. I wonder how much of the shaking is from the actual cold, and how much is from fear. I shake like the flu chills. Shake like there's no tomorrow... waiting for the sound of the bursting into the room with guns or machetes. Or worse, the sound of a key turning in the lock outside.

Albania 10: On to Vlores

2009-10-16T09:48:00.008-05:00

Travel, like life, is searching for those few drops of honey in a pool of vomit. --Mykel Board

ALBANIA 10 Coldsore day 7 (no signs of letting up, I'm resigned to this being a permanent part of my face)

I sit in Vlora, on a bench on the beach, barely able to see the screen in the bright sunlight. The stink of garbage fills the air around me. In front of me, between the bench I sit on and the ocean, a small bulldozer pushes around the plastic debris-- not scattered on the beach, but covering it.

It's 9:30 in the morning. I had planned to go to the southern seaside town of Saranda, but the last bus left much earlier. (Than 9???) My plans change. That's what happens when you travel-- when you live.

From here I'll go about ½ way-- to Himara-- an old city (like all in Albania-- millennia old, pre-Roman-- occupied continually, city built on the ruins of older cities. It's impossible for architects, except when excavating for a new building, then WHOA, look at that! I didn't know those people lived here. In one southern city, they found a floor mosaic with a shofar and menorah depicted in the tiles. It took them forever to figure out what that was.

Not having to worry about being challenged by Africans who think I took their picture (see the Bari-Durres entry), I take lots of pictures. No one seems to mind. You'll see some of them here.

The plans are this: I go back to the hotel at 11. Then eat lunch. Then take a taxi to the bus station (5€, they say... ten minute ride). Then take a bus to Himara. We'll see. [By the time I finish writing this, I already know... I never make it to Himara.]

I haven't eaten breakfast and probably won't. Albanians never eat. There are dozens of coffee shops around town. Some quaint, old style, some very modern and too-brightly lit, some with fast food signs over them and plastic tables and chairs. Usually, they are nearly empty, one or two tables full. A few hours a day, they are packed. People at every table. In the morning, everyone has a small cup of coffee in front of him. (I rarely see women at these places.) In the afternoon and evening, people have glasses of beer... along with cups of coffee. There is no food. No plates. No one eating, or showing signs of ever having eaten. You'd think a place that says Fast Food would have food! But maybe it's different in Albania.

FLASH BACK: Last night, I ate at a Pizza restaurant. It was a nice place. Lots of wood, tables on the street, on a terrace in front, and inside. I ate on the terrace. I had an entire pizza. No one else was eating. I spoke with the owner in what little Albanian I know. Like everybody here, he expected I was Italian, and knew Italian.

[Note: The Albanians divide the world into two parts: Albania and Italy. If you don't speak Albanian, you speak Italian. If you are not Albanian, you are Italian. America? That's somewhere near Sicily, right?]

As far as I can understand, the pizza owner is from Macedonia where he was an electronics engineer. He couldn't find work, so he came to Vlora and opened a pizza parlor. He makes his own Tabasco sauce. He lets me try it on my pizza. Not super spicy, but not bad. Certainly the best Tabasco I've had in Albania.

After the meal, the owner gives me a free glass of Amaretto. He says it will help me digest the pizza. Musa Osmani, his name is. I tell him une quham Mykel. We shake hands. I make notes in a tiny notebook I always carry. I figure I'll email the guidebook company with tips and maybe score a free book in the future. At least I'll get a thank you in the back of the book. I love seeing my name in print.

I go back to the hotel, looking in the windows of the crowded bars, cafés and restaurants along the main street. No one is eating.

FLASH FURTHER BACK: Before the restaurant, I went to one of the few museums so far on this trip. An ethnographic museum housed in the house where the Albanian independence movement was born. The museum is a second choice. First, I go to the Historical Museum, but it's undergoing renovations and temporarily closed. My guidebook says the ethnographic museum is close, so I look for it. It's not where the map says it is.

Unlike others of my gender, I'm brave enough to ask for directions when I need them. People stand, point, gesture right and left. I walk in ever increasing circles, trying to follow the general directions that I didn't understand. I see a sign by an open courtyard. It says something in Albanian and House of Laberia in English. I figure that must be the place... identified only by it's revolutionary history.

I enter the courtyard. It doesn't look very promising. There is a shredded Albanian flag hanging in front of a shack, and what looks like slum housing behind it.

There are no people anywhere.

I walk out of the courtyard, and ask a truck driver.

Museo ershte ku?

He points into the courtyard.

Nuk koptoj. (I don't understand.) I tell him.

He walks to the gate and points to a little white house, around the corner of the slum building. I walk up to the door. An old woman, wearing a babushka, is picking up leaves in the garden.

Museo? I ask.

She motions for me to follow her. We walk through another courtyard, this one with a bunch of what look like headstones, scattered under an olive tree (with olives!). Suddenly she yells something. Not at me, but at the closed door to the house. Nothing happens. She yells again, then turns to me gesturing with her thumb to her ear, pinkie to her lips.

Telefoni, she says, looking toward an upper window.

After one more yell, the door opens. A young woman, answers, first with an annoyed look, then with a sudden brightness.

The old woman says something to her that I don't understand.

“Italiano?” she asks me.

“No,” I say in English, “American.”

[Note on Albanian: Po is yes. Yois no. For some reason, it's really hard to keep this in mind. Linguistic habit returns me to YES and NO. People seem to understand.]

“Ju flisni Anglisht? I ask.

“Yes,” she says, “a little.”

Then someone else shows up. An older man with a pot belly. (Albanian men age into the same shape as their American counterparts.) He looks at me.

“Italiano?” he asks.

The young woman nods her disagreement.

“American,” she says.

The guy speaks to me in Italian anyway. The girl translates. We take a tour of the museum. I'm the only person there. I get the whole treatment. The men's room where men of the house used to live. Their clothes, their weapons, their pottery. Then we go across the hall to the women's room.

The women lived together here. No men were allowed. No men in the women's room and no women in the men's room. When the women made tea for the men, they would bring it to the door and the men would step into the hall to receive it.

I asked if single and married women lived in this house. My personal set of guides assured me they did. They showed me a cradle in the women's room to explain that there were children here as well.

I did not ask the obvious, afraid it might cause some embarrassment. I never did find out, though. If all the men lived in one room and the women in the other, where did the babies come from?

Downstairs is the Albanian patriots' room. There's a wall of heroes-- one of whom looks a fuck of a lot like GW Bush. (Unfortunately, the likeness is lost in my photo of the photos. Can you guess which one it is?)

After I get the patriot spiel, the young woman takes my picture next to the double-headed eagle, symbol of Albania.

At the end of the tour, I ask the older guy if he's the owner of the museum. He laughs and says something in Albanian. The woman translates.

“No, this is not private,” she says. “We are workers... for the government. We get paid by the city. We don't own, we just work.”

FLASH EVEN FURTHER BACK: Before the museum, I take a walking tour of the town. By the beach I find the best bar name I've found in a long time. People often name bars after famous people. It draws in fans... but how far can you go?

You guessed it: the Jesus Christ Bar (and Fish Restaurant). Yowsah!

Unfortunately, the bar was closed. I wonder if it was a wine bar. In any case, it looked pretty derelict.. but then again, so did he.

After the bar, I walk toward to center of town. I find what looks like a flea market, on a small side street off the main drag. Off that street is a network of alleyways, all of which sell stuff. Bananas, some strange-looking fresh-picked herbs, cellphone covers, bootleg DVDs, you name it. I pull out my little notebook and write down the location of the street. I'll send it to the guidebook.

I walk a little deeper into the sidestreet. There's a guy about 40, with a thick mustache and close-cropped hair. He blocks my path. Because we speak a mixture of Albanian, English, Italian, and sign language I can't exactly write down what was said. But here is something close:

“Are you Italian?” he asks.

“American,” I say.

“You were writing,” he says. “In a book... What were you writing? Were you writing about us?”

I notice he has three friends with him. They surround me, preventing my going in any direction.

“What were you writing?” he says.

I reach to show him the notebook.

[Note: The trouble with travel blogs is so much new happens between one paragraph and the next, that you can never catch up. If my fears are correct, this may be my last entry... ever. If I'm over-reacting, another entry will appear in the relatively near future.]

Albanian 9: A quickie

2009-10-13T15:02:00.003-05:00

Do the best with what you have. If you have a lemon, squeeze it in the eyes of your worst enemy. --Mykel Board

DURRES (Coldsore day 7) or A Short Depressing One

So I decided I was gonna try once more to contact Andi, the guy in Tirana. I left Facebook messages. Tried to call so many times I'm like the guy who doesn't get the hint when the girl doesn't call back, even though she has your cellphone number and must know you called.

If I don't get him, I'll stay in Durres one more day, then fuck it and go south to some resort town. Enjoy the sand and the sea a bit, then go to Tirana for a short visit before going back to Italy and home.

I didn't bring a bathing suit. This is October, for God's sake. How was I to know?

Maybe I'll buy one today. First I look for a post office... takes awhile, but I find one. It's closed. Today is Sunday.

Then I look for an Internet café to upload yesterday's adventures. The first one won't allow me to plug in my own computer, so I just take care of wishing Elena a happy 50^th.

I feel really tired, so I go back to the hotel. I checked in another night, figuring I'll go to Vlores early tomorrow. I must be depressed, because I just feel tired and not wanting to do anything. I should be over my jet lag by now, but the lousy events take their toll. Especially my two “friends” in the country, one of whom is avoiding my calls, and the other of whom is a mercenary doctor who wants a big car.

I sleep for a couple hours and awake unrefreshed. I go for a souvlaki lunch. Then to a bar, in the famous Durres tower. I have a cup of coffee and write some more.

After finishing at the coffeebar, I try another internet place. This one lets me upload my whole blog. (That was TWO DAYS AGO.) Then I look for a place to get a bathing suit. Then it starts raining.

Back to the hotel. Another unrefreshing sleep. And it's now 8PM. Yeah, I try calling Andi again, without luck. Out my window, I can see flashes of lightning, but it doesn't sound like it's raining anymore. It will be tomorrow, or something even more horrible I have no idea about right now. Tsunami? A busload of American tourists?

I have a final drink at a night-clubbish place, with loud music, a view of the ocean, and tables mostly filled with all guys or all gals. I order a Tirana, but they don't have one. Becks, Corona or Heineken. This is a hoity toidy place. Imported beer only. I order a Becks.

It's stopped raining. Maybe the beach will be all right tomorrow.

I sit by myself and scribble in my little notebook. I figure people will think I'm an exotic writer and come over and ask what I'm doing. I figure wrong.

When I leave, I take a final walk in this town. On my way back, some guys wave to me. Over 40s, rare in this town of twenty-somethings and old men.

“Po? (Yes?)” I say.

“Deutsch?” shouts the guy who waved.

“American,” I shout back.

They wave me away. “Aber ich spreche Deutsche.”

They call me over. One of them also speaks German. He asks me where I'm staying and where I'm going in Albania. I tell him that I'm going to Vlora, feeling sorry that just as I'm leaving, I'm making a new friend.

“I'm taking the bus tomorrow,” I tell him.

“Why are you taking the bus?” he asks in German. “You should take a taxi. I drive a taxi. It's cheap. Just 70 Euros.”

Jee-zus! I can't get away from this money stuff. Fuck! Well, a day at the beach near Vlora should help things tomorrow. Then it starts to rain again.

-end-

go to Mykelboard.com

Albania 8: You'll Never Drink Alone

2009-10-12T11:48:00.010-05:00

Give a man a drink, and in an hour he'll be thirsty again. Teach a man how to scam free drinks, and he'll never be thirsty again. --Mykel Board

BARI--> DURRES (Coldsore day 6) or A Guide to Durres

So when last we left me, I was drinking alone in the bar on the ferry from Bari, Italy to Durres, Albania. I finish my beer, depressed after expecting to be invited into an inner circle and then worshiped for being an American. I wasn't.

So I walk out on deck to look at the sea, the harbor, the shrinking of Bari. I have two contacts in Albania. Both in Tirana, I think. Two phone numbers between me and $1500 (at least) in hotel charges.

On the deck, I stand by myself looking at the harbor. A few clusters of people, all Albanian, all men, stand outside.

In the corner is a drunk. A bald guy in his late sixties, skinny as a famine posterboy. He half-sits half lies on a seat, singing at the top of his lungs. There are a few people around him. I hear a shout in something like Italian. There's laughter. As always in a foreign language, I think they're laughing at me. Must be my coldsore... or my GG Allin t-shirt... or my army boots.

Probably, it has nothing to do with me. It's just my paranoia and general depression.

Early in the morning (the boat leaves at 11PM and arrives and 7AM), I return to the deck to watch the ship approach Albania. The drunk is (still?) there. He's surrounded by his little fanclub. They motion for me to come over.

“Italiano,” says the drunk as I approach.

“American,” I say.

They all laugh, welcoming me into their little group. Somehow, they make it understood they thought I was Italian and were making fun of me. They don't like Italians very much. I tell them, neither do I.

They laugh again.

Hmmm, these Albanians are not so bad after all.

I arrive at the port after about 5 hours sleep. I have my two Albanian contacts: Denis and Andi-- not exactly Albanian names, but do I know? At least I have phone numbers.

I'm still jet-lagged, and very tired.

Customs and immigration are as easy as in Italy, though I do have to run my bags through an x-ray machine. Once out of the port building, I see there is nothing. No services. No hotel booking agent, nothing.

It is at this point that I violate two lessons I learned in my 60 years of traveling.

LESSON ONE: Never change money with strangers... especially if you're new in the country and don't know the risks. I change about $40.

LESSON TWO: Never take a taxi from a driver that comes up to you at an air or seaport and offers his services... Especially, if he puts an arm around your shoulder and guides you away from the normal exit.

The taxi driver says he knows the hotels and will take me to a good one. Cheap. He drops me where I violate yet another lesson I've learned the hard way.

LESSON THREE: If a place has to call itself, Good, Wonderful, Tasty, it isn't. I never eat at Yummies, or go to The Wonderful Mall or stay at The Comfort Inn. Inevitably these places are awful. But the cabbie has dropped me off at the Hotel Nais. The receptionist is beautiful, and speaks great English.

“You look like Al Pachino,” she tells me.

Could I NOT stay there?

“Do you have Wifi Internet,” I ask. “And can I pay with a creditcard?”

Yes to both of them.

I'm so here! At 35€ a night.

Before I go to bed, I try to call Andi in Tirana. No luck, the phone just rings.

After that, I sleep well.

The next morning, I try calling Andi, again. No luck, again. I try Denis. He answers on the fifth ring.

“I'm in Durres,” I tell him.

It turns out he is too, and will be over in a few minutes. Ah, my luck is changing, I can feel it. He arrives in about a half hour.

A normal size guy, in his 20s. Broad shoulders, light beard, very masculine. We shake hands.

“Where shall we go?” he asks, in slightly formal school English.

I tell him that everything is new for me, so wherever he wants to go is fine. He takes me to the local sites, first the famous Durres tower, over 1000 years old, and more recently graffitied. Then we go to the acropolis and other ancient ruins.

During the walks, Denis talks cars.

“I used to have a Mercedes,” he says. “I had to get rid of it. It was always needing repairs. I will buy another car. My father has a BMW, S-class. You know S-class?”

I shake my head, then remember that Albanians, like Bulgarians, shake their head when they mean yes.

“No,” I say. “I'm from New York. We don't have cars in New York. We don't need them.”

“That's too bad,” he says. “I love cars. I love motorcycles too. Big expensive Japanese ones.”

He explains that he's a medical student in the Italian college here in Durres. He wants to work in the US when he gets his degree.

“But not in New York,” he says. It's too cold there in the winter. I want someplace like Durres. Los Angeles, I think.”

I tell him that Los Angeles isn't exactly like Durres. But they do like cars there. At least they have a lot of them.

“Is Dures a safe city?” I ask. “Can I walk around anywhere any time of day or night?”

“It's completely safe,” he says. “No problem. The worst than can happen is you'll be shot dead.”

I think he's kidding.

“No really,” he says. “I'm a doctor. I see it all. I was working in ER when this guy came in. I heard the story. It was at a bar. He was giving someone a hard time. Trying to you know... to his girlfriend.”

“Hit on her?” I suggested.

He shakes his head. “Yes, that's right,” he says. “And the owner of the bar throws him out. So he comes back with a gun and starts shooting. So the owner comes out with a shotgun and shoots him. Maybe 3 meters away. There was little left. Just blood and what you call those little pieces of metal?”

“Buckshot,” I say.

“Yeah, buckshot,” he says. “I saw him on the operating table. But we couldn't do anything. It was too late. He died.”

We stop at a mosque for a photo op.

At the mosque, a man in his 70s speaks to us. Thinning grey hair, a big square head, a bulbous mole has anchored itself over his top lip. He talks to Denis about the mosque. I can pick out words. Communist, drugs, alcohol.

He talks a mile a minute. Denis holds up his hand to ask him to wait while he translates.

“He's talking about the Communist times,” says Denis. “He says that when the Communists were here they turned this place into a disco. With dancing, and music and alcohol. All those things that Muslims shouldn't have. He says it was terrible.”

I nod.

The man continues his story. I try to get the gist of it, but doubt that I do. After he's finished, we shake hands all around and walk away from the mosque.

“Are you a Muslim?” Denis asks me.

“No,” I tell him, laughing, “I'm a Jew.”

“I hope you don't take this wrong,” he says, overly apologetic. “But we don't know Jews here. We think Jews only think about money. They're rich. Not like... like...” he gestures in my general direction.

I nod.

“And Mykel,” he continues, “I read about some of your... life... on the internet. I don't know. But I guess I'm safe. We won't know each other that well.”

I smile and shrug.

Then, Denis tells me his family lives in the countryside. “I have to go up there, maybe tomorrow, to kill a wolf. It's bothering the local farmers. Eating a chicken. You want to come with me?”

Here is this guy, I just met and he's inviting me to go wolf-hunting with him. He's already talked about taking me to Tirana tomorrow. Jjust amazing. I think I'm going to like this country. Instant friends, like Thailand or Brazil.

“Where are the strip clubs in town?” I ask.

He laughs. “There are no strip clubs in Albania,” he says. “My brother and I think about opening one. There's so much testosterone in this country. It would be good to have an outlet... and one that could bring in some cash.”

We pass an outdoor café. “That's where the... how you call them... work”

“Whores?” I suggest.

He nods, which I hope means yes.

“You shouldn't pay more than two thousand (about twenty dollars),” he says. “If they ask more, they're cheating you.”

I note the location of the café.

For lunch, we go to a great seafood restaurant, right at the harbor. I I order my first local beer, a Tirana.

We then order the fish dinner. Denis insists on inspecting the fish before it's cooked.

“Some of it is, how do you say, raised in a pool,” he says.

“We call that farmed fish,” I tell him.

“Yes,” he says, “farmed fish has no taste. I just want to make sure it's...”

“Wild,” I say, finishing the sentence for him.

The waiter brings us a plate of very fresh, very mean looking fish. The menu price for this stuff is expensive. Like $30 a plate.

“I have to be careful about costs,” I say. “I may be a Jew, but I don't have much money.”

“Don't worry,” he says.

Wow! Not only have I made a friend in three hours, he's buying me a $30 lunch. Why did I ever waste that time in Italy?

The fish arrives, and it's delicious. Maybe the best I've ever had. With real taste... NOT like chicken.

In the middle of the meal, Denis turns to me with a grave look.

“I hate to discuss this, but I guess we have have to...” he says.

I expect he's going to ask more about the Jews. I'm wrong.

“I need to confirm about my fees,” he says.

So, it seems, on the internet he offered his services as “a guide.” He used to work for a tourist agency and got 70€ a day. So, someone on Facebook told him I was looking for a guide. He offered to be that guide. I was speaking about an informal guide, a local friend. Not a paid safari-leader. His face drops.

After I explain the misunderstanding, he accepts it and apologizes... he even sticks with me for a couple more hours, taking me to the castle of KING ZOG, the notorious Albanian ruler kicked out by the Commies.

But my heart isn't in it. My heart is somewhere south of where it should be. Down near my bladder, maybe. This is so depressing. My new friend... yeah right.

I pay for everything for him... the entire day. It's the least I can do for the misunderstanding. It probably cost me $100. It cost a lot more in spirit.

He leaves me at the hotel, where, for the third time that day, I try to call the OTHER number in Tirana. This time, I try from my hotel room. This time I get through, but the connection is so bad, Andi can't hear me.

“I'll call you right back,” I tell him, and race downstairs to use the phone in the lobby.

Already using the phonelines is a Japanese woman with a creditcard problem. I spend another half hour, trying to impress the receptionist with my bad Japanese. What does she know? And it works well enough to get things straightened out. I finally call Andi back. No answer.

So I go out for dinner and a few drinks. I take a seat at a sidewalk table, but the owner is afraid I'll drive off business. He makes me eat alone, inside the restaurant. After that, I go to the café.

I drank alone there, too. There are no, how you call them...

The waitress, a very butch-looking woman in her 40s, asks, in English, if I want another drink.

“Dua te paguij (I want to pay),” I say. “E dua te flas shqip (and I want to speak Albanian).”

“Why?” she asks in English.

for more of Mykel, check out his website: www.mykelboard.com