Here at the Tirana Backpackers Hostel, I noticed a certain object in the garden that appeared to go unnoticed or uncommented-upon by pretty much everyone else. I took it upon myself to ask one of the guys who works here why there was a bathtub in the garden. He explained the presence of the bathtub in two parts. The first explanation was that they had renovated the house and stripped out the bathtub to put in a shower. The bathtub got dumped in the garden and sat there for so long that he eventually just painted it blue and moved it to a more permanent spot. The other explanation I found very interesting.
Under the Communists, all theatre in Albania had to be approved by the Theatre Commission. The play had to be staged in full dress for the commissioners and then they would tell the director what, if anything, needed to be taken out or changed. A director who went through this many times noticed that the commission always wanted to make changes, even when there was nothing outlandish or counter-revolutionary in the performance. So he tried something. The next time he had a production to stage for the commission, he put a massive wheel in the middle of the stage. It had nothing to do with the production, no actors referred to it or used it in any way. The play was performed around the wheel but the wheel was in no way a part of the production. After the commission had seen the play, they delivered their report to the director. The play had passed without cuts but he had to get rid of the wheel. That was how the director managed to get one of his plays performed in Albania under the communists without being censored. By giving them something so obvious to get rid of that they left the rest alone.
In much the same, I was told that the bathtub, if any town planning officials or the like came knocking, would be the first thing to go and therefore would probably prevent a deeper investigation of the building itself.
Albania is a very special place indeed. I'm off to get my bus to Struga now. Excuse me. Or, as they say in Albanian, me falni.
I got the bus from Tirane to Struga in Macedonia. Two interesting things occurred along the way.
First, in my unbroken streak of winning over Balkan officials, I was pulled off the bus at the Macedonian border because the Albanians had forgotten to stamp my passport when I left. The Macedonian border guard took a lot of nervous smiles and hand gestures to win over.
Secondly, since I was the only passenger on the bus going to Struga, instead of dropping me in the town they booted me off the bus at the highway exit ramp, which was thrilling. High speed traffic, night-time and rain make a very exciting combination. In the kerfuffle, the first casualty of my trip was lost in battle. The ukulele, so generously gifted to me by my dad's girlfriend Gail, was left on the bus in my rush to comply with the angry stares of two dozen passengers and the muttered imprecations of a shifty Albanian man who may or may note have been armed. Gail, if you're reading this, I have every intention of replacing it upon my return.
Once I had walked the 2km into Struga, there was the small matter of getting the further 14km to Ohrid and finding my hostel at midnight in the rain without the helpful boost of the Macedonian language on my side. I tried to hitch or flag down a cab, but nobody was stopping. Luckily, one taxi driver called a cab for me on his radio and I eventually, with much hand-gesturing and pointing at the written address, found the Antonio Guest House in Ohrid. Antonio himself greeted me at the door and showed me my room. He spoke perfect English and assured me Macedonian tap water is potable, which helped me relax. Also, in a bizarre twist, they have HBO in Macedonia, so I watched the last half hour of a Will Ferrell movie, spoke to my beloved wife and went to sleep.
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