Tirana, Albania (Day 2)

My plan, after having walked around soooo much the previous day, was to get a massage. I found a place online and walked to it, but decided to walk along the street a little first… I walked all the way to the end, turned around and walked back the other way, then took a turn through a street market and went around the block before I finally made it back! Then, they didn’t have a massage therapist available right away, so I made an appointment and went and sat and read in Rinia Park until the appointment time. After the massage, I went to the The House of Leaves: Museum of Secret Surveillance, which I’d walked past before the massage. It was a bit like Bunkart2, except for the architecture. After exiting the museum, I went back to the hotel to prepare some snail mail. About the time I’d finished that, I think it was time to go out and meet up the workshop people for dinner: we had a huge delicious meal (including pizza) at Artigiano.

See below for 17 photos of the neighborhood I walked through, plus another 3 from the hotel area in the evening.

Walking along Ruga Myslym Shyri

Top right: wedding dresses in the display window.
I love the tree shadows and the balcony shape.
Criss-crossing power lines.
“Hello Shoes”
100 leke is currently about a dollar (US$1.06 or SG$1.45).
“Los Amigos”
Orange bricks, blue sky, branching branches.
“East and West come and taste” — “American Fashion”
Striped ground, pink building, blue sky.
HOW TO WORK BETTER
A bookstore! Libraria Onufri
More powerline chaos.
The shops along the street were clean and well cared for. Between the buildings sometimes there was graffiti.

Walking along Rruga Shyqyri Bërxolli

I turned onto this street to explore a different kind of retail.

Back to the Marriott

There it is again.
View from hallway window, 8th floor.
Time to go to dinner! Behold, an English-language STOP sign. (“Stop” is “ndaloni” in Albanian, according to Google Translate.)