This year we had lots of little groups as well, three of which came last week. People around town starting asking me and Garrett if we were running and tourist agency because were always with different foreigners. For some Volunteers, coming to Bajram Curri is like a novelty trip, because it was closed off to Peace Corps Volunteers until we came up here. I've heard crazy rumors from other Volunteers, like I have to walk around with a body guard being a single woman (Garrett and Eric like to argue over which one of them it is) or that American's got shot here last time there were any here.
Obviously, these are all untrue but for some reason people come here with high expectations of it basically being horrible. We are the most northern Peace Corps site in Albania and one of the most isolated, but we're just another town (although a little more conservative and with a crazy dialect), which I think people realize when they get here. But, having guests is always a little stressful, being on a water schedule, not having a refrigerator, feeding people. You know basic things that a good host would worry about.
We held a blind beer tasting with all beers Albanian to see if it would be worth it to pay that extra 20 cents for a beer that in our mind was better because it was a little more expensive but probably just tasted the same. Our study proved us to be right in that most of the beers all taste the same, do not have an aroma, lack on mouth fullness and basically taste like pennies.
Anyways, this led me to wanting to get out of town for a bit, which meant going to the capital, a 6 hour bus ride for Bunkerfest, a music festival in a village outside of Tirana. Bunkers are scattered throughout Albania, left over from communism. The dictator was paranoid that Albania would be invaded and held mandatory work building and manning these bunkers. Now a lot of them are being destroyed and the iron is being sold.
The festival offered free transportation from the mosque in the center of Tirana starting at 7:00pm so I didn't feel any pressure rushing into town and waiting around. I took the 1:30 furgon out of BC and arrived just as the first bus was loading. Unfortunatley we didn't get on it and had to wait around for the next one. Naturally, this one came around 9:00 (the 8:00 one) with a flat tire. Once that was taken care off we took a 45 minute ride to the outskirts of Tirana to a field, full of bunkers and loud music and strobe lights coming from inside the woods. It was a great night full of fun, except the next morning when I woke up and had to get back on a furgon to BC.
School started back today and summer is officially over.
