Bike ride in Tirana
All right we’re going to have a little video here of us driving in um albania and that is artestor she is our language teacher developed a book and language it’s really pretty phenomenal so a little bit of commentary here on what we’re going to do and how we’re going to go
So first of all we have these fantastic bike lanes here very bike friendly had a president that was very interested in um health and and i was interested in the bike lanes but as you can see there that four ways that’s what cars do now that they don’t
Have a parking inside of the road they just stop right in the middle of the lane and everybody has to go around them but you know what this is albanian so everybody just kind of follows through with that and they’re happy with it so um
Uh yeah so this is a road called ruger debris i have never seen a sign for this road um but that’s what it’s called rugadibris we’re going to go up here to the creatures or which is the stop light or the intersection and then the semaphore which is the stop light
Okay so we’re going to change a little bit show you that building that building there is called the via goldie cafe and that was a big cafe during the communist times we would go to the basement and uh they had some rooms down there in the basement that’s the sky
So as you can see traffic is quite backed up here um in this city here it’s not a huge city but it’s uh takes a long time to drive around different places so a lot of times people they come to the city just ride bicycle and so that’s what we’re
Doing we ride a lot i’m perfectly happy with that i love to ride love to see the world from the the back of a bicycle all right we’re going to turn left up here at this intersection just trying to figure out a best way to get across and so stop here elderly lady
So in 20 years traffic has significantly and uh increased all right traffic is not backed up oh man light will change here in four three two one okay watch out for cyclists passing people all right so this road sign we’re trying to find and see it right above the taxi there
Um that’s the name of the road no sign out front just the name of that road so this is a road that heads to pizarra re and a lot of little marketplaces now they have to rent that space to have those markets used to be there’s a lot of markets down
By the street and created a lot of congestion and problems so the government said that they could only do them out of little garages like this or they had rented spaces they could rent from the government especially downtown we won’t go downtown to see that today
We’re going to stay here on this road try not to make you sick with all the vibration but anyhow one of the other things here is that um yes there’s a lot of cycling and it’s kind of crazy um but as you can see nobody wears helmets here
So if you want to identify yourself as a foreigner you wear a helmet these little shops just come in with what you want they dig around nope nope don’t have it bartering here usually you don’t really barter for items you kind of just ask them if they have a discount so they don’t
This is not a culture where you do lots of haggling over prices you can get a little bit of a discount but not too much haggling okay so now we’re here and posara re-road this road we’re crossing is also the road where the clinic is on
So it turned left there when it went up by the clinic but we’re not going there today we’re going to kind of keep going down through the marketplace here um just seeing a guy there looked like i had a basal cell carcinoma on the side of his head
So there’s the open air market these people have their little booths and place things out and just sell them rent to space it’s a community um different rules here you’re not supposed to pick stuff up unless you’re really wanting to buy it um and you don’t talk compare like the items or
If it’s broken you just kind of look at them that hits the fish market i love the smell of fish okay so we’re gonna go up here up ahead is the stephen center i don’t know if you can see that sign or not and that’s a mission organization that
Decided to make a place for foreigners to come to they also have a hotel associated with it and this is the roundabout here we’ll kind of run around the roundabout once so you can see it a wonderful fruit market over there looks like it’s closed for now police it’ll stop you all right
Over there is where men come to and they’ll have this fish or sheep’s head he’s cleaning his grill right now but usually they have a sheepshead on there four or five men will get a sheepshead together and some beer and they will have conversation and eat the meat
Okay so we’re going to cross here try not to get ran over by the policeman we’re going to go down here all right let’s see where is that road no no oh here it is all right so this is the road there’s the sign clear up there all right i’m folly
So this is a common walking path narrow even news here most of those people that sweep the streets and stuff are roma some of the roma do get jobs have homes rent places most of them are nomadic still though there’s a when they finish with um giving you a
Haircut they hitch in the back of the head and say mission debt okay see if we can find this building here there’s kisha emanuel come here i’m not sure what that lady was wanting he’s asking me what i’m doing or where i’m going fine when you get nervous the foreign
Language really flies out of your brain interesting this must have been a thriller street at one time everybody knows it a little tight you hear the shock squeaking there that’s because there’s so many potholes man you should really use your shocks and your suspension heavily used pigeons ah
You donate money here and you might get a name i wrote after you aruga george w bush a little tight sometimes trying to get my toes ran over okay here we go okay there we go we turn left up here goes down the tanner’s bridge we’re going to go straight across though
Because we’re going to the american embassy so this road goes down there’s a big old mosque over here to the left all right people are in the way open that’s the monarch hotel up there to our left it’s a fantastic hotel good place to do studies at And that’s it for today