Day 136
Location 26: Tirana, Albania
Mar. 16, 2023
Today's walking tour of Tirana was led by an American ex-pat who referred to the Albanian people as "we". That is, she included herself in the population. To be fair, she's lived in Albania for 20 years, but it still felt like taking a course on quantum mechanics and finding out the teacher's credentials are having watched Oppenheimer seven times.
Anyway, above were some of the highlights from the rest of the tour, in order from left to right:
Man looking for love in all the wrong places.
Church with a statue sculpted by an artist who was somehow able to predict—years in advance—the standard arm position for taking selfies.
There's something disorienting about seeing Christmas decorations in March. Even more disorienting is seeing Christmas decorations hiding in an alley behind an air conditioning unit. It feels like that scene in The Shining where a dog man creature looks into the camera after performing a sex act with a man in a tuxedo. You know which scene I'm talking about?
Yea, that scene. It's horrifying. It's the antithesis of Christmas. The antichrist, if you will. Speaking of...
Ceiling mural of Jesus with a facial expression that feels like you just caught his eye in a public bathroom between the small gaps between the doors of a stall while he was taking a holy shit.
Stained glass window featuring Pope Francis in a style that feels like a photoshop job done by someone on Fiverr.
Piece of the Berlin Wall, gifted from Germany. There's a scene in the remake of The Longest Yard where Adam Sandler tries to recruit his fellow-inmates to his football team, but only can convince Nelly. To recap the situation, Chris Rock says "Well, we didn't get the whole chocolate bar, but we got a Hershey's Kiss." That's how this feels (except the Berlin Wall could never have written "Hot in Herre").
Hostel cat sleeping on my bed for the third night in a row. (Admittedly this wasn't on the tour, but it was the most exciting part of my day.