At the turnoff to Lezhe I hopped out of the furgon and walked across the bridge into the city. It was at the approaches I realized that this is the city I had always wished I had stopped and visited when I was on the bus from Durres to Shkoder on that cold February morning after sleeping on a neatly stacked pile of bricks in a construction site in downtown Durres. I was just too tired to deal with Lezhe at that point, and no one can blame me. The reason I was so delighted to be here was that there is the tomb of Hoxha, or Skenderbeg, or someone important and Albanian, and it's on the waterfront and looks quite picturesque.
Anyway, I crossed the bridge into the downtown, took out some lek with my Raiffeissen bank card, and discovered my phone did not work. My phone never works. I actually don't know how to use phones, but I thought that T-Mobile, being everywhere in eastern Europe, would at least be able to accommodate my needs in Albania. It either couldn't, or I couldn't figure out how to make it work. In any case, this didn't bother me, because Albania is easily the least stressful place I have ever been in my entire life, so I just went to a cafe, ordered a coffee, asked for the wifi password, and just immersed myself in the Balkan mystique.
Shortly after emailing Laura, my friend Adam's girlfriend, I received a reply back with instructions on how to get to her place. I walked up a muddy hill and found a nice row of homes overlooking the plains to the sea, and there was Laura, waiting with some hot tea, or wine, or something. I dunno. But she was a gracious hostess, and greeted this weary traveller with open arms. We made some soup and then another PCV came over and we played cards and enjoyed some of the local raki (made by their landlord) and also listened to some hot jamz.
The next day Adam arrived from Peshkopi, after being caught in some sort of mudslide, and we enjoyed how amazing the city is, and even tried to find me used shoes at the local market but to no avail. We hiked up to the top of the fortress, drank some delicious chai male, and the next day set off for Tirana.
Huh. This post was kind of dull.
I actually do have a bit more to say about Lezhe. Have you ever seen the 1995 GFSS production of Fiddler on the Roof? Well, there is the dream sequence where Fruma Sarah chases Tevya through the graveyard and screams "If Tseitl marries Lazar Wolf!" then rattles off a list of things that will happen as a result. Anyway, what I am getting at is that 'Lezhe' and 'Lazar' kind of sound similar to one another and I always think about that dream sequence whenever I am in or around Lezhe. See below the clip. It's actually quite terrifying.
I actually do have a bit more to say about Lezhe. Have you ever seen the 1995 GFSS production of Fiddler on the Roof? Well, there is the dream sequence where Fruma Sarah chases Tevya through the graveyard and screams "If Tseitl marries Lazar Wolf!" then rattles off a list of things that will happen as a result. Anyway, what I am getting at is that 'Lezhe' and 'Lazar' kind of sound similar to one another and I always think about that dream sequence whenever I am in or around Lezhe. See below the clip. It's actually quite terrifying.
Fiddler on the Roof was such a good movie, as was the GFSS production. I remember a young lady with curly red hair, who did a particularly good job on a song, though I can't remember the song.
ReplyDeleteI too yearn for the Grand Forks arts scene in the 90s.
DeleteFiddler on the Roof was such a good movie, as was the GFSS production. I remember a young lady with curly red hair, who did a particularly good job on a song, though I can't remember the song.
ReplyDelete