We were finally there. After cramming through end-of-the-year papers and finals and
celebrating graduation on Friday, Saturday morning I joined the 60-member Chorale of The Master's College at LAX boarding a plane for Albania. The total flight
time was a long 17 hours, made more bearable by my cushy neck pillow, deck of
playing cards, and the endless quantity of blockbusting movies available on
Turkish Airline's entertainment system. By late Sunday we were crashing for the
night at a hotel in Tirana, Albania's capitol. Exhausted, we all fell asleep
right away, which was to our advantage since we had to be up by six to make the
seven o'clock departure on our double-decker bus headed to the city of our first
concert: Korçë.
Loading up the double-decker bus for the first time at the Tirana airport.
The drive
from Tirana to Korçë is three hours and absolutely gorgeous. Winding through
the mountainous regions of Albania and frequently ascending and descending in
elevation, the road writhed like a snake through hills bestrewn with countless
pine and other trees. For the majority of our ride we traveled alongside overgrown
train tracks and a flowing river punctuated by intermittent waterfalls. The
landscape, apart from the tracks, appeared untouched by mankind and simulated an
ancient and primitive world. The lack of civilization made me feel I had gone
back in time.
After an
hour or so, we broke free of the forests and had a spectacular mountain top view
of Lake Ohrid, a magnificently beautiful body of water that separates Albania
from Macedonia. Our bus zigzagged down the mountain cut backs until we reached the
lake and drove alongside its shimmering glory.
A pit-stop halfway down the cutbacks to get some pictures of Lake Ohrid.
Soon enough
we were back to civilization and driving through picturesque towns. On this
first day of driving through Albania I noticed something I would see everywhere
we went during the rest of our time in the country—frequent sightings of seemingly
abandoned building frames. There must have been at least one three-story high structure
ever mile, but apart from three layers of concrete on pillars, there was
nothing more. My theory is that these forsaken infrastructures were remnants
from the years of communism. Albania was plagued with incredibly rigid
communism for 45 years; in fact, the communist regime was enforced so strictly
that the dictator of Albania was upset with communist Russia for being too soft
in their regulations! In 1991 the government was overthrown and democracy was
established for the first time in Albania's history, so my theory is that the
communist government was working on hundreds of building projects that all
ceased and were abandoned when democracy took over.
As we passed
through the towns and drew closer to Korçë, we all took notice of something
rather peculiar—new buildings often stood next to dilapidated older buildings, some
that were even in ruins. This stark juxtaposition between the modern and
antique had several of us confused; but again, this can be contributed to the
history of Albania as the country fell far behind the rest of the world in
development during its dark years of communism, and some areas have grown
immensely since. This could account for such a clash in architecture.
At last we reached
Korçë. This city is small and (relatively) well developed. The town center was modernized
and welcoming, but as soon as you left that immediate area, you saw the same
bizarre new-and-old contrast:
Despite the ruins which we were told dated back to WWI, there was a homey feel to the city. We spent
the evening in the city checking out several coffee shops and sampling Europe's impressive espressos and cappuccinos, and after our well-received performance
at the town theater, we retired to our hotel to rest up for the next day's
concerts and activities.
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