Royal Albanian Airshow ( Comedy Show)

Campaigning for the return of King Zog, the Royal Albanian team perform shows in the USA.

Some links

Interview with Ismail Kadare.

Why an American should visit Albania.

Humour from UK. (Albanian TV)

New link on Shkoder.

Peshku Pa Ujë

If you don't know by now, Peshku Pa Uje must be the best internet site for Albanians!
It certainly should be bookmarked.

Anyway, just in case you have missed it, you really MUST go there and see the video of Shkoder.

It shows the unexpected but beauty of living in Albania!

Hear, Read, Taste

Just updated these.

Hear - "Friday I'm in love" - a really great "feel-good" tune from the Cure.

Read - "The Lanyard" a poem about a mother's love from Billy Collins

Taste - a light summer meal. Gjize, spec & domate dhe tarator. :-)

Don't worry, be happy!

This is taken from a collection of photos called "Pictures - taken at just the right time"

It is well worth looking at!

Some will make you laugh, some will make you squirm!

What vegetable is this?

Okay, so I know they are "bamje" in Albanian. But I often get asked by visitors what the name is in English and I have no idea.
In fact I have never seen them in the supermarkets in the U.K.

Anyone able to help me?

Thanks!

Pedestrian zone for Piaca?

Just been catching up on some news at www.infoshkodra.com.
This is a very good website for information on Shkoder, but also a very frustrating web site. For example this picture gives no information as to time scale for the project, nor the cost.
Often I have seen things on this site under "Photo of the day", ( Like the photo of Ismail Kadare at the "Tradita" restauranat) but there was never any prior warning or notice given to us that Kadare was going to be in Shkoder.
An up and coming events diary would be a very welcome addition to this informative site!

Secondly, I like the idea of the pedestrian area.
It is still part of the Albanian life to walk around the streets in the cool of the evening. I believe that this part of the culture will continue. At times visitors from abroad have asked me if the theatre or the football match has just finished, as so many people are walking about the streets. They cannot believe that is normal life every day on the streets of Shkoder.
However, I have a problem.
There are already too many cars on the streets of Shkoder. Shkoder was never built with the idea of lots of cars on the street. If they close off this street to make it pedestrian-only, then they are blocking the main route to the hospital. This is already a very busy street, even if it is at the moment only one way traffic. If they close it down they will force cars on to the other streets which are already blocked especially during the "school run" early in the morning.

If they are going to do this, then they really must think of a bypass road for Shkoder so that traffic coming from the border down to Tirana or from the south to Montenegro do not have to enter the city at all!

Back in Albania

Sorry for the lack of posts for the past few weeks. We have just got back to Shkoder from the UK. We were over visiting my parents.
Unfortunately as I mentioned before, the internet access was poor, so I just got impatient waiting for the pages to load...so that put me right off posting.

Hopefully now I can get back to normal again!

The time we had in Scotland was great, although the weather was mixed. They always say that you can get the four seasons in one day in Scotland! But then, we were not in Scotland for the weather!

It's good to be back in Albania, but already I have noticed that the boys are missing my parents back garden , and the nearby play areas where they have been practicing their football skills!

When we were in Scotland I managed to take 2 of the boys to see Aberdeen v Manchester United, so they were happy to see the current European Champions.

Manchester United won 2-0 with goals from Carrick and Rooney. Unfortunately Ronaldo was not there....they had been looking forward to seeing him!