A Question Answered

Today, I took another trek to see Grandmothers. I set off to see Liqeni Babicë, which translates as Grandmother Lake. I was drawn because the map claims there is a hiking area by the lake. We'll get to that.

Also right around the lake are two towns. One is called Babicë e Vogël which means Little Grandmother, and the other is Babicë e Madhe which means Large Grandmother or possibly Great Grandmother. And I might have seen some grandmothers and maybe even some grandfathers, but not at the lake. I was the only one at the lake.

The lake with Babicë e Vogël in the background

What was referenced as a hiking area was really a dirt track for trucks to get down to the lake. There were no trails around the lake itself. It isn't a big lake, nor a particularly pretty lake. But it's a lake and in the summer probably a nice place to swim.

What was more interesting was the walk. Because it answered a question I had discussed previously with Alrica. One thing I noticed in Vlorë is that there are no cemeteries. I couldn't find any, not in the city itself.

When I took my hike out to St. Mary's Monastery and out to Cypel, I did pass a small cemetery on the way out toward Zvërnec. And there is an even smaller cemetery at the monastery itself. In fact, one of the people buried at the monastery is Marigo Posio, who is Albania's Betsy Ross. She was a political activist at the time of their independence in 1912 and she made the first Albanian flag.

Statue of Marigo Posio in Vlorë

But these small cemeteries couldn't account for the number of people who must have died in a place as large as Vlorë. My path to Grandmother Lake took me past, and through, the answer. Outside of the city, near Babicë e Madhe is a cemetery. Not just a cemetery, an enormous cemetery. It took me about 15 minutes to walk the length of it. So assuming I move at around 3 miles per hour, it was three-quarters of a mile long. I would guess at least an eighth of a mile wide. And it was packed full of graves, tens of thousands of them. They were right up against each other.

The area outlined in red is all cemetery

One thing that is a little bit sad in travel is that you will never fully understand the culture of another people. You can learn a lot but some things are hard to know, to understand, to communicate. Today it struck me that I didn't really know the practices of Albanians regarding their deceased loved ones. I didn't see a funeral today, but I did see several people coming out, by car or by taxi, to visit a loved one.

As I might have expected, many carried flowers. But what was different was how many of them also carried a ten liter container of water. So I took a closer look at several of the gravesites.

They all involve very lovely headstones, many carved in crescents and hearts and some just rectangular. Often a photograph of the person in life is included on the headstone. Many of the gravesites have a solid rectangular prism of stone over the ground, presumably where the body is interred. But some are more like a garden plot. There is a headstone, but then the gravesite itself has a rectangular border of stone. And within the border is dirt.

For many of them, nothing was growing in the dirt, or some had a few flowers planted. But for others, this plot was filled with flowers and small shrubs growing in the dirt. And the people visiting their loved ones with water were also watering the plants growing over their deceased family member.

I think the idea is beautiful: new life coming from the life of those you love. So even if my ultimate destination wasn't all I hoped for, I'm glad I took that walk today.

The Long Walk to Cypel

I did another trek. Yesterday I went out to Cypel. This is the point at the northern end of Vlorë. To the left is the bay, to the right, the Adriatic Sea. Of course, the water doesn't know which part it's in.

Vlorë Bay to the left, Adriatic Sea to the right, bunker in the middle.

Cypel is pronounced Tsoopail. The "c" is more of the "ts" sound like the "zz" in pizza. in fact, in Albanian, the word for pizza is pica, pronounced just like the English word. The "y" is the "oo" sound of foot or good, not the "oo" sound of choose or mood.

Cypel from above

It took me a little over two hours to walk there. I had seen pictures of Cypel, but these pictures were all taken from boats. They show the point from the bottom. As you can see, my pictures are from above. I could not find a practical way to get down from the top of the point without ending up in either the bay or the sea. And I wasn't sure I would be uninjured. And I wasn't sure I would find any way back, aside from swimming.

More Cypel, still from above

But I did do some quality scrambling over rises and rocks to get as far as I did. I know my son would have mixed emotions had he seen me performing my quasi-athletic feats. He would have been approving and proud that his father attempted and succeeded the ascents and corresponding descents. But he would also have the eye roll of disdain, knowing that what required my intense concentration to figure out where to put my hands, my feet, and occasionally, my bottom, would have been to him a trivial matter easily accomplished in loose fitting sandals and with his conscious mind occupied with question of subatomic particles.

Here is the path. I promise there were trickier parts to traverse than this.

All of that is beside the point. I made it and experienced my own sense of accomplishment for doing so. Plus, I got to take pictures.

Incidentally, along the way I crossed beside Naturist Beach Zvërnec. For those who don't know the alternate term, a naturist beach is what in America would be called a nudist beach. Some of you might be more curious what I saw there, as opposed to a Cypel. Sorry to disappoint you, but it was the first of November. We are way out of season. Though it was sunny, I saw no sunbathers, no one skinny dipping, nothing remotely risque. Unless you consider an Albanian man fishing as semi-scandalous. He was clothed, so I give it a zero on the suggestive scale.

What is interesting about the naturist beach is its location, right between the beach access for two hotels. I wonder how much privacy the naturists experience in the busy time of the year. Probably not as much as I had on my solo walk.

Berat

Alrica and I did an overnight trip to Berat. Alrica will share more about the transportation to and from the city. I will discuss some of the wonders we experienced in Berat.

Berat is an Albanian city on River Osum. (The Albanian name is Osumit.) The river has carved out a lovely flat valley and much of the modern city is there. But one prominent feature is the high cliffs on the right bank of the river. Because here, at the top, is Berat Castle. And coming down its sides is the magnificent Old Town. So magnificent it is designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Castle at Top Left, Old Town coming down the mountain

Old Town is a fabulous maze of staircases and stone walkways. You can call them streets if you like, but you won't want to bring anything with wheels here. There are houses and businesses at various levels, so the roof of one house could be below the door of its neighbor above.

Step through the door and down you go

We stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast in Old Town. It was challenging to find it that first time. Actually the second time too. But we did find it. It has a rooftop deck, where we had our breakfast, which looked out on the Medieval Center, part of the city in the flat valley. I will talk about the Medieval Center later.

Some streets are wide enough to walk two or three abreast. Some are narrow forcing you to walk single file. And some are almost entirely stairs. We ate at a restaurant on multiple levels. The waiters must be so fit, because they constantly have to run up and down stairs.

All the doors on the right at each level lead to the same restaurant

At a site called the Bachelors Mosque, which doesn't seem to be in present use, we found a gnome door. At least I can only assume it is for gnomes or other sufficiently small creatures who have a need for doors.

Who else is using a door that small?

From Old Town we walked up and up and up and up to reach Berat Castle. Let me be explicit. It was a lot of going up. The Castle has a long history. It was first built in the Fourth Century BCE by the Illyrian Parthini people. But that castle was burned down by the Romans somewhere around 200 BCE. Oh Romans, why do you have to burn down cool stuff?

We still some up to go

Not to fear. The Romans, realizing the strategic potential of a castle at this location, rebuilt it, though about 700 years after they had burned the first one. That was the fifth century CE, and then in the sixth century, the emporer Justinian I of Rome built it up further. Fast forward another 700 years and Michael I Komnenos Doukas of the Byzantine Empire added more. (Yes, the Byzantines now controlled the area. Bye Rome!)

Almost there, unless we want to go further up to reach that arch

Within it, churches and homes were built. Many of those homes exist still and people live within the castle. There are hotels there, restaurants, and shops. Many of the churches are empty now, in some state of decay, but some of them still hold services.

The Red Church is still functioning today

There was also one mosque built inside the castle. You might think, why were the Byzantines building mosques? Good question. They weren't. This was in the period in which the Ottoman Empire ruled the area. However, that mosque, called the White Mosque, is mostly destroyed. There are still a few walls and a piece of the base of the minaret still standing.

The base of the minaret of the White Mosque

Visiting Berat Castle you can still see several of the churches, the remnants of the White Mosque, an entrance to the cisterns, and places you can climb the gallery wall and look out over the lower city.

The Cistern, one wrong step and you tumble down into that water

When we left the castle, we went down and down and down (because you have to undo all that going up) and we reached a part of town called The Medieval Center. This part of town was built up during the Ottoman reign over the area. There are several large mosques and one large Byzantine Cathedral. In fact, the Lead Mosque (so named because it has lead in its dome) and the St. Demetrius Cathedral are across a central square from one another. We visited both. Note: If you want to visit the Lead Mosque, they are very welcoming. But everyone must have covered legs (no shorts) and women need a head covering. Alrica has a beautiful scarf which was a gift from our daughter that she used when we went in.

The Lead Mosque

Saint Demetrius Cathedral

We also had traditional Albanian food while in Berat. Alrica tried something totally new: pispili. Pispili is sort of half-sandwich and half-panini. But the bread is made with cornmeal rather than wheat flour. It has spinach, eggs, and feta cheese inside.

Pispili

I was going to try a new kind of tavë than I had tried before. But they were out. And that was lucky, because instead I decided to have fërgesë. I had enjoyed fërgesë in Tirana. But wow, this fërgesë was fantastic. I don't know how they seasoned it, but it was scrumptious. Here's how scrumptious. The main ingredient of fërgesë is bell peppers (or capsicums if you are an non-American English speaker.) Alrica is not particularly fond of bell peppers. But after she had a taste of my fërgesë, she was even angling to get me to trade dishes with her. (I declined the invitation. The fërgesë was too good to surrender.)

Old Town View from the Medieval Center

It was a whirlwind trip, there and back again in a day. But we were delighted. It was a feast for our eyes, a party for our tongues, and a workout for our calves. Totally worth the workout.

Don't Get Cocky. Get Kaki.

For those of you who know that I produced a podcast for two years called "Namely" in which each episode was about the name of something or a group of related somethings, a blog post in which I investigate names won't surprise you. For those who had no idea I had a podcast, it still might not surprise you.

The Albanian word "kaki" is pronounced like the English word "cocky" (which I brazenly say as an expert in the subject.) But unlike in English, it has naught to do with brash overconfidence. Rather kaki is a fruit, a persimmon, a variety of Oriental Persimmon to be exact. It is commonly grown in Albania—and many other places, though it's native to China and East Asia—and this time of year you find lots of them in the fruit and vegetable markets.

Oh yeah, that's right, I'm kaki!

The name kaki is very logical. It comes from the taxonomical name of the fruit, Diospyros kaki. (All persimmons are from the genus Diospyros. The species kaki is the most common worldwide.) This led me to wonder, where did we get the name persimmon in English? Most romance languages have some variation on kaki as the name. But German uses persimmon. So it must have come from German, right? No!

Many English words come from a Germanic root. After all, the Angles and Saxons who settled on the island of Britain were Germanic peoples. There are a lot of French influences in English because the Normans (from Normandy, France) conquered Britain and brought their language with them. And there are Nordic influences from Viking conquests. English has a very muddied family tree. But persimmon isn't an example of any of these influences. The word persimmon goes the other way.

Often, a newly introduced item in a society, say a fruit or a form of livestock, comes with a name already attached. Take for example bananas. In almost all of Europe, the word for banana sounds almost exactly like banana. Some spell it banane, but you can tell it is a variation on the same word.

Think about water. Everyone had water, and they all needed their own word for water before they started interacting with other people who had a different language. It is "water" in English coming from "wasser" in German. But it is "eau" in French, "agua" in Spanish, and "ujë" in Albanian. We all had this word early in our languages.

But bananas didn't exist in Europe. People were already trading with each other, speaking to each other, before any European had ever seen a banana. When the banana was introduced to Europe by Portuguese sailors who found them in West Africa, they came with the name "banema". That's what the Guineans who introduced the fruit to the sailors called it. Yes, banema became a bit corrupted into banane, but everyone agreed that this weird new fruit went by the same weird new name.

Similarly, llamas and alpacas were native to South America. No European had ever heard of such a beast. So when they were eventually introduced to Europe, their names were introduced at the same time. Most European languages use some variation of lama or alpaka to describe them.

What's interesting is that pineapples don't follow this pattern. They almost do, but not quite. In most of Europe, the word for pineapple is anana or ananas. But in Spain, they say piña. And of course in English, we say pineapple. Why is that?

Pineapples had a duel introduction to Europe. Columbus brought some back from his trips to the New World. Because the shape of a pineapple reminded the Spanish so much of a pine cone, it got its pine related name. But this new fruit did not become widespread in European trade.

That again waited for the Portuguese. They brought back the fruit from Brazil and got the name "anana" from there. There is some debate about whether "anana" was the native name for that particular fruit or if it meant something like "excellent fruit." But the Portuguese sailors took it as the name of that particular fruit. And once again, the name was introduced along with the fruit, and much of Europe called these things ananas.

But what about English? Did we get the word as a corruption of Spanish? As it turns out, no. This is the period of exploration, English ships are sailing all over the world, discovering a lot of new plants. And it was incredibly common, when finding some fruit one had never seen before, to call it a name that ended in apple. There are custard apples, wood apples, star apples, horse apples, and more. John Smith (better known for hooking up with Pocahontas) described a tropical fruit he saw that looked like a giant pine cone as a Pine Apple. The name stuck, though the two words were smashed into one.

Not all Spanish speakers say piña, by the way. A lot of New World Spanish speakers also call the fruit ananás, but then again, their ancestors weren't introduced to the fruit through trans-Atlantic trade. They lived where it grew.

Okay, back to the persimmon. The kaki. The fruit, which grew natively in China, was introduced to the Japanese in the eighth century. They called it kaki. This Japanese name spread, as the fruit began to be traded, and it is also the source of the taxonomical name.

But there are other species of persimmons. In fact, there are two species which are native to North America. Diospyros texana is native to Northern Mexico and parts of the Southwest United States. And Diospyros virginiana is native to the eastern United States. In fact, its more common name is the American Persimmon. When European settlers came to the eastern United States, they were introduced to this new fruit, or at least new to them. And they took the Algonquin name for the fruit, something like pessamin or putchamin. Like most words that work their way into English, this one got anglicized and became persimmon.

This is an example of German taking a word for an item from English, rather than the more common opposite direction. Isn't it nice to know we're willing to give back to those who gave so much to us? But don't worry, Germany. While we may offer you persimmons, we won't get cocky.

A Couple Culinary Curiosities

One fun aspect of travel is trying new things. Sometimes, that is trying new foods. This week, I tried two, one a meal, and one an ingredient. That's not quite the word I want, but you'll decide on the right one.

We visited a restaurant in Vlorë Old Town called Gaia. Here you can get a variety of food inspired by various countries in the region. But I was particularly interested in an Albanian food: Tavë dheu. That "dh" in Albanian sounds like the voiced "th" in English, like the "th" in "this" or "that". (But not the "th" as is "thick" or "thin" which is unvoiced. Albanian has that sound, but that one they spell "th".)

Tavë dheu

Tavë dheu is a casserole cooked in a clay dish. Traditionally it has beef liver in it, though the one I had was just beef, like the muscle, not the liver. It also has a white cheese in it that translates as cottage cheese, but it is not exactly the same as what we would call cottage cheese in the USA. When served, it looks like it has a crust on top. And there is crusty layer, but it is so thin, you can't really call it a crust. Maybe a film (though that sounds unappetizing.)

What is in tavë dheu

Once you break through that top layer, you not only reach the chunks of meat, but you see the cheese and the various vegetables mixed in with it. I enjoyed it and I hope someday to maybe try to make it myself.

A look inside the tavë dheu

The other food I tried was not a meal, but a spread. See I am changing my word. You know what Nutella is, right? It's something you could spread on toast or a crepe. It's cocoa and hazelnut and a lot of sugar. It's originally a product of Italy. And yes, they have it here, it is quite popular. But that wasn't the new spread I tried as we have Nutella in the United States too.

The two "spreads" together

We tried another spread called Leona Cream. This is a product of North Macedonia. It looks to have two flavors together. Thinking this was similar to Nutella, we wanted to try it. But it isn't quite the consistency of Nutella and it seems to have no hazelnut. It is pretty much like cake frosting.

Not our favorite, but hey, sometimes you gotta try.

Whan that Hoketober

In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer writes about a group on a pilgrimage. They are taking a long walk to a holy site. I can totally relate. Or partially relate.

Today, I had a similar experience. I can't say it's identical. It was just me, no group of people. We weren't telling stories. My walk, while long, was probably shorter than theirs—from every shire's end of England all the way to Canterbury—given that they had time for each of them to tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back, (or would have if Chaucer had lived long enough.) And while my destination was a holy site in the Eastern Orthodox religion, I'm not Eastern Orthodox, and I wasn't requesting the favor of a martyr. But if one ignores all those differences, then everything's the same!

Today I walked from our place in Vlorë to the Monastery of St. Mary. And back. The total walk took me about five hours. I walked a lot. I drank a lot of water. And I saw a lot.

The Narta Lagoon with the island and monastery visible

The monastery is on a small island in the Narta Lagoon. The Lagoon is not an offshoot of Vlorë Bay, but is a different offshoot of the Adriatic Sea. The lagoon and the bay are separated by a peninsula that holds the town of Zvërnec. The island on which the monastery sits is also called Zvërnec Island. It is a small island, almost entirely covered in pine trees. But the Monastery is in a cleared area on the shore of the island. It is connected to the mainland by a long curving wooden boardwalk.

The boardwalk. (I don't know who those women are, they weren't with me.)

The Monastery was built in the thirteenth century. It's full name is the Monastery of Dormition of Theotokos Mary. Dormition refers to the night before Mary was summoned up to heaven, basically her last night on Earth. And theotokos comes from Greek meaning "bearer of god", referring to Mary being the mother of Jesus.

The Monastery of St. Mary

One could buy yellow candles for 10 Leke (which is about $0.11) and burn them just outside the building. I saw several burning and I assume they were in memory of lost loved ones.

The paving stones that led from the boardwalk to the sanctuary are probably original, bumpy and uneven. And the stone of the monastery itself is beautiful.

The monastery and its paving stone path

The trip there and back gave me plenty of sites to see. I saw goats, horses, and chickens. I walked through a bird sanctuary. And there were lots of bunkers.

"Bunkers?" you say, "That's bonkers." Yes, there are bunkers everywhere in Albania, these concrete bunkers. Many are domes, but not all. And you don't have to go too far to find one. Why? The paranoia of a leader.

This house has a bunker in each corner of its yard

Enver Hoxha led Albania after World War II until his death in 1985. He was a hardline communist leader who closed off the country to everyone. Under Hoxha, Albania never declared peace with Greece, but kept the declaration of war going until 1987. Greece did have some desire to annex southern parts of Albania. Hoxha also hated Josef Broz Tito, the leader of Yugoslavia. He believed that Tito had plans to take over Albania and make it another piece of Yugoslavia.

A farm with four bunkers, one hidden behind the tree

So starting in 1967, due to Hoxha's paranoia, Albania built bunkers. Hundreds of thousands of bunkers. They built them in farm fields, in vineyards, in the lawns of hotels, in cemeteries, on beaches, in mountains, in villages and towns and cities. More than 750,000 bunkers were built for over 18 years. Sometime after Hoxha's death, the building of bunkers stopped. Some were used for other purposes, many were destroyed, but many more remain, empty and derelict throughout the country. It is estimated there are still 170,000 bunkers in Albania. The cost was enormous, a huge drain on Albania's economy. And the established Albanian Army thought they were impractical. How long could you realistically hold the enemy off firing from a small concrete bunker? How would you resupply the soldier inside?

Bunker as canvas? At least its good for something

Today, most of those that remain are empty. A few have been turned into museums or even bars. But that is a tiny fraction of them. They are something of a symbol of Albania though, and tourists looking to take a reminder of their Albanian vacation home with them can buy bunker shaped pencil holders. Because what better way to remember your trip to a warm and friendly country than a symbol of isolation and paranoia?

Bunker on a side street, good view of the shooting window

If you ever do want to see one, the good news is they are everywhere. So your pilgrimage need not be as long as mine was.

Fobulous

When Alrica and I go out here in Albania, one of us is generally fobulous. Usually it's Alrica. Now I am not saying Alrica is anyting less than fabulous all the time, but she's not always fobulous. (And I'm fabulous at spelling fabulous.)

One of the many differences we have found here in Albania is elevators. In residential buildings with many floors, they have elevators, as one might expect. But here, just pushing the buttons doesn't make the elevator go. You have to carry a fob with you and press the fob to the sensor. Otherwise all the button pushing in the world does nothing (except burn a few calories.) So when we are leaving our apartment I ask Alrica, "Are you fobulous?" Of course she is, because she's fabulous at being fobulous.

But I wonder why, what's the point of requiring the fob? Security seems like the obvious answer. And yes, that makes sense at first glance. But there's nothing that would stop burglars or murderers from taking the stairs. You don't need a fob to access those. So this "security" is just a mechanism to inconvenience the criminals. Do you think a burglar ever says the following? "I don't mind risking imprisonment, but damn those stairs are just too hard on my knees. I'll find a new line of work." How many hit men have been dedicated to their careers until they have a target who lives on the sixth floor so they return the money, go off the grid, and reinvent themselves as cellists? And the natural follow up question: What proportion of cellists are reformed assassins who didn't have the lung capacity for climbing stairs. (Clearly they don't become oboists with that lack of huff and puff power.)

Another difference of note, before we leave with the fob, involves switches. A lot of the switches are on the outside of the room in which you want light, especially bathrooms. That's not really a big deal, it just takes some getting used to. It would be more of a problem if I still had the mentality of seven-year-old Erich who thought it was hysterical to switch off the light and throw Alrica into darkness mid-shower. But having progressed to at least my eight-year-old self, she's pretty safe.

Universal symbols for on and off

Also, several of the outlets have a switch right alongside the outlet. Of course you know outlets are different in different parts of the world, but it isn't as clear the switch-controlled outlets would change where the switch controlling them is. In some ways, this is far more convenient. I always know which switch controls which outlet. But it does mean some switches are high, some low, rarely are they at optimal switch flipping height. This is different than in America where all the switches are at the same convenient height, but I don't know which outlets are controlled by switches and which ones aren't. And even once I realize an outlet is controlled by a switch, I have to figure out which switch controls it.

True story: There were three switches in a row in the front hall of our house in Reno. The one furthest from the family room controlled a single outlet in the family. The other two, I have no idea what they did. I lived in that house for five years, and I never knew what those switches were for. Aesthetics? They weren't that pretty.

After we leave the apartment, there are some differences in the city. Here in Vlorë I have not seen a single traffic light. We saw some in Tirana, which is a big city by any standards. But Vlorë, with 200,000 people, isn't small. And yet, there are no traffic lights, not even stop signs. There are some traffic circles at a few intersections along the two main north-south roads. It's amazing, because we see a lot of cars and yet, we don't see accidents. (Ironically, today for the first time we saw two cars pulling off and it might have been a post-accident incident, but I can't say that for sure.)

In America, you can't have a city of 200,000 people without traffic lights. It's true that in America if a city has 200,000 people then it has about 200,000 cars, and that's not the case in Albania. Lots of people work. You don't take a car everywhere you go. So there are a lot fewer cars on the road. But the major streets are still busy. And when big roads come together, everyone has to zipper merge or pass in front of each other, and somehow they do it without crashing.

Note: This absence of traffic lights also means there are no walk signals either. There are crosswalks, and when you want to cross, you just have to step out there. The cars have no intention of hitting you, but if you don't make the first move, they aren't going to stop and wait for you. You gotta Jersey it! (Any of you who have ever driven in New Jersey will understand what I mean by that verb.)

And let's say your final destination is a restaurant. Good call on your part. The food here is excellent, delicious, with friendly service, and a fantastic (dare I say fabulous but not fobulous) price. Just today Alrica and I had lunch that cost us a total of 650 lek (which is about 7 dollars.) That's total for both of us. You can't eat that cheaply at home unless you're at a membership big box store like Costco or Sam's Club. But one big difference is getting your check. You don't, not until you flag someone down, walk to someone to pay, or in some way use semaphore to get the attention of your server. They just don't bring it over. They want to let you enjoy yourself for as long as you want to enjoy yourself. And at those prices, what's not to enjoy?

And then it is home again with a contented belly and a smile. I just hope you remembered your fob. Or like those truly dedicated criminals, you're going to be climbing a lot of stairs. And that is less than fobulous.