The Mystery of the Marinated Shrimps

There are many mysteries in life. For instance, I cannot fully explain how I ended up, on the evening of December 14th, sitting at the table of one of the finest restaurants in Tirana, eating marinated shrimps in the company of famous albanian singers. This doesn't follow very logically from what Marijana and I were doing two hours before that; when we were standing at the gaz pump in the dark and cold, hungry, and having little hopes of sleeping in Tirana that night. Sometimes things just aren't logical, and events unfold in impredictable ways. So although I cannot figure out the intricacities of the cosmic mechanisms that worked together to create the exact right sequence of events that led to the most unlikely outcome, I remember the smell of shrimps and I know that it really happened.

Marijana had spent a few days in Pristina while I was visiting a friend in Skopje, and we had decided to meet in Prizren in order to continue the journey together and reach France by Christmas, which was getting dangerously close. That Wednesday morning, I was feeling sick, and once I quit wondering ways to teleport myself to Kosovo without using any of my muscles, I started packing with the bit of strength that I could find in myself. Heavy headed, I walked to the bus -yes I take buses in extreme cases like this one, and three hours later I was in Prizren.  In Prizren, Marijana and I found each other without the technology of mobile phones, but thanks to the brightness of her Santa hat sticking out of the crowd. Aslan was there too, puking on in the middle of the agitated workers of the bus station. The brightness of our outfits finally made complete by the purchase of first class Santa costumes in Macedonia, people's smiles and songs, and the excitement of being a tramper once again made me forget about my sickness. It was sunny, and we were ready for another day of adventures.

A nice young man of turkish origins (I am sure there is a secret organisation of turkish male assistants to hitchhiking girls) drove us to the Albanian border. The geopolitical situation makes the crossing of the Kosovo/Albania border one of the easiest I have seen so far after european borders. Instead of scary looking faces, waiting lines, and stamps (and the optional fines and tears...), we got smiles and 'Happy New Year's (Albania is a muslim country). Our passports weren't even checked, what I'd like to believe is the fruit of our amazing Santa charisma, but is apparently a usual thing there.

Once we had passed the border, we only had another 100 km or so to hitchhike until Tirana. All the cars that stopped were going to a city nearby called Kukes, and it was about to get dark so we decided to wait until someone going to Tirana would offer us a ride. After some time waiting we thought that we had found our ride when a young man stopped and told us that he was going to Tirana. But just like everybody else, he was going to Kukes, and once we had been driving around the bouncy streets of this creepy city (sorry, anybody from there?) for a bit too long we understood that our driver just wanted to find a way to have us over for the night. But once more, Santa Woman super powers got us out of there and we were back on the road, in the dark, waiting for our  next ride.

But it was dark, and despite trying out one by one all our magic tricks (i.e. jumping, smiling, waving, lighting a cigarette, standing under the signpost, standing in the light, standing at the gas pump...) we remained shivering and car-less. Now that I have gained all the necessary wisdom from this experience, I would advise anyone facing a similar situation to skip all the jumping and waving and to just go stand by the gas pump. Indeed, as was revealed that night, petrol stations seem to have strong affinities for lost hitchhikers. Whether there is a global gas pump consciousness willing and able to work out the best outcomes for lost hitchhikers will probably remain forever within the real of the unknown, but what I know is that out of nowhere, in this small and empty filling station of Northern Albania, we were picked up by a fancy four wheel drive driven by a handsome famous singer and his millionaire acolyte.

Sinan (we are good friends by now :)) seemed to quickly recover from the shock of seeing a girl dressed as Santa Claus running towards him and saying "problem, no car, Tirana!" (I discovered only later that he lives in Chicago and speaks fluent english). He understood our problem, but was at first reluctant to help us since we had a dog and their car was full of sausage (full in the balkan sense, there were a few pieces of Kosovar sausage in the trunk). I have to say here, however, that I understand anyone's hesitation to spontaneously offer assistance to a group as strange and crazy looking as ours at this time of the day. After a little while, we convinced him.

In the cosy car, we started happily chatting with our saviours of the day, still ignoring what kind of people they were. After a few minutes I asked the driver, 'so what do you do?', and he answered 'I don't really know!', so I innocently said 'Oh, just like my dad, haha!'. But his acolyte didn't wait long to inform us that Sinan was actually one of the most famour Kosovar singers, and he started playing one of his friend's CD's. The other man mentioned that he was a businessman, and we later understood that he wasn't a small player, but the owner of the fanciest hotel in Pristina. So here we were, riding with the Kosovar elite. After some jokes and discussions, they invited us to join them for dinner, which they were to have in the company of their friend Castrieto (or Fidel Castro as he later introduced himself to us), a notorious Albanian tenor. Too curious about what would happen if we accepted their invitation, but also because Marijana and I were starting to feel seriously hungry, I ignored the fatigue and headache and decided to go for it, even if I had to end up sleeping on the dinner table. Oh, and another thing to mention is that under our Santa outfits we were dressed like hippie travellers and even had dirty hair. Whatever, I've never been good with dress codes.

Flore restaurant is one of the nicest fish restaurants in Tirana. The food was great, and to us it seemed like the most incredible meal we ever had after the long, cold and lonely day we had behind us. Shrimps, rare and forbidden but delicious shells, baked fish, italian wine, desert... and another desert... We were even joined by the director of the Albanian footbal federation and his enormous cigar by the end of our meal. The two singers were the most friendly ones though, and they even sang a little after a few glasses of wine.

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Despite the fact that I barely had the strength to lift my fork to my mouth, it was another memorable experience for the Hitchhiking Santa's!