I Want My MTV

March 28, 2007

It is exactly one year and five days since I first set foot in Albania. In the last year I’ve made three trips to Europe – which I’m still undecided as to whether Albania is lumped in with. As a compromise, I’ll just refer to places like Italy and France as “Regular Europe.” I made trips to Florence, Paris and London, all places abounding with comforts that I had come to take for granted back home.

A common question is what I miss the most from America. I can say, completely honestly, that material things, that for awhile I let my mind build castles in the air with, I’ve been able to kind of improvise or have just stopped caring about. American-style coffee can be MacGyvered with espresso grounds, the top of a 1.5 liter bottle and coffee filters – which can be found. Surprising, considering the absence of drip coffee makers in Albania. I never really cared about clothes, and now, entirely by accident, I’ve found myself in a country in which I’m one the better dressed people. My parents keep me in peanut butter, aaaaaaaand that would really be about it.

So what I miss the most would be my family and friends. Seriously. Love you guys.

Television is something that I never missed. I have never been a big T.V. person. The only shows that I have ever really cared about have been, in order of formative impact: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Wire, 30-Minute Meals, The NBA Tonight, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and, though I’ve only seen a few episodes, I’m gonna put Seinfeld in here. Everyone has told me I would like it.

Albanian television has nothing I would care to watch. There’s a music video channel called BBF – pronounced “buh buh fuh” – a news channel which is simply a still picture of the national newspaper and a voice reading aloud every single article in the paper, Italian soap operas and a lot of soccer games. And I’d rather watch the newspaper channel than soccer. But, like I said, I had never been a big T.V. guy. Albanian T.V. was just funny, it didn’t make me yearn for the stuff I didn’t really watch in America anyway. Now, having been in Albania for a year, having made a few trips to Regular Europe, having – on a whim, just to see what was on – channel surfed a little bit, television has become……, let’s say enchanting.

Firstly, MTV is endlessly entertaining. A week spent in both Florence and Paris, and what I remember the most from these trips, are a few music videos that I saw on MTV. Now, I took in all the sights and enjoyed getting lost everyday, I also just managed to carve some time out for MTV. So I think that’s okay – I mean, some people plan their days around drinking or drugs you know. After careful watching, there are a few lingering questions regarding MTV: 1) Who is this Nelly Furtado? She is beautiful; 2) Why are there about seventeen Pussycat Dolls? I think only one of them sings. I’m not arguing with the idea of stocking a band with models, but their videos can be a little busy; 3) Has there been a resurgence of music being played on Music Television in America? Cause they definitely do it in Regular Europe; 4) Have the Red Hot Chili Peppers disclosed the location of The Fountain of Youth? I think that would just be the fair thing to do; 5) And Britney Spears?!!!!!! Are the flags at half mast in America?

Secondly – and we’re still on MTV here, but this needed its own paragraph – In Paris, I saw this show called “Yo Momma.” It features Fez from That 70s Show, who is a kind of ref for two guys that just stand in some alley and take turns telling “your momma” jokes. It is hilarious, not at all because of the jokes they’re telling, but for completely accidental reasons. The names of the contestants – my favorite I saw was “Big Skrill” – the crowd reaction to jokes that are completely nonsensical, Fez being kind of chubby. It’s all just incredible. I wish I could write well enough to describe how much enjoyment Yo Momma brought me. Tell me this show is still on in America. It can’t just be a Regular Europe phenomenon. I’m not sure I’m prepared to return to a country that doesn’t have Yo Momma.

The third new T.V. addiction I’ve acquired are weather reports. They’re so….in depth and, just really enlightening. The fly-by radar things, a little bit of a meteorology lesson, forecasts for nearly a week at a time. Weather reports have become completely engrossing, and so helpful. I’ve written on this blog at least three times how I’ve been completely defeated by rain and wind in Albania. These guys in Regular Europe can anticipate a weather pattern’s every move. It just takes the guessing out of whether or not I should hang my clothes outside, if I can go for a run or exactly how hot and uncomfortable the bus ride will be.

My mornings in Regular Europe saw me gripped by the forecasters. And it should be noted that these were weather reports being done in Italian and French, neither of which I speak a word of.

“Yup, overcast today,” I’d say to one of my friends.
“I don’t think so man. It looks pretty sunny outside.”
I’d consider the actual, real time weather situation outside. “No I don’t think so. The guy says overcast. Man, I tell you, this weather…I don’t know.”
“Dude, can you stop talking about the weather. You’re an old man, and I can’t believe I hang out with you. Just look out the window, that’s the weather right there.”
“Oh, but looks like sun tomorrow.”

So, MTV and weather reports. Two things I didn’t watch in America but that I now love. And now, back in Albania, I don’t miss Yo Momma or the radar machine. These things are the domain of, and will always be associated with Regular Europe.

Sorry for not writing anything about my life in Albania. But you probably didn’t read this far anyway.

March 30, 2007

One morning this week I arrived at work to find a colleague of mine – who is also my closest Albanian friend, and whom I’ll call Gary – seated at my desk waiting for me. He was obviously eager for me to show up.

“Gary, are we getting coffee right now?” I asked. “I just got here, how about we go in an hour or something."
“No dude,” Gary has picked up on how my friends and I call each other ‘dude.’ “I just wanted to show this e-mail I have gotten from my friend. It is really funny dude.”

I’d been through this before and was ready for an e-mail that would be in Albanian, probably made no sense to me, or just wasn’t funny. It turned out to be an e-mail forward, a cartoon-thing about the differences between Italy and the rest of the European Union. The forward began with a panel across the screen with a heading like “Lines in the EU,” then these little animated dots would orderly get in line and shuffle through. The next panel would be “Lines in Italy” and the dots would be zipping all over the screen and end up forming this kind of pile up. The forward had these dot skits for things like “Talking on cell phones, Elections, Dating” and “Newspapers.” The EU dots were always very reasonable, polite and well-ordered, while the Italian dots were always a complete mess. It was good-natured, and justifiably funny.

“Beni, dude, what do you think? It was crazy right? I mean funny,” Gary said.
“Yeah it’s funny. I should pass that along to some of my friends in America. You know, there are a lot of parallels between the Italian dots and Albania. You know? Right?” I said, asking for confirmation from Gary.
“Yeah dude yeah….But no. It was about Italy not Albania.”
“Right, I mean your right. But you know how Albania is kind of messy compared to Europe. Just like the Italian dots, not bad or anything, just hectic.”
“How does this mean? How is Albania like the dots from Italy?” Gary was very skeptical of my comparison.

I tactfully tried to explain how the e-mail forward made me think of Albania. How people don’t do lines, are rather cavalier about litter, don’t really have indoor voices, smoke in hospitals, “and especially the driving one Gary,” I said. “You know how people drive in this country. And I’ve been to Italy. And there are traffic lights and other driving rules that people follow most of the time…...”

The driving in Albania isn’t one of those subtle, under the surface differences that you begin to see only after spending some time in the country. A visitor crosses the border into Albania and within a minute and half that person will feel a sense of uneasiness. After five minutes the person has figured out that the butterflies in their stomach is a combination of nausea and panic that has been brought on by the style of driving. And that style would be: “Do whatever you damn well please. We don’t really even know what those lines in the middle of the road are for, we’ve just seen them other places. And, ah, try not to hit anyone, but, you know, it happens. We understand.”

I don’t think aggressive driving is the right phrase, it more like violent or destructive or antagonistic. Some aspects of the driving I’ve gotten used to: Feel like we should slow down? Uhhh, I haven’t seen a posted speed limit; Passing on a blind corner. Reckless you say? Well, we’ve got to get around the three-wheeled mini pick up; The centrifugal force might very well launch us off this mountain? Just lean in with the turns.

I don’t drive. But if I did I wouldn’t feel any safer. Somehow, the chaos of the Albanian roads maintains itself, and I think my reasonable driving style would only throw off whatever kind of equilibrium has been achieved here and cause a truly horrific accident. I still can’t totally relax as a passenger. I’m always a little anxious, and the knack I had for being able to fall asleep in a moving vehicle has been completely lost. Now I just get carsick sometimes.

In addition to the style of driving, almost every time I’m on the road in Albania I’m treated to a new sight, that, if I wasn’t seeing it right then, would seem completely unbelievable. Intercity minivans with maybe thirty-four people crammed in, faces and butts smashed against the windows; One car towing another, connected fender to bumper by a man’s belt; The aforementioned tripod truck, with a couch in the bed, with two people sitting on it; Stereo speakers adhered to the roof of a car playing music for, I guess, the other cars on the road that are passing it. These are things I’ve seen.

Last week, I was riding in a van on the busiest and fastest freeway in the country. We pulled along side a car with two guys in the front seat and the entire back seat taken up by a full-grown horse. This was a four-door car, but I wouldn’t call it a sedan or a station wagon. More Honda Civic-like The horse was standing up across the rear of the car, it’s tail waving out the window, it’s head poking out the opposite window and staring at me with it’s big horse eyes as we drove by. I cannot imagine how these guys got a horse inside of a mid-size car. Horses are big, strong and scary. How would someone coax or force the thing into riding in the backseat?! It looked pretty content as we drove by. Once back in Lezha I relayed the story to my site spouse John.

“I mean, why?” I asked. “Right? This was a full-grown horse in the backseat of a car.”
“I’m shaking my head man,” John said, “but you know, I’m not even that shocked.”
“I know. We drove past the thing, I’m like ‘are you kidding,’ and then I try to rationalize it, and I thought of some reasons that were kind of plausible to drive around with a horse.”
“Yeah. Maybe they just wanted to take it for a care ride. Dogs love it.”
“Horses are handy animals, maybe they thought they’d need it for something.”
“Dinner?"
“Sure. Maybe they just found it, like you find a couch in college, and you know if you let it go it won’t be there later, so you just load it up.”

John and I decided, after thinking about the reasons why and given the fact that we are in Albania, it wasn’t that unreasonable of thing to see a horse in a car. Although, it would be the perfect nightmare scenario for me: Driving home from somewhere, something is blocking my rearview mirror, I turnaround and am face to face with a horse that is riding in my backseat. Then I’d wake up in a cold sweat.

“…….So the driving man,” I said to Gary. “It’s pretty dangerous, right?” Gary considered the comparison I had made between the Italy dots and Albania, specifically the driving aspect.

“You know dude, I think the Albanian driving is not so good.”
“That’s all I’m saying Gary.”
“Actually, yes, it is a miraculous that you have not been in a vehicle accident. That you are not dead from a vehicle accident. This is a miraculous.”
“A miracle.”
“A what? Hey dude, how about we make a coffee break now?”
“Let’s do it.”