Ready for a little bit of Lj spamming?

I'm sitting in a bookstore café, with a few hours of me time on the horizon, so it is time to play catch up with LJ and hopefully write and sketch a little.  Good music on café sound system (and when they let me down with George Michael or Celine Dion, I put on J's fancy earphones and escape into my own iTunes), flowering tea in a tall glass beside me, surrounded by books and no smokers (in Albania, no one respects the no smoking signs :( ), sounds like a good way to spend an afternoon.

The light in the café leaves a lot to be desired but I took a pic with my laptop anyhow. Accessing Photo Booth, I found the other, rare photos I've taken.  How fun to see the other places my Mac has been. I should remember to use the laptop camera more often (and I might if the quality was better...)




Top to bottom, L-R:  view of the mountains in Coroico, Bolivia, after our bike ride down Death Road; San Pedro d'Atacama, Chile on Christmas Eve; on a boat cruise on Ha Long Bay, Vietnam;  The Friends Bookstore, Tirana, Albania.

Dog days

My Real and Internet Lives have coincided again, as they did with the blue trees.

I saw this fellow the other day in a side street near our apartment:

and then following a link on the LJ homepage, something I’m not at all in the habit of doing, I landed here and saw this photo by studentofdogs:


(image via Photobucket)

The background colors are switched around, but the similarities are striking, no?  Perhaps the other photographer and I saw alternate universe dogs?

Krujë, Albania

A couple J works with at the embassy offered to take us to Krujë with them one afternoon to pick up a rug they had commissioned. Krujë is renowned for its medieval market where they sell modern-day kitsch souvenirs and Albanian antiques. We ate lunch together had dishes besides stew!  I will post about the different kinds of stew...one of these days.

In the meantime, Krujë pictures because, before coming to Albania, asakiyume told me to take lots of photos, and by that, I understood, she'd like to see them, too. ;)

A panorama from the restaurant. You can't see it because of the distance, but Tirana is lost in that haze to the right:



By the time we finished with our late lunch, the sun was already on its way down (the days are getting longer; sunset is around 4:30 now):



The market street:



Some everyday utensils of past days:



They had some stunning bridal chests for sale. We are looking into purchasing one, but it will cost as much to send it to France as it will to buy it, so we'll see if we can swing it. If we can, I'll write more about them and post a picture.

Out of time

No more time to post. Going to have to get my words for the day before the me time evaporates.  No sketching at the café, sadly.

Next post: Berat.



Be careful what doors you open in a strange city at night; you never know what you'll let out. Something may follow you through the dim streets and narrow alleys.