Bassekou Kouyate Live In Los Angeles

Earlier this month I was practically apologizing for writing about my favorite new restaurant in L.A. here because... well because it's in L.A. and so am I and I just have to drive 15 minutes to get there. And here I am back with the L.A. stuff again. Kind of. It's L.A. via Mali.

If you follow this travel blog at all, you may recall that a couple years ago I was wandering around Mali and Senegal. While waiting for my friend Roland to arrive so we could head out to the world's biggest mud mosque in Djenne and then on to the unpaved wilds of Dogon Country, I somehow wound up in Ali Farka Toure's recording studio watching Bassekou Kouyate complete I Speak Fula, the follow up to Segu Blue, his widely acclaimed 2007 international debut album.

In the way of context, let me tell you I've been very lucky with music in my life. Even before becoming president of Reprise Records, I had always had good music juju. I was knee-high to spit when I snuck off to the Brooklyn Paramount Theater to catch Maxine Brown. Not only did she sing my favorite song, Oh No, Not My Baby, but she came out the stage door afterwards and gave me a big kiss and an autograph that I treasured until I went to Afghanistan 5 years later. In the interim I booked concerts at my school by Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, The Temptations, The Fugs, Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Pink Floyd, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Otis Redding, The Byrds, the Dead... all the regular stuff we used to dance around to in college back then. And I was a dj and so on. Even when my music juju screwed up, it didn't screw up too bad. I once drove all the way to some village near Lyallpur in Pakistan, the familial home of the famous Ali Brothers (of my most enjoyable acid trips) only to find the Ali Brothers, Nazakat and Salamat, the world's greatest Qawwali singers, away on a concert tour. Years later I was working in a meditation center in Amsterdam and someone persuaded me to go upstairs to hear some "trippy Indian music" and it was... Nazakat and Salamat Ali Khan. Point: I've seen everyone (except The Beatles, all of whom I've seen individually). And the further point, when I saw Bassekou is the Jimi Hendrix of the ngoni, a description that is now widely used, and that the concert I saw him play at the French Cultural Center in Bamako was one of the greatest and most inspired live shows I've ever seen in my life... well, it's not like some kid telling you about the first live music he's ever seen. I knew Jimi Hendrix when he was the lead guitarist for the Night Hawks fronting John Hammond. He did his first American concert after he became the Jimi Hendrix Experience for me and that night I watched incredulously as he and my mother smoked a joint. I hung out with him in Essaouira and saw him play at the Isle of Wight Festival before he died and I went off in search of the Alis.

That said, Bassekou is not just playing in L.A. tomorrow (Sunday), he's playing a free show-- at Amoeba Records on Sunset, around the corner from that favorite L.A. restaurant I was talking about! If you're in the L.A. area-- unless you're lucky enough to have tickets for one of the shows at the Getty Center-- don't miss this chance.

Bassekou plays ngoni on President Obama's favorite record, Kulanjan but he's not well know in the U.S. yet, although he's a superstar in Africa and on his way to being one in Europe. This is what I wrote after seeing him play in Bamako:

I don't know how to describe the concert without losing the essence of what the music did for everyone involved-- both on and off the stage. Let me tell you, though, as magnificent as the recorded versions of his songs are, the live show is what makes it so amazing. The concert defined hot. When those syncopated rhythms get going, there is no resisting their power. Mali is the birthplace of the blues-- and the blues is still very much alive and vibrant here-- and it is the ancestral home of rock'n'roll in every imaginable way. Bassekou has that coursing through his blood and he knows exactly how to convey it to the audience.

And the dancing was as good as the music! Absolutely breathtaking! Truthfully, I can't remember the last time music compelled me to jump out of my seat and dance in the aisle. Last night it did.

I found this video on YouTube-- Bassekou at the Orange Peel in Asheville, NC a couple weeks ago. I wonder if Heath Shuler made it to the show. Bassekou will be in Savannah on April 2nd and I'll definitely tell Regina Thomas to check it out; it's right up her alley. In this clip it looks like a local banjo player found his way onto the stage; you can tell who he is because he's the one with the store-bought instrument. If you're in L.A., hasta ma�ana. Otherwise, Bassekou's U.S. tour schedule is here. Wow! 4 nights in Minneapolis and three in Lafayette, Louisiana!

L.A.'s Best New Restaurant: Lifefood Organic

I don't write much about restaurants and hotels or any kind of attractions in Los Angeles, not because it's an unworthy of tourist attention, but because I live here. But it dawned on me the other day that with so many tourists flocking to L.A. I should point out my newest favorite restaurant. Sort of restaurant... most exclusive restaurant in town (only 6 seats)! I want to back track first.

A few weeks ago I was with some friends celebrating my birthday at an old L.A. favorite, A.O.C. Our regular wonderful waitress Suzanne (from Sweden) wasn't there and we got stuck with someone who would rather be an asshole than be helpful. So when I asked for the sublime Brussels sprouts in parsnip pur�e dish I had had earlier in the week to be brought with no bits of pork or ham or whatever pig flesh they use to screw it up with, she said it wasn't possible. But it was possible. Suzanne had gotten it for us a few days previous and I had been dreaming about it since. In fact, it's why I picked A.O.C. for the celebration. She said I was mistaken. I ordered the broccoli with garlic and chili instead and the meal was very good. Everyone loved everything they ate. Afterwards a cook came over to say happy birthday and discuss the Brussels sprouts problem. Turned out her name is Suzanne too-- Suzanne Goin.

I don't watch cooking shows on TV and I don't follow chef celebrity but my friend Heather was kvelling. Turns out Suzanne Goin is the chef-- and one of the most renowned in the chef celebrity circuit. She was very sweet too. Heather mentioned she's also the chef at Lucques, where I hadn't been since I turned in my company credit card. But Suzanne sure knows how to cook up some good food-- and Lucques is a lot closer than A.O.C. to my home so... a few nights later Roland and I tried to get into our favorite local raw vegan joint, Cru and, as happens more and more frequently these days, it was too crowded and we had to walk away. On the spur on the moment we decided to go "someplace different" and I called Lucques and they said, "Come on down." We did. Of course it was delicious. But I had a realization while I was eating. It was heavy-- really heavy. Everything was cooked in sticks of butter. And when I chatted with the waiter about... the Brussels sprouts, well... they were cooked in veal stock. The food tasted good but was clearly deadly healthwise and very, very expensive. Why bother? How had I drifted so far away from raw vegan to find myself, at least once or twice a week, in places like A.O.C. and Lucques?

The next day, I met up with Roland for dinner again and he basically had had the same thoughts. "Let's eat someplace simpler. Lucques was too heavy." I said "OK, I have just the place!"

Livefood Organic at 1507 Cahuenga in Hollywood, just a few feet from the corner of Sunset Blvd-- and very conveniently located to ArcLight and Amoeba, isn't really a restaurant. It's a raw, vegan take-out place. But there's a nice communal table in the window with 6 stools. It's only been open a few weeks and so far there's always been a little room at the table.

First of all, every single thing they prepare is absolutely delicious, healthy and incredibly inexpensive. And... you can order stuff to go with dignity. I mean that's what it's all about-- that and the healthy eating thing. My mouth is starting to water as I write because I'm thinking of the delicious lasagna I have in my fridge right now that I'll be eating when I'm done writing. Lasagna and blueberry cobbler. Eating at Lifefood Organic isn't about making any compromises with taste. Their food is unquestionably more delicious-- not to mention nutritious-- than the "same" dishes you'll find in conventional restaurants, including-- if not especially in the A.O.C.s and Lucques of the world. If you're a raw foodie, think about this-- their dishes are as good as anything you'll find at Pure Food and Wine in New York City! I've been all over Italy and-- more to the point-- I grew up in NYC and I've never tasted better tiramisu than at Lifefood!

Click on the menu so you can read it-- and a warning: they usually only have a few things on any one day-- but they're ALL yummy

Will Banning U.S. Currency Be The First Step For South Carolina Seceding (Again)?

In the past we've mentioned that gay tourists, not to mention people who are uncomfortable with racism, bigotry, and far right extremism, are thinking twice before booking vacations in South Carolina. Some South Carolina legislators are so contemptuous of the state's tourism sector that they're ready to make it next to impossible for tourists to come there even if they want to.

South Carolina isn't requiring passports or visas yet, but the first state that seceded from the Union is looking into banning the use of American currency now. Welcome to the South Carolina Republican Party!

South Carolina will no longer recognize U.S. currency as legal tender, if State Rep. Mike Pitts has his way.

Pitts, a fourth-term Republican from Laurens, introduced legislation earlier this month that would ban what he calls �the unconstitutional substitution of Federal Reserve Notes for silver and gold coin� in South Carolina.

If the bill were to become law, South Carolina would no longer accept or use anything other than silver and gold coins as a form of payment for any debt, meaning paper money would be out in the Palmetto State.

Pitts said the intent of the bill is to give South Carolina the ability to �function through gold and silver coinage� and give the state a �base of currency� in the event of a complete implosion of the U.S. economic system.

Or maybe they just want to market the state's tourist attractions to descendants of the sudden German emigration to Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil in the late 1940s.

Where To Stay In Rome (And Albania)

Palazzo del Grillo (left) & Parco dei Principi

I suppose this post should really be something like "Where I Stayed In Rome (And Albania)" but I'm hoping that some of the ideas-- even if not the specific locales-- will be helpful to travelers even beyond people looking to experience a vacation vicariously. But let me start at the very end of my trip, one night in Rome before catching a flight to London and then on to home in L.A. You see, the trip this time involved an extended stay in Rome in the beginning-- and I'll get to that in a moment-- followed by a week or so of busing around Albania. But it was that one night in Rome at the end, basically insurance against unreliable airplane travel, that had me worried.

I've been to Italy many times in the past, first when I lived in Innsbruck, Austria and could easily drive down to Verona or Venice for a weekend and later when I was running Reprise Records and could never find enough excuses to visit our wonderful affiliates in Milan, where I became so well known at the hotel, the Principi di Savoia that my suite was always my suite. (The Four Seasons Milano is also spectacular, arguably the best Four Seasons in Europe, and many of our bands preferred to stay there which is why I did sometimes as well. But in the end, it was the classic Principi I always preferred.) The Principi was a relative bargain too. They always gave me a room for around $600/night while the Four Seasons charged around $850. I felt I was doing the TimeWarner shareholders a solid by staying at the bargain hotel.

But Milano isn't Rome. And I'm no longer an employee of TimeWarner and now pay for my own hotels. In the past when I've gone to Rome on TimeWarner's dime I stayed at the Russie, conveniently located between the Piazza del Popolo and the Spanish Steps. I would have been happy to stay there again on our one night in Rome at the end of the trip. The cheapest double in the joint was almost $1,000/night (breakfast not included). And it wasn't that fabulous, not when I'm putting up my credit card. Andre, the wonderful travel agent who first found me the Russie when we were both at TimeWarner, suggested a hotel nearby that he says is the only 5--star bargain in the whole city, the Parco dei Principi right on the Borghese Gardens surrounded by mansions, many of which are now embassies. It's just outside the Aurelian Walls-- so the $40 set fee taxi ride doesn't apply and the minute and a half it takes from the gate costs you about $25 in the cab-- but the hotel is just as nice as the Russie and much quieter. It cost us around $350 for a double which they upgraded (a courtesy to Andre) to a deluxe room. Roland wasn't a huge fan of the decor, which he termed "Louis XIV meets Liberace," and the antiquated awkwardness of not having a viable, usable Wifi system makes it a no-go for business travelers. But they did have the absolute most wonderful bath towels I've ever used and everything about the hotel is absolutely elegant.

One of the things about Rome that few tourists realize-- and the Romans never talk about (if they even realize it themselves)-- is that the city is tiny and as complicated as they try to make it, once you get the hang of it, you really can walk anywhere. Someone might tell you that the Borghese Gardens are a million miles from the center; it's a 10 minute walk to the Spanish Steps. We decided to say arrivederci to 2009 at an intense Michelin-star restaurant, il Convivio Troiani on a tiny pedestrian street near the Tiber just north of Piazza Navona. The concierge at the hotel was delighted we were eating at such a wonderful restaurant-- and was it ever!-- but he was horrified when I asked him if we could walk there. In his mind it would be like walking from the Four Seasons in Manhattan to Chinatown or from the Four Seasons in West Hollywood to the Water Grill downtown: undoable. It turned out to be a super-direct 20-30 minutes gorgeous stroll that added to the glamor of the evening.

I know this post is supposed to be about where to stay, not where to eat, but I can't not mention how over the top we both are about il Convivio. They describe the cuisine as a "modern, revisited version of traditional Italian fare. Don't expect pizza or meatballs and spaghetti. The chef kept sending out goodies all night and every single detail was explained to us by a superb waiter in the tradition of professionals whose job wasn't so much to write down an order and schlep out some dishes, but to make you feel you were having the best meal of your life. I started with orange scented organic barley with porcini mushrooms and black truffle uncinatum (hold the duck tartare) and Roland got going with fried zucchini flowers with buffalo's mozzarella, anchovies creamed, sweet and sour red pepper spicy sorbet. Between the incredibly rich starters and the stuff the chef had sent out, we were already full. My main course was salt cod cooked with artichokes, potatoes, truffle and sweet garlic sauce and Roland had organic oxtail "vaccinara style" with mashed spicy potatoes and mushrooms. He also ate 2 pieces of 6 varieties of homemade bread that he said was mind-blowing. Neither of us was interested in dessert but he wound up eating 12 of them that the chef sent us.

And, yes, Rome is a city you will have to work hard at finding a bad place to eat. Every meal we had there was fantastic, even in the restaurants with no Michelin stars. OK, back to the where to stay thing. If you follow this blog, you already know that my travel preference is to stay in places for weeks at a time and rent houses or-- in cities-- apartments. That's how we started the trip in Rome, a few weeks before our one last night at the Parco dei Principi.

I started my search online months ago, looking at the listings for apartments in Rome. There are tons of them. I found what I was looking for at HomeAway.com, a spacious two bedrooms/two bathrooms flat in an old 17th Century palace in the quiet, funky Monti neighborhood behind the Forum, a hop, skip and a jump from the Coliseum Metro station. There's a highly functional, well-equipped kitchen, a large dining room and large living room... and excellent Wifi (and free local phone calls). Here's the online description:

The aristocratic PALAZZO DEL GRILLO, 17th century, in the very heart of Old Rome OVERLOOKING the archaeological area called the IMPERIAL FORUMS between the Colosseum and Piazza Venezia, is the perfect location for all who want to have one of the great sites of antiquity right outside their windows. The Palazzo del Grillo, decorated by artists of the Bernini School, is a famous example of Roman Rococo architecture. COLISEUM is less than 5 MINUTE WALK from the apartment. Also EASY WALK DISTANCE TO ALL THE MOST IMPORTANT TOURIST SITES. THE APARTMENT: deluxe accommodation for 1-6 persons: 105sq m / 1135sq ft apartment (all modern comforts: dishwasher, washing machine, AIR CON, INTERNET) on second floor with ELEVATOR/LIFT, consists of: the large double LIVING ROOM with dinner area and relax area, 2 BEDROOMS (second bedroom usable as study too), 2 BATHROOMS, KITCHEN. Safe, quiet, easy walk distance public transportations and public garage.

It was a fraction of what two rooms in an equivalent hotel would cost-- or even one room! No, we didn't have the Frette sheets or the fancy towels but with what you save, you can afford to buy them and take them home! And after a few days you start to feel like you're part of the neighborhood and that you're living a normal life, not just a time and space cut-out from reality (which, no doubt, many people prefer).

OK, I know I'm going to give short shrift to Albania now. But let's be real; more people visit Rome in a day or two than Albania in a full year. Most people who do visit go in the summer and hang at the Adriatic beaches. We went in the winter and the beaches we passed, around Durr�s on the way inland to Berat (AKA, Berati), looked overdeveloped, commercialized and distinctly unappetizing.

The best hotel in Tirana is the Sheraton. It's a kind of western oasis and makes the inevitable immersion into Albania-- if you plan to leave the capital, which is a MUST-- a little easier. The Sheraton has worldwide centralized booking and they charge too much. But if you book a night through them, you can make a deal with the hotel for further nights based on local rates, which are about half. The hotel is a typical modern business hotel with a great gym and indoor pool, decent rooms, wonderful bathrooms compared to anything else you're going to find in the country, Wifi, etc.

We booked the rest of our trip through Albania Holidays, paying in advance and leaving everything up to them. It couldn't have gone more smoothly. And the hotel rooms out in the country cost around $25-30/night-- so there's plenty of room for errors. We picked what looked like the best and most interesting hotel (mostly bed and breakfasts really) in each town. The one exception was in Fier, an unexpected find that is basically not even mentioned in the tour books but is a prosperous town in the middle of Albania's oil and petrochemical industry. It's kind of the Houston of the country. The Hotel Fier is smack dab in the middle of town and was a real hotel with all the amenities. In Berat and Gjirokaster we stayed, respectively, at the Mangalemi and the Kalemi, each very heavy on the charm, the cultural authenticity and a little light on the amenities. It was well worth the trade-off.

I guess I should mention that the weather is way nicer in Albania than an hour away in Italy, where it was really cold and rained almost every day. Albania is noticeably warmer and less rainy. We liked Gjirokaster best:

Is Albania A Safe Country For Tourists? And What Were The Most Dangerous Countries In 2009?

About as dangerous as it gets in Gjirokast�r, Albania

Simple answer about Albania: yes, very safe. On the other hand, when George W. Bush visited it, the one country in the world where he is considered a hero-- for encouraging the Albanian Kosovars to declare their independence from Serbia-- his wristwatch was stolen. Petty crime exists everywhere of course and if you're looking for trouble in Albania-- even stickier trouble than pickpockets and cutpurses-- you can probably find it as readily as you would in Paris or New York or Bangkok.

On the other hand, if you're afraid of Muslims, by all means keep out of Pakistan, Yemen and London... but don't worry about Albania. One of the good things the repressive Communist dictatorship accomplished was putting organized religion where it belongs-- in the personal spiritual sphere and far away from the public sector. Formerly a "Muslim country," it is now estimated that only around 10% of the people here take any of the backward, violent, archaic, Abrahamic, Bronze Age religions seriously.

I guess you could count the environmental catastrophe that is Albania "unsafe." And the roads, which are getting better all the time, are still largely something most Americans would think of as unsafe,
especially up in the mountains, which is most of the country. But unless you try interfering with a blood feud-- yes, after being suppressed for decades, the free market has brought them back in full
force-- the likelihood of you getting into any violent confrontations in Albania is remote.

With an unemployment/underemployment rate as high as 80%, it's startling that there isn't more crime. Even the desperate taxi drivers tend to try to rip tourists off less than in most countries! But if you've been looking for dangerous countries to visit-- or to not visit-- Art Matters reported on the Global Peace Index for 2009 by naming the 10 safest and 10 least safe countries. First the good news: New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Austria, Sweden, Japan, Canada, Finland, and Slovenia. Interestingly, Iceland's ranking went from #1 in 2008 to #4, primarily because it's economy collapsed. The ten least safe countries (at least according to a report in Forbes) are

1. Somalia
2. Afghanistan
3. Iraq
4. Democratic Republic of Congo
5. Pakistan
6. Gaza Strip
7. Sri Lanka
8. Yemen
9. Sudan
10. Zimbabwe

As in 2008, the USA did not rank very well. It ended up as 83rd which is, however, an improvement in comparison with the previous year (going up from 97th position). Among the factors that cause the bad rankings for the USA is for example the ease of access to weapons, foreign wars or the number of imprisoned people.

As for the most dangerous cities to visit, there are different perspectives. In terms of murders per 100,000 inhabitants, the 10 worst are:

1. Cuidad Juarez, Mexico
2. Caracaz, Venezuela
3. New Orleans, US
4. Tijuana, Mexico
5. Cape Town, South Africa
6. Port Moresby, Paua New Guinea
7. San Salvador, El Salvador
8. Medelin, Colombia
9. Baltimore, US
10. Bagdad, Iraq

A more tourist-oriented perspective comes from RealClearWorld.com where the list is quite different, although
Ciudad Juarez doesn't fare all that well on their list either:

1. Mogadishu, Somalia
2. Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
3. Linfen, China (with the world's dirtiest air)
4. Caracas, Venezuela
5. Detroit, US
6. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
7. Johannesburg, South Africa
8. Norilsk, Russia (Siberia's heavy metal capital)
9. Saskatoon, Canada ("first in aggravated assault and robbery, fourth in homicide and sexual assault, 20th in breaking and entering, and 21st in vehicle theft among Canadian cities.")
10. London, U.K.

Albania-- Second Impression: Shqip�ria Has Plenty Of Room For Improvement

We've been out of Tirane, traveling around the country on buses. If the capital was all energetic/optimistic hustle and bustle with everyone looking forward to a brighter future with McDonalds and everything that makes life worth living, the interior is probably as wary of anything new and foreign as Albanians have always been. Most people seem resigned. They don't see much difference-- at least not in their own lives-- from the bad old Enver Hoxha days when communists ruled the roost. (A bright spot is that the inevitable excesses of religious fanaticism are nowhere to be seen. If a third of the country is nominally Christian and a third nominally Muslim, 90% are practicing non-believers. London is at least 10 times more Muslim than Albania.)

One guy we met-- who dreams of winning the lottery (and here "the lottery" means the U.S. visa lottery, not the Irish Sweepstakes)-- told us most people, and virtually all older people, would gladly trade in "democracy" and the vagueries of the market system for the security of the bad old days. How is that possible? Start with something like 80% unemployment/underemployment. Our friend down in Gjirokast�r said since 1990 it's been all Law of the Jungle. A few natural predators have gotten very rich. Most people feel left behind. One in eight Albanians are working abroad and the country's economy seems to function off remittances from fathers, brothers, sons, husbands, sisters and daughters working in Italy, Greece, Germany, England and the U.S. We see American flags everywhere, indications not of the fealty they feel towards our country but because they have a relative in the Bronx or Westchester sending home money. Here nearly 60% of the working people are farmers, eking out a meager existence through backbreaking toil. We saw it everywhere in the country.

God made Albania beautiful-- green and verdant, wild, rapidly moving rivers overflowing their banks-- valleys, canyons, lakes, a beautiful sea coast... Albanians have turned it into an eye-sore of a never ending garbage dump. Throughout the country every barren tree is decorated with plastic bags. The whole country looks like a landfill for aluminium cans, plastic bottles, and every sort of detritus man uses to pollute the environment. If I were looking to start a business in Albania it would center on cleaning up the environment. In fact, the EU should make Albanian membership conditional on a serious cleanup effort. Just cleaning out the thousands of round Cold War era cement bunkers would employ a good part of the unemployed for years! I can't think of anywhere in the world I've ever been where a good, solid recycling program would do more good. The Albanians, who seem to have a cigarette permanently grafted to their mouths and whose main occupation apears to be working-- or at least hanging around-- at a lavazh (car wash), don't hesitate to throw trash on the ground anywhere and everywhere.

On the other hand... Albania is incredibly cheap for tourists. We're staying in the best hotels in each town we visit and they cost around $25/night. Food is delicious and fresh and... well, we just had dinner in Kerkulla overlooking Gjirokast�r, ate starters, main courses, and desserts (and Roland had a pitcher of local red wine-- plus, he says, 3 baskets of the best bread he ever ate) and it cost us less than $20. It's by far the best restaurant in town! Bus trips between cities cost like between $4 and $7. And it's one of the places were the dollar has become more and more valuable in recent years.

Albania-- First Impressions

After living in cold, wet Rome for a while, the first thing you notice on arriving in Albania's one airport-- named for Mother Teresa, of course-- is that's the weather is positively balmy: much warmer, blue skies, sunny, no rain. Naturally that brings a smile to anyone's face. The airport was tiny and easy to navigate. Taxis downtown are supposed to cost $20 according to the guide books but they were only asking $17 (without bargaining or prodding). There was also a comfortable enough looking bus steps from the front door for $4 and we took that. It takes like 20 minutes to the center of time, walking distance from just about any hotel.

People look good and they look fashionable and healthy; nicely-turned out folks. They're friendly and helpful. Romans seemed too busy to bother with people asking directions-- or just frightened. Albanians are mellow and happy to help. We were surprised to see so many people-- at least in Tirane speaking at least rudimentary English.

It definitely a poor country, but one emerging from decades, or even centuries, of poverty. The city has an air of optimism; it's nice. We saw some huge "We love Obama" graffiti painted at the front of the university but we know the government really loves George W Bush, one of the few in the world that does.

The food is delicious. Everything is fresh and we were told everything is organic because the farmers are too poor to afford fertilizer. It's an inexpensive place as well-- and good deals abound if both looking for them. Unfortunately, everyone smokes. At least the country doesn't seemed plagued by religionist fanatics-- far less so than in the U.S. That's got to count for a lot! It took me less than 5 minutes to get the hotel to drop the room rate down by half (after they claimed there's an Albanian rate and a non-Albanian rate).

Tirane was easy to explore by foot and it was also easy to figure out how to use the buses. We also went for an hour minivan drive to Kruja, a more ancient city north of Tirane, built around the ruins of an old castle and rebuilt bazaar. We were the only tourists around and it was easy to get good prices on some really nice kilims.

Everyone says the "real Albania" is away from Tirane-- which was largely rebuilt in a Stalinist architectural mode in the 50s.Tomorrow we head out for Berati, south of here.