Day 353 Tirana

 
look at all them chickens
 

On most corners you can find a 40 cent short black and 60 cent gelato, it always goes down a treat. Every now and then a hunched-over elder would pass by and buy some poultry; strung up by it's legs they would carry the live beast home where it would soon meet it's brothy end.

There's even an American diner in the city; although it seems to also do Mexican and various curries, so really a master of none. Slowly American and much of Western culture is invading.

I decided I would leave the next day and sent out a few couchsurfing requests around Berat, a small historic city around two-thirds of the way down the country. It turns out that leaving Tirana is a lot more difficult than getting there. The bus network is a web of around six  different stations where the directions are counterintuitive; if you want to go south you go to the north station, if you want to go east you go to the southern station - it’s a mess.  Berat is a fairly common destination so it wasn't really a problem, but then later leaving for Macedonia was a challenge.