Mesozoic Buses
...in Tirana.
The first time I got into a Tirana public bus I did as normally do in any other place in the world. I read things(*). Things being ads on the upper side of the bus (how to lose 10 kilos in 2 days, need English education? graduate from Tombuctu University), being the newspaper or magazine of the person sitting besides/in front of me, being T-shirts with nasty messages (touch me, love you baby), T-shirts with witty messages...or being minds. I read minds of people and guess, on a scale from 0 to 10, if they are miserable, medium-happy or happy with their lives.
I also listen to conversations and try to guess the languages I hear. Well, in Tirana few foreigners use the public bus (like myself, I took it three times) and I try to recognize Albanian Tosk/Ghegh/Kosovo different pronunciations and tone. An Albanian colleague told me that Kosovars and Albanians from the North talk like farmers, with a firm, somehow slightly rude, language.
Rude is also what we EU member states do to the dilapidated Albanian public transport...we send them all the crappy buses that are falling apart...so you find the "Ligne 3 Rochebelle-Centre ville" or the Madrid buses with the shield of the city and the stickers "salida de socorro", German ones...
(*) I also like reading the Kellogg's ingredients when I have breakfast, the shampoo bottle while I shower and the number of Kilojoules of each non-fresh good that I buy in the supermarket. Does anybody else do this? Is there any other human having this kind of ticks?
The first time I got into a Tirana public bus I did as normally do in any other place in the world. I read things(*). Things being ads on the upper side of the bus (how to lose 10 kilos in 2 days, need English education? graduate from Tombuctu University), being the newspaper or magazine of the person sitting besides/in front of me, being T-shirts with nasty messages (touch me, love you baby), T-shirts with witty messages...or being minds. I read minds of people and guess, on a scale from 0 to 10, if they are miserable, medium-happy or happy with their lives.
I also listen to conversations and try to guess the languages I hear. Well, in Tirana few foreigners use the public bus (like myself, I took it three times) and I try to recognize Albanian Tosk/Ghegh/Kosovo different pronunciations and tone. An Albanian colleague told me that Kosovars and Albanians from the North talk like farmers, with a firm, somehow slightly rude, language.
Rude is also what we EU member states do to the dilapidated Albanian public transport...we send them all the crappy buses that are falling apart...so you find the "Ligne 3 Rochebelle-Centre ville" or the Madrid buses with the shield of the city and the stickers "salida de socorro", German ones...
(*) I also like reading the Kellogg's ingredients when I have breakfast, the shampoo bottle while I shower and the number of Kilojoules of each non-fresh good that I buy in the supermarket. Does anybody else do this? Is there any other human having this kind of ticks?
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