Dhendri returns just as the Durres-bound ferries sail into the Port. I'm ready in my suit - 'Nena ime!!', he shouts (tr. 'Mama mia!'), 'What have you got on?!' He thrashes around the apartment looking for something more suitable. Finally I depart in oversized trousers and denim jacket. The Principessa is allowed to keep her velvet coat and hat because she's 'so small you can hardly see her'. I wonder how I'll pass myself off as an English teacher in this get-up but he's decided that our best bet is to look as wretched as possible, so that the Embassy staff will feel sorry for us.
Leaving Durres we stop to let an old man, leading a cow on a rope, cross to a traffic island, where he sits down on the grass and lets the cow graze. The morning is overcast, the sun an indistinct orange blur behind grey clouds, but still warm. As my visitor yesterday warned, the road is a bit rough in places, but not enough to cause real problems. Coming closer to Tirana I notice some huts and shelters made of wood and corrugated metal, and a crowd of people around. Dhendri begins trying to distract me, pointing out the road signs overhead which show how near we are... because in fact those poor people are living there, by the motorway, and so I shouldn't stare. Soon the traffic slows almost to a stop, so many cars and lorries going into the city. Up ahead police are stopping cars, every twenty or so - fines for speeding. There are beggars here as well, some of them women with babies, knocking on the car windows, but Dhendri says don't open the window. Before long we leave them behind and make our way into the centre of Tirana.
We queue outside the Embassy for a while and then sit in the reception area waiting for Dhendri's name to be called. He's really going for it by now, sitting with his head in his hands, moaning softly. Glared at when I try to cheer him up, I look around the waiting area, while the Principessa falls asleep. Everyone looks slightly bored, going up to the desk in turn where a clerk deals with queries and passes documents to the office behind him. When Dhendri's name is called he hands in our documents, I'm pointed out but not required to speak to anyone, and that's that - they'll be in touch.
Dhendri has some other business in town and leaves us for a while, after pointing out the main streets, so I put on my sunglasses and remove the flapping jacket, and the Principessa and I go briefly tourist-tastic in the elegant capital, which at this quiet hour of the morning seems so light and airy after the often gloomy Victorian gothic of Leeds.
Afterwards we drive around Tirana for a while before returning to Durres, where the man with the cow is still sitting on the roundabout.
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