Eating La Paz

From top left to right, as the eye goes (and the same pattern repeated on each line):
Line 1:
a. Saltena (the n is meant to have a little line above it , making it a 'saalt-enya') - the one at the back - a pastry baked with a pork filling (in this case, it comes in numerous types). Eating of which is an art; it needs to be shaken before eating to allow the liquid to dissipate evenly and held like a glass and eaten from the top end. The one in front is a chicken empanada. Flatter and the mixture inside very much like a chicken patty - dry. This is street food, and something that we snacked on all the time. Cost is less than US$1. For both.
b. Seafood soup: spicy and Peruvian in origin. The eater was enthralled.
c. Calamari with spicy rice: crispy Calamari (and lots of it) with a pile of risotto like spiced rice - which seemed to have everything but the kitchen sink chucked in for flavour.
Line 2:
a. Massive Lobster on the same 'everything' rice.
b. Cerviche - marinated raw fish in lemon and herbs - utterly delightful, fresh ingredients - this was king fish, wholesome and tasty.
c. Smoked Trout - which is the beloved fish of this landlocked country coming as it does from one of the big lakes. Served with capers, boiled eggs, chopped onions and a lemon slice. Quite addictive.
Line 3:
a. Scallops: Flash baked with a sauce. Once again the recipient loved the dish and shucked them down in minutes!
b. Humita: Cornbread steamed in the leaf next to it. With a centre of local cheese. I liked the cheese but didn't care much for the bread itself. Also street food, incredibly cheap.
c. Tenderloin in pepper sauce: Decidedly non-Bolivian except for the fact that they love meat and potatoes. At a very fancy restaurant, topped with the very best pepper sauce I have ever tasted, the tenderloin was cooked to perfection and melted in the mouth.

The food was excellent, both in quality and quantity and value for money. I ate trout in various forms one of the best being stuffed into baked cannelloni with spinach and mushrooms. They eat a fantastic condiment called Yahua (pronounced Ya-khoo-aa) which is some serious chillies, blended with tomato and a local parsley like herb on a stone mortar and pestle type instrument. It's on the table when you sit down and they eat it with bread and butter or just dolloped onto whatever they are eating. We also ate at a local 'chicharron' place - which serves pork that is deep fried in special herbs and served with large corn kernels and lots of Yahua. I didn't much care for it but everyone around me wiped their plates clean!

The only food I really missed was rice which is replaced by potatoes as the base for everything in Bolivia. Being the place where potatoes originated they take their potatoes seriously and eat 4 or 5 different types (of many hundreds I believe) depending on what the meal is. I didn't take to their potato's either as they use them in a completely different way to what I am used to. But I tried everything - different textures, tastes, spices, methods of cooking. What I really missed was rice and Indian grub. Something I have been studiously making up for since I got back and over the jet-lag.

Grey is back

I'm back. After two long weeks away from everything familiar, desperately lonely without my boy. It was a super trip except for the constant 24x7 headache and copious nosebleeds, thanks to the killer altitude. And except for the fact that my boy was one million miles away.

Bolivia is a fabulous country, its people warm and kind, its food just up my street, its winter weather cool and inviting. I met some fantastically inspiring people and bought back some trinkets to remind me of this opportunity of a lifetime. Especially after the hideous 24 hour journey to come home. It's taken multiple hot baths and hours of deep sleep to untangle my limbs and pull the exhaustion from my bones. But I'm finally here. In good old grey London. At work. Reminiscing about my adventure and sheer luck at having had a chance to visit life at 3500m above sea level.

Pictures are coming soon.

Cinco

Although I studied Spanish for a year at some point in life it has almost all escaped me and I am dependent on my wonderful interpreter S to get me through days of meetings. The people are, without exception, friendly and patient. I'll try every few days for the next week to put down 5 new things (at a time) I learn about this magical place and its people, culture, food. Here go today's 5:

1. La Paz sits near the bottom of a cauldron of jagged slopes that are the Altiplano. The city is at 3500m above sea but the airport is in El Alto which at 500m higher, precariously perched on the rim of the Altiplano, is the highest International Airport in the world. Driving distance between the airport and the La Paz is only about 10km but the descent of 500m makes all the difference in how you breathe.

2. The airport is very basic and small but spotlessly clean. It's one conveyor belt delivered our suitcases and its two immigration officials smiled broadly while stamping our passports, no questions asked. Apparently flights need double the runway distance to land or take off from and specially re-inforced tires due to the altitude.

3. Everybody, and I mean everybody, from concierge to shopkeeper, will greet you with a broad smile and a Hola, Buenos dias, buenas tardes, bunas noches, hasta luego - depending on the time of day. When you meet someone and are introduced you will be kissed on one cheek by them. Invariably this is on the right cheek. And they will come round to kiss you goodbye as well. So when our day starts we have a good 15minutes of meet and greet and then the same in the evening to say goodbye. I have learnt to budget this into my busy run run run days. Its a skill.

4. The air is very thin. I cannot emphasise this enough. The first few days we drank coca tea to help with the nausea and headaches, supplemented by brufin as I am allergic to the ingredients in the prescribed altitude sickness meds. I'm not having any problems breathing although all breathing felt a little strained the first few days. I've had only two nosebleeds so far and have given up trying to use the small treadmill which I only managed for 30 minutes before I could breathe no more. The gods of the gym will understand.

5. The view is fantastic. Everywhere you look you see the plains of the Altiplano rising up, jutting into the Andes behind it. El Alto is a new-ish city built into the higher reaches of the Altiplano, which make the sides of the cauldron in which La Paz is the floor, look alternately scraggy and heavily covered with houses. At night it just looks like a wall of lights, each illuminated house a little twinkle in the blanket. I also absolutely have to mention the Illimani which is the highest peak in Andes that is visible from La Paz. The highest overall peak of the Andes is in Peru I am told. The Illimani is impressive to the say the least. Its snow covered peak rises magnificantly behind the Altiplano and my eye is drawn to it each time I am outside. More than one Bolivian has told me it is the symbol of La Paz. I can see why. I got a great view from the flight as we were landed but it was too early in the morning and I was too groggy to do anything but marvel open jawed at the scenery below. I promise you a picture.

I am more than a little in love with La Paz. I hope someday V and I will come here together. Buenos dias!

Hola from La Paz

I'm beyond exhaustion. I have been trying to get myself to sleep after the two seemingly endless flights (8hr20 to Miami and 6hr20 to La Paz) and 6 hour transit to get here. No luck whatsoever and so after doing my accounts I am blogging and watching the new season of Grey's Anatomy. The sheer height has meant that the air is thinner and I feel like I've been doing deep breathing exercises since I got here. Some herbal tea and a light lunch of soup seems to have helped. Wonder how I'll manage once I am out of the comfort zone of this place and in the real world, at work? How long does the body take to acclimitise? Answers that seem minor in comparison to the deeper life affirming questions that the fantastic view of the mountains from every room of our apartment beg us to ask.

More than 24 hours since I left the comfort of my home in London here I am in La Paz, Bolivia, on weeks of exciting work and play. The first view of the amazing Altoplano was as we landed and the sun was rising a gleaming deep orange hue around us. The whisps of clouds and the sheer expanse just took my breath away. I'm hoping I can take and post loads of pictures once I am back. But don't count on it as I haven't even downloaded my fab (?) pictures from India as yet. Will try and post my observations of life in La Paz and the surrounds as and when time and the internet connection permit. Till then suffer my horrid broken spanish accent - Buenos Noches! (pronounced Boo-e-nos No-chez). G'nite people....

Walks Into The Room, Feels Like She Owns It

I’m not going to argue with this. Although I said at dinner in Chinatown on this very wet and windy Friday night that I would. But I’ve decided not to, because having had a whole weekend to think about it I really and truly believe that people's point of views are in the context of their lives and that sitting where I sit I don’t know where they are coming from and how their mind works. And that one shoe does not ever fit all. If it did we’d all have these bright pink sketchers and where would that get us, hunh?

Instead I’m going to encourage my gorgeous friend to rethink her position by telling my own story of weightloss yo-yo-ing. It was not until the summer that I turned 13 that my hormones and the rice I had suddenly began eating met, started dating and in that first flash of love decided to live together in my midriff. I spent all of my teen years watching my weight increase, the togetherness of the rice and hormones multiply over and over till they were all bred out like a pair of rabbits by the time I hit my twenties. It seemed like forever love, that no matter how hard I rebelled against was here to stay. All those years I was never really concerned about the weight because I could still walk, jump rope, enjoy games of volleyball, baseball and badminton, swim like a fish, dance like crazy. My parents often cautioned against the weight gain sighting medical reasons but all those attempts were half hearted compared to how much they told me how beautiful my face was and how being a good, kind, honest person far outweighed how I looked. And I know that because they believed what they said when they said it, that I too grew up in that knowledge, secure I was loved no matter what I weighed.

It was mainly because I managed everything my classmates managed that I never really ever found my weight a stumbling block enough to tackle with a punch in the tum. Although I was always conscious of my weight being greater than other people’s I usually chose to focus my attention on things that brought my interests to the fore, like reading, painting, writing, listening to music – all things that fuelled my holier than thou teen image. It was also incredibly easy to eat copious amounts of food that my mother slaved over: lasagna, kofta curry, shepards pie, goulash and fresh soups just a smattering of a diverse range adorning our dinner table nightly.

In my twenties I was all curves, the politer term for rolls of fat. I still rarely thought of myself as fat even though the scales and visual inspection of old photographs would confirm that I was. I felt the curves gave me weight (not only literally) in my pursuits and had not in any way hampered the life I sought for myself. I took what I had and worked with it instead of letting it work against me. It was not a small molehill, this keeping up my spirits while everyone around me dieted and primped themselves into model-like thin-ness. But I made peace with my weight quite young and enjoyed the liberating feeling not having to watch every morsel I put in my mouth. I had managed to make and keep friends over the years, each of whom saw beyond the fuller figure and loved me for who I was. I tried to lose a few kilos to look lovely at my wedding but that was all I lost, very few kilos. And in my wedding pictures, that day stored on film forever more, there is no svelte me, but there is certainly a happy me.

It’s after I came to London, more than 6 years ago now, that the weight really began to pile on. A combination of various things led to bigger heavier meals that no amount of walking to the tube was enough to suppress or undo. For the first time ever I felt unattractive and like a lump of lard. Slower and uneasy with my body – something that took me completely by surprise. My years of being in a good mental place were gone in what felt like an instant. It was with a heavy heart, and the realization that it would be tougher to lose it and get fitter now that I was in my 30’s, that I began to cloak myself in darker looser clothes. It took all V’s motivational power to get me to the gym but it was always with the idea of getting fit again. I joined knowing full well that I would never be thin but knowing that at my weight being unhealthy was a deadly downward spiral. I spent the first few months working on my stamina and then as I began to lose the weight I began to obsess. There were a few months in between last year where I was fretting about the actual kilos I lost on a daily basis, weighing myself to the point to obsession, eating ridiculously to change my weight by grams before my next self-imposed weigh in. A few months into this unhealthy obsession I just stopped. Like an a-ha moment, one morning as I climbed the locker room scales it hit me: it’s not the weight I wanted to lose, gram by slow gram. It’s the feeling I wanted to gain, of good health and robust-ness. Of feeling beautiful no matter what I weighed. My efforts at the gym in the past year and a half have not resulted in any major weight loss. I nearly weigh what I did when I got married but I am a hundredfold healthier. I can do the elliptical machine for 45 minutes, swim 45 laps, do an hour and half long indoor cycle class. Each without dropping dead in a faint. Or having a heart attack.

I won’t lie – I am thrilled that I did manage to lose some small iota of weight. I am more thrilled that I managed to stay motivated enough to see it through. I am thrilled that I have changed my life to be more conscious of what I eat and how much exercise I get. I am more thrilled that I have found will power that nobody imagined I had. But most of all I am thrilled that my body image is connected not only to what I weigh but to what I think of myself. I no longer cloak myself in black. I wear more make-up, bother with my hair, stand-up taller, walk with a confidence not built on how much I weigh but how I feel about myself as a person in this world. I know that even at this weight (which is by the way still much more than a normal person my height ways) I am a happy person and that being thinner would not make me happier. It would make me healthier but not happier.

And I guess what I am trying to say is this. No matter how hard you try and motivate yourself to lose that last 13 kilos, it’s not the 13 kilos you are trying to lose. It’s the perfect image of yourself that you are trying to seek. Unless you make peace with how you look for yourself no matter what the weight, it’ll be something else about yourself that you’ll want to change once those 13 kilos are off. If its inspiration you feel you need, the power to stay on the path then yes I do hope that your readers keep you motivated. But I hope you don’t obsess about every ounce on the scales. I hope you see what we all see. That beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and that really, the most important beholder is you.

My every instinct

Arrived in Kolkata on Friday night, a flight delay made unecessarily irritating by an airlines lack of organisation or compassion. It was a past 9 pm drive home on empty roads, emptier than normal because of a Good Friday/ Holi holiday. Saturday was the same. Excellent chinese lunch at Bar-b-Que on Park Street and our car was one of a very few on the street. It was such a pleasant drive, even in 30+ degree weather, few people and empty roads, a rarity in Kolkata. It was a good day of chatting and bonding and catching up. The holiday ended too soon and I, stuffed with homemade dal-baadaam halwa, rasagulla's from Chitteranjan and kaju barfi from Gangaur was not in any way, shape or form ready to get on that plane and come home.

The flight home took everything out of me. Like every long flight I can remember its as if some god of aviation is watching down over me and saying' Aaaah putz on the radar'. Before Bloody Airlines (BA) could get it's act messed up there was the inefficient Kolkata pairport to contend with. Checked-in with surprising ease, my 25 kg suitcase trundled along the conveyor belt to its secret hold. That ease was the false security that should have tipped me off. Because then it was a half hour wait in line before the one Immigration official comes to his desk and begins the laborious process of checking 300+ people's passport/ visa details. Then it's another forty minute wait till Security gets its act together and begins to let us through. Unecessary waits, in lines of irate and sleepy passengers, between things, where there seems to be no good reason to make people wait other than the fact that it's so much more part of your job to TEXT AND USE YOUR MOBILE WHILE A PLANE LOAD OF PEOPLE HANG ABOUT IN A LINE. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BLEEDING NIGHT. IDIOTS. Finally, we are sitting in the lounge, reading, listening to ipods, munching on biscuits (mainly the myriad Bengali's in the room, all of whom seem to bring out a packet of bis-coot from knapsack on the dot at 3.30am) and trying to stay awake at this unearthly hour.

Bloody Airline tries to board us in an orderly row number fashion. But at 4.30am we are having none of it. Oversized hand baggage stuffed into overhead lockers, we are settling down to slumber as we take off and they are soon pushing a breakfast of chicken sausage or vegetarian (nobody knows what) on us. It's just gone 5am, it's pitch dark and I cannot belive anyone wants to eat. Yet they do. I don't, so I slip off my shoes and step into sleep.

Ony to be woken about 10 minutes later with loud wailing. A small child 4 rows ahead of me has taken it upon himself to entertain us all by crying. Loudly. For 3 straight hours. I kid you not. 3 hours later his lungs give in and he whimpers into sobbing silence. The sigh of relief in this airborne prison is audible. Every passenger shifts slightly preparing for another try at the sleeping-in-uncomfortable-positions game. We needn't have bothered. In 5 minutes flat a child 6 rows behind has begun his protest. Again with wails loud enough to shatter eardrums. For nearly 3 hours. After this it all became a blur. Another kid a bit further back picked up on the crying and joined in the part-EY. Original kid didn't want to be left out and awoke from his slumber to lend his powerful voice. So for the entire remainder of the trip it was a chorus that my ears are still ringing from. With no break whatsoever. LOUD and I mean LOUD crying from 3 small children is the way to travel 11odd hours. NOT.

Bloody Airlines tried to tempt us with some soggy cold sanwich and then with a hot meal of dry rice and smelly curry. The sound on my personal entertainment unit did not work and they had no seat/ advice or help to give me so in desperation to get away from the noise I wore the headphones and watched Chak De by reading the subtitles.

Landed in a small snow flake dance show. Very very very glad to see my boy V at the barriers. Hushed conversation in the car on the way home gave my ears some recovery time.

Don't get me wrong, I love kids, more specifically other people's kids, who can be returned with poopy diapers and crocodile tears. But what with the incessent wailing and slightly older kids 5 hour running around the aisles parties that made this 10+ hour flight seem like 100+ hours I think I have confirmed that when push comes to shove I lack the deep down maternal instinct. All I could could think was how much I wanted to get up and smack those kids and their parents. Thank god for the restraint that a seat belt provides.

Name-dropping Delhi

We all do it here in Delhi. The minute the cop at the traffic lights stops someone they are on their mobile phones, using connections, dropping names - anything to get out of this and any other minor tight spot. Sometimes its vanity, it sounds nice, like at a party - to see who knows who and how important it can make one sound. I have plenty to tell but this is not the time. Instead here is a funny titbit.

This is Tuesday morning. Nobody seems to be at work. They are either in their cars stopping traffic or in Khan Market spending their magic money. SilverLine is new to Khan Market. The original was the floor of someone's house near Bengali market where I have spent more of my youth than I care to admit or even really remember rifling through bags of lovely jewels. This is a far more sophisticated dive, drawers and showcases, all matched by higher prices. I am enticed by this chain of hollow silver beads and can't decide how many I should buy.

Two women are looking at the same drawer as me now. Silver rings of every shape and design.

Woman 1: This is nice nah?! (She has 2 rings on, one a hideous monstrosity, the other a delicate band)

Woman 2: I can't find anything yaar! (High pitched wail to accompany impatient tapping of her very high heels)

W1 adds 3 more rings to the same hand and admiringly says: What do you think if I get all of these? How nice it looks no if I wear all of these at once? (She can barely lift her hand with the weight of all that silver and stone). Gauri wears it like this.

W2: Your friend Gauri? From your colony? Akshat ki mom?

W1: Not that one yaar. My other friend Gauri, Gauri Khan, Shahrukh ki wife.

I bought a big ring with 4 turquoise stones in it. My mother thinks this is a passing phase in my new found taste for big bulky rings and that by the time I reach London I will be over it and never wear it again. It covers half my hand and weighs my finger down as I type this. I think I love it. I hope Gauri approves.

Flyover Delhi

It's 7pm. After two days of traversing busy, dusty roads I am convinced that most delhi-ites have no real regard for their life my life. The traffic has terrified me all day, every day. Overtaking from everyside, leaving not nearly an inch on any side of our car at all times. It's all I can do to not sit in the centre of the back seat with my eyes shut and hands drawn into tight fists, listening to something calming on my ipod. Instead I am taking the high road (literally) and am sitting by the windows, eyes wide open, enjoying every minute of being here, even in the madness of the traffic.

Everyone seems to have a car, if not multiple cars. Such a change from when we first moved to this colony in a different decade and our family was one of the few ones with a car. The colony chowki-dar used to come on his nightly rounds with a stick and whistle, the two familiar sounds guaranteed in their loudness to show who was boss and assure even it's littlest residents that all was well and that he was guarding us and our property. He'd blow his whistle and tap the stick standing by our car a few extra times. Maybe he was only letting his friends, the thieves, know exactly where we had parked? Our car never got stolen so I guess he wasn't - it's just fun to re-live childhood conspiracy theories. Now life in this middle class colony is all gated and secured far more fastidiously. And the choice of car is mind boggling, even for a thief, with each family owning mutliple cars, each trying to outdo their neighbour with fancier bigger better. The sidewalks to my childhood bus stops are all covered in cars now and little kids seemingly get dropped to their school bus or even school in their cars. How the world has changed.

Delhi is covered in flyovers. They are everywhere. Like a well spread concrete maze. Almost all completed on time and changing the landscape of the city. And it's not just simple up-down flyovers but complicated clover leaf like permutations where each arm leads to a different place. Large multi-lane flyovers that have eased the journey out of congestion and into rash-ness. Cars flying across the hot tarmac, defying gravity, ignoring the signs, mileage limits and generally being lawless. Yet today I sat in gridlock at the top of a flyovers, proving that even these giants will not hold this surging economy in line.

I'm tired from the fullness of the day and the battles on the road. I need a shower to deal with the dust. But I think a plate of aloo tikki (with everything on it) will rejuvenate me a lot quicker.

Chowki-dar: Watch-man/ guard

Aloo tikki: Indian yummy snack made of potatoes and covered a in variety of sauces/ yogurt

Delhi the first

For once it was a relatively uneventful flight. The only points of drama were whether V's flight back from NYC would land on time and make the connection to our holiday flight smooth. It all went to plan thankfully. On the flight the only points of friction were the cardboard masquerading as food and the fact that they ran out of disembarkation cards after row 2. Which is understandable considering they clearly had no idea how many seats they (evil airline) have on the plane and what with ticket prices being so low they (still even airline) really don't care.

Sleep and some tired entertainment 8pointsomehours later we are on the ground at Delhi's International Airport. There is some serious refurbishment going on, masked only by flimsy tarpaulin that yells what a wonderful new airport it is going to be. The luggage takes an aeon to arrive, mine first and nearly 40 minutes and a hall full of irritable later V's.

Outside, there are my wonderful parents, arms open and smiles mixed with tears of joy. All the knee squashing, inedible food and irritable service is so worth it. I'm here.

Super Saturday

One of the many gifts that London gives its natives and visitors are its numerous markets. This past Saturday I and two friends took shelter from the grey and brimming skies at Borough market. We chakkar-ed around the market once, the reconnaissance allowing us to prioritise what to eat and what to buy before committing ourselves to quickly.

The market has changed ever so slightly in the past few years going from downright farmer-like to upmarket tourist attraction in small increments. It remains an impressive market by any standards with fresh produce, meat, eggs and mountains of baked goods sitting proudly under the railway arches, oft alongside fresh eels, divine coffee, wheels of cheese and beers of the world. All food groups are available and the fair-trade, organic, paper & cloth bag toting public mill around amidst the picture snapping tourists.

We shared bratwurst in a bun from the German Deli, replete with sauerkraut and mustard and then a haddock fillet with chips from the takeaway Fish! counter. Armed with a pod of strawberries and some wholesome brownies I tagged myself into their plan and traversed the city to spend an afternoon with yet more friends. All impromptu muscling in – into which I was warmly welcomed. I suspect the brownies had something to do with it.

V joined in the festivities rather late in the day, after a Saturday at work. But just in time for a bit of that scrumptuous brownie and some ice cream. Out dinner plans changed and so we stuck around and after some debate we all decided to go to the famed Khan’s of Bayswater. This is a place V and I have talked about in awe-hushed tones ever since our first days in the UK, having been assured of its greatness by many an Indian friend in that first year of home-missing-ness. Somehow we never quite made it there having once abandoned a journey there for something else.

Khan’s is large and its light blue cloud infused walls and ceiling are propped up with fake palm tree columns. This delightful interior is spacious and bright and cheerful. We were seated quickly amidst the chattering crowds and with guidance from the regulars ordered quickly and magnanimously. It's Pakistani food in origin but the food crosses over into Indian a lot. Things of note on our table included a melt-in-the-mouth paneer kofta, a creamy butter chicken, well done keema matter and naans. The sheekh kebab (overcooked), aloo paratha (without aloo) and channa (judged against my own) left something to be desired but over all it was a super meal that completely lived up to our expectations.

Then V and I legged it to the home of other friends and ended up sitting and chatting and laughing till about 1.30am before heading home. The news and Law & Order to unwind and then a few pages of my book before blessed sleep. It was a super day. Nothing besides a few hours at Borough market was planned. Just goes to show that a day unplanned is often best.

And that brownies are one true gift.

Chakkar: to go around
Paneer kofta, butter chicken, keem matter, naans, sheekh kebab, aloo paratha, channa: All Indian dishes. Loosely: fried cottage cheese balls in gravy, chicken in tomato and cream sauce, mince meat and peas, bread baked in a tandoor, skewers of spiced mince, Indian bread stuffed with potatoes and chickpeas.

Borough market: 8 Southwark Street, London SE1 1TL (London Bridge tube station)
Khan’s: 13-15 Westbourne Grove, Bayswater, London W2 4UA

Friday funnies

On the train this morning, for no very good reason, I was thinking about the advent of the world wide web and how that irrevocably changed our lives in how we communicate. So much so that when I, a child of the 70’s, went to work in my first office in the 90’s, there was no such thing as e-mail available to me. It was a while before it arrived and even more time before the speed of it became important in the workplace. Before, there was always time for coffee and samosas between sending faxes or typing out letters or making expensive calls to other offices. After, its been a rollercoster go go Go, faster, Faster, NOW.

But this post is not to whinge/ jump for joy about the advent of technology. It’s to relate a memory that made me smile this morning. It’s not my memory, it’s V’s, but the carriage from one person to another has only made it funnier.

The year was 1997 or 1998. E-mail had been around a couple of years. Everyone was an expert on everything to do with the Internet. All everyone talked about was the booming IT industry. Vuruld-vyd-vehb and its children were everywhere.

At work, a very young V and his equally young colleague are discussing how with their few years of work experience they could very easily get internet jobs.

Eavesdropping colleague immediately butts in: Does Internet have an office in Delhi?

Middle Age Mexican Wave

First, lets get the laughter out of the way. I may not look or sound it but in my youth (as it were) I was greatly taken by the Boy Bands - from the more respected Bee Gees to the more frivolous Wham, Aha, New Kids on the Block, Boyz II Men, Boyzone, Take That - you name it and I listened to it. I didn't do groupie things like tattoo their names on my butt but I did get the odd poster to adorn my walls and I always listened to their music - on tapes, the radio, TV, CD's. I didn't join fan clubs and I mostly couldn't name every member or any of their details but if I heard a tune I could probably tell you the name of the band and possibly sing along with it, stumbling on no more than a few words.

As I grew older I was exposed to a greater range of tunes and genres of music than ever before, introduced to by friends, family and the movies. At the surface I liked to think that my ear became more discerning and my time more precious and therefore my devotion to boy bands matured into something more meaningful and age appropriate.

Clearly deep down I am still a ditzy teenager/ twenty something chick. Equally clearly my devotion has not waned in the very least. V-boy bought us tickets to watch Westlife perform live at the O2 arena last night, Saturday evening. It's his belated anniversary gift to me and even though he is not a fan AT ALL he came with me (and carried his FT just in case) and was as enthusiastic as I was excited - and that is a LOT. To think that all I got him were New York subway coin cufflinks.

I won't bore you with details as I guess this might be the time to say goodbye to those of you who feel we can no longer be friends because *gasp* "she likes boybands". Just to say that the arena was packed to the gills and that unlike popular lore about boy bands that states "they are appealing to young pubescent girls for emphasizing marketing and packaging over quality of music" it was full of middle aged women and men like ourselves swaying to every cutesy number one that Westlife have produced in this past 10 years. The O2 is undoubtedly a fantastic venue - neat, clean, well organised and arranged - a wonderful use of the white elephant that has hung around the Labour party's neck since the turn of the millenium. The sound sytem and acoustics were excellent, drowning out the cacofony of 25,000 tuneless fans in favour of one marvellous male vocal group. I had a stellar time; enjoyed the live band, the singing/ dancing extra's, the stage-lights-effects, the choreographed nature of boyband-ed-ness. I swayed and jumped with the crowds, clapped my hands raw, danced and sang till my feet ached and my voice turned hoarse. Our stand of middled age aunties and uncles mexican waved with as much enthusiasm as our flailing bodies and old knees allowed. I had an absolute ball. There is nothing quite like live performances and the enthusiasm that a crowd of fans brings.

I think it is OK to like Beethovan and the Beetles and Roxette and Ravi Shanker and boy bands galore and not be betraying anybody. I must admit that over the years and with many genres of music/ bands/ singers I've often joined the band wagon of acceptable/ esoteric/grown-up/ serious music more to be accepted into discussions/ friend circles than because I really liked something. Trance music and heavy metal being two case in points. Well no more. I am determined to stop being pretentious about my taste in music and will never again think of BOY BAND as two dirty words.

It's about 4am now and I am still so buzzed with the evening that I am sitting here and posting this while V watches India vs. Aus cricket. It's the very least I can do after I tortured him with my ear drum shattering singing.

Aliens do go to school

Where pictures meet words.

This is Tirana's vast central square. On one side is a horseshoe-shaped ensemble of government buildings in yellow and red built by Mussolini in the 30s when Italy lorded it over its little neighbour. As you exit the horseshoe and come into the main square the Central Bank of Albania is next and sits squarely behind a little garden, its brown facade an odd contrast to its colourful neighbours. Next is the massive National History Museum adorned with an enormous mosaic of Alanian liberators throughout the centuries.

Then there is the National Opera House, which was quite confusing because its where the big exhibition of Mother Teresa depicted by various artists was being held. Between these is a wide road leading off into the suburbs with the big electricity poll from a Soviet era standing firm in the middle of it. Then is the little Et'Hem Mosque, delicate and petite in structure as compared to the solidity of the other Square buildings. It is one of the only religious buildings to have survived the 1967 cultural revolution. In the centre of the square is an equestrian statue of Albania's greatest hero, Gjergj Kastrioti, colloquially called Skanderberg and after whom the square is named. It's huge and my pictures and words can't adequately describe it. But hey, a girl can try.

Next. This is a random set of pictures from the trip. Poster of Mother Teresa. Cable car on lush green hills. Famous Canal. View of the burbs. Chillies and bananas at market. Pink scooty for sale. And two random signs. One of which I think Tommy would take offence to!

So did you figure out where aliens go to school?

Bees. Busy As.

This year in an effort to be healthier I made a more conscious decision to make and eat dinner at home during the week and take lunch in with me as many times as I possibly can. To dine out only at the weekends, thereby cutting out those pesky calories and credit card debt in one fell swoop. This is in stark departure from last year where everyday, by lunchtime I ate every calorie lost in the morning gym workout. And then went out for dinner to top it all up. January, and most of February, went swimmingly and we ate out less, made more thoughtful choices about where and what to eat when we did.

This week it all caught up with me. The endless chasing of things to keep me entertained at the weekends and an unusually high workload has left me feeling a little stretched. So on Thursday evening, with me bored of home cooking and V wanting to give me a break (especially from my whinge-ing about it) we decided to break our rule and go out for dinner. I had just finished a nice long swim and could have eaten a horse. Instead we chose Sri Nam which has a reputation as a fancy-schmancy Thai eatery in the busy Canary Wharf district. The ground floor of the restaurant is the main space for a quick meal at lunchtime but at night it’s a bar. On a Thursday evening it was like any other jam packed city pub, full of suits talking at the top of their voices and drinking away the stresses and bonuses of their jobs with colleagues. The seated bit is up wide concrete steps and we got a table for 2 quite quickly. We’ve been before and the décor was the same, nice linen, dim lighting, fresh orchids and comfortable chairs, if a little too closely packed together. Nice but not memorable. This time the food was disappointing to say the very least. Fish and chicken that didn’t taste very fresh or flavourful and service that was in enough of a hurry to make us feel intrusive and in their way. Wallets lighter, un-sated palates and 35 minutes later we made way for the line of people eagerly waiting on the stairs for a table. Sri Nam did not in any way live up to its reputation or even our last experience. I think my home cooking might have been worth more, grumbling and all.

On Friday we enjoyed dinner overlooking the Greenwich skyline, at the home of new-ish friends. While being entertained by their 2 year old toddler we ate a fine homecooked meal and chatted with the hosts and their guests, 2 couples and one singleton, none of whom we had met before. By the end of the evening it was duly established that any name mentioned was somebody known by somebody else in the group. Apparently it’s a small world if you went to similar B schools. It was way past midnight before we left.

Saturday started with a much needed late start. A swim followed by quick lunch followed by a 1 year olds birthday party all afternoon. And as 1 year olds birthday parties tend to be, it was full of little kids – about 12 babies and toddlers, each accompanied by a full set of parents. V, I and two other couples were the helpers as it turned out. It was fun and I cuddled loads of little ones, sweet and plump and oh so lovable. Inspite of the drooling. At around 5pm I rushed home to spend the next few hours with a very pregnant friend. Baked and plied her with rich chocolate cake and caught up on all the gossip while V watched six nations rugby and dozed in front of the TV. Then her hubby arrived and demolished another quarter of the cake. Then they left and our pre-planned-going-to-dinner friends arrived and with them we charged to Il Bordello in Wapping.

Il Bordello had superlative reviews everywhere on the net and bonafide Italians in our friend’s office had strongly recommended it. It took us two weekends to get a booking and in the end it didn’t really live up to its reputation. It’s the ground floor of a revamped dock warehouse, not quite by the water but definitely imbued with the feeling that the cobbled streets that led to it served an important purpose. The décor is simple and quite uninspired, some stone walls adjacent to copper plated panels, tables covered with plastic table cloths and packed too close for comfort. The menu was extensive, serving the usual array of pasta’s, pizza’s and large meat meals, nothing unique or different than on many an Italian restaurant in London. The potions were huge – even the salads we ordered to start with seemed to be half a field of greens per plate. My tuna and bean salad turned out to be a plate of lettuce with canned tuna and canned beans turned over onto it - tasteless and clearly not Italian. I then ordered what I consider the benchmark in Italian cuisine, Spaghetti Bolognaise and V what he considers his benchmark, a Pizza. Mine was big enough to feed 3 people and was tasty if a bit drowned in tomatoes. V left half his pizza so that was that. A minestrone soup and a dish of seafood linguine ordered by two of the others were pronounced as ‘quite good’ but on the whole we felt let down in the face of all that hype.

Then deciding we were still young at heart (a sign of old age when you keep saying this) we hoofed it to trendy Hoxton Square. It was buzzing with the young and restless and we were clearly out of our depths. So instead of standing in any of the endless queues at 1am we enjoyed a few rounds at the Reliance. Easy music and a slightly older than teenage crowd meant we fitted in a bit better. Caught a cab home at about 2.30 and then crime show TV for me till India-Australia cricket for V took over.

Forced to wake up mid-morning on Sunday to cook a meal for friends with a baby. Spent all afternoon entertaining them, plying them with butter chicken and aloo gobhi and left over cake and strong Caribbean coffee. By the time they left it was tea-time. I was too tired to sleep or concentrate on very much, even TV. So a few hours of pottering around the house, packing lunch’s, sorting out the kitchen and making some calls to India and I was ready for bed. At 7pm.

Saying it was a busy week followed by a busier weekend would be something of an understatement. I’m snoozing now.

Sri Nam: North Colonnade, Cabot Square, Canary Wharf, E14. Ph: 020 7715 9515
Il Bordello: 75 – 81 Wapping High Street, London E1Y 2WG. Ph: 020 7481 9950

Social Buterflies

Friday evening was fun. Very fun. Almost nobody last minute ditched. Almost everyone showed up on time. Other than the fact that they operate a no booking policy and despite getting our name on the list at 6.30 we didn’t get the table at Wahaca till 8.15, everything went smoothly. I don’t think anybody found a connection like I was hoping but most people mixed and mingled and made an effort. Of course some of this was my fault as I got Boston and Chicago mixed up in my head (I thought two people had lived in Boston at the same time but clearly my memory is lacking). But everybody made an effort and that, in my book, is what counts. You could see that some of them could be friends even without me having introduced them and I felt quite excited by my judgement of people. We ate as if at someone’s wedding, ordering plate after platter of what they loosely term ‘streetfood’ – tacos, quesadillas, tostadas, taquitos. The 3 people that once lived in the US called the food average in comparison to the Mexican available in the US but better than most by London standards. Of course the newbie/ trainee Londoners took some umbrage to this but only some. And none that got in the way of everyone stuffing their faces.

After Wahaca we hooked up with yet more friends at the NFT and sat there till they began dimming the lights urging us to leave. Was so high on all that laughter and the fact that when asked what my favourite flower was V answered tulip without any hesitation, that after I got home I watched Law and Order/ CSI till about 3am to unwind. Saturday and Sunday were whirlwind days. Saturday had, among other things, a long & speedy swim, a 30th birthday party to attend, a long and yet more stuffing dinner at Busaba with friends and some quiet time basking in the sun on long London bus journeys. Sunday was about waking up late, coffee and the papers in café Nero with V, finishing my book by the sunny windows inside the house and then dinner with a friend at Saravana Bhavan to cap it all off.

It was busy (but good busy) and I never once during the entire weekend felt drained of all my energy as shopping trips or social obligation meetings can often induce. In fact so buoyed was I with a feeling of goodness towards the world that I got conned into joining one of the social networking sites AGAIN. So now I not only have 5 email id’s, 1 blog, 3 instant messaging services, 2 home delivery grocers and about 5 internet shopping sites I frequent, I also have a page on a site which demands I play games, write notes on virtual walls, find friends from the back of my beyond, send and receive e-mail and generally be sociable. All these permutations combinations of user names and passwords are enough to make me one grumpy girl. Because really, I am not the social butterfly I seem. I am more caterpillar turning into chrysalis.

Wahaca: 66 Chandos Place, Covent Garden, London WC2N 4HG, T: +44 (0) 207 240 1883

6 degree game

This Friday I am playing the six degrees of separation game. Of which I am the inventor and rule maker.

It all began when I met a school classmate last summer, not by chance, but by design, pre-ordained by that great connector, the internet classmate yahoo group. It’s a group begun by the enthu-cutlets (one of my favourite terms since school) and carried forward mainly by people letting others in on how successful their lives have been since leaving said institution. Every once in a while someone will post a message about how they are moving to Tokyo to be the Big Boss of something and this will be followed by a flurry of people writing in to exchange banal everyday news of the same variety, designed to show off their success somewhere in the world. Very tiring. But when this girl wrote in saying she moved to London and did anyone from class live here I immediately wrote back to her to say yes I did (thereby swiftly avoiding any interaction with the yahoo group). I know I know - why am I on the group? (Actually am on more than one but the others seem to be less inclined to show-off –something to do with distance back in time from present – as if we have more to prove because really in school we were at our very worst, most tatty, most competitive, most undone with teen angst). Well, just to stay in the loop is my honest answer. Everyone I am friends with from back then I stayed in touch with first with letters and then with the internet and cheap telephony. This way I can be a repository of knowledge on the others. And possibly show-off when I have something to show-off about.

So anyway, arranged to meet said new-to-London-classmate because, if rusty memory serves me well, in school we were both friends with the same girl, just not friends with each other – and I wanted to be nice (the disease of my 30’s). She was studious. I was trying too hard. Here we were in London, 14 years later, the playing field a bit flatter. Both in need of friends. Or at least hang out acquaintances. Owing to a leap of faith earlier in the year I had discovered that there were friends to be made even at my age. Women with the maturity to form strong good friendships and to trust with my still growing-up pains. Maybe this classmate could be a friend yet. We met a couple of times last year, just for a quick coffee after work. We never managed to make it a meal because of busy work/ travel schedules but I could see us being friends of the firm kind and so this year I decided that I would make of an effort.

I have drifted off. Let me stop now.

So instead of hosting another dinner party where I would spend nearly than half my time between the oven and the dining table (of which variety I have already hosted 2 this year) I have decided to organize a 6 degree of separation meal this Friday. It started when I decided that V and I would meet this classmate for a meal in Covent Garden on Friday evening, mainly as she hasn’t yet met the very busy V. All weekend I was thinking about V always going on about how there couldn’t quite be 1 billion Indians because if you threw 30 of them in a room almost everyone would be able to find a connection to someone else. So I have decided to put this to the test and invited people from 4 or 5 circles of my life to join us for this meal. There are childhood friends, school friends, MBA friends and new London friends. I was surprised by the enthusiastic response. Clearly I am not the only lonely one. I even asked people if they wanted to invite other friends of theirs to join us. Some of them have said yes and so now even I have the opportunity of meeting new people, tried and tested friends of friends. So far there are 16 of us.

And even if we don’t all find people in common I think it’ll be alright. We’ll find things to talk about, holidays, books, movies, exhibitions, restaurants, different Londons to share and mull over. And even if we don’t find any of that in common (highly unlikely) at least we will be eating some yummy food.

The year has begun entirely satisfactorily.

Quick facts Albania – and the shaking story

Capital: Tirana. Other cities of note: Laç, Shkodra, Durres, Vlora and Elbasan. All connected by a roadworks and train system. Population: Estimated 3.5 million. Currency: Albania Lekë (pronounced Lek). Most significant National Holiday is November 28, Independence Day (1912).

We arrived quite late at night (down to delays, not planning) and were surprised by the very clean, neat and modern new Mother Teresa International Airport. My colleagues who travelled here before assured me that it was brand new and that in previous years it had been nothing more than a very large and rundown shack. The new airport was brightly lit and efficiently run and the swaying fake palm trees in the parking area were an amusing distraction from the airline caused cramps. Our very nice Italian driver drove speedily through the narrow and badly lit roads. The air was heavy and warm and moist. A pleasant change from the chill that September brought to London.

Religion: Sunni Muslim (70%), Albanian Orthodox (20%), Roman Catholic (10%) (est). People: Albanian 95%, Greeks 3% and others 2% (Vlachs, Roma, Egyptians, Montenegrins, Macedonians and Bulgarians (1989 est). Estimates of the minority populations vary widely between different interlocutors and unfortuantely, there is a general absence of reliable statistics.

We sat and chatted in the very basic ‘coffee shop’ before retiring to our top floor canal/ drain view rooms. We each had a nice big, clean if basic room with newly plumbed bathrooms. The ceilings had a false ceiling suspended in the centre, a very large rectangle, just a foot (on each side) smaller than the plasterboard ceiling and made of stained glass put together like modern art, in random shapes. The glass artwork/ ceiling was lit with bulbs snug between it and the actual ceiling, casting funny, often scary shadows on the very red bedspread and curtains. On our first night there I decided to sleep with my bedside lamp on to prevent any disorientation. Exhausted with the travel and reading till I finally dozed off I found myself dreaming of rocking ships on choppy waters.

Languages: Albanian (Tosk is the official dialect). This is an Indo-European dialect of ancient Illyrian, with a number of Latin, Slavonic and (modern) Greek words. People also understand some Italian, English and Greek. Everyone is friendly and willing to stop and point out directions irrespective of language differences.

Only I wasn’t dreaming, as in the next instant I had sprung out of bed and was wildly clutching the walls and watching the ceiling stained glass panorama swaying and threatening to come off its fragile moorings. It was an earthquake. Albania’s first in a decade. Mild and only a few seconds long but enough to wake me and shake me into a panic. It stopped and through the curtains the world looked still and untouched and asleep. Unsure and disoriented I called my colleague who answered the phone on the first ring. We talked for a few minutes and since neither of our stained glass roofs had fallen on our heads, decided that there was no point in panicking and we’d better go back to sleep. Needless to say I didn’t sleep well. From that unearthly hour I was shook out of my bed by the earthquake till our 8am breakfast meeting, I tossed, turned, gave up, got ready and read/ prepared. There we were in Albania, shaken but not stirred.

Albania is a very young country - 65% of the population is under 25 years old.

Plain Jane to Colourful Kelly

A selection of building photopgraphs from Tirana, Albania. The one in the top right hand corner is of a drab dull untouched building but the others have all been given their lick of joy. My favourites are the two in the left corner on the bottom row (well, left and centre to be precise) which are bits of the same building. I had to take two pictures because if I went any further back I would lose the detail and/ or lose my life in the flying traffic and/ or if I made it beyond that, fall down the verge into the slim canal/ giant drain. If you click on the collage I think it will take you to a larger screen and you will be able to see what delights me - the fact that they have painted laundry lines and clothes on to the building. Sometimes you need imagination, mostly you need sunglasses.

02.02.08 (and 08.08.02) and other bits

I like symmetry. This is a well documented fact of my life. So when V and I became 'an uncle' with the birth of V's brother's son on Saturday the 2nd, all I was thinking of was how his parents now had one each, a granddaughter and a grandson and how happy this must make them. They of the beautiful wedding day have had the son. And of course we already are 'an aunt' with this young lady. So when father of the daughter, eldest brother in the trio called to tell us that he had noticed his girl was born on 08.08.02 and that new son of middle brother is born on 02.02.08 it was an additional bit of something-like-symmetry. Life is good.

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I saw her post and left a comment. Now I'm turning that comment into a part of this post, just so I remember I said it:

What is with boys and excel sheets? I was moaning about not going to the gym enough and V quickly drummed up an excel sheet with calculations of how much it costs if I go 1 day a week/ 2 days a week/ 3 days.....you get the picture. And then decided that he qould do an hourly breakdown as well. Now I am motivated (just a bit, to get my money’s worth from the gym) and a little scared (of what power an excel sheet has over V). In case you are interested I went 4 days in each of the last 3 weeks. Motivated or what?

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In an effort to keep at bay any winter blues we've been entertaining and being entertained like crazy every weekend in January. Last weekend it was gaggle of girls (and partners and one very sweet baby girl) for dinner at Chez 33 - I think a success. At least for me, seeing as I had both a good time and a big box of barfi to midnight snack on for the next few days. This weekend it was a 30th birthday celebration for a friend about an hour from London. Loads of food and yakking and one large doggie bag later we were home, too buzzed to do anything but stay awake till 4am calling new baby's parents and anyone who'd be awake in India. Today we zoomed off for lunch with a friend, eating till rolling full at the marvellous Raavi Kebab in Drummond Street before stocking up on groceries from the shelves of the Spice shop. Came back in desperate need of an afternoon nap. The kind where you sleep while it's bright and wake up only when dark, disoriented, disbelieving of the time and in a panic about dinner and unsure about the plan for tomorrow. (I had promised my colleagues savoury homemade goodies for tea break tomorrow; sadly it'll have to be store bought). And YAY we are done with January! This is skin deep YAY-ness as deep down I believe February is far worse, but I have a plan. We have not a spare minute (or rather very very few) in our social/ work diaries nearly until May. This includes a short holiday, business travel for both, lunches/ dinners at our home and restaurants and other peoples homes, birthday parties for 1 year olds and 30 year olds and those in between and beyond, movies, a concert and general goofing off beside undying dedication to the gym (Hahaha). With any luck before I can say Jack Sprat it'll be spring.

All about Albania

Ok, so not really ALL about Albania but it was the catchiest title I could come up with and I need the motivation as:
a. It’s the very end of January and I’m trying to blog more (I think this is going well)
b. I went to Albania over 4 months ago,
c. I owe my rug a backstory, and

d. It’s high time that my act get it together.

Be warned, this is a long post.

The West coast of Albania is lapped by the waters of the Ionian and Adriatic Seas across which lies mainland Italy. From north to south and by way of the east, Albania is wedged in by Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia and Greece. After 46 years of xenophobic Communist rule ended in the early 90’s, the Albanians set about establishing democracy. The 90’s were a difficult time for Albanians as successive governments endeavoured to deal with unemployment, widespread corruption, a dilapidated physical infrastructure and organised crime networks. Sporadic violence in the face of being one of the poorest countries in Europe led to a large informal economy and a nearly non-existent tourism industry. Mass migration from rural to urban areas has left a huge dent in Albania’s agricultural sustainability and created a mass of unemployed but well educated public. Enough background – Google whatever else you need to know. I was in Tirana for 9 days and although entire days would pass without us seeing daylight we were always out in the evening, schmoozing or just sitting collapsed over plates of pasta. These are just my own observations:

1. Tirana is an interesting city. Its buildings are all mainly squat square communist blocks, built to last. The post communist mayors gave individual buildings money to jazz themselves up, to remove the greyness/ plain-ness and lift the gloom, and as a result many of the buildings have been used as blank canvasses and painted with shapes and bright colours, like a great big city of pieces from different jigsaw puzzles. I really enjoyed this look. It made for interesting walking and comparing the adventure of one building compared to its neighbours. I hear the older generation was most disapproving.

2. There is a long canal that runs through Tirana with a one way road in opposite directions on either side. It’s less canal, more drain with banking slopes on either side of sludge water, dumped garbage and tree saplings. There are thin and quite unsteady looking bridges at various points along the ‘naala’ besides a few proper sized car roads traversing it to allow change of direction. We stayed some way away from the centre of Tirana but along the famous canal and our modest mid-level hotel proudly gave us canal facing rooms. I felt so wanted.

3. Albanian’s love their food and much like Indians they show their affection by trying to feed you large and delicious meals. While their traditional food is very meaty and heavily influenced by various invaders they eat a lot of Italian food. We ate 3 hearty meals a day, and chomped on hot bread from the local bakery while walking between meetings. Food is incredibly cheap compared to here in London and widely available from little street stalls to mid-size restaurants and by the poolside of the few five star establishments. There was a huge fresh vegetable market not far from us, a bit chaotic with yelling sellers and bargaining buyers haggling over piles of fresh colourful fruit and veg. Not like sterile-and-often-touristy Borough market, more like Church Street off Edgeware road but not as much as like an Indian early morning/ late evening subji mandi.

4. Albanians really love Mother Teresa. REALLY. We were invited to the opening of an exhibition of works by different artists to celebrate her life at the national museum. Sadly a work commitment meant that we had to decline. Our hosts were aghast that we refused to change our plans for this event. Needs must I said. Everyone talks about her in tones reserved for talking about something deeply revered like God. Roads, hospitals, schools, universities, museums and an airport among the many things that bear her name. Every Albanian I met was thrilled to be meeting an Indian, wanted to know if I had been to see her work in Calcutta and professed a desire to one day go and see her home away from home. Like a pilgrimage.

5. In our one spare evening we were guided to the shopping area, all along said canal, shoe shop after shoe shop. Interspersed by the odd clothing shop. As in food they are heavily influenced by Italian fashion and every woman no matter what economic status or age is always perfectly turned out with neat clothes, make-up and hair done and wonderful shoes and handbags made of Italian leather. It would have been easy to get carried away in shoe paradise but I limited myself to two comfortable and beautifully crafted pairs of slip-ons. Unlike some other people who bought 10 pairs of shoes.

6. The central square is bound by Italian styled buildings of red brick and yellow paint. Starkly different from the rest of the cities gloomy and uninspiring architecture. Well, it’s not exactly a square, more a large rambling rectangle. Beside the nice buildings there is also the National Museum and Opera House, marked by some fantastic pictoral mosaics. The centre of the square has its token statue and the oldest mosque in Albania (or Europe?). And it’s full of people and whizzing traffic and smog.

7. This brings me neatly on to the traffic situation. It’s chaotic to say the least. There are cabs at various street corners but we did lots of walking between offices and the hotel and restaurants and shops on the somewhat-there sidewalks when not boxed inside the hotel conference rooms. This was to get the limbs moving and to avoid sitting in traffic jams that just like India left the about 0.5 inches between vehicles on any side. When not sitting in still traffic the drivers undertake Formula One racing tactics and drive at break-neck speeds. Like shots from a catapult. I quite enjoyed it, even the heart-in-the-throat-moments.

8. On our one day off we decided to do the touristy thing and take the cable car up the mountains. Tirana is surrounded by hills on 3 sides (from what I could see) and we went up the cable car to the top of one of these. It cost us the equivalent of £2.50 and the swaying but shiny little pods were great, clean and efficient. Only we got to the top and there was nothing but a few restrooms, a café and a great view. Besides other tourists and a man with a horse leading little children around an abandoned parking lot. From the view it’s easy to see how all that migration is causing Tirana to spread quickly into cheap and hastily constructed apartments that are creating suburbia as they grow.

9. On the same trip up and down the cable we saw something that defines the Albanian landscape. The former dictator Hoxha (pronounced Ho-ja) built 600,000 concrete bunkers into Albania’s landscape. Ostensibly built to repel attack each concrete toadstool is large enough for one man and his rifle. Everyone whom I talked to about Albanian history mentioned these and the paranoia they caused amongst a population where there were 4 people for every 1 bunker built, not enough for an attack from the outside and impotent from the enemy within. The bunkers are everywhere, ugly ugly concrete spheres. I only saw them built into the hillside but I hear they exist in the most unexpected of places.

10. Last but definitely not least, it is the people of Albania I want to talk about. Among the group of people I met there was great economic disparity but each person was educated and well-spoken. The common factor between them all was the warmth and welcoming spirit they shared. From the young company Director to the older English teacher, the university researcher to the Psychology student, there was a spirit of optimism and a national pride that was heart-warming. Counting on doing the hard graft for a better future, for themselves, their families and their country. It was a sentiment I have not often heard echoed across such a disparate group.

Albania was a trip of amazing discovery. It’s more ‘Rough Guide’ than ‘Luxury holiday’ but its real, grounded and poised for a future of opportunity. I never thought I would enjoy it as much as I did.

There will be pictures. Soon. I promise.