Sounding off

This week you find me not in the local restaurant enjoying the highlights of the traditional Albanian cuisine, but  at home in my front room (I only have three of them) listening to the barking of neighbours' dogs. I'm unaware if the language of dogs is the same here as elsewhere in the world, but it is pretty incessant. The sounds of Tirana may be the same where you live. Competing with the canine music are crowing roosters, melodic car horns and  whirring coffee machines.

The journey to school has all of these in abundance, and more besides. As I travel on the 6.30 bus to the centre, I also get serenaded by advertisements on the bus's one television screen. yes modern technology exists in Tirana!. The bus is French with signs like 'mefiez-vous des portes' and 'le conducteur est sur son telephone' displayed. In between improving my French, I can listen to the six commercials which are on a continuous and tedious loop. I know them all and their theme music. Do I want to buy Cheeries Chocolate cereal? No. Do I need a new washing powder? Don't think so. A holiday in Turkey perhaps? Tempting. Change your deodorant? A little too personal.   Off I get at my stop and face three lanes of traffic to navigate. Remember that for most drivers here, a red light is merely a suggestion rather than a law. I head unscathed to Skanderbeg Square in the centre of the city and can here a cockerel right next to the police station. Thirty minutes later I am in Rruga Don Bosco and my school. Thirty seconds from the school is the cafe I use owned by Arban. We get on really well. He brings me a coffee each morning and I don't even have to order it. "Don't forget just leave the money on the table when you leave, " he reminds me. I stroll off to school and chat to the 24 hour security guys who are simply outstanding.

One noise you won't be hearing in Tirana for a few months is the romantic sound of trains. Albania's transport system is archaic. Cars, mini-buses and normal buses vie for a place on the road. The country's few rail lines are crumbling. Rolling stock is ancient and slow, tracks are being vandalised and carriages are falling apart. I have been lucky in the past to take most of the routes that exist. It is quaint. You can run quicker than they travel. In fact, a two hour road journey takes up to seven hours by train. But, in Tirana, the government has called it a day on their one route to the second largest city of Durres. The danger to passengers from children throwing rocks at carriages has become too much. Exhausted coaches will travel no more. A sad day. There is a possibility that the two routes outside of the city are still functioning in Skodra and Vlora. I will investigate.

Albanians just love their cars too much. There is even a local version of Top Gear. For me, the chance to catch the 6.30 train service from my home in Schoze to school is one thing which I fear will never happen. The problems of over-crowding, leaves on the line, the wrong kind of snow and strikes by train drivers have all passed this country by. The Tirana train is now destined to become a museum piece.