Communist amputees and other oddities in Albania’s capital Tirana

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We had one more day in Tirana, Albania today, and Masayo and I had a couple things we wanted to see, but overall tried to keep it simple. Tonight was Super Bowl XLIX, and I was wondering if I would stay up for it.

I woke up at 9:30 to a blood sugar of 139. They’ve been generally great recently; I was glad to see it continue. We had the same breakfast buffet in the hotel as yesterday. Those chocolate croissants haven’t gotten old yet!

We hung around the room in the morning, then headed out about 1 pm. It was sunny and fairly warm, a nice change from recent days. My BG was 106.

While walking along a back road towards the Tirana Sheraton (yes, they have one), we stopped at a fast food place called Big Bite. I ordered a club sandwich with French fries, but got a lot more fries than I was expecting. Uh oh… potatoes and insulin don’t really get along.

But I was hoping to continue my good run of BGs, so I took a big shot minus a couple units for the walking we’d be doing, and ate the whole sandwich and all the fries.

We found our way through some rather dingy streets to the Sheraton, where a guidebook said a strange art piece was stored. It is a large portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, created by embedding thousands of nails into a board. It holds a Guinness World Record, but I didn’t know for what.

We found the entrance to the Sheraton around back, near Mother Theresa Square, and I asked a concierge or someone about it. He knew what I meant, and led Masayo and I into a back hallway. At the end was Leonardo.

The piece is big, and it was leaned up unceremoniously against the back wall. I got the impression that however the Sheraton had ended up with it, the hotel didn’t know what to do with it or necessarily want it.

But we enjoyed it, and some other smaller mosaic pieces by the artist, Saimir Strati, depicting the four seasons and music that hung nearby. We thanked the guy and went back out into Tirana.

We had walked a lot already, and Masayo was a little tired anyway, so we decided to go straight home. Plus it was starting to rain.

But I realized that we were pretty close to something else I really wanted to see, and she said she could walk there. We found the Tirana museum, but didn’t go in: we walked around to the back of the building.

There were some abandoned statues, leftovers from Albania’s communist days. Stalin, Lenin, and workers stood in a row in the corner of a cracked concrete courtyard with weeds. Lenin’s arm was broken off. They looked so defiant and strong, but in their new surroundings, pathetic. It was a striking representation of Albania’s changing times. Like Leonardo, I got the impression that nobody quite knew what to do with these pieces.

Then we trundled back home in the rain. I knew I was low and when I checked I was indeed 54. That’s one way to handle French fries. I had a Mars bar.

For dinner, Masayo and I both went out, back to the pizza place from two nights ago. We wanted something simple to eat in the room, and the pizza had been so good we were both fine with it. (We got the “mikse” variety again.)

The pizza was good, and it was another insulin challenge. I did well: 179 at 11 pm.

The Super Bowl was beginning at 12:30 local time, but it wouldn’t be on the TV in our room. I would have to pay NFL Game Pass $10 to stream it live. Would the stream work well? Did I want to stay up until 4 or 5 am? How much did I care? My Falcons weren’t in it, so I’d be rooting for the Patriots and Tom Brady since they represented my conference.

In the end, I decided to gamble the $10, hoping the connection here in Albania and from the NFL servers would hold up.

And finally 12:30 came. Masayo drifted off to sleep (she has no interest in football) and I got into the game. It was boring at first, and I gradually got sleepier and sleepier. But of course it got more exciting, and I perked right up for the end, when the shock interception won it for the Pats. It was 4:00 am.

Half an hour later, I was asleep, knowing I didn’t have long to sleep before waking up tomorrow to leave Tirana. But my team had won the Super Bowl, and the connection held up great. And my BGs had been good all day, despite some difficult food and exercise!

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