Tirana, Albania is a weird patchwork capital city

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Our first full day in Tirana, Albania was rainy, but we walked around the central area to see some of the sights.

My BG was 159 when I woke up — must have been pretty good all night, last night’s pizza notwithstanding. We went to the breakfast buffet in the hotel that is included in our room. It was fairly basic but filling enough.

We had thin omelettes, bread, butter and honey, juice, and coffee. (The coffee was tiny-sized, and when we asked for a second cup they understood our request for a “big” Americano.) The only things that were missing were yogurt and cereal, but we didn’t go hungry because it was buffet style.

And my BG held through it all — at noon I was 133, and Masayo headed out with our umbrellas to see some of the sights we had seen in tourist maps. But first I stopped in at a pharmacy to check out the supplies.

The woman working there spoke good English, and even had a whole shelf dedicated to blood sugar stuff. She had Accu-check and, surprisingly, OneTouch Ultra strips. Just what I needed! I am getting low.

A box of 50 was about $20. Not too discounted but all right. I got one box, and asked her about insulin pens (out of curiosity; I still have plenty). She didn’t have Humalog or Lantus, but she did have NovoRapid and Levemir, both of which I have used before. They were about $8 and $10 per pen, respectively. She also had Humulog 70/30 mix but I didn’t ask the price.

She also had some needles for pens. I asked how much, and she said if I wanted to buy like 10 or 20 they’d be $.10 each, but she could give me five for free. I need some, but I took the free ones.

Pleased with my diabetes purchases, Masayo and I continued on. We walked by the mosque and clock tower in the town square but didn’t go in. Then we went to the tourist office, where a girl who spoke English was working. She gave us maps and then I asked her about the roads in Albania. She said in winter, they could be dangerous down south, and that she herself wouldn’t go there. But the roads around the coast and up to Shkodër were ok. I appreciated her candor.

We stopped at a cafe/restaurant for lunch, and each got sandwiches. Mine seemed to have pretty thick bread, but I knew we would be walking and that I hadn’t been high much lately, so instead of the 4 or 5 units I probably needed, I decided to take a mere two.

We walked around a small rainy market then, and saw a neat new church with a really interesting clock tower and bell tower on it. The neatest thing we saw was south of the main square, just past a park where Michael Palin walked around with Tirana’s mayor on the BBC series New Europe: “the pyramid”.

The pyramid opened in 1988 as an “International Center of Culture”, was soon converted into a base for NATO, and since has fallen into severe disrepair. It reminded me strongly of Patarei Prison in Estonia, although there is no entrance into the pyramid. You just walk around the outside, looking at the graffiti, smashed glass, and crumbling concrete.

After this strange and unique site, we went back to the hotel to relax. My sandwich Humalog restraint turned out to yet again be a bad idea — I was 288 at 4 pm, to no surprise at all. I ate a snack and took a shot.

I was only down to 196 a couple hours later, and it was dinner time. We decided that since we hadn’t seen much around the hotel area, we’d try the hotel’s restaurant. It’s an Italian-themed place, and the menu (and waiter) were in Albanian and Italian. Masayo translated some of the items that we couldn’t figure out on her phone.

I ordered the frittura di la mare, which I took to mean fried seafood, and we split a big Greek salad with a basket of toast. The salad was excellent, with big fresh chunks of vegetables and cheese. The fried seafood was good too, with entire small fish fried up alongside pieces of squid. We also split a big bottle of sparkling water.

After that we walked to the same shop I went to last night, for yet more water and another beer for me. Back in the room, I ate a chocolate bar as a snack, had the beer, and took another shot of Humalog for it. A double shot with a lot of unknown food — this would be a real test of my new inspired insulin doses.

It worked; I was 136 before bed. I have really had good luck with before-bed BGs lately. Now if I can corral the occasional afternoon highs, I’ll be perfect.

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