Send The Bugger Back

There was no time for a teeth-brush, shower or even a wash this morning as I had to make my bus to Ulcinj and someone was hogging the bathroom. Couple that with a few fresh moz bites and I’m feeling a bit manky. I’ll be there in 3 hours or so though so can address this then.

While waiting in vain for the bathroom I renewed my City card to the tune of 30 quid, ouch. Though to be fair you do get a fiver off the first 6 times you use it. I expect to be back in Manchester for all of December so I’ll be looking to get to all the games I can, home and away. My first will be Chelsea at Eastlands, not bad eh.

The bus actually only took about 2 and a half hours but it was most unenjoyable. Awful roads meant it was a very very bouncy journey. Another half hour or so and I reckon I’d be doing some serious damage to the upholstery.

Today I’ve been listening to the rest of Cass McCombs’s back catalogue. ‘Catacombs’ and ‘PREfection’ are the ones I needed to catch up with. The former bar one tune or two offers nothing and the latter is average really. Nothing comes close to his brilliant debut mini-album ‘Not The Way’ for me (even ‘Dropping The Writ’ which as I said the other day, I liked) that’s the one to get.

I’m really loving being able to fill in the missing pieces for bands I’ve liked for ages as well as bands I might have heard about a day ago on a blog or podcast. There’s that much stuff to get you wouldn’t have an earthly without a service like this. Best tenner I ever spent this Spotify lark.

It’s a bit of an odd setup for getting to the hostel. Rather than having directions on the booking email like normal it just says that it’s 100 metres away from the station (is actually closer to 500) and to ring them when you get there. So I did, only they don’t speak English, but they do say hello and yes a lot and then put the phone down. So I rang back and just about got the gist that someone would come and find me in 5 minutes (actually 20). A strange approach but no skin off my nose I guess. When I met them later though, the lady who runs the place and her son (I presume it’s her son) are friendly enough, even if she does have no teeth.

While waiting I bought a couple of croissants for lunch, one with jam and one with spumante which after reading the wrapper I’ve discovered is an Italian sparkling wine.

With the croissants I had a bottle of Sprite, now I don’t know if the spumante was altering my taste buds but it didn’t taste much like Sprite. It was more like Mountain Dew that a tramp had took a pee in and left to settle for a week.

I’m in another tired and grumpy mood today (as you may have gathered) so I wasn’t in the mood for the incessant taxi offers you always get when disembarking of the bus. “Taxi, taxi?”, “Taxi, taxi?”. No, I still don’t smeggin’ want one since you asked me 6 seconds ago Sinbad.

The schedule for getting to Shkoder was pretty much as I’d found out on the net, so I’ll be heading there at 12:30 tomorrow. Hopefully the buses running from there to Tirana should be as I worked out to.

So the woman who runs the hostel came to the station to pick me up as promised and took me back. Only it’s not a hostel, it’s a self contained little apartment (en-suite and has a little kitchen of sorts) in their house. I’ve probably been given a slightly better setup because it’s dead, I’d selected a 5 bed dorm on Hostel World!

I’m going to be pretty bored tonight I reckon though as there is no one else here and there’s not even any Internet access (wireless or otherwise). I’ve needed an early night for quite some weeks now so here’s my chance.

As it’s pretty much out of season I’ve definitely noticed that a lot of places I’m staying are really quiet now, which is good in some ways but it also means it’s harder to make travel buddies obviously.

After I’d got my bag straight and that I went for a walk into town to have a butchers. All pretty standard small resort sort of stuff and then after about 20 minutes you get to a pretty little beach. I had an early tea of lasagna at Caffe Pizzeria Plaza which looks out onto it. There was something done differently that I can’t put my finger on, it’s a good difference though whatever it is. Yum.

On the way down I spotted an internet cafe in with PS3s. I might nip in on the way back and show the locals what’s what, I’ve nothing better to do after all. There’s a new kid in town gamers.

I did indeed have a few games of FIFA, €2 for an hour. Though none of the locals saw fit to challenge me. I can only think they were intimidated from the off by watching me tonk Utd 5-0 with City (pre Tevez, Adebayor and friends roster), I can’t say I blame them.

I got a bit lost trying to find the hostel again, I knew I was very very close but off one of the main roads you go up this hill and I didn’t realise there would be absolutely no lighting, so trying to find the right house was very difficult. I rang them and tried to get them to come out, it would only take them a minute. The woman twoddled on as usual and then said okay and put the phone down. I knew she hadn’t understood a single word I’d said. Luckily I found a local and he helped me out. Not easy.

Best search today – ‘typical Latvian man’.