Shkodër

"Welcome!" says the Albanian border official as he hands me back my passport. I'm surprised and feel a little guilty because I know so little about his country that I'm not even able to say thank you in the local language.
I have arrived in a country that I know nothing about, except that it lives out its strong national pride in huge motorcades during the football championships.

Today it is cloudy and all the colours have the same basic tone: grey.
Despite the drizzly weather, I can see the mountains in the distance.
From my saddle, I roll through the small towns near the border to good music and take in the colours and shapes that pass me by: the cheap, poisonous green plastic chairs of a street café, the blonde or black-coloured stray street dogs, museum-worthy agricultural machinery. Unfortunately, rubbish bags and plastic packaging on the roadside are also part of the picture.

Later I realise that many Albanians speak German. On a walk, for example, I meet Niko, who draws my attention to the good job offers at the Austrian school in Shkoder, which trains computer scientists.
The Albanians are very fond of the Germans and German export goods - as can be seen, for example, from the fact that there are special shops selling German goods and there are almost as many Daimler vehicles on the roads as in their stronghold of Stuttgart. :D
(In contrast to Germany, however, they tend to be driven here with a mileage of 300,000 kilometres =) .)

I quickly learnt my first words of Albanian and integrated them into my vocabulary. Then I made the shop assistants at the cheese counter giggle with my rudimentary Albanian. :DOkumaya devam et