To a restaurant in Tirana

There’s a restaurant in Albania’s capital. Tucked away off a side street close to Pazari-ri market, it is completely inconspicuous from the outside. A tall white wall stops passers-by from being able to peek into its terrace - when you are inside, you get the impression of being at a local restaurant in a secluded Greek island where all the walls are painted in that kind of white. Men dressed in tall hats carrying their instruments journey through the restaurant, singing to various onlookers as they wait for their food. The food is served on huge plates - a mountain of bread, white cheese cut into cubes, rice wrapped in huge cabbage leaf packages, all placed on the table to share.

I have been to Tirana three times in the past nine months, a sequence of events I certainly did not expect to occur. Each time I have visited the city has been very different - alone, then in love, and then alone again. First in winter, then in spring and finally in summer. And each time, Oda Traditional Restaurant has served as a familiar monument, a tiny container of my experience in this city. Each time I went to this restaurant with strangers, and yet, somehow we always fell into the same rhythm. We would find each other in the garden of our hostel, or by chatting from across our dorm beds. We would ask each other where we had heard it was good to eat in this city, and we always seemed to land on Oda. A few jugs of wine for the table? Why not? On that first trip back in February, our group that began as three quickly became nine. We went around the table introducing ourselves, not knowing that by the end of the meal we would feel like old friends. I wonder what the waiters thought of us - nine strangers laughing loudly within this now empty restaurant and eating so late because we could not pause our conversation long enough to look at the menu and order.

At that moment I don't think I could have believed how terrified I had been as I took that train to the airport. I had felt lonely in Lent and Skyscanner led me to an £18 flight to Tirana that was just a week away. My housemates warned me about organ trafficking and I boarded a plane not knowing that I would be back there again less than a month later with a girl I had just met, or again in summer, where I would spend two weeks amongst backpackers.

People have asked me why I am so attracted to Tirana and I can’t always give an answer. It isn't glamorous or particularly busy. There isn't that much to see and do and the nightlife is disastrous, as others have constantly reminded me. There are so many potholes, I can't even count the amount of times I've fallen over. It isn't the cheapest or most friendly city in the Balkans. The cars won't stop when you cross the road, stray dogs might follow you home for food and you never know if they might bite you. The best alcohol to drink is homemade raki served in reused water bottles and tastes like bleach. Buses never run on time, or they won't leave until every single seat is full. This is the city where I threw up for the first time in ten years, my biggest fear, one that I never thought I could survive. A city where I have felt lonely, where I have cried, where I have been scammed…

But Tirana is also the reason that I truly fell in love. I got to share a pomegranate by the lake and a jug of wine at a beautiful restaurant and make friends who made me realise that life won't just end when I'm 25. Tirana made me realise that Cambridge might actually be okay too, that I can leave and there will be more than this and I can be part of it. I got to see colourful buildings, street chess tables surrounded by tens of old men on a Thursday morning, book sellers lining their books up on the side of the road. I got to climb the stairs on the pyramid of Tirana and see the whole city at once, closer to those mountains that are always on the horizon. I got to wrap up in my coat in winter, wear a light shirt in the spring, and boil in the heat of the summer. Tirana was always sunny though. This city always has its way of pulling me in. The cheap flight was the catalyst, but what kept me coming back was those mountains, the smell of the olives at the markets, the lake at sunset, and the assortment of people that I encountered each time and spilled my heart out to at that restaurant. I think Tirana just might be the most beautiful city in the world.

All images belong to the author, unless otherwise stated.

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