Electricity and Roads

So, yeah, we don't really have much electricity here right now. Luckily I live in a larger city, so we only go without electricity from about 8:30 am to 5:30 pm. Some of the villages go without for 13 hours a day. Here is a news story that kind of explains the problem, but I don't know if the drought is really the issue or if it is the line that the government is feeding the press.

Albania's Electrical Problems

Of course there are rumors flying around here about other possible causes, and each political party is blaming the other.

Another great development here is happening at Zogu i Zi. Zogu i Zi is a big intersection where the highway from Durres enters Tirana. It is the main road enterance into the city and so it sees alot of traffic volume. To deal with the high volume, the city is in the midst of constructing a new overpass and roundabout system. I just found out yesterday though that the project has been suspended indefinitely because some of the funds used for the project were allegedly from corrupt sources. So the halfway constructed projected is just stopped, and at possibly the worst time. The intersection right now is basically one big pot hole and all of the incoming and outgoing traffic is forced into a two-lane bottleneck. Needlessly to say this has caused problems. Wednesday night I was taking the bus home from Tirana to Durres and it took us one hour to go five blocks because traffic was so backed up. Who knows when all of this is going to be resolved if ever. It is rather frustrating but not surprising. Just Albania.

Luckily, I'm going to be getting out of this country for a little while. I bought a one-way ticket to Prague, and am going to trek back down to Albania by train and bus over the course of a week and half. Don't really have a fixed plan yet, but I'm hoping for a good break.

Oh, I've posted some new pictures from Berat, and some new Photoshop work. My boss asked me to take photos of Keneta and make them look like what we envision after our project. I did my best, but didn't have many photo files to work from. Oh well.