I am 38 years old, but I have had an affinity with the Balkans, especially Albania and Kosovo, for decades, even though I have no family connection to it. I sometimes joke that I have been to Albania five times, but never to Paris. Consequently, I spent three weeks in Albania last year to learn Albanian: I applied for educational leave from my job as a social worker and added a short holiday thereafter - so that I could use my limited Albanian skills straight away.

I first became aware of Kosovo mainly from news reports in the 1990s, the unrest in the Balkans and the associated refugee movements to German-speaking countries. I remember when Albania took part in the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time in 2004. My sister-in-law, who is of Bulgarian descent, told me at the time that Albania was the most isolated, the wildest and poorest country on the Balkan peninsula, and that it was not easy to travel there, not least because you would not understand the language at all.
Since I always had a soft spot for the unusual, the supposedly unpopular, the "exotic", I started to become fascinated by the country, the people of the Balkans in general and the languages. First I had to find out about the individual nations, some countries that had only just formed or become independent during that time. Since I come from southern Germany and was often in Austria on the border to Slovenia, the step to the Balkans was not so far-fetched on several levels. When I didn't know what to do after graduating from high school in 2006, I really wanted to learn a language in the meantime until I knew where I wanted to go professionally. I enrolled in Slavic studies at university, I learned about the history of the Slavic (language) area and attended a language course for Serbian/Croatian. Learning a new language, in this case Slavic, was really challenging at first. Many of my fellow students were of Slavic descent themselves and therefore found it easier than I did.

In 2010 I undertook my first Balkan tour by car. Grateful that I had the opportunity, I wanted to travel to as many places and as many countries as possible. At the same time, I was nervous about how long I could travel away from home without company. I planned my journey to last a little less than two weeks for a total distance of almost 5,000km, sometimes with just one overnight stay in each country. On the trip I quickly realized that yes, I won't get bored at this pace and I can't think about possible loneliness. But such a short time doesn't do the individual countries justice, nor can I process the impressions and really enjoy the time. I drove into Albania via Montenegro. There was no internet, especially not on the road. There were no place names, no signposts, hardly any street names. I made it to Tirana and felt privileged that I was probably the first person in my family to ever be in this city. My parents were a bit worried, they told me that they were forced to avoid Albania when they travelled to Greece, simply because the country had been locked up and isolated for decades. And there I was, in Tirana, at Skanderbeg Square, and was allowed to explore the city. Even though there wasn't much time for it, it was incredibly exciting for me.
There were lots of cars with smoking engines, even in the centre of the city. Outside it was dusty, roads were torn up, there were practically no motorways. My printed maps from Google Maps sometimes left me in despair. At times I got so lost that I had to stop and ask someone for directions. Naive as I was, I started to speak to an old man in English and then in Serbian. When I pulled out my Serbian, he made a negative gesture with his head - I realised that at that moment I was outing myself as a total tourist who still knew far too little about the Balkans with all its differences. Nevertheless, with the help of the passerby, I managed to realise that I had been driving in the wrong direction for an hour. On the way back, I saw a man on the side of the dusty highway offering a living rabbit for sale, holding it by its ears. The image was immediately etched in my mind. I was so taken aback at that moment, afterwards I wished I had bought the rabbit and just released it somewhere.
After a short stop in Macedonia, where I was able to communicate better due to the linguistic proximity to Serbian, I drove to Kosovo. I had to take out my own car insurance at the border crossing. Passing torn-up roads, with the smell of burning branches or tyres in my nose (something that still reminds me of the Balkans today), I made my way to Prishtina. Two and a half years after the declaration of independence, in the summer of 2010, I stood in front of the Newborn Memorial and could not believe that I was on holiday in a country whose name had only been known from war reports ten years earlier. I felt incredibly grateful that I was now able to get to know countries that were actually so close, but yet seemed so far away. It was not until then that I realised how great Europe is, how easy it is for me to travel, how enriching it is to get to know new countries and cultures.
Two years later, I was ready for my next Balkan route, this time via Bulgaria and Greece. When I was back on the now better-paved highway near Durrës and I was listening to the obligatory Albanian music that I had previously burned onto CDs, I negotiated with myself: if I see another poor rabbit being sold to me on the side of the road, I'll buy it. I could hardly believe my eyes when this time I saw two men, each holding about six rabbits by their ears for sale at 42°C heat. After a brief moment of doubt, my determination, my "courage", kicked in. I pulled over to the side of the road and one of the men came towards me. He was visibly surprised that I couldn't speak Albanian. I was allowed to choose one of the rabbits, which in retrospect was a terrible moment. I took the only one with brown fur, all the others were white. He told me a price and, overwhelmed by the situation and the general inability to deal with all the local currencies, I took out 500 Lek. He made it clear to me that that wasn't enough, perhaps because he saw that I had more banknotes in my wallet. He was happy with 1,000 Lek and even gave me a cardboard box in return, which the emaciated, overheated and stressed animal could fit into. For what was then the equivalent of around 7 euros, I now owned a rabbit and drove in the scorching heat into the center of Tirana for my second time.

My accommodation, a guesthouse on Bulevard Bajram Curri, had prepared a small room for me, but the door could not be locked. Wrapped in a blanket, I brought the cardboard box and its living contents to my room. I used the local WiFi to search for a shop that might sell pet supplies. I left the rabbit unlocked in my room and bought a small hamster cage for transport, as well as carrots from a vegetable stand. Because what else does a rabbit eat? Back in my room, I tried to feed the animal. And I showed a friend on Skype my purchase of the day, a moment when the rabbit peed on my bed out of stress.
The next morning, I tried to remove all traces that I was not alone in the guesthouse. I even washed the bedsheet by hand and quickly left the accommodation. Overnight stays in Montenegro, Bosnia and Croatia followed, and with each subsequent stopover I got more used to the rabbit, my companion from Albania. When I gave him a name, Shqippi, I should have known that I would never part with him. Back in Germany, a vet checked him over, vaccinated him and found out that he must be a male, around 6 to 8 weeks old. He was so thin that my vet even said he looked almost like a real hare with his pointed face. He quickly gained weight, took on a more rabbit-like appearance (rabbits and hares are two different breeds and cannot mate with each other) and we got used to each other: every cable that I carelessly left lying around was bitten through, door frames were gnawed, couch covers were torn. Shqippi was aggressive at first, he bit and scratched a lot. That calmed down, especially when I got him a partner bunny (from Germany). He always reminded me of that Balkan trip from 2012 and remained my faithful companion and Albanian roommate until his death in December 2020.
It was all the more beautiful that in the summer of 2021, in the midst of the Corona pandemic, I was able to show my partner Shqippi's country of origin. I felt a close connection to Albania again, we swam in the sea near Saranda, felt like two of many tourists at the crowded Syri i Kaltër and ate qifqi and dollma in Gjirokastra. It was overwhelming to see what had happened eleven years after my first visit to Albania. You saw a lot more other tourists, locals spoke excellent English and the hospitality was just as present as in my memories. In Prizren, shops invited you to stroll, in Prishtina, families walked along the spruced-up Bulevard Nënë Tereza happily in the evenings. I felt a little bit sad that other tourists had now discovered these great cities for themselves, but at the same time I was grateful that I had been able to experience the change and development so closely.

So in 2024 I followed my passion and planned my fifth trip to Albania and my first visit to Tirana in ten years. I rented a great little apartment in the center and booked a language course in advance. When I arrived in Tirana at the end of March, I was impressed by how much the city had changed. The pedestrian zone on Toptani Street was full of bars and people celebrating the beginning of spring. Skanderbeg Square, where I had petted a street dog in the middle of much car traffic ten years ago (I didn't take it with me to Germany!), was now a large, inviting square with street musicians, young people and quiet places to sit. In Parku i Tiranës, joggers met to run around the lake. In hipster shops you could purchase great second-hand things.

My wonderful language teacher Eva - I had one-to-one lessons due to a lack of like-minded people who wanted to learn Albanian - showed me which bus I had to take to get to Tirana e Re, and I soon felt like a local. I did not have to rush around all the sights, I had time to soak up the atmosphere, read in the sun or do my homework: I learned professions and adjectives in Albanian, recognized the challenge of learning numbers like 16, but also had a lot of fun understanding my first small sentences. Ok, the woman in the post office grinned when I wanted to buy "dy pula" (two chickens) and later, with Eva's help, I understood why she did that. I went to a spontaneous little rock concert in a bar in my neighborhood, I shopped at junk shops and took trips to the seaside. Last but not least, I got engaged on the short, overpriced Ferris wheel ride on Skanderbeg Square when my partner came to visit me. A few days later, I drove through the country and visited other places I longed for, such as Berat, Shkodra and Lake Ohrid. One song that accompanied me on the trip was "Jepi gaz" by Ronela Hajati, which I first heard there and which stayed in my head for the rest of the year.
I am connected to the area and the people in many ways. My language teacher Eva even called me the "most ambitious student" she ever had. I am looking forward to one day being able to unpack my few bits of Albanian again and find out how the cities have changed since my last visit.

*Tim Herz is a social worker from Germany who has travelled extensively in Albania and Kosovo. Albaian Daily News found it interesting to share his experiences with our readers