We spend a lot of time going to the market, corner vegetable store or bread store. With small refrigerators and lack of preservatives, it is difficult to keep things for longer than a week. That has a plus and a minus, the plus is food tastes better and the minus is you spend a lot of time shopping. So, this entry is to introduce you to some of the shops around our place.

You must understand that street names, addresses and store names are just non-existent. So how do you find things? The best approach is to get in the general vicinity and then start asking. There is a saying here, “You can get to Istanbul by asking.” You get directions like, “It’s the store behind the tax office”. In order for us to talk to one another about places, we have given the stores (dyqans, pronounced roughly like DO-chahns) names like Lime Lady (who gave us limes from her yard), Corner Dyqan (not really on a corner, but it needed a name), Celery Dyqan (has lots veggies imported from Italy and only store to have celery) and The Friendly Express Market (the one where the staff is very friendly). And yes, everyone thought is was very strange that Criss was taking pictures of all these places. Larger images of these pictures are in the photo gallery in the Durres Markets folder.

This is our appartment building.

Our balconey awning is the second one from the bottom. The white part of the sign there says “Zara”, the name of the boutique that our landlady owns. On the sign, just above the word “Zara”, it says “The Nice Couple.” So appropriate! (But why “The Nice Couple” on the sign?? Another thing we don’t understand. Foreshadowing perhaps??)

Within a block of our building, we have six stores, two of which are very small, and a bread store. As we walk to and from work and coffee, we check to see who has the freshest looking lettuce, tomatoes and apples so we know where to shop that week.

Half a block east of the house is the corner dyqan. As you can see it is not on the corner of a main street, but it is the corner of a parking lot. They have nearly all the basics for baking.

Half a block in the other direction is the Lime Lady, one of our favorite spots. Although very limited selection of veggies, they are usually very fresh and she always throws in a bit to make sure you are getting a good price. This is the daughter of the Lime Lady. Since the first of the year, the Lime Lady has been absent more than present at her location.

South of the Lime Lady is the Palestra (Gym) Dyqan as it is next to Carol’s gym. Cheese, olives and staples like flour are available there. It is across the street with the yellow sign. The gym is in the brick building next to it down the road with the exterior shutters pulled.

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About a half a block north of the Lime Lady is the Scale Lady. She uses an electronic scale and doesn’t try to get you to buy in even kilos. But the produce there is exposed to the afternoon sun and dirt and auto exhaust (diesel) from the road, so it is not as nice as the others, but they have lots of variety.

A half a block north of Scale Lady is Truck Lady. Well, actually it’s Truck People because she and her husband are actually there most days together. They drive in from Lushnja with the freshest produce around, but they run out of stuff by about 2:00 and head for home so we have to go early to shop there. They are so nice to us! They always point out which of the produce is the best that week from what they have. It’s funny. It seems you can tell if the potatoes are good by scraping a small bit of the skin away with your fingernail. See? It’s very good!!

The Bread Store is right behind the house on a short side street. What can we say about fresh bread? The ladies there are very nice. One thinks we understand everything she says, so she tells us lots of things and the other likes to practice her English with us. In either case, there is no such thing as a fast trip to buy bread.

To the right of the tree is the dyqan across from the Lime Lady. We don’t go there often enough to need a name. They sell mostly cigarettes, water, cokes and beer. Once, in a pinch, we bought toothpaste there. Guess we should call it the Toothpaste Dyqan…

When we need something special, or all the other places are closed or don’t have what we need, like celery at $4/bunch (which we don’t buy) we head to the Celery Dyqan. They get a lot of vegetables from Italy (we think) and we can find broccoli, celery, strawberries and radishes there. Most customers just swing by in their BMW’s, but a few, like us, walk.

There are several supermarkets around and they are pretty standard, just smaller than what you find in the states. They inventoried over the first week of January, rearranged the shelves and raised the prices. Each one has a clientele they serve and so you just have to explore to find the best prices.

Once a week we head to the Treg (market) to buy nuts, lunchmeat, chicken, or any vegetable the local stores do not have.

We have been told the prices are much better at the Treg than the local stores, but we have found that the prices everywhere change weekly. Plus, it’s about a 25 minute walk to the Treg, which is another reason or excuse to shop locally.

This scene is on the road to the Treg. Around the Christmas/New Year holiday, sheep and turkeys were plentiful. The boys are heading off to the center of town to sell the turkeys for $5-6 for the live bird. They just walk the sidewalks until someone stops them as ask about the birds.

Pick out your sheep, take it across the street to the butcher and he takes care of it or you can butcher it yourself on the drive at home. Criss did not have the courage to take that picture. We just buy the meat ready to cook.

AND, finally, what would a blog be without Internet access. Here is the owner of best Internet Café in Durres.

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The lime tree of Durres in the courtyard of the Lime Lady’s house.