Last year when we spent a few months living in Tirana, Albania, there was a giant roundabout near our apartment that we would often walk past. It sits at the very end of the main boulevard of the city, surrounded by grand university buildings.
I should say that it's not like any roundabout I'd ever seen previously. For one thing, it's enormous. With no lanes or lines to speak of, it does at least have a centre point like other roundabouts, but it's so small and inconsequential that the cars are not actually going around anything. It's essentially a free-for-all in which cars attempt to cross a giant open space and not crash into each other.
To sum up: it's a roundabout, yes, but in a very roundabout kind of way.
It also felt like a microcosm of the entire driving experience in Albania. That is: dangerous, chaotic and apparently open to interpretation.
KB and I would often pass it on our way to the grand park, where we would go walking, and on one occasion, on a Sunday morning, we saw that there had been an event the night before. The whole space had been taken over for something called Helldrift. There was a racing track set up, with barriers and signage displaying various energy drink sponsors. Tyre marks were streaked all over the track, along with various bits of deconstructed tyre.
As we walked past it, I caught sight of two people on motorised mobility scooters cutting across the track setup. Moving slowly from one end to the other, in between barriers and over shredded tyres. It was a nice moment of contrast, and could have easily caused some confusion if you'd gotten the day wrong and turned up to see this. Two people on scooters gently making their way along the track, and making very little attempt at any sort of hell drifting.
I'm sure the appeal of an event like this is partly due to the very constrained way we generally drive in our day to day lives, and so having an outlet to see some extreme driving must be incredibly satisfying. Most of us, if we're lucky, live in a safe bubble and so extreme sports and thrill seeking are a way of reminding us that we're alive. Or at least an opportunity to let loose of the shackles a little bit and shred some tyres.
In that respect, the most confusing part of an event like this, was why it needed to exist in the first place, when - based on my experience driving in Albania - people were already doing a fair amount of hell drifting all over the country. In fact, if anyone asked me to try and sum up with one word what it's like to drive in Albania, helldrift might be about right. There was so much hell drifting in fact, that I would have thought that a more fitting event would be one where lots of cars drove sensibly and cautiously around a track, pausing every so often for a quiet cup of tea in the pit stop. It may not be as much of a spectacle, based on the motorised scooters I'd just seen, but surely worth a shot. Especially when, having spoken to many self-aware Albanians, most would agree that a little less hell drifting out on the road might be kind of nice.
Most people associate thrill seeking with activities like bungee jumping or skydiving, but there are plenty of other simpler and more accessible options that get overlooked. For instance, like wearing a t-shirt out in public that is normally an around-the-house item of clothing. Perhaps you've done this and run into someone you know, and you end up having a conversation with them and the whole time you're thinking 'I can’t believe we’re just having a normal chat and I’m wearing an at-home t-shirt and they have no idea. I wonder if other people have noticed? God, what a thrill ride this is.’
I've actually done bungee jumping before. Skydiving as well. They were both terrifying and exhilarating. I like to think I'd do it again, but these days the thought is a lot more scary.
My travel stories look a lot different these days too.
When I was around 22, I went to Europe for the first time, and on one occasion I remember spending the day bussing around Hungary, visiting a bunch of small towns with a friend I made at a hostel. That night we ended up stranded, missing the last train back to Budapest, and as nothing was open in this tiny Hungarian town, we crossed the border to Slovakia, found a bar to drink in and then crashed at a ramshackle little hostel later that night.
Last year, one of my more exciting travel moments was in Albania when my wife and I tried to order a family casserole through a food delivery app. On the face of it, it doesn't necessarily scream 'exciting travel anecdote', but I prefer to think of it as more nuanced and layered, and any astute reader with a more finely tuned palate will be rewarded with an edge-of-your-seat emotional rollercoaster that stacks up alongside any other.
Especially as it became apparent early on that this wasn't your typical food delivery app. We received a total of four phone calls over the space of two hours all asking for our address, despite having entered it in the app. Not to mention the fact that Albanians don't care much for street addresses, and prefer to go by landmarks. Mentioning that we were on the same street as an embassy seemed to satisfy each new caller, but made me wonder more and more whether I might end up knocking on the door of the Qatari Embassy and enquiring as to whether they'd accidentally been given a family casserole, and can we have it back or are there laws around casseroles being granted asylum on foreign soil.
The stakes may not have seemed as high as say life or death, but they weren't far off: we were very hungry and desperately wanted to eat a family casserole. We had committed to it emotionally, and by the time it ticked over to two hours into the whole ordeal, we had all but resigned ourselves to the fact that we may be having to find another avenue for dinner. An avenue that was hopefully near a recognisable landmark.
Then my phone rang a fourth time. The driver was outside. Relieved, I ran down to the street, handed over the money, and in return the driver reached into his hot bag and handed me a pizza box.
We'd waited two hours and fumbled our way through multiple phone calls but I didn't care and was too hungry by this point. Deflated, I brought it back up to our apartment, opened up the box to see which flavour of pizza we'd been given, and there sitting inside was a casserole tray. Filled with one of the most delicious casseroles I've ever eaten.
Whilst I've obviously hammed it up somewhat (not the casserole, it really didn't need any ham) it was about the only kind of emotional rollercoaster we could handle at that point. Outside there was enough hell drifting going on that we were well and truly hell drifted out.
It's also why we were so desperate for a family casserole. Our trip had felt so chaotic at times, that we didn't need to go wandering across borders late at night not knowing where we were going to sleep or do any cliff diving or shredding tyres around a track, we needed a casserole. A family one.
And if there is a more comforting meal than a family casserole then I'm yet to discover it.
My thrill seeking has changed as I've gotten older, and I think why in general it tends to track that way, is that as the years pass, you become more aware of the stakes. How nothing is guaranteed, and life is uncertain. How you don't need to push the limits because life is so fragile and delicately poised as it is. And so in the context of all of that going on in the background, simple things become remarkable as a result. Inside the unpredictable world we live in, making and enjoying a great cup of tea becomes wondrous. Eating a cream cheese bagel while crossing the road and managing not to get run over? A thrilling adventure. And ordering a casserole through a food delivery app while outside the world sometimes feels like it is drifting into hell? One of the most exciting rides you can ever go on1.
I should say that we did plenty of exciting things during our travels including hiking the Albanian Alps, so we haven't fully bunkered ourselves away and become too fearful of the world. On another occasion we even ordered three casseroles in one go. From the outside it may have seemed as if we were chasing that same high as the first time, like an addict might do. Slowly increasing the dosage as their tolerance increases. But actually, it was more to do with not wanting to deal with the same phone calls after every order, something that never went away despite becoming regular customers over the course of the several months we were there.Â
These days, of the more traditional thrill seeking and exciting adventures I still indulge in, it's done with more awareness now. I need less reminders of what's at stake. If anything, my brain is too diligent in that respect.
I might be a bit hesitant to bungee off a cliff these days, but I like to think that if I ever need to get that same rush again - to get the heart pumping and the adrenaline racing - all I need do is order myself a family casserole on a food delivery app. Preferably in Albania. Because in the context of everything, that’s the only rollercoaster I need.
Or, as I like to call it: the casserolercoaster2.
For some reason all the examples I included involve food. I could have changed this but I decided not to.
Sorry.
There's really nothing quite like a good ol' family casserole to make us feel comfy and cosy....ahhh the simple things🙂
I really enjoyed this and laughed out loud several times! Good way to start a *checks brain for an extra moment* Wednesday. I agree wholeheartedly with your scale of risk-taking and increasing awareness of our life's fragility. I too did some now seemingly crazy things in my youth which I wouldn't trade for anything. Yet I also wouldn't do them now. There is still plenty of other life to live and I want to keep at it for awhile longer! Thanks for helping me appreciate that fact today.