Ksamil

My wife read last night’s blog and  complained that I wrote about politics again, I  guess she wants me to  write about nothing but our vacation.  And I guess she’s right.  People for  the most part ignore my blogs, and  even my comments and  posts, on politics, usually.  And a vacation is an interesting thing, especially now that  we’re in a country  I’ve never been to before, and  which  a lot of  people, over 90% of those  in  the  world, I’m sure, have never been to  at all.
As with  every vacation  to parts  unknown,  there’s going to be some  good  and some  bad.  On the good hand, our apartment is quite nice.  Oh, we had to go  out  to the shop  to get our  own toilet paper, and a shower curtain but that will be going home with  us.  We have  two  balconies, and  we can sit out  there and  eat dinner.
Also to the  good, people here are very  friendly and welcoming.  And the food’s great.  Huge portions.  Somewhere between Greek and Turkish.  I had moussaka  for  lunch  this afternoon,  and Izzie had  a  meat skewer yesterday. It isn’t quite as cheap as I  expected, but for  a resort  town, the  prices aren’t bad at  all.
On the bad  side, almost all of the  beaches are private beaches.  The places marked ‘public beach look very much like a ‘free speech zone at an American major party political convention.  They  don’t really want  you there at all, if you’re  not paying 1,000 lek a day (about $10) for a deck chair, so you’re allowed an area just a few meters  square where it’s possible to lay  out a towel.  On the good side, once you’re in  the  water that doesn’t matter, and the water is  lovely  and just the right temperature.

There is a spot,  close to our flat, where  the  land meets the water, but it’s not really a beach.  Some boats are tied up  there, but there’s algae in the water, and garbage everywhere.  Like piles of it in some places, and even human feces.  In fact, there are a lot  of  places in  town that look  like that, and a lot  of unfinished construction projects.
So, despite the fact that the scenery, long view, is absolutely  spectacular, with mountains behind us and  the  island strewn Adriatic in  front of us, I wouldn’t recommend Ksamil.
Which is a shame.  A couple  of small  changes  and it  could  be a downright spectacular place.