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23/3/99
Another cold, wet day. A haze of rain is hanging over Mt. Dajti as I look out my office window. Most of the snow has melted off of it, but a light sprinkling still remains.
All this is in contrast to the glorious weather of the last few days. This weekend my honey and I went down to Vlore for the weekend. Vlore is the most surprising place. The town itself is nothing special - just the usual assortment of poorly maintained buildings and crumbling communist monuments. The shops are not especially well stocked, and there isn't any particular aura of the well-to-do.
The truth is that probably 90% of the citizens of Vlore make their living illegally. The distance between Vlore and Italy is the shortest in the country, and an enormous traffic in the smuggling of illegals into the EU goes on. Besides this, most of the agriculture in the region consists of growing cannabis. These two activities are only the tip of the iceburg. Any shady activity, be it smuggling in cigarettes or trafficking in prostitution, passes through the place. A large number of extremely expensive new cars can be seen on the streets, clearly the result of someone's new drug fortune. Yet despite the sums of money you know are passing through, little is apparent in the upkeep of the city.
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