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Ardiani Cafe. The 50-year-old owner spent three years in New Jersey, near Hoboken. His customers are mostly villagers coming to Gramsh to shop, visit the hospital or just look around.

"There's nothing to do in the villages," he said. The mini buses to the villages stop right outside his cafe.

As we talked, a girl of about 15 couldn't help but stare at me from outside the fence. She had on a boy's short sleeved dress shirt. With her was probably her grandma, in a black dress and white head scarf.

There are some foreigners in Gramsh, but no Orientals. I met a French guy who had been working at a nearby hydroelectric power plant. With his mullet and disco shirt, he didn't seem too French, but much of France doesn't look like what you see in the movies anyway.

Across the street from the cafe was a mosque, built just 25 years ago. "No one goes there," the owner said.

The morning I left Gramsh, I came by to say goodbye, but only his dad was there. We couldn't communicate. Luckily, one of the customers spoke Italian, so I said I just wanted to say ciao to the owner's son.

Leaving Gramsh is no simple matter. Most mini buses stop on the main street, but there is no schedule posted and no information booth. Again, my bit of Italian saved my ass. An old guy told me where to stand, then later, a fellow passenger instructed the driver to make sure I get to Korce.


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