Elf An Saty

A decade ago, I was talking to a class about the need to be careful when handling electricity. One of the children wrote that it was becos of elf an saty

I am not sure that H&S legislation has reached Albania yet. Or if it has, people just turn a blind [blinded?] eye to it. 
The electrical wiring outside the apartments was like untangled knitting - and inside, multiway extension cables appeared to be daisy-chained across the floor so that multiple appliances could be plugged in to the one socket in the room.
Both the older buildings from the Communist era and the newer apartment blocks suffered from external macramé cabling 

Water tanks and air-conditioning units were positioned precariously on wall, overhanging the pavement. But nobody seemed to mind, and nobody appeared to get hurt.
The bottom left picture in the collage shows the view from the front seat of the taxi which we travelled in to and from the airport. Yes, those lines across the screen are cracks. They clearly do not bother with MOT tests either. Our driver had a seat belt. We had straps - but no corresponding point to plug the buckle into! Our coach out to the coast was the same. 
I just had to take this picture on our ride back to the airport

I was really amused by the pink T-mobile ad [left hand side] It proclaims "One life" - and I wonder, if we only have one life, why are we driving in a manner which may shorten it?
On the right was the petrol station. Kastrati seemed a rather odd name for the main Albanian independent petroleum company. It clearly means something different in the local language - I cannot see macho petrol-heads from the UK stopping to buy fuel there.
I thought their blue and yellow geodesic dome was attractive though.
But these were minor things and did not spoil our enjoyment at all. The people were all so happy and friendly, and so generous and laid back about life - and maybe sometimes we here in the UK get just a little too bothered about the regulations. I guess if I had been living for so many years in a strict communist atheist state, I'd really relish the freedom to do my own thing.