00:00I'm Drin. I'm 16 years old and I live in Tirana.
00:05This is the city I grew up in. It's the city where I experienced everything for the first time.
00:09Come along with me and I'll show you a day in my life.
00:16Hello. Welcome to my house.
00:21I live here with my parents and also my grandparents who are in a house connected to this one.
00:27This is my mother. She always helps me prepare for breakfast and to get ready for school.
00:34Drin's older brother works abroad. It's normal for several generations to live under one roof in Albania.
00:43This is my room. I love it. It shows so much of my personality but also it's really entirely practical
00:49because I spend most of my time in my room studying, playing music.
00:57Drin's day starts at 6 a.m. He's got to walk quite a way to catch the bus to school.
01:06Drin goes to a private Catholic high school. Classes start at 8.
01:12Today, Drin's class is going to have a test in Albanian. School ends after the sixth hour.
01:18After school, he makes a short detour to see his grandmother, his father's mother.
01:27Since his granddad's death, she lives alone.
01:31On the ground floor, there's a room that's special for Drin.
01:34Okay. Oh, okay.
01:36Drin's day starts at 7 a.m.
01:41These are all ships that me and my grandfather have built throughout the years.
01:45They're all model ships of actual, realistic ships.
01:51My grandfather was really passionate about this.
01:54And he also showed me the way.
01:57This is my grandfather.
01:59When he was young, he used to be in the marine school.
02:03And then also, he used to work on a ship for quite some time.
02:06Here comes my grandma.
02:16Me and my grandmother were really close, so I try to visit her as often as possible.
02:20Three to four times a week, maybe even on weekends.
02:24Family is the most important thing in Albania.
02:29In the afternoon, Drin goes downtown with his friend Boran.
02:33Both are part of a group of friends from school.
02:38We also hang out with them outside of school.
02:41We play sports together or video games or things like that.
02:45Or they do what they're doing today, going to a bakery together and getting a typical Albanian pastry, a burek.
02:55It has become sort of like a fast food in Albania.
02:58It's always takeaway.
03:00It is really tasty.
03:02All the people eat it.
03:04According to a survey, around half of all Albanians can't afford to go to a restaurant, even occasionally.
03:11Maybe that's also partly why burek is so popular.
03:16I got one with feta cheese and ricotta.
03:24And he got...
03:26I got it with meat.
03:28There are many places in Tirana that are reminders of the country's history.
03:33Albania was a socialist dictatorship until 1991, led for most of that time by Anwar Hudsha.
03:39The dictator that we had, he built so many bunkers, he used so much of the state's treasury to build bunkers such as this, so that everyone would be safe or in case of a war.
03:53But that never happened and all that money went to waste.
03:57Albania is still said to be one of Europe's economically weakest countries.
04:00A quarter of those from 15 to 24 years old are jobless.
04:06Even I feel the need to go outside of the state to study because I feel like I will have no choice in the professional world if I study here.
04:14And I feel that is the best, the biggest problem the Albanian system has.
04:20And I feel like that is the main thing that needs to change.
04:24Nowhere else in Europe do so many young people leave their home countries.
04:28A third of the people born in Albania live abroad, many in the European Union.
04:33Although Albania isn't an EU member, it's been an accession candidate since 2014.
04:38Dren would later like to study mechanical engineering or robotics, maybe in Vienna, Austria.
04:47But he does plan to come back home to Tirana.
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