A flash of color from Tirana's many murals would occasionally pierce the muted gray and beige blocks, turning me into a bumbling, ill-attentive pedestrian as they held my gaze beyond the obligatory layer of spiderwebbing power lines characteristic of less than legit electricity connections. A stray dog, indicated by an orange tag in its ear, lazily glanced up as I walked by, completely unphased by the droning construction site it chose for a siesta.