Road Trip to Kosovo: "Flags"

Last week I got to travel to Kosovo to visit some colleagues and friends for a couple of days. This was my first visit since they'd declared their independance one month ago and I was looking forward to it.

The border to Kosovo is only about 20 minutes away and the drive easy. Most borders over here have two sides (one to leave the country and one to enter the next country) separated by what's called "no-mans-land" (also happens to be the name of a great Balkan movie... but I digress). Anyways, all went without note-worthy narrative until I got to the customs dude on the Kosovo side.

I handed him my passport and when he turned it over and saw what country I was from his demeanor brightened up and he leaned on my car, "Oh! United States! How are you? Where are you from?" He asked while he fingering through the pages of my passport. "Oh! California! Such a nice place! Do you work on Bondsteel?" [Bondsteel is the American base here... really? did I look military? lol] Anyways, he gave me the star treatment just because I was American and I got the idea that if I were willing he'd sit and chat with me all day long!

Well, once past the border and into Kosovo, I was greeted with a huge red sign with black letters saying "Happy Independence" in Albanian. Then I began to see them: American flags... everywhere! In some places there were so many I had to remind myself that I wasn't in America on the 4th of July and that I was actually in Kosovo! I also saw the flags of Germany, Britain, Switzerland and other counties who've formally recognized Kosovo flying as well. What a truly strange experience it was to be in another country and see your own country's flag flown just as proudly as the new nations flag.