A small but significant change has been made to the banner over the entrance. See if you can spot the difference between the banner as it is now in the picture above and as it was a few days ago.
Posters proclaiming the message Proud to be Partners have been appearing across the city and a huge version of this was being put together when I passed the University in Nene Teresa Square yesterday.
Today the Citizens Advocacy Office released the results of an opinion poll regarding the Bush visit. According to this poll, the two areas where people expect the visit to have a positive impact concern the final status of Kosova (61.7%) and Albanian membership of NATO (71%).
The President himself touched on both of those issues in his television interview with Andi Bejtja of Vision Plus. There is a English transcript of the interview on the White House website. You can also see the interview, dubbed into Albanian at YouTube.
I've been doing my own informal and unscientific polling by asking Albanian friends what people they know think about the visit. Most of these are younger people and the most common response is that they don't really think about it much at all.
On the one hand the President is welcome and they don't intend to take to the streets in protest; on the other hand they aren't planning to line the streets waving Albanian and American flags either. They see the visit as being all about politics and politicians, and don't believe it will make any difference for them personally.
I have no data to back this up, but I get the impression that this is a fairly accurate reflection of how ordinary younger people view these events.
Comments
Sounding sentimental? I have a million reasons for that.
The only thing I expect from this visit would be maybe some attention on the status of Kosovo.
About the flag; what's up with the flag?
Still, I'm of the opinion to rotate it horizontally and to use more American flags than Albanian.