Sometimes this country is just strange...

Since I haven't sat down to write in so long this will be a mix of stories from the past month or so.  Don't take strange in a bad way.  Strange can be good.  I used to call Tiff strange or weird and she would be offended, its not a bad thing, you are different, and different can be good.  Albania is strange, Albanians are strange.  This whole experience can be really strange.  Let me start with my best example, I was heading to work one morning and got in the elevator to head up to the office on the 7th floor.  I got in and pressed the 6 on the elevator like I always do, because in the elevator the ground floor is 0, but if you took the stairs up one flight you would see a sign announcing that you are on the second floor, strange.  Back to the elevator, and elderly gentleman gets in with me after parking his bicycle in the hallway, the doors close and we begin making our way up, he asks me if I live in the building, I answer "no, I work here."  He hears my obvious accent and then asks me something I don't quite understand, I ask him to repeat it and he second time I pick up what he asked me.  He wanted to know if I was Turkish.  Really? Me? Have you seen me?  Do I look Turkish at all?  I'll give you almost any Western European country you want because you probably don't see that many but Turkish, not so much.  I told him that no I am from America just as the elevator reached his floor.  Strange.
I went to the Vodaphone store to put money on my phone so I could make phone calls and send texts.  I got to the store and told the guy behind the desk that I wanted to add one thousand leke (about 10 dollars) to my phone.  He looked at me like I was crazy and said I could add that amount.  I put my phone down and pulled a one thousand leke note out of my wallet and handed it to him.  He took it, put my phone number into the computer and I got a text message saying I had ONE THOUSAND LEKE added to my account.  As I turned around to leave he told me that I really wanted ten thousand leke on my phone not one thousand.  Strange. The Albanians like to use a system of called old leke.  I guess a while ago the government wanted to use smaller amounts of money to fit more equally with the standard dollar, pound and euro, so they dropped a zero from the currency.  The problem was they didn't force anyone to use it.  I'm almost sure if I went and asked the Prime Minister, Sali Berisha, how much his car cost he would reply to me in old leke.  I realize by now that this blog is probably being read not only by family and friends, but maybe some new group 14 volunteers, so here is my tidbit of advice for you.  Love the old leke system.  It is actually easier for me to understand a price in old leke than new, for example dy mije pese cind pese dhejte (2,550) versus dy cind pesedhejte e pese. (255) have someone read those to you as fast as they can, which one do you understand more easily? The first one right, that extra 0 keeps really long weird number sequences from happening at the end.  Granted we generally get both prices because we look, act, sound, and smell like foreigners, but I like the old leke best, and I'm guessing if you are coming here you will someday too.  You'll complain about it, we all do, but then you'll come to embrace it and if your confused just ask, but generally you'll know that you pay 500 leke for a dinner out and 50 leke for a candy bar, not 5000 for dinner and 500 for a candy bar. 
Staying on the money theme, in the US I always (tried) to carry around a 20 dollar bill, I figured I could use it in case of emergency, car needed gas, needed to grab a bite, whatever came up.  Whatever it was from a pack of gum or candy bar no one wouldn't take a 20.  Here having a 2000 leke (roughly 20 bucks) note is like being cursed.  You go to the ATM and people are standing in line at one while another is completely free, I walk up to the free one knowing exactly what will happen, I will get my weekly budget out ( I try to go to the ATM once a week, this prevents me from spending too much money on coke early in the month only to run out of toilet paper at the end, a little extreme of an example but it is my way of budgeting) and from the machine will slide a 2000 leke bill.  I hit myself for coming after the bank has closed for the day (3:00 pm) put the bill in my wallet and begin planning how to spend it.  I try to spend about 500 leke a day so 2000 would be 4 days of my week.  And to hand a cashier, waiter, anyone short of the beggar on the street 2000 leke you will get a death stare worthy only of having cursed someones dying grandmother.  Many of the businesses that we frequent often would tell us to pay next time, but we are on the other side of town we either have to wait for the manager to find change or walk away without or groceries.  This will happen less often with 1000 leke usually at a coffee bar when you are paying 120 leke for a couple of coffees.  But change is a foreign concept to many people here.  And we won't even mention being given change in bubble gum.  I heard once a volunteer saved his and bought something entirely with gum given as change.  Me, I eat my change the lemon and cola is pretty good even though it is out of flavor by the time I get home.  Strange.  Hope things are well in the USA, enjoy your holiday this week.  If there is anything in the Black Friday ads I could use in Albania feel free to go to the stores Thursday night wait outside all night buy it Friday morning (now that is STRANGE) and spend the 60 some dollars it costs to ship it here to me.  I love not working retail right now!!