“A gathering would be cool”

If you reside long enough in New York slowly but surely you get used to the incessant and characteristic background music of Manhattan streets presented by the local taxi driver community. It is probably one of the very few city orchestras in the US that perform every day of the year (national holidays included), 24/7 and they're not even paid for it.
Walking across town on 42^nd Street this Sunday, the volume of non-stop honking got to the point of ultimate irritation as I got close to Times Square. I was on the verge of going to the nearest post office and sending a letter to Hillary Clinton to immediately include free daily doses of hardcore tranquilizers in her MediCare reform program for Manhattan taxi drivers; I know it’s a stressful job but not everyone is deaf and dumb in this city, please!
Fortunately, before the next UPS office came my way I literally bumped into one of the cars that gave the obnoxious sound. When I noticed that the trunk of the sedan was wrapped in Albanian flag, the penny dropped…I turned around and realized that the van I just had intimate physical contact with was followed by an endless line of Mercedes’, BMWs, Toyota Jeeps, black SUVs of various brands but all neatly decorated with the somewhat scary scarlet-and-black Albanian emblems. Teenagers hanging from skylight windows, waving and singing along with the radio playing Albanian songs, their parents at the wheels probably grasping more of what a historical moment it was.
The unsuspecting British shopping tourists less so. They knew Times Square is a vibrant and crowded place but few expected an extra two hundred Albanians shouting and dancing around the US ARMY recruiting booth and flooding the sidewalks along Broadway. The most helplessly uninformed opted for “phone-a-friend” to try to understand what exactly is going on: “I have a real quick question for you, man: is Kosovo’s Independence Day today, or what?” Well, sort of. It happened to be the first one for them, very good guess though. But the puzzled majority just stared at celebrating crowd or took six dozen memorable pictures of … when-we-get-back-to-the-hotel-we’ll-find-out-what exactly.(Kosovo's declaration of independence being breaking news on CNN and front page story of the NYTimes it was clearly the mission impossible of the day.)
What gave the distinctive US edge to this local Balkan Independence celebration was the almost equal number of American and Albanian flags. For every two ecstatic Kosovar dressed in the double-headed eagle there was one dressed in Union Jack. “We finally have a State….Thank You, USA” - read hundreds of ruby red T-Shirts featuring the map of Kosovo. Enlightened passers-by clapped and showed V-signs sharing the blissful euphoric moments.
Today, in the seventh post-Yugoslavian state that has probably been the sickest part of the Sick Man of Europe the same Union Jacks were burnt by Serbians denouncing Kosovo’s independence.
But stone-throwing and flag-burning of incensed ethnic Serbs over the Pond is less of the émigrés’ problem. American-Albanians of Albanian.com can lay back and “chill out for the day” or maybe “go to one of those NY parties.”