License Plates

I am very happy to report that as of yesterday we have our license plates for the car. For the past 5 weeks we've been driving around with the expired, temporary paper tags from Virginia that we got when we bought the car (temp. because we did not need to register the car). This hasn't been a big deal on the streets but A) it's been an annoyance when going anywhere official and B) we were unsure what difficulties would come up trying to cross borders. Our passports and ID cards were good enough for Tirana city driving, but crossing into Montenegro and Croatia was going to be a little more awkward.

But they rushed our plates for us, we paid all of the necessary fees, and now the new plates have been mounted on the car. I look so much more official now when driving, even if it makes me stand out in ways not necessarily preferable (I prefer normal, local plates - no need to further signal my foreign-ness). I guess I'll take what the law calls for over what I would prefer, even as I drive past any number of seemingly counterfeit US plates here.