Professional wrestling has become pretty popular here within the last year. One of the sports stations started showing wrestling each week about a month after I got here. Now you see t-shirts with wrestlers on them. Just yesterday I was walking down the street and I passed two little kids. The only part of their conversation I caught was the name "Big Show", one of the more popular wrestlers.

All of this just made me stop and think last night about how Albanians are influenced by America, so I've made a list, cause everyone likes lists. Especially Americans.

1) Media - This is of course at the top of the list. Albania gets the mainstream stuff like Eminem and Star Wars, but I've also seen some really random stuff. I think that the TV stations here get a really good price for undistributed b-movies. Two nights ago I watched some movie with Sean Astin and Stacey Keach. It was so bad, I can't believe people paid to have it made.

2) Politics - Like everywhere else, the U.S. government's opinion makes a difference in decisions here. Albania has around 100 soldiers stationed in Iraq (part of the far-reaching coalition).

3) Food - Coke, Pepsi, Nestle, General Mills...All of the major American multinational food companies are here.

4) Clothes - As with food, all of the major clothing companies are here too...Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Levi's, Polo, etc.

5) Missionaries - It's not difficult to find an American missionary in about every city you visit here. Tirana is full of them, and the LDS church has about 70 missionaries in Albania. In fact, the Mormons are building a big new church in Keneta.

6) English - It's kind of an indirect influence, but the domination of English as the emerging global language is certainly felt here.

7) Me - I suppose I am an American influence as well.