Establishing Our Essential Basics

When Barry and I made the decision to leave the US and make a new home in Albania we agreed we’d be graceful when encountering bureaucracy. There’d be no grousing or grumbling. We were prepared to embody flexibility and adaptability. It turns out that was a wise decision.

I should also mention we had to apply the same grace to the California Secretary of State and the California Department of Justice, who played an important, though sometimes frustrating role in us getting our immigration papers in order.

This blog post chronicles the various barriers we had to cross to get our essential basics in place. You may not find it particularly entertaining but it’s full of “heads up” information if you’re thinking of moving to Albania.

Thank God for Sonila Demi from ExPatsInAlbania.com! She was our close companion during our first few months of getting acclimated.

Hiring Flora, Our Cleaning Lady

The first thing Sonila did when we signed our apartment lease on November 15, 2024 was to connect us with Flora, her cleaning lady. Here’s Flora, Albania’s best housekeeper, vacationing with her husband and working like mad in our apartment.

Sonila told us Flora was 1,000 lek per hour and she’d need three hours a week. With the currency conversion at the time 3,000 lek translated to $31.80. A bargain indeed! And I’d never have to clean another toilet.

Flora’s English is just slightly better than our Albanian, but we got by. In the first few weeks Sonila was on tap as translator. After that we learned to use Google Translate. Barry entertains Flora every week with his stabs at Albanian pronunciation. She actually doubles over in friendly laughter. Slowly we add a new Albanian word here and there. Flora is also adding English words to her vocabulary. She says Barry is very funny. 

Currency Conversion

We were dealing with many new things the first months after our arrival and we had a hefty “getting settled” fund so we weren’t paying much attention to the currency conversion rate.

When we first got here, we could look at Albanian currency, move the decimal two points to the left and we were close to the value of the US dollar. We’d look at a 1,000 lek and see $10. 5,000 lek looked like $50.

Fast forward a few months when the value of the US dollar started its downward slide in currency conversion. Today, the end of July 2025, that 3,000 lek a week that was $31.80 to today when it is $34.80. That doesn’t seem too bad until you get into bigger numbers. This July it cost us $829.00 to acquire 700 Euros for our landlady who wants the rent in Euros. 

You can be sure today we are keeping a close eye on the conversion rate and thinking twice when buying an “extra.” Still we are living a carefree financial life which is why we left the US in the first place.

Accessing Medical Care

Sonila connected us with ABC Medical Clinic, a small clinic with two English-speaking family doctors and two English-speaking physical therapists. Sonila sat with us, helping us fill out the medical history forms, then patiently waited while Barry and I each had our general physical exams. Later we also sent the clinic our Kaiser medical records. It turns out that was a good move because it wasn’t long before Barry and I needed doctoring. (More on that when I post the account of the medical issues that showed up rather quickly for both of us. Don’t worry. We are doing fine now.)

Albanian Banking

Getting established with an Albanian bank was no walk in the park. It’s a good thing we didn’t know that ahead of time so we more or less were able to summon up a modicum of flexibility and adaptability when approaching unexpected “speedbumps.”

The reason to make getting established with a local bank a priority was because of Albania’s latest additional Retirement Visa requirement. Because we were going to apply for a Retirement Visa our retirement benefit had to be direct deposited in an Albanian bank. Sonila took us to Union Bank, the only bank in town that will accept deposits from non-residents.

To prevent Barry from also having to have his Social Security benefit direct deposited in an Albanian bank, Sonila advised us to have me apply for residency first, based on my Social Security benefit with the plan to add Barry as my spouse once I got residency. This way Barry could keep his Social Security in the US to avoid having all our eggs in one basket.

Sonila explained my Social Security benefits would be deposited at the bank in US dollars, not lek.

“Okay.” I had no idea the hoops I’d have to jump through to make my Social Security dollars spendable. Businesses will accept euros or lek but not US dollars.

Sonila acted as translator and helped us fill in the bank forms. The first thing we learned was that joint accounts are not acceptable. “But that is how we have always paid for household expenditures,” we said.

“Don’t worry,” said Sonila. “You can open an account to receive your Social Security benefit direct deposit. This will be a US dollar account. And Barry can open a lek account and you can use it as your joint shared account by having a Power of Attorney that lets you access the account the same as Barry. 

That seemed reasonable.

I opened my bank account to receive my Social Security direct deposit and Barry opened a regular Albanian account.

One interesting field to complete on the bank account application form was to fill in our fathers’ first name. Why? Sonila explained it is to individualize our account names. My dad’s name is Don so my bank account is in the name of Jennifer Grainger Don Schoenborn. I guess this is to assure there won’t be an account mix up with all the other depositors named Jennifer Grainger Schoenborn. Okay. The same goes for Barry Jay James Schoenborn.

A Visit to the Notary

A week or so later Sonila asked us to meet her at the office of a notary to notarize the Power of Attorney stating that in any and every circumstance when one of us is conducting business we could each represent the other when the other is not present. The Power of Attorney form to be notarized was written in Albanian so Sonila had a professional translator meet us at the notary’s office. He went line by line over the four-page Power of Attorney, translating each paragraph then asking if I understood—to which I said, “Yes.” We finally reached the end and I signed my copy.

The process was repeated with Barry.

I paid the translator 2,500 lek and he was on his way. Now, the notary could notarize the documents and we’d be on our way. It should have happened that way, but once the documents were notarized the notary’s printer malfunctioned and the documents could not be printed. Sonila told us not to worry. The notary would inform her when the documents were printed and Sonila would come back to pick them up. When Sonila had a few printed copies, she dropped one off at the bank for their file.  

Exercising the Power of Attorney

The first time the opportunity arose for me to access Barry’s account the bank refused to honor the Power of Attorney because it did not include these exact words: “Jennifer may withdraw money from this account without Barry’s presence.” The Power of Attorney only stated I could act in Barry’s name under every possible circumstance. OK. The bank finally agreed to provide two identical debit cards. Note that the cards couldn’t be used at a teller window in the bank; they could only be used at the ATM where I could deposit or withdraw cash that way. Later we found a better way.

Redirecting My Social Security Direct Deposit to the Union Bank

I searched the www.ssa.gov website and located instructions on how to activate a direct deposit transfer. That was when I still had my American phone and could receive a “verify your identity” code. I no longer have that phone so as of this moment I have no way to access my account on the ssa.gov website. Just so you know I did try to set up an ID.me login but the systems glitched halfway through with a message that “something malfunctioned. We will get back to you with a solution.” No, they never got back to me. That never happened.

Still, I was able to access the unique requirements for international direct deposit procedures and download the appropriate form to be filled out and delivered to the American Embassy in ROME! What? We have an American Embassy within walking distance of our apartment.

Okay. No grousing or grumbling. Calling on my flexibility and adaptability qualities I chose to just follow the annoying directions. I carefully filled out my part of the form then asked Sonila to meet me at the bank so she could ask the bank officials to sign their part of the form and stamp it with their official blue-inked stamp. Thank you, Sonila.

I took the transfer form home, made a copy, and stuck the original in an envelope addressed to the American Embassy in Rome and walked it to the closest DHL office. The DHL fee to send a letter to Rome, Italy: $45.00. It was worth it to be sure the envelope reached the proper destination. I walked home with nothing more to do but wait.  

I continued to watch my American bank account on Social Security day, which was the third Wednesday of the month. I knew it generally took two months to move the direct deposit from one bank to another. My regular US deposit was there. So far, so good.

I didn’t receive anything from the Embassy in Rome indicating they received my request. I could no longer access my Social Security account because of no longer having my American phone to receive an identity verification code. The best I could do was check each month to see if my American bank account was still receiving the direct deposit.

On the third month . . . no American direct deposit. I went online to Union Bank. Yay! There was my direct deposit minus the $5 “commission” and $1.50 “fee” — for what I don’t know. No worries. I am thrilled to receive my benefit every month.  It continues to arrive like clockwork on the 3^rd day of the month. I don’t know why it isn’t on the same schedule as in the past, but I like getting it at the first of the month rather than the middle of the month.

I was glad I stayed neutral, letting the process play out rather than be anxious and worried the whole time that something might go wrong.

Withdrawing Funds from My Albanian Bank

The first thing I found out was I couldn’t withdraw my Social Security dollars from the bank’s ATM. The second thing I found out was the bank would not exchange my US dollars for euros or lek. I was momentarily stunned but quickly realized all I had to do was withdraw $1,100 US dollars (my half of our shared monthly expenses budget) at the teller window and stop at my neighborhood money exchange on my way back home.

I’d push my $1,100 through the opening at the exchange’s teller window and ask to convert the US dollars to 700 euros and the rest in lek in small bills. When I got home, I had the 700 euros for the month’s rent, 120 lek for four weeks of Flora’s housecleaning, a 150 lek guesstimate of what the utilities would be, and about 3,000 lek left over to add to the shared household expense fund that would cover the rest of the budget.

Barry’s Social Security

It was no walk in the park for Barry to withdraw his Social Security from his Schwab account. His monthly routine required that he take his Schwab debit card to any bank’s ATM and withdraw $1,100 for his half of the shared household account. It is kind of magical how the machine withdraws the right amount of US dollars from his Schwab account and converts it to about 110,000 lek dispensed by the ATM.

Barry’s dance with the money system and Schwab was complicated by Schwab’s $1,000 per day withdrawal limit. And the ATM often balked at large withdrawals. Barry would withdraw 60,000 lek which translated to $600.00 in our minds. I’d withdraw 50,000 lek which translated to $500.00 in my mind from my Schwab account and give it to Barry who deposited the lek in the “shared household account.”

Barry would pay me back by transferring the $500 plus whatever the bank fees were from his Schwab account to my Schwab account. This definitely qualified as a speed bump but we did pretty well keeping our cool. It just is what it is and that’s it.

Are You Still With Me? There’s More!  

Wait a minute! Because of the exchange rate Barry’s Schwab withdrawal was way more than $1,100 equaling the 110,000 lek spit out from the ATM. It was two months later that we realized the inequality. So now before Barry makes a withdrawal from his Schwab account, he has to figure out the current exchange rate and request a smaller amount of lek to equal $1,100.   

After the third month of that when we realized hardly anyone will accept a debit card (so far only two grocery stores and one restaurant have accepted the debit card) making Barry’s Union Bank “household shared account” way more trouble than it’s worth. We created our own cash stash with easy access to handle all our household transactions.

Live and learn!

Receiving My “Pink Card”

Once my application for residency was approved the next step was a visit to a government agency called Borders and Immigration—a fifteen minute or so taxi ride to the outskirts of the city. Sonila and I arrived at the office building and saw there was a line of ten or so people ahead of us. Sonila told me to step aside and sit on the chair to the left of the line. It was blazing hot with no shade. Not to worry. When a government official opened the door Sonila spoke to him pointing toward me, then gave me the signal to come to the head of the line and enter the office. In a few minutes I was invited into a large cubicle and seated facing a woman official. Sonila stood to the side to act as my translator.

The first request was to be fingerprinted on a digital pad. Oh, oh. I knew for sure there would be no readable prints. For whatever reason it proved to be no problem. My fingerprints were accepted with no discussion about them at all. Maybe they deal with lots of older people who have “too faint fingerprints.”

Next, I was asked to face the camera, push my bangs aside, and tilt my head down and CLICK, the official snapped my photo. It looked as bad as any Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) photo I’ve ever had. And just like the DMV, no retakes allowed. And lastly, I was asked to sign my name on one of those digital pads that are nearly impossible to clearly write on.

My visit was complete. Sonila said we’d come back in two weeks to pick up the actual card. Once I had that card, I’d no longer need to carry my passport everywhere I went.

On the way out I asked Sonila if I was taken to the front of the line because I am “elderly”. She said no, it was because I am American. Here’s why.

Americans are Revered by Albanians

Following the end of World War 1 world leaders met at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Leaders of countries contiguous to Albania wanted to eliminate Albania as a country and divide the territory among themselves. But U.S. President Woodrow Wilson advocated for Albania’s independence and sovereignty. Albanians are eternally grateful. They have named two of their roads for two American presidents: Rruga George W. Bush and Rruga Bill Klinton. (Rruga translates as “the road.”)

When Albanians, especially those who grew up under the communist regime of Enver Hoxha, learn I am from California they express how they long to go to America. They see America as the beacon of freedom and a model of democracy.

True, they are currently a bit disturbed by the Trump administration, but their lived experience tells them “this too shall pass.”

Barry’s Residency

Once I had my Pink Card it was Barry’s turn to apply for residency. Sonila needed one more piece of paper to include with Barry’s application. She asked Barry and me to go to the American Embassy to get our marriage certificate “authenticated.” That only took half a day. The staff was very friendly.

Yesterday Barry went to the Borders and Immigration building to get fingerprinted and photographed. I wondered if he would get the same special treatment I got. It turned out there was no line at the office and he was escorted right in. He will go back in two weeks and receive his Pink Card.

Our Albanian friends congratulated us on becoming Albanians in their eyes. They are very proud of their country and appreciate our decision to make Albania our home!

My next blog post will be on the topic of Albanian health care. Both Barry and I have danced with various health issues. What I will say right now is I am very satisfied with the capabilities of the doctors and especially that I can see any specialist I want without having to go through a gate keeper. And . . . a doctor’s visit is about 3,000 lek.  Even with the crummy current exchange rate that works out to be about $34.80 to see a specialist. If I return to that doctor within thirty days regarding the same ailment . . . there is no charge!

If you are curious and want to see a sneak peek at the medical facility, you can google American Hospital 3 in Tirana. If you can’t read Albanian be sure to click the English translation icon.

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