Giggling and joking in the mid-winter sun, Majlinda, Genta and Lenda are looking forward to the weekend - much like teenagers anywhere in the world.

The girls say that "with independence everything could change"

Sitting on a concrete ledge in Pristina city centre, they are metres away from one of the many United Nations bases here.

But increasingly prominent are signs that change is coming - and coming very soon.

A sandwich shop, brandishing a huge orange banner saying Congratulation Independence, is doing a brisk trade.

The city's municipal authorities are also very busy.

Graffiti is being hastily painted over, a road sweeper weaves between the trees on the main pedestrianised street - and a cherry picker crane lifts a worker three storeys high to install a floodlight fitting for the expected celebrations.

Posters are going up all over Kosovo's capital, expressing gratitude for the Nato air strikes in 1999 that quashed persecution by the Serbs of the ethnic Albanian majority here.

'Big day'

Kosovo has waited years for this - and now appears to be hours away from becoming Europe's newest country.

Kosovo's capital is in a festive mood

The three girls gossiping away in the sunshine might only be 14, but the historical significance of independence is not lost on them for a moment.

Lenda Hysemi tells me conversations so often in Kosovo return to the same theme: "We learn about it in school, we learn about it from our parents, our teachers, from everyone."

"Then you flick on the TV, and it's there as well. Everybody talks about it, when independence comes it'll be a really big day," she adds.

I decide - naively - to ask the girls if they are looking forward to the big party that is expected here when the declaration from Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci comes.

They are teenagers after all - and there is talk that 80 tonnes of fireworks have been imported to ensure the celebrations do not go unnoticed.

Lenda suppresses a teenage giggle, but flashes an expression that screams this is about so much more than a knees-up.

Her friend Genta Begiru chips in: "This is very important to us - I think it will change everything. It will change our lives and give us better lives - that is what this is all about."

Majlinda Houzimi, sitting next to Genta, nods rigorously in agreement.

'Real test'

And that is the human story here.

Posters around Pristina express gratitude to the EU, UK and US

Geopolitics and international wrangling over territorial sovereignty can only mean so much to a Kosovo teenager, growing up in a place that is crushingly poor. Nearly every other adult here does not have a job.

So what does the future hold for Majlinda, Genta and Lenda? The rhetoric of independence casts a long spell - but will its imminent reality change things enough?

The education, including English lessons, these girls are getting could provide them - should they choose to take it - with a ticket out of here.

And to them, that will be the real test of the new, independent Kosovo.

"Sure, with independence we want to stay," says Lenda. "Maybe people think with going abroad they can have a better life. But with independence everything could change, we might not have to leave this place. We could actually live here forever."

Kosovo's next generation is placing quite a weight of expectation on what soon could be its fledgling, prototype government.