Romania

What is the real Romania?

I don't know. I've only been here a week.

I expected to see a lot of crumbling building, decrepit factories, children sitting on the street begging, old women crying, crazy driving, Art Nouveau architecture and a land of paradoxes and contradictions.

Was I right?

Yes, in a way.

I guess the best way to imagine Romania is to look at my "real" Romania picture. The vestiges of Communism are there. Not hidden, but not in the forefront either. I sat on that terrace for four hours with some friends, just looking around the Piata. It's beautiful. And then I noticed the apartment block behind the buildings.

You don't have to travel far to see burned out, falling down architecture. The "stereotypical" building picture was taken 10 metres behind the Piata Unirii.

Children have interrupted every outside meal I've had in order to beg for money. All we can do is ignore them. Adults and children alike walk around tables with cards announcing that they're deaf-mutes and placing annoying musical keychains on them in hopes that a patron will buy them.

This makes me think of two things:
a) They must be deaf-mutes because otherwise, they wouldn't be able to stand the annoying music (in the case of yesterday, a musical stuffed animal playing "Kiss Kiss Kiss" by the Venga Boys)
b) Calling out "Va rog" (please) to them as they walk past to see if they really are deaf mutes. Yes, this is mean. However, they are the best dressed "beggars" in town. New sneakers, clean clothes, temporary tattoos, nicely arranged hair...

I've seen teens and adults sniffing glue from bags. I was scared but Delphine told me that they're more "peace and love" than violent. Leave them alone and they'll leave you alone.

Like a bee, I guess.

An old man is always in Opera Square, standing by a set of bathroom scales. He's weighing people for money. He always looks so hopeful, not like the snotty sales associates who ignore you in shops. He, like so many others, doesn't want to beg, but to provide a service for money.

The only sight that I absolutely can't stand, are the elderly begging women. They're the real victims of Communism. 15 years ago, everyone had a job, no matter how menial, and were paid a living wage. These women saw their social security networks disappear. Most are widows. They stand by the corner clutching large bouquets of field flowers or smaller bouquets of city garden flowers, begging for someone to give them a coin. They look like carbon copies of each other: small, hunched and bent, wearing a black dress and a black headcloth. Their wrinkles are facinating. I'd love to take a portrait of every old woman I see. I'd love to talk to them, to get their stories.

Fifteen years ago, people had money but nothing to buy. Now, people have no money but the shops are full of items. I'm being paid a very healthy wage by Romanian standards yet even *I* can't afford the clothes. Most are of poor quality, yet the same price you would pay at home: T-shirts for $25. Jeans for $75. Brand name clothing like Addidas and Benneton that costs as much as a month's salary.

A beautiful picture of Brasov (long story. My friend needs this picture hosted somewhere so I'm shoving it here)

Real Romania 

Stereotypical, not typical, Romania 

Piata Unirii 

Piata Unirii 

Serbian Church at the Piata Unirii 

Mine and Delphine's favourite building 

A typical downtown building 

The rest of Opera Square 

A typical shopping street 

Yes, McDonald's has even managed to penetrate Romania. In the most historic corner of the city. Strangely, this Ronald spoke perfect Romanian. 

The holes at the top of the building were caused by bullets, fired by the police on protesters in December, 1989. 

This is where it all started. The Opera building in Timisoara 

The Greek Orthodox cathedral at sunset 

Fountain in Opera Square 

View from the IIT 

View from the IIT 

Turkey

Hmmm, maybe Turkey isn't such a good idea after all.

On the morning of August 25, 2004, a bomb exploded outside a bank in the southern town of Dortyol, near the Syrian border, injuring at least seven individuals and damaging several buildings.

On August 23, 2004, an explosion occurred in the harbour of the southern resort town of Antalya. One person was killed and another injured in the attack.

On August 10, 2004, two near-simultaneous blasts struck two hotels in tourist areas of Istanbul. At least two people were killed and nine injured in these apparent terrorist attacks. Two additional bombs exploded at a fuel storage depot on the outskirts of Istanbul, causing damage but no casualties.

On July 2, 2004, at least five people were killed and 23 injured in a bomb attack on the provincial governor in the eastern town of Van.

On June 24, 2004, four people were killed and 16 injured in an explosion aboard a bus in Istanbul. This incident happened just hours after a small bomb exploded and wounded two individuals near an Ankara hotel.

On May 16, 2004, four bombs exploded in Ankara and Istanbul, targeting branches of a British-owned bank. The explosions caused only minor damage, and there are no reports of injuries. On May 20, another small blast occurred near a Western fast food outlet in Istanbul.

Pr0n

There's a book in the window of the local bookstore.

Cum se Face

It's a children's encyclopedia. Basically it translates to "How do they do that?"

It will be mine.

Conference

So the conference is over. The conference, that amazingly wonderfully sounding conference, that I arranged my trip around so that I could attend, is over.

Was it everything I thought of and more?

No.

I got my first taste of European pedagogical bureaucracy. 50 academics in a room arguing about the future of intercultural education in Europe. Since no one said anything important or Earth-shattering, I amused myself by drawing in my notebook.

Those involved, representing Scotland, Belgium and Romania, had been working together on Newtech, for three years.

Newtech is (in my opinion), a glorified penpal system for European school children, where they can discuss their schools, cities and culture with another foreign school. However, the Romanians and Scots were very excited about it.

There were speeches, more speeches, discussions, debates, analyses and more talking, from 9 am to 6 pm all weekend. No one could stay on topic. During a plenary session, what was supposed to have been feedback about the beta testing turned into the speakers' personal histories.

I felt so bad for the translators. We had three people translating from:
Romanian to English
Romanian to French
English to French
English to Romanian
French to English
French to Romanian

Bearing in mind that there were only three translators. You do the math.

The French translator was sick and we got serenaded with gags and pants and groans.

I stupidly decided to volunteer to do a powerpoint presentation for one of the feedback sessions. I wanted to go with the Scots but I was asked to stay with the Romanian/Belgian group. I had people speaking Romanian, French and English around me, and use a horrible translation to French as my basis. No one was making any sense. I heard someone speaking Romanian in the audience with a microphone. I was sitting beside the amplifier. I heard the French translation in my headset overtop of the Romanian in the audience, people talking in their seats, all the while trying to pick out what was important in between the "I am so great" and "This is my opinion of the school system in Europe" (none of which was valid). I seriously thought I was going to go insane. Is this what schitzophrenia feels like?

Strangely enough, the Belgians were often caught sneaking out of the presentations for coffee, cigarette breaks, etc. When asked why, they claimed that they couldn't work with the others as they had too different styles of communication and presentation.

This, from a conference on interculturality!

There was one good point though:
Actually testing out the software. I was with a Brit (a professor of sociology from Chichester University) and two Romanians. Our task was to form a partnership with another group (school) and share a bit of culture.

We were representing Koln. We made a boring profile and no one wanted to partner with us. So we deliberately decided to be silly and started all over.

We called our group "Sausages". We had to have a picture. So of course we selected the funniest one we could find.


We named all the students after meats (Bratwurst, Weiner, Soy Dog [he was a vegetarian], etc etc). We had so much fun. Our members were all professionals and academics, so I loved seeind them giggling about what sausage to name themselves after.

We eventually partnered ourselves with Ljubljana for a friendly discussion about sausages. Check out our friendship offer!

Luckily, all the food was free.

Experiences like this make me doubt the validity of governmental projects. This was sponsored through the Council of Europe. They have a set amount of money for projects no matter what the country. Obviously, money goes a lot further here. We were able to fly in 50 professional academics and guests from across Europe, put them up in a 3star hotel for three nights, provide unlimited beer and wine, three meals in fancy restaurants and provide inter-city transportation.

It almost seemed like they were finding ways *to* spend money. I understand that they get a set amount irregardless of where the project is based. However, I wish we could have used that money for supplied, or books, or for a rainy day fund for the institute.

It's like Canada, in a way. The government has to ask for a set amount of money. if they don't spend it, they can't get as much next year. So the government officials find outlandish ways of using their "expense accounts" to ensure equal or greater funding in the subsequent years.

Speaking of conferences, I was invited to participate in a day day conference on Caucasian and Balkan issues, to take place in Ankara, Turkey.

Constructivism, revisted

I was asked to translate an official Council of Europe document on constructivism in regards to education for an upcoming conference on the use of ITC in intercultural communication-education. French to English. Easy stuff. No problemo.

More like pure agony.

I went cross-eyed before I was done the first paragraph. And I had 10 more pages to go.

"Une connaissance ne peut être à la fois « construite » et « transmise », être « extérieure au sujet » et « construite par ce même sujet ». Tout sépare ces deux conceptions de la construction des connaissances. Un cadre de référence constructiviste ne peut être en même temps ontologique et vice-versa. Ce serait une erreur fondamentale. Il est donc important pour une enseignante ou un enseignant de clarifier sa propre position. À défaut, il risque l'incohérence dans sa pratique quotidienne."

"Un cadre de références n'est ni une méthode, ni un projet pédagogique ; encore moins un ensemble de procédés didactiques ou de recettes « permettant d’enseigner plus efficacement » en s’inscrivant dans un courant à la mode. Il n'existe pas de « méthode » socioconstructiviste, ni de « projet pédagogique » socioconstructiviste pas plus que de « didactique » socioconstructiviste de tel ou tel savoir codifié. Récupérer le socioconstructivisme en termes de méthode ou de procédés didactiques revient à le dénaturer et à engendrer des effets pervers dommageables pour les élèves."

For everyone else who took Global Governance with me, we all know how much we hated international relation theory. This was much much worse.

I decided to share my agony with other IT students.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! You went all the way to Romania to translate constructivist fluffy bullshit! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! -Costa"

Thanks, Costa, I needed that!

IIT

I got to meet everyone at the Institute. I'd like to say that I sat at a table and had eight pairs of beady eyes staring at me. In reality, everyone is super super friendly. Everyone can speak at least a little English. I know I'm going to like it here!

I was invited for a fairwell party for the other interns. I had to meet them at Napolean, a pizza restaurant/disco. It's in The Complex, the university centre.

Romanian university centres are a world unto themselves. Having went to a small university in a university town, I didn't know what the university experience would be like here.

It was a virtual city itself! The residences are covered with advertising murals advertising Coca Cola and who knows what else. There were paths between the buildings lined with shwarma stands, burger joints, a strip club, various cafes and restaurants... It was surreal!

Drunken old men staggered about and dogs ran everywhere. I felt sick to my stomach when I saw some shabbily-dressed teenagers sitting on the side of the road breathing in glue. I knew I would find that in Romania but I expected it to be in some seedy corner, not in the centre of the student "compound".

The party itself was a lot of fun. We got tonnes of beer and wine and sang and danced and drank. We danced "traditional" Romanian dances to "traditional" Romanian music, but this was basically us doing the can-can to bad folk music.

One of the other interns, a Romanian, started standing very close to me. Everyone had their arms around each other so I jokingly put my arm around him. Bad idea. I must have given him the wrong impression or something. He insisted on dancing with me for the rest of the night. It was actually very sweet. I wasn't interested in him but everyone was enjoying acting crazy so I was jumping around and laughing like everyone else.

I had to take a rest from dancing so I sat on the couch and started talking to his little sister. She kept asking me what I thought of him. She would give thumbs up or thumbs down sign after each of my answers, so I knew he was watching.
"What do you think of my brother?"
"he's ok" (thumbs up sign)
"do you think he's cute?"
"I don't know" (thumbs down sign)
"do you think he's nice?"
"sure!" (thumbs up sign)
"do you have a boyfriend?"
"what's that supposed to mean?" (thumbs down sign)
"do you have a boyfriend in Romania?"
"no" (thumbs up sign)
"are you interested in my brother?"
"not really" (thumbs down sign)
"why not?"
"because I just met him and I don't know him" (thumbs down sign)
"oh. Do you think you could be interested in him?"
"um...he's a lot younger than me [I thought he was 19 or so], so probably not" (thumbs down sign)
And on and on.

Then I found out that he was 16. I felt like a paedophile.

Pizza pizza

All of the other interns were great. We went out for pizza a la Romania. It is very simple, but I can see why this way doesn't work back home.

Start at 9:00 pm
Take 20 people
Add 20 pizza orders
Serve 2 pizzas at 10:00 pm
Serve 2 more pizzas at 10:20 pm
Serve 2 more pizzas at 10:40 pm
Serve 2 more pizzas at 11:00 pm
Serve 2 more pizzas at 11:20 pm
Serve 2 more pizzas at 11:40 pm
Have 3 interns leave because it's too late to eat
Serve 2 more pizzas at 12:00 am
Serve the remaining pizzas at 12:30 am

By this time, either everyone had shared or gone home, so the last 3 pizzas remained uneaten on the table.

Have I mentioned that Romanians put fried eggs on their pizzas? Completely bizarre!

Then we went bar hopping. I felt a little embarassed because everyone was screaming in their respective languages in the streets. It was pouring rain and we just kept toating each other under the awning. "To Romania!" "To the IIT!" "To beer!" I toasted everyone with "To the interns, who made the one non-European feel so welcome". Everyone cheered.

According to the Belgians, when you toast someone, you have to look them in the eyes. Otherwise, you'll have 7 years bad sex.

We were all careful to always look everyone in the eyes during a toast.

Cling wrap

I grew up watching commercials for Glad Cling Wrap. They always showed the superiority of their plastic wrap and mocked the competitors'. Having grown up with only Glad and occasionally a roll from the dollar store, I never thought the competitors' brands existed.

Until now.

They do exist and they come from Romania.

Try putting plastic wrap (*not* cling wrap) on a piece of watermelon. I might as well have been trying to put an octopus in a basket. The stuff just would not stay on.

I have yet to try the aluminum foil that came with the plastic wrap but my expectations are just as low.

Saturday

I mainly puttered around the apartment, feeling almost domestic. My director came by with my gsm phone and I amused myself all afternoon by imputing everyone's contact information.

Remember in Sex and the City, when Carrie decided that she had learned enough French to brave a day of shopping in Paris? Well, I decided I was brave enough to brave a day of grocery shopping alone. Luckily, it was a beautiful day (so I couldn't slip on the floor) and there is a little grocery store at the corner of my street.

The staff must have thought I was handicapped. I alternated between huge smiles (a la "wow! I didn't know you could get this here!") to fear (when I realised that the standard English-French-Spanish-German-Portuguese-some Scandinavian language product information labels didn't exist). It's pretty bad when I have to rely on a language I have lived in for 2 days to make out ingredient lists and product guides. Here, I have the choice of Romanian-Bulgarian-Serbo-Croatian-Russian-Ukrainian-Hungarian-Lithuanian-Latvian-Estonian. Romanian is the most comprensible only because it's a Romance language.

You know that scene in Clerks where Dante and what's-his-name make fun of the milk maid? That's me. I was taking everything down, reading it carefully, turning it upside down. A sales associate asked if she could help me and I told her I didn't speak Romanian. After that, they left me alone to do my observing in peace.

I was psyched coming home. Until I realised I was locked out of my apartment. I still don't know how it happened. Apparently, the inside lock got turned. However, when that happens, usually you can't close the door properly. Oh well. I had a neighbour talk to my director and his wife had to come over and let me in. At least my yoghurt didn't spoil.

I bought 16 containers of yoghurt. Seven of which were Keffer. I love Keffer (Keffir). A container of it at home is almost $4.00. A container of it here is $0.40.

I called Delphine, the French intern, finally and we made arrangements to meet. She is working in a project to encourage Roma children to take part in sport. There are around 20 other interns from various European countries taking part.

Money

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: I spent over a million on groceries. This is probably the first and last eight months of my live where I am a billionaire.

Going native

I'm sitting in an internet cafe (Cafe Java). It's dark, and if I tilt my head a certain way, I can imagine myself home using the family computer at 3 am in the morning with the lights off so no one knows I'm awake.

On a lighter note, Romania has the best cottage cheeses. Well, maybe not the Scotsburn lasagna-style cottage cheese, but pretty damn good ones. They come in blocks which you have to slice off. For someone who can eat a tub of the stuff in one sitting, this is pure heaven.

Melons are super cheap.

I bought 3 kinds of cheese.

You know that Reese's Peanut Butter Cups commercial where the peanut butter tries to leave the chocolate but realises how much better off he (or it) is inside the cup? Pfft... The chocolate should tell the peabnut butter to get the hell out.

Romania sells chocolate covered cottage cheese. It's like a less rich and less sweet cheesecake in stick form. I bought 4 and already ate 3 (at $0.33 each, who can stop me?).

Il mio apartamento

My apartment is in a quiet neighbourhood with lots of trees. It's one of the communist-block buildings but it's beautiful inside. There is a quiet courtyard with grape trees. Inside, it's all tiled. I have 1.5 bathrooms, a bidet (!), a tub/jacuzzi, a bedroom, a huge kitchen, a living room which is off limits (nothing there anyways except some sculptures and a couch) and a huge TV. Romania has better channels than Canada! They have French, English, Italian, Spanish, German, Russian (Bulgarian?) and Romanian TV. All the non-Romanian channels are subtitled. Hopefully I'll learn Romanian that much quicker now. Unless I have a repeat of the dreadful kyssa-kissa episode in Sweden where I mispronounced/mixed up the words 'to kiss' and 'to pee'.

Ro-Mania!

My flight was non-eventful. Well, the flight part was. I called my mother from the Montreal airport to tell her I had arrived safely and would in no way miss my flight to Vienna. I saw four Middle Eastern men with huge beards, turbans and long white cloaks. She told me that there were often Middle Eastern men on her flights and while she gets wary, nothing's ever happened. Besides...I was in the international departures section. What would be the chances of them being on my same flight?

Pretty good, actually. They were in the Vienna waiting area when I got there. I started to freak out but reminded myself that the acts of 21 people did not dictate a whole population. I made sure I sat next to them and smiled at the oldest man. He smiled back. I relaxed. Then I realised I must have looked like the whore of Babylon as I was wearing a lycra tank top. Even though it was summer, I put on my sweater. When we started to board, I caught another man's eye and smiled and he smiled back and I felt fine. Besides...they had lots of carry-on luggage with them.

Before boarding my flight to Timisoara, I met some Romano-Canadians going there on vacation. They had immigrated to Canada 10 years ago but we exchanged our information. I sat next to a man from Sweden and we babbled in Swedish for the whole flight. When I got off the airplane, the Romano-Canadians were waiting for me. They also introduced me to another Romano-Canadian named (what else) Adrian. He was very nice and offered to show me around this weekend.

I met my coordinator, Calin, who is just as nice as in his emails and we went to the apartment. Romanians are even worse drivers than the Italians! I went commando by not using the seatbelt (which was broken anyways). Almost made me feel like a native!

Pre-flight jitters

Maud and I were able to meet Marc (aka Le Tigre) for drinks. Marc's vow of no alcohol (because of his shots) flew out the window as he described his visa problems, which made mine seem like small fish. We got some beers, Maud drank coffee and we had a lovely chat. I got a little sloshed but it was nice to just rant about bureaucracy and visas and talk about what would be happening in the next six months.

After parting ways with Marc, Maud and I did a little shopping. Still a little tipsy, I dragged her into BCBG Max Azria. I was almost drunk enough to buy something (off the -70% off rack, naturally) but thought better of it.

Anyways, off to the airport!

I'm off

Bye bye!

Montreal

I had a little stopover in Montreal where Maud (the intern going to Bucharest) met me at the airport. We went to her place, which is in the Saint Catherines district.

Yep, the heart of gay Montreal.

The first thing I see when I get out of the taxi are two men holding hands. Quite a shock for a girl from small town New Brunswick. I also saw a gay Tim Horton's. There were rainbow triangles in all the windows. I wanted to get a picture but I didn't want to seem rude.

At night, we went to see Mado, the famous transvestite, for 'her' cabaret show. It was Acadian Pride night and it was a riot to see grown men in Acadian-style dresses dancing traditional Acadian dances. The lady next to me was from Bathurst and she was singing and dancing along. If only my grandmother could do something like that!

Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed: A Small Lesson in Conservatism

The story of two boys who dream about opening a lemonade stand when a strange thing happens...Their dream gets stuck in Liberaland!

"Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed! A Small Lesson in Conservatism" is a wonderful way to teach young children the valuable lessons of conservatism. In simple text, parents and children follow Tommy and Lou on their quest to earn money for a swing set their parents cannot afford.

As their dream gets stuck in Liberaland, Tommy and Lou’s lemonade stand is hit with many obstacles. Liberals keep appearing from behind their lemon tree, taking half of their money in taxes, forbidding them to hang a picture of Jesus atop their stand, and making them give broccoli with each glass sold.

Law after law instituted by the press-hungry liberals finally results in the liberals taking over Tommy and Lou’s stand and offering sour lemonade at astronomical prices to the customers.

Riiiiiiiight.

Incidentally, one can also purchase:
*Conservatives are from Mars (Liberals are from San Francisco)
*Liberwocky: What Liberals Say and What They Really Mean

More pictures

I finally got access to a scanner. Sorry for the lame captions. It's 12:30 am and I couldn't think of anything better.

Upon closer inspection... 

Blue Steel or Le Tigre? 

The g33ks shall inherit the Earth 

DFAIT interns 

Watch out for the sharks 

CIDA interns 

Lee's a little too excited 

Rob and Karla