The website formerly known as Ro-Mania: September 2004

Fate

Do you believe in fate?

Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't.

I think it was fate the way I met my first boyfriend. I'm wondering if it's fate the way I met Srdjan.

If I hadn't left Bulgaria early, I wouldn't have met him.
If Rob didn't have to leave as soon as he met me at the station, I wouldn't have met him.
The taxi driver brought me to that one Internet cafe.
If the taxi driver hadn't ripped me off, I wouldn't have had reason to complain to the cafe's manager.

Of course, I'm probably getting way ahead of myself here. I'm just excited because he sent me an email with pictures of monasteries that we can visit.

Rant

You know when I said I wasn't unhappy?

I lied.

Ok that's not the whole truth.

I'm not unhappy but it's definitely getting to the lonely phase. Since I was gone last week, I didn't know that my bills were due, and my cable's been cut.

Good thing I have a laptop and a sizeable DiVX collection.

I don't want to spend my time here always wishing for the future.

Bulgaria in September.

Serbia in October.

Italy in November.

Turkey in December.

France, Portugal, Sweden and Denmark next year.

I need to meet people.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm so envious of the four interns in Belgrade and the two interns in Dhaka.

When I was in Belgrade, I had an instant circle of Canadian, Australian and American friends. The only other anglophones I met here were prissy bible boys.

I don't feel like an expat. I feel like a Romanian. And normal Romanians do normal things. It's so much easier to meet people when you at least speak the same language. I try my best in Romanian (no small feat) and usually get answers back in English. I suppose that doesn't piss me off as much here as in France because I speak fluent French and people still would answer me in English.

I know a certain someone reads this, and although I'll never admit it to you, I'm glad I learned some of your "bruta lingua". I'm getting a lot further along in Italian here than I ever would have thought.

Reminds me of my first night when I wandered aimlessly around my neighbourhood at midnight searching for a phone booth.

"English?"
"nu"
"Francais?"
"nu"
"Espagnol?" (Although now, my Spanish is so rusty that it's reduced to swear words and insults)
"nu"
"Italiano?"
"si"

I also had to use Italian when asking an old man why there were oil fires burning in the ditches close to my apartment.

It's hard to write what I want to say and not sound like a pathetic whiner. I've been using the word "pathetic" a lot lately to describe myself.

At least I'm actually doing work again. Funny how I came all the way to Romania to do exactly what I was doing back home: HTML. I enjoy it though, the mindlessness of it all.

It's not like I would be doing anything different back in Canada. I feel like I should be doing new and exotic things while I'm here. I can drink tea anywhere. Consuming it in Romania doesn't make it anymore exotic or special.

In France, I had a whole residence-full of people to meet. French, Moroccans, Germans and a very special someone all became close friends. Here, my only contact with the locals are my neighbours who think that speaking Romanian louder and faster is the key to my comprehension.

I'm going to my neighbour's village this weekend. He speaks about 50 words of English and loves Pink Floyd and Robert DeNiro. Should make for an interesting weekend.

TMBASE

I didn't know what Bodgan was referring to. So I asked my coworker and it turns out TMBASE is a huge techno/electroclash party held in Timisoara every year.

October 14-16. I will be there.

And so will The Hacker. Too bad Miss Kittin won't be though.

Home

It's strange how at home I feel in Romania. While in Sweden and in France, I always felt distinctly foreign.

At my school in Sweden, I was the only brunette in a sea of blonds. In France, I didn't have the elegance that French girls possess.

Here, I feel at home. I don't look Romanian, yet I don't look that foreign. Everyone tells me I look Russian and many people here have a distinctly Slavic appearance.

I can walk down the street and no one gives me a second glance. Well, they did this morning but that's probably because I'm wearing the first long skirt they've ever seen on a girl under the age of 25.

I feel comfortable here. The fears that I had have long gone. Even the sight of two street kids with glue breaking into a building didn't phase me.

I'm shocked that I don't have the crushing depression that I had in the other countries where I've lived. During an intercultural seminar earlier this year, we learned that adjusting comes through several phases:

a) everything is great, everything is new, life is good
b) you get frustrated by everything
c) you can't communicate, you wish everything was like at home
d) you meet people, start to learn the language, start appreciating the culture for what it is
e) you develop a daily routine
f) you feel comfortable in the society

Or something like that.

I arrived in Sweden in August. By October, I hated it. I hated my family, my school and the society (living in a tiny racist village in the middle of nowhere doesn't help much either). It took me until I moved to Helsingborg to start loving Sweden for what it is.

France was no different. Even though I was there with some university students, I still felt isolated and alone. I had no appetite and I dreaded the school year. Luckily, I made tonnes of friends in my residence and by the end of the year, I didn't want to leave.

Here, everything is natural. Maybe it's because I'm living on my own and I can control what goes on around me, but I haven't been unhappy since I got here (knock on wood). They say you can accept things more easily when you're younger, and I know I wouldn't put up with what I went through in Sweden now. However, I'm not phased by the language barriers, by the crazy drivers or the wild dogs. It's still an adventure here.

Or maybe I'm just growing up.

Language barriers

I still have a hard time shopping for food. Most of the food comes from Romania, Hungary or Russia. If I can't recognise the pictures or the brand name, I don't buy it. I spent 30 minutes last night trying to find Bulgar Wheat, with no success.

Then I realised how many things are written in English. Only English. Many brand name items are written only in English. The candy section is full of American chocolate bars with English writing. Most beauty supplies are written in French or German, with a few Polish versions thrown in for good measure.

It's normal for me as a foreigner to not understand everything written, but I can't imagine how it would be for someone in Romania. Back home, all of the foreign foods had at least a passable English translation. Oriental supermarkets just seemed quaint.

I've always had a deep distrust of non-English food. Maybe it goes back to the Dollar Store, which imports cheap foods from Turkey and Lebanon. The cookies with the Arabic writing looked cool but there was no way I was actually going to eat them.

But yeah, back to the point I was trying to make: How do people go shopping when they can't even understand the language?

Phone cards

I needed a phone card. Romania has two types: the kind with a microchip and the kind with a code. I desperately needed to call my mother and the code cards don't work with public phones. Which sort of defeats the purpose of a phone card, I guess.

The woman showed me two cards: a 100,000 lei card and a 150,000 lei card. I decided on the 100,000 lei card and gave her a 100,000 lei bill. She looks at it and then calls her husband over for some reason. I start thinking that maybe the card was 1,000,000 and not 100,000 (which is impossible). Then I realise that I should really buy the 150,000 lei card instead.

So I pull out a 50,000 lei bill (I told you I'm rich in Romania!) and indicate that I want the other card instead. A customer came over and tried to explain the Romanian money system.

I wanted to scream. I'm not stupid. I've lived here for over a month. I gave the correct amount the first fricken time around. I did not need some teenager counting out zeros for me. "Look: one zero zero, zero zero zero". I told them I hated Romanian money (I do. I have four country currencies in my wallet right now and I can't keep track of anything), grabbed my card and left.

Incidentally, I was able to call my mom and everything is set. I'm going to La Cita Eterna on November 5th (flying into Ancona and 3 hour train ride). We have 10 glorious days together to see Pompeii and Florence, I get to visit a dear friend in Rome and then I come back to Romania.

Withdrawl

Now I'm in withdrawl. I miss Nuno and Cem and Vlad and David and Francesca and everyone else. I slept alone last night for the first time in over a week. I woke up and there were no dried sausages, no grandmother's jelly from Macedonia, no tea, no warm rakia and no Yugoslavians.

I loved Bulgaria. Bulgarians are so warm and friendly. The hardest thing for me to understand was that nodding means 'no' and shaking your head means 'yes'.

When we went to the disco, the DJ played a song for a few seconds and then changed it. I politely asked him if he could play it again. He shook his head. "What a jerk!" I thought.

Then he played the song.

Bulgarian music is fantastic. We were constantly listening to this CD called "Bikini Heat". I can't find anything about it online but it's full of Bulgarian techno. I must find a copy in Romania.

I don't miss the Turkish toilets though. We had normal toilets in our room and the "other" kind in the halls. I do NOT recomment using a Turkish toilet:
a) when you're wearing pants
b) when you've had too much wine
c) when you're female
d) ever

Having grown up with normal, North American-style facilities, I'm not used to things like squatting or aiming. This was doubly apparent when I saw the toilets on the Timisoara-Belgrade train. They were black and red with rust. No toilet paper. I almost started to cry. Seriously, they were the grossest toilets I have ever seen. For the first time in my life, I wished I was a guy.

And I miss Momir.
He was trying to describe the situation in the former Yugoslavia ten years ago.

"How do you say...how do you say...how do you say... (a minute later) ...how do you say....DEEP SHIT!"

It became our running joke during the week.

Home

I'm home. I found an Internet cafe on my street (how convenient).

At the Belgrade Internet cafe, I paid and asked how much a taxi should have cost. One of the clerk's friend's spoke perfect English and was outraged at how much I paid. He offered to personally take me to the station. Since I had almost an hour and a half until my train, I offered to go out for coffee instead. He agreed.

We went to this nice little cafe. We have tonnes in common. He's studying Political Science with a concentration in Balkan Sudies at Yale but is taking the year off. He's a Serbian Croat and came to Belgrade during the war. I told him about going to Croatia to visit Porec last year and he told me the only reason he went there was to see the Basilica. Which was the only reason I went there. He's also a medieval affictionado.

He asked when I would be in Serbia next. He gave me a list of places to see, then offered to go with me. Seeing as I still have 2 days left on my FlexiPass, we're going to keep in contact and maybe do a bit of travelling together. We both love stupid teen movies, American Eagle and the Simpsons. This could be the start of a nice friendship.

On the train back, I was harassed by border guards, had my cabin checked for drugs, yelled at for not understanding how to completely fill in my border form and then accused of not filling in my ticket properly. I knew perfectly well what the ticket controller wanted but I was pissed off and tired so I just pretended to not know a thing he was talking about. He laughed, gave up and then left me alone.

More stats

Ok, time for more ways people have reached this blog.

Google search terms:
a) Marinescu and testicles
b) "vino langa mine, stiu ca vrei"
c) romania and testicles and wife
d) romania and testicles
e) internship in Romania

I'm amused.

Belgrade

I've just spent the past six hours in a Belgrade Internet cafe, updating the blog and chatting on IRC.

Rob met me at the train station. I still feel horrible about what happened.

He had meetings on Wednesday that he changed to Monday in order to get me at the station as I was supposed to arrive Wednesday.

Since I didn't hear anything from him last night when we messaged him with the new travel plans, I assumed either the situation was fine or he just wouldn't show up.

He was there at 5:30 am to give me my money. He told me he had to run back to his apartment to sleep so I was on my own in Belgrade.

I felt horrible.

It's dark and rainy. I had no idea what to do as I have all my luggage with me.

So I did what any normal traveller would do. I got some delicious burec and then got a taxi to an internet cafe. The driver ripped me off. I called him on it and he denied it but I was so tired that I just didn't care.

I just did the currency exchange and I paid him $17.00 for a 10 minute taxi drive. I *knew* it.

So it's 12:50 pm and I've been here since 6:00 am.

It's still raining and I have about 40 lbs of luggage with me so exploring the city is out of the question. My train leaves in less than three hours so I guess I'll stay here until it's time to go back home.

Another 5 hours and 31 minutes of train travel to go.

Sunday

Everyone had to leave early for their flights. We piled into two busses but made many pit stops in order to keep saying goodbye.

I feel so pathetic. I get so attached to people sometimes. I think it just comes back to being alone in Romania. I live alone, cook alone, eat alone and pretty much work alone. Am I lonely? Yes, a bit. Now that Delphine's gone, I don't know anyone and it's hard to make friends when school hasn't started yet.

Those of us who didn't have planes to catch met in Sofia for the day. The Serbs wanted typical Serbian food. We found a restaurant but they proclaimed it "too clean to be a Serbian restaurant". I had my heart set on burec but I was hungry and depressed and just wanted to eat. Iany asked me what I wanted and since the menu was written in Cyrillic, I answered "I don't know". "Well, I can't translate the whole menu for you" "I know, but could you at least read the categories so I know what kind of restaurant this is?" "Just tell me what you want to eat and I'll order it for you!" "But I can't even read the menu so I don't know what kind of food there is!" Eventually, I settled on some greek rice-grape leaves-yoghurt concoction with fries. It wasn't that good but it was food.

We saw a movie being filmed downtown. Apparently, many "European" movies are filmed in Sofia because it's cheap and looks European. This one was about some Russian revolution. I saw extras milling around holding signs with the president's face X'd out in red paint. Very interesting.

We also saw a church from the fifth century in the middle of the presidental palace courtyard. The old and the new, both of which were oppressing in their own ways. I found it strangely appropriate.

Afterwards, I met up with Rob L., a FAC intern in Sofia. We spent the afternoon together while I debated returning home with the Serbs. I weighed my options:
a) staying in Sofia for an extra day
b) returning with two absolutely hillarious guys who would make the 31 hour travel seem much shorter.

I decided that if I wanted to see Sofia, I should give it more than just a day. Rob also wanted to show me some monmasteries, so I thought that I should make a special trip just to see Bulgaria. Plus, I was feeling sad and I just wanted to get back home to my own bed.

I got Rob to message Belgrade Rob, who had all my money in order to see if he could meet me the next morning. An hour later and no answer, so I decided to go ahead with the travel. If he could meet me, great, but if not, oh well.

The trip to Belgrade was hillarious and not without incident. Our train was supposed to leave at 8:50 pm. At 7:30 pm, we went to a trendy cafe for drinks. At 8:10, I warned the others that we should start moving. At 8:20, I said that the train was leaving in 30 minutes. Everyone decided to leave at 8:30. We still had to find a taxi, get our luggage and buy water.

We arrived at the station at 8:40. Never have three people moved so fast. Petar joked that this was exactly like a teen movie with the protagonists running to catch their train. We couldn't find the baggage claim and were asking everyone. Luckily, Serbian is close enough to Bulgarian so Momir and Petar could make themselves understood. Finally, we saw the baggage symbol and ran like hell. Then with all our luggage, we had to find out quay.

We saw the trains but didn't know what side was ours. We asked everyone but no one was willing to help. A maintenance man showed us quay 3 but there were two trains there. Can't Eastern Europeans make anything easy? As soon as we stepped on, someone told us it was the wrong train. So we ran faster than we've ever run before to get on the other train. The whistle was blowing and we were so scared that we wouldn't make it. As soon as we hopped on, it pulled away. Out of breathe and exhilirated, we collapsed in a couchette.

The ticket controller heard us laughing and talking. I'm sure he was very upset at us, but I'm the dumb foreigner so what can he do? When he came by again, he ordered them back to their seats. They said that we met on the train and as I don't speak Serbian, they were helping me get settled in. He said they had to go back in five minutes. He came by a few minutes later so we made a big show about saying goodbye. He went back to his room and we continued to talk.

I wanted them to stay in my couchette with me but they already had seat reservations, they couldn't stay with me. Or so I thought. They told me they like to do things the illegal way and they hid on the top luggage racks. Then Momir found a small space above the door and crawled up there.

So we hung out for another two hours until we almost got to the border when they had to go back to their seats. They promised to come back after we crossed the border but ten minutes later, I was fast asleep.

Luckily, they weren't in the couchette when the border guards came. They inspected every inch of the cabine with a flashlight. I don't want to think about what could have happened had they stayed with me.

Getting down before the ticket controler comes!

The EGP lives on!

Peter and Momir hiding in my couchette

Momir hiding in my couchette

The last of us in Sofia

A Communist-era monument that was turned into a skate park

View of the church

More FAC interns! Rob and I in front of the Sofia church

Someone told me Patrick Swayze is in this movie

On the set of a movie in Sofia

Group shot

Momir, myself and Petar. The bottom sign is pointing to Sofia

Nuno, myself and Cem

Me and my very special Turkish friend Cem (Ankara in December!!!!!)

Saturday

Our last full day. I don't want to leave anyone. For a conference with only 20 people, it was likely that there would be at least one or two people with whom I wouldn't get along with. Au contraire. Everyone was wonderful and I look forward to keep in touch with as many people as I can.

The farewell party was sad. I'm going to miss everyone. Strange how you can be with people for only a week and make great connections. I'm especially looking forward to seeing Cem in Turkey, David in Paris, Vlad in Skopje and Nuno in Portugal. And visiting all the crazy Serbs and Macedonians.

There's so much I want to write here but I know the majority of the readers don't care about people who don't play a large role in my life. It was a great experience and I'm glad to have met everyone.

I took about 80 digital pictures and three rolls of film.

Friday

Friday was pretty uneventful. We did our activities and that was that. We had to talk about identity and what constitutes European citizenship. I talked about how European citizenship to me means about a shared common history. Canada is made up of so many nationalities and cultures and we have nothing old or historical (in my opinion). The others talked about how Europeans share the same goals and values.

We wanted to have a special Friday evening so we had a bonfire outside the lodge. It reminded me so much of home. All that was missing were marshmallows.

David and I spent most of the evening together. He's a wonderful singer and we sat singing French songs. The only one we both knew was Damian Saez's "Jeune et Con". I told him he should try out for Star Academy.

We went for a walk, still singing. We jokingly sang Gainsbourg's and Birkin's "Je t'aime (moi non plus)", overemphasising the lyrics. It's basically sex set to music. "Je t'aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime" "Moi non pluuuuuuuuuuuuuuus" "Oooooooooh, mon amouuuuuuuuuuuur" "Comme la vaaaaaaague, irresoluuuuuuuuuue".

Afterwards, everyone went to the disco. Francesca (the Italian representative) and I were the only females so we had fun dancing with everyone. They played partly normal dance music and partly Bulgarian dance music.

I like Bulgarian dance music. I really do. It's like Tatu with Bulgarian lyrics.

Vlad and I recreated our special Slavic ballet which was basically us acting like idiots on the dancefloor. Momir spun me around until I thought I would be sick. Peter and I danced to "In da Club". Nuno proved why Latin men are considered the best dancers.

Back at the lodge, it was Mafia for another two hours. I finally crawled into bed at 4:30 am.

Somehow this reminds me of monkeys grooming each other

Thursday

I woke up feeling quite well. I was sure I would be deadly hungover. I dressed and went downstairs. I just felt weak so I only had a tea.

The group was supposed to go on an all-day field trip to visit a village by the Greek border. As much as I would have liked to have gone, 3.5 hours of travelling there and 3.5 hours of travelling back just wasn't for me. And by then, I started felling quite sick again, so I opted to stay at the hotel.

Cem also decided to stay. I went to his room and slept in his roomate's bed. We slept, woke up, talked, slept, woke up, talked, slept, talked, slept, talked. We had so much fun! It was almost pleasurable to be sick because we got along so well! We both love the same music and the same countries. He's from Ankara and I can't wait to see him in December as he'll be at the same conference as me.

We went out for a walk in the mountains. It was a beautiful day but we were both still quite weak so we were only out for an hour.

When the others came home, we played Mafia. Mafia is possibly one of the stupidest but also one of the funniest games I have ever played.

You need about five or more people and a deck of cards. There must be one face card and the rest are ordinary numbered ones. Everyone chooses a card and keeps it secret. Whoever draws the face card is the assassin and it's their job to "kill" the other players. The citizens have to figure out who the Mafia is and assassinate them.

Anyone can start and can accuse anyone for any reason. "I accuse Pascal because he's French". And then Pascal has to defend himself. Everyone votes on whether to kill or spare the person. Majority rules. Some people got really into it. "Please don't kill me. I'm a poor mountain girl who was sold at an early age by my father to a slave trader for eight camels. Do you really want to add to my misery? For the love of God, spare my life!"

Very very fun indeed. I will definitely be bringing it back to Canada with me.

Wednesday

The former mayor from Kyustendil came to talk to the group. I'm sure he was very interesting but after listening to him talk through a translator for two hours, I lost interest. I felt bad that so many of the group decided to leave before he was done but I can understand their frustration.

We spent the afternoon and evening in Kyustendil. It's a lovely little town. While waiting for the second group to arrive in the bus, I started talking to Cem, a Turkish representative. We had both lived in Sweden and shared many of the same common complaints about the country. He's a super nice guy and I really enjoyed talking to him.

Most of the group wanted to go check their mail. For those of you who know me, you're aware that me without Internet is like Carrie Bradshaw without shoes. If I don't check my email every five minutes, I start to panic.

I walked right past the Internet Cafe. Only about five or six of us chose to eschew email, so we wandered downtown with our guide. Most of us wanted to be on our own so Nuno and I ditched the group and headed off to the local market. Very different than Timisoara's but still very Eastern. I laughed when I saw the bananas hanging from strings from the tents.

We did a bit of shopping. Correction. He did a bit of shopping. I didn't buy a thing there. Clothing in Bulgaria is very cheap and much nicer than in Romania.

We found the remains of some Roman baths. Kids were playing in the ruins. We also found a mosque and Turkish baths. We spent the afternoon wandering around the in the subhurbs. So much nicer than staying in the shopping district or at a bar.

We decided to try to find some traditional Romanian food. We found a few cafes but most only served alcohol. We finally found a place that served food but the menu was in Cyrillic (of course). We got an English menu but they didn't have the food we wanted. We settled on ice cream and it was quite good.

It was dark when we left and we realised we had no idea where we were. We remembered crossing a street so we tried to backtrack, all the while talking about Eastern European travel. He described Lithuania which only reaffirmed my desire to go there. He's also been to Russia but I think I'll avoid that for a little while longer.

It was a perfect day. Seriously. I'll always have fond memories of Kyustendil and I can say I discovered Bulgaria with a Portuguese. I came here for an intercultural experience and what could be more intercultural than Canada, Portugal and Bulgaria?

Luckily, our direction-sense was right and we arrived at the restaurant only 20 minutes late.

The food wasn't very good. I only picked at my plate. It's pretty bad when you mistake chicken for fish.

Unfortunately, I drank as much as I would had I eaten a big meal. I got...
Well, let's leave it at that.

Everyone was hugging and kissing and taking pictures. Vlad was walking around with a blue feathered tiara on. I love him!

Afterwards, we went to a disco. By then, the alcohol really hit. And just to reiterate, I did *not* drink that much. Only problem was that I had a near empty stomach so it it went right to my head.

I went downstairs, realised I could barely stand up and then came outside. The world starting spinning and Cem let me lean against him. I was there for about 20 minutes until I knew I was going to be sick. They got us a taxi and Nuno and I went home.

Ok, for two people who have obviously consumed way too much alcohol, the winding roads of Bulgaria are not a good idea. We were right in the middle of the mountains and you can't just drive straight up or straight down. It's a miracle we got home in one piece.