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.