Havi, the Romanian guy and me!

Havi, Cosmin and I at Gulliver's

Havi and I at Gulliver's

Kareoke

I met Cristi and friends for kareoke.

a) Most of the singers there were professionals
b) They really seem to like Canadians! They did about 5 Celine Dion - Shania Twain songs in a row!

That really discouraged me from getting up there to sing. So I decided that I would be the official photographer and took pictures of everyone else singing.

And they didn't even have O-Zone! Luckily, the music selection was a lot better than George's Road House. I almost requested Avril Lavigne's "Complicated" because I sound like her when I sing. Well, I do when I sing "Sk8r Boi".

My friend Cosmin, a volunteer at the institute, was in town and called me. I hadn't seen him in over a month so I I was excited to see him. He stopped by the club with his friend Havi from Spain and another guy whose name I can't remember. I was tired, but we decided to go to Gulliver's for a few minutes. Once again, we saw the InOut people and got our pictures online.

Havi was very curious about Romanian strip clubs and insisted we visit one. We went to the same club as before. I sat in the middle of the two guys on the couch. Immediately, two girls came over and started trying to talk to the guys. Cosmin bought one of the girls a drink. Havi had his arm around me and completely ignored the girl. Maybe it was because he doesn't speak English or Romanian. The girl asked if he would buy her a drink and he said "no!" loudly and then turned his back to her and started talking to me. The whole episode made me laugh. She stalked off.

I was official translator for the night. My Spanish is only marginally better than my Romanian. I'm constantly mixing it up with my Italian. I know my verbs in present tense, but can't do future or past tenses. Poor Havi could barely understand me, but that's ok, because I could barely understand him either! We had a lot of fun trying to communicate together. At least Cosmin speaks good English!

Racism revisted

I was speaking two volunteers at the institute this morning about racism. One of them told me that the "white Power" symbol was actually the symbol for Serbia. That may be true, but when it's coupled with the words "white power" or "neo Nazi", I thing it takes on a darker symbolism.

We also talked about the amount of swastikas I've been seeing around. He said that Romanians aren't racist and that drawing them is more a form of rebellion than anything else. Apparently there are tonnes of such symbols at the soccer field. I guess that would explain why my neighbour's son showed me a picture of himself and a friend with a big banner with the white power symbol on it, yet claimed they weren't nationalistic. I'm sorry, but I don't see how a swastika could represent anything but intolerance. Not only were the Jews massacred during the Holocaust but millions of Roma, homosexuals and Jehova's Witnesses also lost their lives.

Perhaps the swastika isn't directed at or solely at the Jews, but it sickens me that such a symbol could represent rebellion. Choose something else. Even the "Anal Justice" grafitti that I saw by the Piata Unirii would be better. But please don't exert your independance and rebelliousness by drawing grafitti which can only represent hate.

Grafitti by my apartment

More quizzes

20 questions to a better personality

Wackiness: 50/100
Rationality: 72/100
Constructiveness: 54/100
Leadership: 44/100

You are a SRCF--Sober Rational Constructive Follower. This makes you a White House staffer.

You are a tremendous asset to any employer, cool under pressure, productive, and a great communicator. You feel the need to right wrongs, take up slack, mediate disputes and keep the peace. This comes from a secret fear that business can't go on without you--or worse, that it can.

If you have a weakness, it is your inability to say "no." While your peers respect you, they find it difficult to resist taking advantage of your positive attitude and eagerness to take on work. You depend on a good manager to keep you from sinking under the weight and burning out.

Ok, seems accurate enough.

Political Compass

Economic Left/Right: -7.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.49

I have no idea what this means, but once again, I'm described as a left libertarian. According to the handy graphic, I'm a bit more left than Nelson Mandela.

Earthquake

Apparently, we had an earthquake yesterday.

"A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.8 shook Romania late Wednesday, Romania's Earth Physics Institute said. Authorities said there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

The quake was centered in Vrancea, 110 miles northeast of Bucharest on the eastern rim of the Carpathian mountains, the center said. It struck at 11:34 p.m. and was felt in several Romanian cities, including Iasi, Bacau and the capital, Bucharest, where it knocked out telephone service."

I didn't feel a thing.

Ozone - Despre Tine

I'm obsessed with this song. It's in Romanian and I can only sing along to a few lines because the singers sing so fast. Every so often, my coworkers will hear me warble out "Ma inec in ochii tai, la-lul-la-la-lei" or "Nu raspunsi la SMS" which are pretty much the only two lines I can pronounce.

I got another volunteer, Adriana, to translate me the lyrics. Since Romanians already know the song and everyone else can't understand Romanian, here's our English translation:

I wake up with you in my mind
I want to sing about you
My love song
That everybody likes

You didn't respond to my SMS
I wrote you so often
Maybe I did something wrong
But you should know that I did love you

I drown in your eyes (lalalala)
The world is crying after your eyes (lalalala)
You're an angel on Earth (lalalalala)
I sing about you day and night

If you go with me in dreams
I will teach you how to laugh

You know you're Romanian when...

From Blogthings

Ok, I'm not Romanian but I'm scared to realise how many of these apply to me! Maybe I'm more Romanian than I realised!

Ro-De

This is a hello to all the Ro-De people who are finding this site. Hope you enjoy it!

Romanian drivers

Romanian drivers fall into two categories: very good and very bad.

You have to be a maniac to drive here. An agressive maniac.

Likewise, those who aren't agressive maniacs should not drive.

Cristi and I were casually driving down the street when an older lady tried to pull out of the parking lot without looking. Luckily, he slammed on the brakes just in time.

I've worn a seat belt twice since I got here. Most seat belts don't even work, so I've stopped trying to use them. I've even been mocked for trying to put one on.

Luckily, the lady didn't hit us, but he braked so fast that I ended up hitting my head on the windshield. I put my hands out so I didn't smash into it. I didn't hit hard.

Once we caught our breaths, we started to laugh. I joked that I was going to come home and blog the whole experience.

More bureaucracy

I bought something on Ebay. Normally, paying would be a simple procedure.

But ah, yes, this is Romania, the land where making something difficult is a way of life.

In Canada, I could simply write a checque or send a money order. To do so, I would have to go to the post office, pay $2.00 for the MO and hand over the payment. Simple and easy.

I stupidly assumed sending money in Romania would be as easy.

Wrong.

1) Romanians don't really use checques
2) Romanians don't use money orders unless it's for a huge amount of money
3) Western Union's surcharge fees are over half of the cost of what I bought on Ebay
4) Romania likes Travelex, which unfortunately isn't used in Palermo (where I have to send the money)

I ended up sending cash. The guy has good feedback, and I'm sending it registered mail.

Cristi took me to the post office. We wanted to see if we could send it via 2-3 day mail. But oh, no. We had to go to the central post office for that. The little post office downtown couldn't give us any information. So off we went to the big municipal post office across town.

Every line had about 20 people in it.

How big is Canada? Big enough. I can send a letter from one end of the country to the other in 3 days. I can send something to the USA in 3-5 days. A rush on it would cost about $6.00. Definitely reasonable.

Italy is only a few hundred kilometres from Romania. How much do you think it costs to send something 2-day mail from Timisoara to Palermo?

Take a guess.

1,000,000 lei. $40.00 Cad. 25 euros.

I kid you not.

So I'm just sending it registered mail. Costs $6.00 extra but at least I'll know when it gets there. I went to the post office this morning and stood in line. I was a little anxious seeing as my Romanian still sucks and the lady at the post office scares me. Apparently, the line I was in was only for... Hell, I don't know. The man in front of me bought stamps (and I'm pleased to note that I understood everything both he and the lady said).

me: "Buna ziua!"
evil post office lady: "La zece!"
me: "La Zece?"
evil post office lady: "Da"
*points to another window*

I look and it says 10-17.

What the...? Her window is open and I'm sure she's fully capable of selling me a fricken stamp to put on an envelope. She sold one to the man in front of me. Several, in fact. I looked and there was a woman sitting behind the other window, filing her nails. She looked at me and said "la Zece".

&^%#@87#(^#(*&#(*&#(*

Halloween

It's October 27th and no sign of Halloween in sight.

I miss Halloween. Dressing up, free candy... What's not to like about it?

I was going to decorate my apartment but without the influx of Hallmark cards reminding us to practice consumerism, it just slipped my mind.

My friends invited me to Brasov this weekend. How cool would it be to celebrate Halloween visiting Dracula's castle? I want to go but 8.5 hours of travel is a little too much, even for me.

On a side note, hi to all the Germans who are finding this site via the Ro-De.org website.

Movies

I don't think Hollywood should be too concerned about movie pirating in North America. They should fear Romania instead.

I haven't rented a movie here yet. I have no idea how much it costs to borrow a VHS or DVD. However, I will soon become acquainted with the underground DiXV scene.

Basically, people run DiVX rental places from their apartments. They send out a list of DiXV as an Exel file and you make an apointment to choose which ones you want to rent. They're either 5,000 or 10,000 lei for 24 hours. Most people borrow them and then burn their own copies.

So we're going to make an appointment one of these days to get some movies.

Unfortunately, we don't have a scene like in Belgrade where they sell DiVX on the side of the road. They make us do all the work in Romania!

Weekend

As a testimony to my wonderful stalking abilities, I made a new friend, Cristian.

We went out to Club 30 on Friday night for their "Oldies but Goodies" retro night. I can't believe that my beloved 80s music is now considered "oldies". We danced to Karma Chameleon and we were the only ones on the dance floor! Some girl from the InOut website was there taking pictures.

Basically, they go around to the hot clubs in Romania and take pictures of the patrons having fun. The girl took some pictures of us. They're on the website but I look horrible so I won't link.

Saturday, I finally did some long-overdue shopping. Romania has this chain (originally Czech, I think) called Kenvelo. Decent clothes but everything is acrylic. Oh well. I bought two sweaters.

Cristian and I went to Friends and drank a zillion cups of tea (ok, I drank three cups and he had alternate beverages). I made it my goal to taste every tea on the menu. I've tried about 6 so far...out of about 40.

We went for a walk around the downtown area and were discussing conspiracy theories regarding the 1989 revolution in Timisoara. I heard English being spoken around me and I turned around and saw two American guys walking behind us. I asked if they were indeed Americans and we all started talking. They're working in Serbia for a pharmaceutical company, so we decided to go back to Friends for some more drinks. I got to play tour guide and pointed out some landmarks. Cristian got to tell them about the history of the city.

It was really nice meeting them. Both super nice. They loved the city and said they would be coming back soon. I gave them my contact information so I hope I'll get to see them again. We discussed prostitution in the city and apparently almost every girl we saw in Piata Opera was a prostitute. Who would have known?

On Sunday, Cris and I went out for coffee with some of his friends (who spoke excellent English). It was a beautiful day and we sat outside in the sun. A flock of pigeons must have been startled and easily over 100 birds circled around the terrace about three or four times. Strangely enough, the air was full of spider webs and I watched them lazily float by.

Later that evening, I decided to try my luck again and go out alone. I went to Lemon, a very popular piano bar downtown. Unfortunately, it was crowded so I called Cristian to see if he wanted to come. In the meantime, I wandered around Piata Victoriei. Everyone was dressed up! I saw some American students on some sort of tour. I wanted to follow them but I had to meet Cris.

So we met and ended up going to visit a friend of his. They got a new kitten and it fell asleep on my lap. And I got to taste traditional apple cake from a Romanian grandmother. Mmm...cake.

O-Zone

A Romanian group had a top club hit this summer. I present O-Zone and "Dragostea Din Tei".

I asked my coworker to translate the title and it means "Love from some kind of tree". "Tei" is a type of tree in Romanian. It's an expression around here. She knew the Spanish word for it, "tila". So when I did a Google Image Search for "tila", I got pictures of some porn star, named, strangely enough, "Tila".

Ma-ia-hii
Ma-ia-hoo
Ma-ia-ha
Ma-ia-haa

Alo, salut, sunt eu, un haiduc,
Si te rog, iubirea mea, primeste fericirea.
Alo, alo, sunt eu Picasso,
Ti-am dat beep, si sunt voinic,
Dar sa stii nu-ti cer nimic.

[Chorus]
Vrei sa pleci dar nu ma, nu ma iei,
Nu ma, nu ma iei,
Nu ma, nu ma, nu ma iei.
Chipul tau si dragostea din tei,
Mi-amintesc de ochii tai.

Te sun, sa-ti spun, ce simt acum,
Alo, iubirea mea, sunt eu, fericirea.
Alo, alo, sunt iarasi eu, Picasso,
Ti-am dat beep, si sunt voinic,
Dar sa stii nu-ti cer nimic.

The singer sounds like that annoying guy from The Darkness. The lyrics are up there with any Aqua song, but it's happy and bouncy and fun. I have no idea what the lyrics are. I try to sing along but since online transcriptions of Romanian lack all those little (annoying) squiggles and dots which change the pronounciation, I always mispronounce everything.

At least I can look forward to more hits on this blog from publishing those lyrics.

Post script: Tei means "linden tree".

Racism

The racist grafitti here is really starting to piss me off. I haven't seen more neo-Nazi symbolism since...I don't know when. And I used to live in France!

My neighbourhood is solidly Romanian. I'm pretty much the only "minority" and I don't stick out that much. However, that didn't stop someone from drawing a couple of swastikas, white power symbols and "Neo-Nazi" labels on local buildings.

There's some anti-Roma grafitti on the phone booth outside my office. I always ignored it until I saw some anti-Jewish grafitti on the phone next to it (with a half-drawn swastika). It upsets me that I can ignore one form of descrimination but get so furious at another.

Timisoara is so "white" that it reminds me of back home. To date, I've seen about four black people and as many Indians. No Asians. I can tell Roma from non-Roma but I'm sure many are "passing". They don't look so different from the rest of the population (but many have an almost Indian "look", with shorter stature, darker skin and black hair).

I'm hesitant to write about Romanian racism because it's only something I've read about, not something I've seen or experienced. During the Holocaust, in what was arguably the most disgusting incident occuring to the Jewish people, Romanians, followers of an ultra right-wing anti-Semitic leader, invaded a village and kidnapped 200 Jewish members of the community. They forced them to strip and led them into a slaughterhouse where they went through all the motions of being slaughtered like animals. In the 1940s, I doubt slaughterhouses were built with the animals' suffering in mind. I feel like being sick whenever I think about it.

Many Romanians are still prejudiced against the Roma. I've met several Roma through my work here and they've been no different than any other Romanian. Many have Romanian first and last names and speak Romanian as a first language. There are good and bad people everywhere, just like there are good and bad Romanians.

Growing up in eastern Canada, I haven't had a lot of exposure to minorities. I was in grade 12 before I had a non-Caucasian person in my class. In Sweden, I had contact with several Muslims and I became friends with some African girls in my residence at university. It wasn't until I went to Strasbourg that I can say that I lived in a truly multicultural environment. For the first time, I felt like I myself was a minority, surrounded by African and Mahgreb students. Strangely enough, I only saw one anti-Black grafitti ("Blanc et Fier!" ["White and Proud!"]) yet tonnes of swastikas and white power symbols.

I don't get it. Maybe I'm just naive, but what's the point of writing "white power" in a society almost uniformely white? I don't think Romania is the top immigration destination of Africans. The Romanian Jewish population was almost entirely decimated during WWII and while I don't want to say the city is covered in anti-Semitic grafitti, it's too common to be ignored. However, in the Romanian defence, many of the swastikas are X'd out. I don't know who was responsible for it.

Sadly enough, hundreds of thousands or even millions of Roma perished in the Holocaust as well, yet history books like to eliminate or ignore this fact.

Timisoara

I've been talking to more and more people about the status of Timisoara during Communism. A lot of people here hate Bucharest and Bucharest doesn't look too fondly upon Timisoara either. We're the second richest part of the country, the closest to the "west" and I'm assuming the situation is not unlike various Canadian cities' opinions regarding Toronto.

During Communism, most of the country only had one channel, and even that was only for a few hours each day. Timisoara's proximity to Serbia and Hungary gave it access to alternate forms of media. A friend of mine told me that he learned some Serbian from watching the Serbian tv channels growing up. Timisoara knew about the situation in Eastern and Western Europe long before the rest of Romania did.

Timisoara is very ethnically mixed and tolerant and most people can claim a relative in another ethnic group. Also, many Romanians had previously immigrated to other countries in Europe such as Germany and France and were so able to send supplies to their families back home. Timisoara had denim when the rest of country hadn't had jeans since their parents were young.

Mushroomheads

I'm starting to recognise the same people everyday when I walk to work.

I pass through a little residentatial quarter where I often see the women I've called "The Mushroomheads".

They all have these mushroomy haircuts. Short on the bottom and a big glob of hair on top. I'm sure you can picture it.

However, they've all dyed their hair. Box hair dye often says not to use the product if your hair is over 50% grey. Now I see why.

These women could be Romanian ravers, for all I know. I've seen bright purple, blue, orange and fushia hair. Not only is it not natural, but I'm wondering if these women have any other secrets. Piercings, maybe? Or how about some tattoos?

They're always sitting on benches outside their apartment buildings. I can see their hair metres in front of me. They always reminded me of a clump of tropical, albeit poisonous mushrooms.

Which brings me to another point I've been meaning to make. Sometimes I think I'm the only person left in Romania with their real hair colour. Most Romanian women have this odd reddish or plummy coloured hair. It's pretty but defintely not natural. I noticed the same thing in France except French women tend to like the purple spectrum while Romanians favour the reds.

Hair dye is obscenely cheap here and you can get a lot of the same brands as at home. Hair bleach too. Romanians should *not* dye their hair blond. People with olive skin (sorry, I'm generalising here) should not have Pamela Lee hair. That doesn't stop me passing various "Barbie Dolls" on my way to work every day.

I've sunk to a new low

I downloaded the Cheeky Girls song in order to torment my coworker.

Now we're both dancing to the music.

I'm ashamed that I know all the steps to the dance.

Christmas

Christmas is gonna be here in a little more than two months. Not being religious, I don't really have anything to celebrate. However, Christmas = vacations. So, where should I take mine?

I want to go some place warm, cheap and preferably some place I haven't seen before during the holiday season. That leaves out Sweden, Denmark, France, Belgium, Italy and the Balkans.

I was thinking either Dubrovnik in Croatia, Spain or maybe Portugal, with preferably a stop in Strasbourg along the way.

Growing up in eastern Canada, I haven't known a Christmas without snow. Even Christmas in Milan was cold and windy. I wouldn't mind experiencing beach weather on December 25 or a dish of paella and gaspacho instead of turkeys and cranberries.

Na-No-Blog-Mo

Blogspot has a promo going on called NaNoBlogMo.

National Novel Blog Month or something like that. I'm too lazy to re-read the fine print.

Basically, you write a novel in 30 days.

A novel = 50,000 words.

Should I do it? There's always tonnes more I want to write about what I'm seeing, hearing and feeling in Romania but I'm afraid it'll be too wordy and people will get lost.

I just finished Balkan Ghosts and I'm inspired.

Problem is that I've been writing every day in this blog for the past 3 months or so and I'm only up to 35,000 words. And I'm going to Italy in two weeks for ten days.

Any suggestions?

Another date

So I have another date.

Cipri called me last night and we're going to do the whole "dinner and a movie thing".

Except it'll be me cooking and the movie will be a DiVX.

Now I just have to figure out what to make. He's studying internal medicine, so it'll have to be good.

Pictures

Srdjan took almost all of them and I believe in giving credit where credit is due. We both loved the clouds against the cathedral, so we both took tonnes of pictures (he was using my digital camera, I had my 'real' camera).

Enjoy!

My preciouuuuuuuuuuusssssssssss 

Burec! By the time I got home, the grease had made the paper transparent. I never realised how greasy it was until I got home. It's still delicious. 

Srdjan at Optimism 

Srdjan and I at Optimism, a Belgrade pub 

Me beside my beloved burec menu 

God save the pumpkins! 

Srdjan and I at Martha's Pub. Sadly, there was no pumpkin pie on the menu. I should sue for false advertising. 

Srdjan and I looking into a mirror 

The famous Martha's Pub! 

Even higher up! 

View from the fortress 

The clock tower 

The clock tower. One face is for the hour and the other for the minutes. Quite confusing! 

I was standing on the guard rail and Srdjan was freaking out, thinking I would fall down and get hit by a car. The picture turned out nice though! 

By the fortress 

The fortress 

The fortress 

Clouds! 

The tram converted into a cafe 

Cathedral 

Detail of the cathedral