On the town

On Monday and Tuesday, I got to see my friend Maud, also a FAC intern, who is working in Bucharest. She was at a conference in Belgrade and stopped in Timisoara for the night. It was great to have company, especially since I didn't really want to be alone after coming back from Italy.

We went out for coffee with Cristi and then went to El Torero, the local salsa club. I'm not a fan of salsa music or dancing, but we all had fun. Maud and Cristi were dancing, and then Cristi taught me some simple steps.

Yesterday, she wandered the town while I worked. When I was done, we went to Friends for tea and then to the Grizzly for dinner.

I don't want to call the Grizzly one of my favourite restaurants. I only go there because it's close and not overly expensive. Lonley Planet describes it as having "funky pink walls and vegetarian food". Its walls are indeed pink.

The place was almost empty. The pink paint was peeling from the walls, the dark wood looked ancient and the air was thick from smokers who weren't there. The speakers played a news programme from a radio too old to broadcast clearly. It could have been 2004...or 1984. I've said it before, but time truly does seem to stop here. I imagined we were at a secret underground cafe listening to secret news programmes. In reality, it's 2004 and we were at a downtown resaurant listening to bad reception.

We ordered our food. Then the waiter came back and told me my beloved onion soup wasn't available that night. Ok, I had the tomato soup. This isn't exactly normal Canadian soup. The first time I ordered it, the menu said it came with popcorn. I thought this was a bad translation of something else, but sure enough, there were pieces of popcorn floating on top. The soup is basically ketchup mixed with water, a bit of grated cascaval cheese and popcorn or rice on the bottom. Yummy.

I also ordered mamaliga (polenta) with cream and branza (which is like a combination of cream and cottage cheeses). The waiter came back and told Maud that they didn't have her tomato salad either, so he offered her a substitute. Then he came back and told her that her sarmale (meat and rice wrapped in cabbage leaves) ...I don't know what was wrong with the sarmale, but something had to be changed.

Whenever the waiter came by our table, I was afraid he would tell us there weren't serving something else we had chosen. But our food came, we ate and then we paid.

My friend Havi, from Spain, called and said he was in town. He doesn't speak English or Romanian, and I only have first year university Spanish. I had the brilliant idea of inviting Raluca, my coworker from the Institute, to come with us. She speaks perfect Spanish, and I know she always likes to practice.

Havi and Raluca came over at eight pm. We all chatted, then went downtown to the station to see Maud off. When she was safely on her train, we went to the Time Cafe, where there was a guy singing American pop songs with his guitar.

I ordered a Tuborg Strong. Sometimes I forget I'm not as young as I think I am. I drank that, and Raluca and I split a Carlsberg. By the end of the night, I could barely stand up. I remember the times when I could drink whatever I wanted and not be sick or wake up with a hangover. I feel like crap right now as I'm writing this, and I only had the equivalent of two beers (alcohol-wise).

I struggled along in what I thought was semi-decent Spanish while Raluca and Havi chatted away. I could follow their conversation but Raluca would often translate things for me. I'm not used to the Spain accent, as my professor was from Chile. When Havi left, Raluca said that a lot of things she translated were "cleaned up" versions of what he was saying. He was complaining that I couldn't speak Spanish properly, that I shouldn't try to speak Spanish if I couldn't speak it right and that he couldn't understand a word I said (which was untrue, because Raluca understood everything I said perfectly).

At least I was trying to speak Spanish. Unlike him. I don't like the fact that English is the lingua facto of the world right now, and I'm in no way trying to insinuate that English is superior to any of language (except maybe Italian. Just kidding!), but how can someone in this day and age not know even a tiny bit of English? Most Romanians speak excellent English and even French people know more English than they think.