"Home"
I'm back home and sort of homeless. These past few weeks have been a blur, but to make a long story short:
I had tickets booked to come back to Canada in May 17th. My Sweden trip was supposed to last between May 2 and May 15.
Friday before I left, I had an emotional goodbye with some friends. We discussed ways I could stay in Romania for the summer. One of my best friends is starting up a computer business here in Timisoara and said he would hire me to do English-language marketing. Sold! We went to get some food at McDonald's to celebrate (based on proximity, not quality).
Fast forward two hours later and I'm slumped over a table in the hospital, suffering from a nasty bout of food poisoning. (I'm helping a local doctor learn English by recording myself reading classic English books). All I can think about is coming home.
My (former) boss is one of the busiest people I have ever met. We were supposed to meet on the Thursday so I could pay him my final rent. He finally contacts me Sunday night. I ask if I can continue renting the room on the apartment until the end of August. He agrees.
I was sharing an apartment with three French interns at the Institute. Two more interns were expected, but they decided to live by themselves in a studio apartment. I got along super well with my roomates and no one had a problem with me staying. Although I think that's more a tribute to the fact that I cook such traditional canadian delicacies like garlic fingers and strawberry shortcake than my sparkling personality.
So I go to Sweden. I decide at the last minute to get a minibus home instead of the train, thereby changing my Timisoara arrival time to 23:30 instead of 04:30.
I walk into the kitchen and hear voices. I poke my head in and see four unfamiliar faces.
Turns out my boss completely forgot about our agreement and rented my room out to the two new interns. Apparently, they saw the studio, pronounced it "despicable" and asked to have my room instead.
My former roomates were shocked. "But this is Karla's room!" My boss claimed I never spoke to him about the room.
So for the past three nights, I've been sleeping on the couch. I saw the studio apartment last night and while it's not as nice as the other two places I lived, is no worse than the student residence I lived in at university. The kitchen is pitiful, the carpet stained and there's no hot water yet, but I can make it a pleasant place to live! It's currently being cleaned now, so hopefully I can move in tonight.
Kind of makes me think back to an earlier post I made, about how I was missing out on the whole Romanian experience: making good wages, living in a nice apartment, etc etc. Now I'm living the Romanian life, making Romanian wages and living in a tiny apartment. At least it's downtown though and nextdoor to my old apartment.
My old roomates don't get along with their new roomates. Once the apartment is cleaned up, we're going to try to convince them to take the studio. After all, now they're both sharing my old bedroom. It has a 3/4 bed in it. They're sharing the bed. And no, they're not lesbians.
I'm told I can keep my key and come visit whenever I want and use the kitchen and facilities. Tonight we're having a big party. Celine's sister is visiting from France and brought a nice, ripe Reblochon cheese, so it's tartiflette (cheese, potatoes and onion dish) for supper. I'm making ginger pears with chocolate sauce for dessert, and there will be rivers of wine. All the French interns are coming, Nelu might show up (see, I finally mentioned you!) and Cristi will come if he can pull himself away from business for an hour.
So my new tickets are for August 12th. I have no idea how long I'll actually be staying in Timisoara. A month or two or three. You guys are stuck with me for some more time yet!
4 Comments:
Oi!!!
Long time no see you!
Happy to see that u're facing lotsa of new situations there in romania!
Everything is gonna be alright! ;)
A kiss and a Big hug!
yr vw friend!
Henrique
what a strange time this must be for you. i lived in romania for a year, and at the end, when i had my tickets ready to go, those seemed like endless days.
So, I suppose you never made it to Budapest? ;)
Haha, nope! Although had you told me your keychain request was urgent, I would have considered it!
Still plenty of time though!
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