Exploitation

I love exploiting my foreign-ness.

I have approximately 4000 lei to my name right now.

And no, just because it has extra zeros does not make it a lot of money. I euro is 36,000 lei. I have 4000 lei.

So I'm living on vegetables and soup mix right now. This suits me just fine because I'm sick with the flu (again) and nothing will stay down. Don't worry, I'll change some money tomorrow and will eat something decent.

So I was at the market, trying to buy some carrots for the vegetable soup I'm going to make tonight. I pointed to the carrots and said "patru" ("four").

"Four kilograms?"
"No...four carrots"
"We don't sell individual carrots"
"Oh"
*I look at the carrot seller mournfully*
"What the heck. Four you said?"
"How about five?"
"Sure!"

While he's weighing my carrots, his friend tells me we have the same eyes. He has bright blue eyes, mine are very pale green. I point this out to him (narrowly saying that my eyes are actually yellow, because I mix up my colours all the time).

People here comment on my eyes a lot. He asks if I'm Greek. (Everyone seems to think I'm Greek here). "No, Canadian." "Canadian? Don't go! Wait here!"

So the other man hands me my five beloved carrots and I'm waiting for I don't know what. The man returns holding a tiny stuffed kangaroo wearing an "I <3 Australia" jacket, dangling from a suction cup.

"Australia!" I say
"Yes!"
"I'm not Australian, I'm Canadian"
He gives me a funny look
"Eu iubesc Australia" I translate from the kangaroo's jacket.

"Do you like it?" he asks me
"Sure, I like it!"
"It's for you!"

I now have a tiny kangaroo dangling from my computer monitor.

And purely for curiosity's sake, who are all these UPENN people reading the site? Are you the same person or different people? You make my stats go up. This is good. Thanks for reading!