Braşov all my worries Braşov seemed to me slightly less user friendly than Sibiu but that may have been because it was the first time in the entire trip I would be departing and arriving solo. Once I was checked into where I stay in a place, everything becomes relatively easy. It’s just the initial step of getting where I can eventually rest my head that is tricky. Iulius had urged me to take a microbus rather than the train. Nathan decided to try his luck again in Sibiu, so we parted ways and pretended like we would meet up in the next city.

Microbuses are a really excellent way to travel and their popularity is reflected by the hordes of people standing in line to ride them. These hordes of people try to get into the same thirty person capacity minibus that run only once every three hours or so. The law of economics that provides adequate supply with demand was clearly being broken. I was amongst the dejected lot who whose demand was not being supplied. Some of those who were not able to cram themselves in the standing room only minibus began to disperse as the more fortunate travelers sped sardine-like towards Braşov.

Luckily for me, the train-ride proved to be less difficult than it was threatening to be. A gregarious Romanian standing behind me accidentally let slip out a single word of Spanish after asking me a few questions in Romanian. “¿Entiendes?” he said and once I started speaking to him in Spanish, he was convinced that I was from Madrid or Cuba. I allowed him to believe what he wanted as long as he helped me out with my ticket purchase. Turns out he often worked in Spain installing air-conditioners. Along with a young couple in front of me who spoke some English, the group effort got me through my first solo ticket buying. Guess it wasn’t very solo.

I thought the arrival into Braşov would be easier than it was. I’d heard that the Nathan’s Villa hostel chain owned both the tourist info center and the hostel I was looking for. This I heard from Nathan himself while in Kraków. Apparently, Romania didn’t have real tourist information centers – at least ones that were of any help – before Nathan took the initiative to staff them properly. I figured one of the skills taught to properly trained staff was to rope in and direct travelers to Nathan’s hostel, the Kismet Dao villa. This didn’t happen but I had read up enough on how transportation Braşov works to get where I needed to go.

As much as I poke fun at people who rely on the Lonely Planet, this was a time when it proved quite useful. For the very basics and for the first time in the city, it often provides lots of no-bullshit information. There’s a reason why most backpackers I met carried the same version of Lonely Planet Eastern Europe. It told me to take bus #2 all the way to the end. There was a small info gap: which ticket to buy. I simply asked at the ticket counter for a ticket going to Piazza Revolutionarii and got my ticket. I was glad to get out of the station area which was quite seedy.

Let me tell you a little something about the Kismet Dao Villa. I have quite mixed feelings about it since the design of it is not bad. Plus it is run by a Korean-American guy who I’m sure gets much more flak than white folks from the States coming in to open a hostel. However, I had problems with the fact that the television was on just about 24 hours a day. That would be no problem if it weren’t an immense TV, essentially turning the common room into a TV room. That’s not really the idea of a common room – it lead me to have the first impression of the guests to be unfriendly. In fact, it was probably that they had just been watching television for several hours.

The price and location were not great either. A little steep at 462000 lei per night – the prices for hostels before and after Braşov were considerably less than that. Additionally the location was a good 15 minute walk outside the center – quite a long time for a town so small. At least half of that is necessary just to get to the city walls. The main problem I had was the lack of food options, restaurant or market, outside the center. The closest market was still quite far. Eventually I did find a tiny produce stall on the day I left Braşov. Note the view from the hostel balcony - despite the price, it's still a pleasant view.

One other problem (or advantage depending on your point of view) with Kismet Dao was the offer of a town through all the castles in the area including Bran, Raşnov, and Peleş (in Sinaia). It costs €11 or roughly one night’s stay at Kismet Dao (two nights in other hostels). This included the minibus ride with a hired driver and normally an English-speaking guide. It doesn’t include food or the various entrance fees into the castles. The only day I could take the tour, the guy who gives the tours was too hung-over to show up. €2 worth of lei were refunded but at €9 per person for just a hired minibus (we were about 8 people), the tour wasn’t quite worthwhile.

After a few words of Romanian to the driver, he decided that I was going to translate for him to the rest of the group. I found out that he and also one of the workers at the hostel were one of the handful of ethnic Hungarians I met in Transylvania. Following the rule of speaking Romanian to Romanians I outlined in one of the earlier blogs, the driver was somebody over 30 and I guess with less education so he was quite happy to speak to me. Especially since it would otherwise be quite a boring drive for him. Also following this rule, the young girls working the hostel’s front desk seemed annoyed at my attempts at the language.

I was able to keep up with the driver when he spoke in simple sentences but if he started expounding further or got intense about an issue, I lost him. For example, when traffic was slowed down by a gypsy caravan and I asked him about it, I was able to follow for about three minutes until he picked up the momentum and I got only the gist of what he was saying just barely about half of the time.

The gist for the Roma and a few of the other parts of the conversation was something like this: During the time of Ceauşescu, the Roma were really oppressed in terms of what they were allowed to practice culturally but remained fairly well-behaved about it. They were limited in how they dressed and where they were allowed to travel. Now that the country opened up, they can camp anywhere, dress how they like, and leave the country. Unfortunately, crimes committed by the Roma have also risen. Discrimination was also something I tried to ask about but my Romanian wasn’t quite up to speed enough to find out if Hungarians have any problems with it.

Raşnov castle was really nothing to get excited about, especially without a guide to help us through what was a collection of ruins and construction sites. There werea good number of explanations but generally the Romanian and the German explanations were more thorough. The English and French explanations invariably had about 1/3 of the information. It was not so much a translation into English and French as it was a summary.

The other people on the tour consisted mostly of a bunch of Aussies and Kiwis and a few Londoners if my memory serves me right. I don’t know if they were joking or not but some of them said they couldn’t read it because it was “written mostly in foreign.” I really hope they were kidding but I get the impression they weren’t.

The non-Anglophones of the group were a German couple who initially kept to themselves but I guess decided being social was an inevitability. Again, depending on my sometimes sketchy memory, I think their names were Manuel and Simone. Their names didn’t sound terribly German but since they spoke German with each other, I went along with it. The greatest hits from the fourth movement Beethoven’s 9th symphony played in the ruins, and it seemed to annoy them as much as me that they played only bits of it – and not even the best parts. Simone consoled herself by buying some rocks from the Raşnov castle rock vendor.

Bran Castle, where Vlad Ţepeş reputedly lived for some time – or was possibly imprisoned for some time – was much more fun to run around in, especially in the nice courtyard. There was plenty of money put into restoring and maintaining it, even in the Communist Era. Largely it was quite simply more fun because the people who did the tour with me were fun. Hordes of tourists were everywhere but never at an intolerable level. Tacky souvenirs were plentiful as well. Inside, many of the rooms used to be occupied by some queen or another and maybe some king…. shows you how much attention I paid to the English-language explanations for each part of the castle.

Peleş castle on the other hand already had English-speaking guides. Beautiful gardens and courtyards surrounded it. One gets the impression that the queen had a large influence in the construction of the castle. One room that stuck in my head was the library which had German, French, Italian, and even English. This may have been a period before Romanian existed as a standardized and regulated language. Another interesting room was the weapon room but mostly because several docents approached me as the group following the tour given by the castle staff were exiting the room. They were encouraging me to take photos even though it was forbidden in the castle. I was perplexed as to why they specifically approached me, especially since I had no camera with me.

The main rule not to be broken apparently was to not stray too far from the group. The upstairs room were built on wood too weak to hold up all the tourist traffic.

I don’t know if the full day of castling was worth the €9 but it did get much of the obligatory tourist site visiting out of the way. The rest of my time in Braşov was spent laying back and chilling out with the other backpackers. Friends that I made in Braşov, I continued to meet along the way towards Budapest. Some I had met earlier in the trip.

Tim, a good natured American from on of the Great Lakes states was taking his first European trip and had large ambitions but didn’t always know how to execute his poorly thought out plans. Another cool guy I met at the hostel and spent a good deal of time with was a fellow from the whereabouts of Manchester named Paul. Another American was Bob whom I had met for the first time in Krumlov House. He worked for Doug, the owner of the hostel in Loket, which was semi-affiliated with Sir Toby’s in Prague and Poet’s Corner in Olomouc. Small world. We talked about his weird relations with all our mutual friends and acquaintances. He was one of the few Americans I’ve met whose attitude towards traveling in Eastern Europe I can tolerate. He also couldn’t stand it when travelers harped on and on about how cheap everything was and flaunted it. Bob talked a little like Billy Bob Thornton especially after a few drinks. This made me feel at home.

With these guys, I mainly chilled out in front of the TV, visited the local internet café to use up my free hours (one free hour per night – thanks for your hours Simone and Manuel!), had drinks, bullshitted and visited a really excellent restaurant called Bella Muzika. You could get tolerable Mexican food there. Also it was some of the best service I’ve had in Romania. Right after ordering, you are asked to choose music from the menu. It ranged from Queen to Tony Bennett as well as plenty of names I’d never heard of. From all the times I’d visited however, I’d never heard an artist that I picked.

The big hurdle to get over in Braşov was booking my tickets onwards towards Budapest via Sighişoara meaning two separate . The beauty of my trip, which I didn’t know about before, was that the ticket I booked in the Wasteels office in Budapest was good for all the stops in between Budapest and Bucharest. This meaning that I could split up my trip in between the two capitals and only pay for the reservations. The booking of the reservations also was a task that needed to be done.

This proved to be far trickier than I expected it to be. It was a good thing that had my spirits and self-confidence cushioned that day by meeting up with really cool people in town. I ran into two groups. One group was three students from Dublin – though from various places in the British Isles – and the other two French travelers traveling separately.

I’m not sure what the fact that the Budapest Wasteels office had very different attitudes towards English speakers and an overall different work ethic. The Budapest Keleti Station’s Wasteels office was quite factory-like. This was out of necessity due to the masses of not-a-lick-of-Hungarian-speaking travelers coming to do business. When I was there, the line was almost out the door of the office. The Braşov office on the other hand had only a small percentage of the number of those in Budapest. This is a percentage in the single digits.

The first time I walked in, a frazzled middle-aged woman who nevertheless had a lot of personality (see neurotic) tried to help me out. She could only get the ticket booked into Sighişoara since the computer was down. Booking to Budapest was impossible until later. This added to her neurosis. She was very happy nevertheless to find she did not have the extra stress of speaking English. Later, an English-speaking younger woman (not much younger) managed to finish the job without much stress and I was on my way to the next town, Sighişoara.

So in the end, I really didn’t see much of Braşov but there really wasn’t much to see anyway. It had a really nice center and excellent views of the mountains. I missed the chance to view the town from the mountaintop. There were a few historical buildings but mostly Braşov provided me a place to chill out for a few days with mostly anonymous fellow travelers.

  ¶ 8/31/2004 07:17:00 AM

  On the Pursuit of Happiness and Tail
In the following days after my first two drunk and sickly days in Sibiu, I picked up plenty of information about Romania, Romanians and more specifically Sibiu via my newfound tailchasing Canadian temporary roommate. By the morning of my third day in Sibiu, my digestive tract was once again functioning in relatively regular way and I was ready to explore the city. During Nathan's night out while I was laid out nursing my stomach back to health he got two know a few local guys who had found their fortune and knew how to spend it. Ciprian is a Sibiu native who once worked as a sports journalist before going abroad for several years to work, mostly in America. Much of his work was in Miami where he worked long hours and made plenty of money on cruise ships with no time to spend it. While abroad he also met his fiancée from England - she hadn't picked up much Romanian in her several years since he picked her up. This was just fine with Ciprian who could flirt with local girls with near impunity. Despite his philandering, he gave me a great deal of insight into Romanian women, the high emphasis on image by both men and women, and tips on the local club scene. However, most of it was through Nathan's request for information on how to pick up girls in Sibiu and was not directed at me.

The night that Nathan befriended Ciprian provides an interesting backdrop for what he later told the both of us. Nathan had left me to convalesce and watch TV while he met up with the kids, ditched them, and went to several more happening locales. One of these was called “Chaos” and by happy chance, it was ladies’ night when he visited. There, Nathan unwittingly attracted the attention of many people by ordering a Corona. Corona, being a relatively inexpensive import in North America, is at the same time one of the most expensive beers you can buy in Romania – more a status beer you want to be seen drinking rather than enjoying it for what it actually is. If you want to just drink beer, Ursus or even Stella Artois are reasonably priced. If you order a Corona, you might as well shout and order for a Martini shaken not stirred to the bartender from across the room and then ask if he could kindly park your BMW. Well, actually the whole car thing is another story altogether. Multiple women approached him as well as Ciprian and another fellow - most likely to see who he was. Two of the women who approached Nathan were dancers at Chaos - not strippers, they are just paid to get up on the bars and dance. Understandably, Nathan felt a little hesitant about their approach for he’d heard horror stories of being robbed, drugged, and beaten after approaching women. For days after that night, he repeated ad nauseum “I should have went with them!”

Ciprian explained the Corona factor while the three of us were visiting artificial pools located outside of Sibiu. Originally, Ocna was a series of salt mines that were eventually abandoned. Some of them collapsed and filled with rainwater. Being salt mines, they became perfect for wading in since most were not very deep. The healing properties of salt and the novelty of being able to float without much effort a la Dead Sea became a big attraction. Now they are fenced off and resorts are popping up around them like mushrooms on cow paddies. After swimming for awhile in the salt pools and getting out of the water, you will find that your body is covered in salt crystals. Crazy stuff.

So I was telling you about the Corona factor. The same thing applies to automobiles and clothing. Like many other Eastern European countries, image is held in high regard. Unlike many developed countries where dressing down and slumming is almost an art form, Romanians realize that dressing well, looking good, driving expensive cars, drinking expensive drinks can project the image of wealth. Whether or not it is the case that you are wealthy, many people won’t give you the time of day unless you have the trappings of wealth. Ciprian tells of many cases of old Italian men that voraciously chase impressionable young Romanian girls using their pensions, which are meager by Italian standards, to travel there and tell tall tales of all the money they have back in Italy. It works apparently.

This brings us to the subject of women in Romania, especially Sibiu which is poorer than some other cities that are slightly larger and more developed like Bucharest, Brasov, or Constanza. It is not yet the norm that women can get by with their smarts alone. The threshold of how smart a woman has to be to get by on her brains alone is quite high – that level being enough to leave Romania for a better education. Many women realize that they are better off trying to attract wealthy men. This could explain the way women dress and the fact that they take very good care of their bodies. According to Ciprian, the situation unfortunately (this word I added in myself) is so extreme that it is very easy to get girls into bed by making empty promises of helping them get out of the country or buying them presents. This may be true in many countries, but the magnitude seemed greater in Sibiu. Maybe it was just the situation I was in.

Another weird story was when I was waiting for Nathan to get money out of the cash machine, I witnessed two fancy cars driven by two guys stop near two women. One guy stopped the car , literally chased the women down, and tried to convince the women to ride off with them. Apparently, fancy cars give license to try to pick up random women. I am tempted to use the word "assault" but it is only a little too strong. Before this incident, I thought people were just joking about it.

Later in the day of relaxing by the salt pools, Ciprian decided to show Nathan and me all of the hippest clubs in Sibiu. It wasn’t a great night for going out as it was pouring rain – comparable to the typical Florida downpour. This made me nervous since I had just hand-washed almost half of my clothes and was trying to dry them in the cool evening air. Moreover my luggage was sitting on the ground quite vulnerable to large gusts of rain blowing into the room and flooding the carpeted floor. I couldn’t relax the whole time we were at Chaos and the second bar. To my surprise, an Irish Coffee was quite cheap there and the beer was quite expensive. Ciprian must have shown us more than 5 different clubs in the pouring rain. Some were reputed to have been driven into near bankruptcy because of the ego of the owners. Others were trying out the upscale market. One near the main square, which had just opened, was very fancy and exclusive but only seemed to be letting in teenagers when we visited. Many of these bars had popped up just within the last year.

Finally, Ciprian had dropped us off at Chill Out and tried to direct Nathan’s salivating over towards a particular waitress who worked there. I’m a little weird about these third-party-while -someone-is-trying-to-make-a-pick-up situations but decided to humor Nathan and hang out for awhile as backup. As backup I did quite good: cueing him at certain moments to talk to her, for example. You’d think that someone with his experience and gall would have more skill. It may be that those with tenacity and gall don’t need a strategy. In the meantime, to avoid getting annoyed by watching his advances - often unsuccessful, I tried to entertain myself by talking to the people around me and drinking Stella Artois faster than I should.

In my attempts at conversation with random people who happened to sit down near me, I found out some interesting things. The women mostly tried to ignore me. I met plenty of people from Brasov who were interested in Sibiu as the up and coming city of Transylvania and Romania. One particularly interesting fellow was a very drunk ethnic German from Brasov. He seemed pretty young – no older than 35. He had opened up a café that was downstairs from the consulate of Luxembourg. I found it strange that there was a consulate for Luxembourg in Sibiu but after many Stella Artois didn’t have the brainpower to make any sense of it. Reading up on it a little bit just about now, I found that the Kulturcafé’s building does in fact house the Consulate of Luxembourg and there are strong ties between Transylvania and Luxembourg but that is for reading elsewhere. "In Brasov," the German-Romanian said, "there are already plenty of bars open and if I started a business there, I would be nobody. In Sibiu, I can have influence in the city. And the costs are lower." I don't remember which language we were speaking but this is just paraphrasing. Ethnic Germans in Transylvania are known for their business acumen and this guy seemed no exception.

One of the more interesting conversations of the evening was with the bartender. Nathan’s night full of borderline sleazy antics ended and left us looking for something to eat at about 4 in the morning. We were directed towards Nomad, the 24-hour restaurant next to the club of the same name. There, Nathans’s target girl and the bartender, who hadn’t talked to us much that night since she was busy, showed up. Although they said they would make an appearance after multiple supplications by Nathan, I had high doubts these were sincere words. My doubts were not founded and they showed up to chat and eat. Nathan’s target girl, man I wish I could remember her name, was not in any shape to converse because 1) she had been dealing with Nathan all night, 2) it was almost 5 in the morning when they arrived and 3) her English wasn’t great. The bartender on the other hand was one of several women - girls really - who renewed my faith in the status of Romanian women. She wasn’t a head-turner but one of the brightest girls I’d met on my trip. She was able to keep up with my regular verbal assaults on Nathan and sometimes joined in. Even though most English speakers would not be able to keep up, she managed to do so. One last social faux pas that I rescued Nathan from was inviting the girls to a late dinner and then not paying. After throwing some money on the table I slyly suggested Nathan do the same… a few times actually, until my suggestions were not so sly. Nathan’s tail-chasing was costing me a lot more money than I should have been spending.

The birds were chirping and the early risers were wandering around in the lower town when Nathan and I finally made it back to Pensione Leu with our bellies full. The gates of the Pension were just opening for the day. It was a strain to get some shuteye while the sun was streaming into the room but we managed to get a few hours of sleep.  ¶ 8/29/2004 07:13:00 AM

  Sibiu: city, shorts on the rise. Microbuses are surprisingly efficient as far as travel time and roughly the same price as a train. At times they are cheaper but what you get in return is the experience of what it feels like to be a standing canned sardine. In contrast to this, the microbus from the village of Calimanesti offered plenty of room for there were very few who were going from there to Sibiu. It also offered stunning views of the Transylvianian countryside including the elevated road that followed the river valley. The road in fact was on the river against the hill. It was difficult to not to play the part of the tourist and take photos. There was brief intermission at a side-of-the-road cafe where apparently the driver's wife works and we had an obligatory scrubdown of the microbus including excessive bucketfuls of water from a kid who didn't have much else to do.

Though Sibiu was by no means a big city, it was the biggest city I had seen in about 4 days and driving into its outskirts littered with a luckily only a smattering of Soviet style blocs was jarring. We were deposited near a few of the major hotels with very little sense of where we were. Generally its a good idea to lose the 15 odd kilos of luggage before wandering around the city just to check it out. After a quick trip to tourist information, located in a bookshop on the non-descript main square we headed towards Hotel11euro. There was plenty of construction going on around the city. In fact, it looked like it was going to be an exceptional city once all the construction finishes. It looked like the newly elected German mayor was trying hard to win favors over at least the construction industry. Apparently Sibiu in 2007 is supposed to be one of the European capitals of culture. This coincides with Romania's planned accession into the EU.

So let me tell you a little about Hotel11euro. There are some positive things like the staff being able to speak excellent English and the fairly luxurious rooms. The downside is that it is significantly more expensive than 11 euro. For one person it is at least twice that. It was in the whereabouts of 25 euro. The receptionist did not appear to budge on the price - I doubt she had the power to do so. The price was pretty specific down to the lei. That's quite specific considering one lei is worth about $0.00003. They rounded up. The room was quite spacious and luxuriously clean compared to the places I had been staying in during my trip. Plus it had TV which I took full advantage of.

If I were to stay more than one night in Sibiu, I could not do it for 25 euros per night. I would either have to change hotels or move on to the next city. Incidentally, while checking out one of the full and expensive pensions I encountered the first of several ugly racist incidents involving an aggressive Roma girl. I'd rather not talk about it - not terribly interesting but a bit upsetting.

We decided to walk through the city and ask around the other pensions and hotels and hostels if they existed. According to others in the tourist industry in Sibiu, no hostels exist as of yet in Sibiu. I'm sure someone will get the idea within the next 2 years but in the meantime I needed a place to stay. After walking around the upper and lower town and checking out the reknowned medieval steps linking the two, we decided a better day to spend the afternoon before Iulius departed for Calimesti and left me to the remainder of my Romanian journey was to retire from trekking around the city and drink away the afternoon on a terrace. Conveniently on the main square was a slightly pricey but convenient place called La Turna.

I had quite an ambivalent attitude towards La Turna. I knew full well that they were overpriced even taking into consideration its location. The toilet in the basement smelled vaguely like a swimming pool locker room. I had the vague suspicion that there was a jacuzzi somewhere. They also did things like charge for the cream in the ciorba and coffee regardless of whether or not you use it. There was a good selection of food but again, too much for what it's worth. Good place for a few drinks, like 3 liters in the afternoon before we decided to check out Pensione Leu, the best bet place that might have some place for me to stay.

One thing to keep in mind is the stomach problems that were coloring my world a shade more unpleasant than it should have been for the day.

Pensione Leu is one of the most centrally located places to stay in Sibiu. It is hidden in a courtyard but if you take either of the two steps that lead down to the lower town, you'll end up just around the corner from it. The sign in the front indicated that they had only single, double and triple rooms. The prices were not too bad but I was hoping for dormitories. At any rate, they had no vacancies. I've found that the women, most likely family, that work the front desk speak either little or no English. The attempts to speak English to those who speak just a little I've made and witnessed generally start with a few words but break down into Romanian within half a minute. My eventual decision to stay here would set the scene for a real test of how much Romanian I had absorbed within the previous week and a half. Not only did I have to speak for myself, I had to speak also for the non-Romanian-speaking Canadian, Nathan who I'll introduce right about now.

Nathan was forced to stay in and pay for a double room despite the fact he only wanted a single room. These were empty. Iulius and I stumbled in after an afternoon of drinking and talking, and we quickly made acquaintances. He made the suggestion that we find somebody to stay in the other bed of the double room. To talk this over, we returned to La Turna after an obligatory tour through the main cathedral during which we realized that we were a little too sloshed to be doing touristy things. It may have been the influence of Nathan who talked ceaselessly about girls, but as we were sitting at a location quite opportune for people-watching, the three of us were rather agog over the number of stunningly attractive women walking around the city. Many however looked a little too skinny. Maybe the typical pick-up line was, "Hey, baby. How about a slice of bread?" Really, I was quite worried about how skinny some of them were. They all were dressed in expensive-looking revealing dresses and looked like they were about to expode out of their dresses - skinny limbs aside.

After several more liters of beer, we went out in search for dinner in a covered market area where we were decided on mici once again. It seemed like an appropriate thing to have outdoors with a few glasses of beer. During our meal, Nathan proceeded to try to pick up our waitress who unsuccessly tried to stop his advances by telling him that she was married. Unbeknownst to me, this foreshadowed the events of the following days in Sibiu. As we were getting up from the picnic table littered with scraps of mici, smears of mustard and dirty beer glasses, Nathan made one last futile pass at the waitress while she and the cook were closing up the stall. Iulius and I started off on planning for the next step of the evening. At that point we were approached by a group of local teenagers who decided that they wanted to show us around the city. If I were not in a group of people it would probably be a stickier situation. Moreover that group of people included a native Romanian speaker making me a little less wary about random people wanting to show me around.

The rest of the evening was spent in a few bars with a few drinks more, hitting one decent club (called Chill Out), going to another club called the Nomad and the kids getting thrown out for not being cool and/or old enough and finally ending up at a place called Pantera Rosii or something rather. With the picture, I quickly figured out that it was the Pink Panther. What took another moment to perceive through the drunken haze was that it was on the other side of Hotel11Euro. That explained why the neighborhood looked familar. What I didn't figure out until we walked into the club was that it was a strip club. Apparently it was a slow night because the women were all sitting down and talking amongst themselves and the bouncers. One notable point in the evening was when the teenagers were trying to get one of the girls to come over to talk to us, she asked me if she knew what baobei meant. She told me that her boyfriend was Chinese and that's what he called her. It boggled me because I wasn't sure if she was genuinely curious or if it was one of her ploys to play Chinese clients. If it was the latter, I wasn't sure whether or not to be surprised that a stripper was trying to play me because I was Chinese.

Regardless I was too drunk and my stomach was in too bad shape to think it over - all this afterthought occured later in a less drunk and more regular state of mind and digestive tract. I'm just glad that I was near my hotel toilet.

Eventually I stumbled back to Pensione Leu with Nathan, who didn't feel he could find the Pension by himself, and Iulius, who made sure the other bed in Nathan's double did not go to waste, my unhappy lower bowels. By the time I was crawling back to Hotel11Euro, light was just starting to peek over the horizon and I tried to enjoy my one night in the overly lavish room. The bed was comfortable enough for me not to realize I spent a ridiculous sum of money in my first 18 hours in Sibiu. A few hours later I would wake up still mildly drunk and pack my things. I advise against this sort of activity and point to the fact I spent the entire next day in bed waiting for my intestines to cooperate as well as the rest of my body. The one stop I made for the day was meeting up with Iulius and Nathan at La Turna for some ciorba de burta. I guessed correctly where they were for I knew they had ciorba.

In the first 24 hours and first million lei in Sibiu, I'd like to think it afforded me an interesting and memorable experience. That makes me feel at least a little bit better about it.  ¶ 8/26/2004 11:38:00 PM

  Sunflowers, Dacias, Villas, Monastaries and Mountains

This morning was even earlier but it would be one where I said goodbye to Constanza and sped out West towards the small village of Calamanesti. At a bleary six minutes past six in the morning, I was being browbeaten for taking a little more time to clean up a little and keep quiet during my exit from Mrs. Dumitru's apartment. Admittedly, it was good to have an early start on the 8 hour ride from Constanza to Calimanesti but I rather doubt that 6 minutes would have made a difference. Mr. Hondrila's trusty Dacia had been with the family for 20 odds years and was still running more or less in good condition. We only had one mishap where the turn signal failed to work - it worked once the auto-mechanic took a look at it and said he couldn't fix it. It held an amazing amount of gasoline, enough to get us all the way to Calimanesti without filling up. There was an extra tank that helped us on the 8 hour drive. As durable the car is, three of the four people in the car's legs were altogether too much for the car. Iulius' parents were OK in the front, but Iulius and my Brobdingnagian legs had little room to move. I opted for folding my legs and feigning meditation.

We passed many things on the way to Calimanesti. However, they are in no sensical order so I will give them to you in not really chronological order without connecting them in any way (besides them all being seen during the trip).

-A huge ship placed at the city limits of Constanza. It was supposed to welcome me into Constanza but I only saw it as I left.

-Fields and fields of sunflowers.

-Way more of Bucharest than was enjoyable since we got lost there. No one seemed to be able to give us good directions to get on the main autostrada. Most of the time we were lost, we passed through the kilometers and kilometers of Soviet-style apartment blocs.

-A herd of sheep that blocked the road for some time and threatened to jump on to the train passing by. Later there were a few cows. (sorry no photos of this one - would have made an excellent photo though)

-A few more Gypsy palaces (with pictures!)

-A restaurant along the way in which we got full on the food that we brought with us and then placed an order on a few mici. Did I tell you about them yet? They are excellent - basically grilled sausages.

-Many, many horsedrawn carts. But I could go anywhere to see that.

Just before arriving in Calimanesti, I had completely run out of water from my bottle. I was hoping to fill up at the villa but just as I started to do so, Iulius said that the water at the house had some problems and wasn't safe to drink it. So I was tired and thirsty and not sure exactly where to lie down. Iulius and his parents were wandering around the house and consulting with the tenants they kept there for free to keep an eye on it and also with some of the neighbors whose responsibility it was to restore the house. I felt very much like the fifth weel - with a nail in it. Eventually we went to do the sensible thing: go to the cemetary to see Iulius' grandmother. By the way, I would be sleeping in her room for the next few days.

The situation of the Hondrila family villa is a complex one. Iulius' great-grandfather held great esteem as an admiral in charge of one tenth of the Austro-Hungarian navy. He also held several parcels land throughout Romania and other parts of central Europe. Among these distributed out to family is the beautiful piece of land along the hills of Calimanesti. From there started its sordid history. Under Communism, the Hondrila estate was constantly under the threat of being confiscated by the government. By keeping many people housed there rent free, Iulius' grandmother was able to convince the authorities that it wasn't worth their while. However sometime during the 80s, the government dropped a 5-story Soviet-style apartment block almost right in front of the house. The view on Calimanesti essentially disappeared. Once the Ceaucescu regime came to his violent end and capitalism became the order of the day, houses began to be built all over. The corrupt elements of the local officials and of the family went into cohoots and carved up certain parts of the estate with false documents. Hence we have the public cemetary sitting on what is, in fact, a part of the Hondrila estate.

So the political, legal, and familial wranglings have threatened the property for many years. One of the reasons Mr. Hondrila drops by every year is to address his rights to the property. These property problems speak nothing of the condition of the house itself. The family that currently lives there rent free and is supposedly making sure that the neighbors are not chomping off bits of the territoy doesn't seem to be holding up their end of the bargain. The house deteriorates despite their presence. A few of the neighbors who were friends with Iulius' grandmother stop by occasionally to work on restoring parts of the house. Some of these repairs included cutting down a tree whose roots were basically splitting the house in two by the foundations.

After the visit to the cemetary, the four of us in the Hondrila party went in search of a good friend of the family. Codename: el Catalan. I didn't ask about why he was called el Catalan. Again he was someone who was down on his luck due to party affiliations (not Communist) and a disinterest in playing politics to get ahead. Although he spoke no English whatsoever nor cared to, I could tell he was full of wit and energy. We caught him hanging out in his underwear and having a drink and watching TV. Almost immediately, he took us under his house to try some of the palinca, tsuika, and wine that he had brewed. Iulius, his father, Catalan and I hung out under his house until we were well soused and Iulius' mother called us back up. At first I was a little hesitant to be drinking out of some of the things that were given to me but I braved what seemed to be the siphon, cups, barrels and just about everything else that didn't seem to have ever experienced soap.

As for the rest of Calimanesti, it is a quiet town that I probably wouldn't have visited were it not for the Hondrilas' villa. There are visitors nevertheless that come to the town to breath in the fresh air and drink from the healing waters. The sulphur in the water there was reminiscent of the fountain of youth found in St. Augustine, Florida. Slightly less touristy. The river cutting through the mountain valley brings a cool breeze to the town. There are also monastaries around the town. Iulius and I took one day to trek up one of the mountains to check one out. I found Romanian Orthodox monks to not be terribly friendly. But maybe this generalization is colored by the fact I've only had one experience with Romanian Orthodox Monastaries.

So thus ended my few weeks with the Hondrila family. The next day Iulius and I would be heading to Sibiu where I would begin the solo part of my Romanian journey. For my last dinner with the Hondrilas, we went to an terrace where stuffed ourselves with mici and beer. Along for the farewell festivities were el Catalan and a cousin of Iulius who brought along his girlfriend. After many Ursuses and some time after the Hondrilas had ridden home, Iulius cousin luckily gave us a ride back to the villa. The drunken stumble home would not have been fun.

  ¶ 8/24/2004 02:23:00 PM

  Sun in the Sky, Ceaucescu in the Air Another one of our very early days was the trip taken to Bucharest. I was more or less avoiding the capital of the country. I'd heard that it overall wasn't a pleasant place to be though there are some fans. It wouldn't be right to not take a look around at all so one part of the "programme" became a daytrip into Bucharest. It's quite far from Constanza for a casual day-trip. The 6 o'clock in the morning train took 3 hours. A comfortable trip on a comfortable train but both Iulius and I lapsed into sleep several times. This is a warning though - avoid the personal trains which stop at pretty much every tiny station along the way and don't look like they have been cleaned this century. Accelerat trains are not too bad and rapid trains I've heard were OK.

Once in Bucharest after considering for a short time, we bought a metro daypass. This cost 25.000 lei whereas a single trip cost 15.000 lei. We would very quickly make the daypass worthwhile. I don't know how long they can keep such low prices though. Things had been changing pretty quickly according to Iulius. Much of the day involved Iulius pointing things out that were different a year or a few years ago.

So we were in Bucharest but didn't have a set agenda. We were there simply to see the city. The first place that we went was one of the centers of the city, Piazza Victoria (again this spelling is a compensation for the fact that I can't type out a "t" with a squiggly line underneath, normally it would be spelled "piata"). It was not so much of a square or piazza but a gigantic roundabout for cars. It didn't look like a place one could actually enjoy - definitely not by the pedestrians of Bucharest.

We had a choice between the much touted Village Museum where there were traditional houses shipped in from all over the different regions of Romania or the Museum of Natural History. Iulius had never been to the Museum of Natural History and the Village Museum though might be good seemed like it would get old quickly. So in we went on towards Natural History. It was cheap like all Romanian museums but there were not many signs in English. Save a few new placards at the end of the walk through the museum, it was all in Romanian. The receptionist however boasted that the names of the animals were given also in the Latin name. I bought a small booklet narrating rather than touring the reader through the museum.

In fact, it was quite a decent museum. The order that the exhibits were placed in suggested an evolutionary path often grouped in traditional taxonomic categories. There was quite a large number of insects and fish collected as well as a mastodon skeleton. One interesting section was of the ethnographic view of the world. Peoples were divided into the "racial" categories that Iulius, his mother, and I were discussing and refuting just days before. There were models of differing peoples of the world like the Dayaks, Lapps, Khosan, et al. Rather outdated way of looking at things but well done for what it was. Finally one weird thing was that the ashes of the founders of the museum were stored in an urn near the mastodon skeleton. I guess they were quite attached to the museum.

We met with Alex, the aforementioned businessman, for a short time near the museum while we were devouring the food that Iulius had brought along. Naturally it was the traditional fare of peppers, chilis, tomatoes, boiled eggs (with the yolk still runny), buttered bread, some pears and a filled salt shaker. We then went in search for a coffee for Alex had other pressing engagements with his girlfriend's parents and didn't have enough time for anything else. After one attempt at one place which only served drinks with food, and another that was a "club" seemed to have at its patrons, union and mafia members. The latter had Segafredo but wasn't worth treading on dangerous territory. Eventually we had a quick coffee at a place called "Coffee World" that sold coffee in bulk but also served coffee from a small bar in the corner.

Did I mention it was damn hot? After sweating in to our respective coffees and beers, Alex left us for other more important locales. We changed some money and continued to walk around the city, trying when we could to walk in the shade. From what I saw and what Iulius explained about Bucharest is that there are in fact a lot of architectural eccentricities besides those of the Ceaucescu era. Many of the turn of the century buildings are quite eclectic with Modernist and Art Noveau elements next to more Austro-Hungarian elements. Many of the pre-world war buildings were very daring in their design. Despite Kristina's warning to Iulius not to take photos of buildings, I'm now looking forward to supplying you with plenty of photos of buildings as soon as Iulius develops them.

At one point we stopped at the Piazza Revolutionarii and Iulius told me of some of the peculiarities of the 1989 revolution. There are some theories that it was much more staged than was apparent at the time. Let me brief you on some of the facts first. Ceaucescu had embarked on some of his worst excesses in the 1980s and although the propaganda machine was present, it was not strong enough to make people not dislike him. Often he would stand from the balcony of the government building and address the crowds (obliged to show up). There would then be recorded applause to start the crowds chanting long live socialism and Ceaucescu.

On December 21st, 1989 there began to be protests in Timisoara against the jailing of a rather vocal Hungarian priest who spoke out against the oppressiveness of the regime. When these were put down, more protest in Bucharest seemed imminent. In hopes of curtailing these protests, Ceaucescu gave another speech from the balcony and promised extra lei for everybody. During this balcony speech on the 22nd, people started actually shouting criticisms at the regime and Ceaucescu much to his horror. From there the protesters fled and were brutally put down - though this just increased the fury of the people and the level of violence increased to a fevered pitch forcing Ceaucescu and his wife to flee via helicopter. Soon his people in the government turned against him and he was forced to try to flee by a stolen car. Though he was captured, the violence continued and many buildings were damaged or destroyed all throughout the city but especially in Piazza Revolutionarii. Ion Iliescu, who had now assumed control of government, proclaimed that the only way to calm the people and make peace once and for all was to execute Ceaucescu and his wife - which is what happened on Christmas day 1989.

There exist however, suspicious elements to the sequence of events. For example, many of the buildings including some of historic ones like the museum of art and the national library and many others in the center were torched and more or less destroyed. Strangely, the senate building where Iliescu and his cronies spoke from was not damaged. I saw a few bullet marks but otherwise it was unscathed. The whole time of the rioting, Iliescu spoke from the balcony as Ceaucescu did without any fear from stray bullets. Also, the new ruling party's rhetoric changed from a new improved socialist government to a democratic rhetoric when they saw the momentum away from a communist government. So, these fears of a return to communism went on several years into the 1990s. At this point Romania is solidly democratic though is quite flawed. Like a few other post-communist countries, many of the people in power now are simply communist party leaders with a new name. The same corrupt people still hold the power.

Looking back, it was still much better than the megalomania of the Ceaucescu regime. Although starting to open up to the west in the early 80s by publicly distancing himself away from the Soviets, he proved quite an inept leader and often his projects involved pumping up his own ego. We saw some of these like the People's Hall, the second largest building in the world right behind the Pentagon. The Pentagon in contrast is being used and is a complete building and I might even go so far to say has some aesthetic value. The People's Hall is unfinished, ugly, and is a blight on Bucharest for decades to come at least. Another one of his self-effacing projects was to knock down a bunch of historic buildings to replace them with concrete blocs and gardens to spell out his name so he can see it when riding around on his helicopter. Thankfully this project was never finished. There is still a part of a park resulting from this project that we walked through and while explaining the name project, Iulius mentioning the name Ceaucescu drew some dirty looks.

We visited a few more neighborhoods, like the German one, and had a drink at a pretty interesting cafe often visited by intellectuals called Cafe Deko (near the US embassy and the National Theater if you want to visit). Also we looked all over for the Romania and Moldova Lonely Planet again to no avail - neither the new or old one seem to exist anywhere in Eastern Europe. It is defintely already in print but I guess they don't send them to the actual countries until they are out of date. So that about wraps it up for Bucharest. During the train and tram ride back Iulius and I started a long discussion about Communism and China and Romania which ended when both of us agreed we were entirely too tired to talk about it.
  ¶ 8/23/2004 03:42:00 PM

  Here's to You Mrs. Dumitru My first living arrangements in the country of Romania were interesting. In the embryonic planning stages of my trip, the image of my stay in my mind would be at the Hondrilas' small apartment. However, since Mrs. Hondrila was having health problems that (if I remember correctly) involve her blood pressure and her not being able to sleep very well. So having a little extra room was necessary and my staying there would not be possible. They were quite active and apologetic about finding some other inexpensive place for me to stay. This would be at a neighbour's small apartment, a pensioner named Mrs. Dumitru. At first I was quite upset about it in that it was a sizable blow to my budget at ten euros per night. Later after I realized it would still be fun and interesting to be around the Hondrilas and they would still make sure I ate enough and also that they said it was closer to ten dollars than ten euros, I felt much better about it. Of course this all predates my arrival in Constanza. In fact, the more I read about Constanza, the more I realized that most hotels (there are no hostels - hostel owners take note) cost minimum around 990,000 lei or US$30.

This is all to take comfort from the fact that I would not normally visit a beach town. It worked.

I'll start off when I first arrived in Constanza after the few more beers on the train. I stumbled off the train with Iulius to meet his father waiting eagerly on the platform. After a tram-ride and a short walk, I was dropping off my bags at the neighboring Mrs. Dumitru's apartment. To all of our surprises, Mrs. Dumitru's son and a granddaughter (both grand-daughters were back in Romania for a short break during their work in Dubai; apparently there are many Romanians who find it much easier to find legal work in Dubai) was there to greet me - most likely out of curiosity about this weird-looking foreigner coming more or less on his own to Romania. I felt a little sheeping being fairly sloshed as I walked in to meet them. I laid my things out, washed up a little and walked in a straight a line as I could out after a brief chat via Iulius acting as the translator and then over to the Hondrilas for dinner - where I would be having most of my meals during my stay in Constanza.

The next morning, the Hondrilas had called Mrs. Dumitru at about 10:00 explicitly to tell her not to wake me up. If I remember correctly, for I was still in the ecstasy of enjoying being in a comfortable bed, my host then came into my room started speaking in Romanian - at the time still quite unintelligible to me - and then kissed me on both cheeks. Not knowing exactly what the protocol was for Romanians in the morning, I didn't question it. Not that I could have at any rate. She then gestured toward the window for some fresh air and made advances to open it up until she realized I was still only in my boxers and might get cold. Later I would find out after Iulius did some investigation that Mrs. Dumitru felt an overwhelming pity for me since I was alone in a foreign country where I could not speak the language. So although she couldn't communicate to me with words, she wanted to make me feel as if I were welcome to her home and country.

My stay there was quite nice despite the fact that the entire city block had its hot water cut off. Apparently they were doing some work on the pipes and had to shut some of them down - great for people me in the long run, bad for me during my stay in Constanza. As luck would have it, the hot water returned on the day before I was leaving. Not before I had a chance to take a last cold shower. This negative were coupled with a few things I felt bad about putting a pensioner through. One of these things was my chronic returning to the apartment after my host went to sleep. As I entered, I would interrupt her dreaming and awake her with a start because she had set up her sleeping area on the couch in the living room. With this arrangement, however, she could continue watching her favorite Spanish soap-operas (with Romanian subtitles) until later.

But as I tried to creep quietly out on our early morning trek to Calemaneshti, which I'll tell you about later on, seven minutes elapsed past our 6am time of departure. Mr. Hondrila had sent Iulius to ring the bell and fetch me. I was seconds away from walking out the door when I remembered that I left a small piece of garbage on the floor. Not wanting to be seen as a slob, I crept back in the room past a snoring Mrs. Dumitru and picked it up. Just as I was at the door, the bell rang and there was no way to stop it that I knew of. This was not completely negative for I could say goodbye properly. The night before was only business. I had paid her in full plus a little bit more. On top of the 2,100,000 lei (350,000 lei per night) she was asking for, I gave her another 400,000 lei. Not bad considering her pension for one month is 1,000,000 lei. So in one week, she made two and a half times her pension.

Here's to you, Mrs. Dumitru. You were a great hostess.
  ¶ 8/23/2004 09:57:00 AM

  Life's a Beached... Whale - The Black Sea Part II I've already mentioned to you that the Black Sea is all about going to the beach. And as far as beaches go, there are plenty of choices. Imagine beach resort strips like the east coast of Florida around Miami or the beach community along the west side of St. Petersburg, Florida. OK, I admit that I don't have that many places to compare it to nor do I know very much about beaches. Basically, Constanza has a beach and so does the more touristy neighboring town of Mamaia which can be reached by walking about an hour. Further south all the way to the Bulgarian border there are resort towns of various sizes and clientele. One entire day, Iulius, me and for some time also Iulius' father worked our way down the Black Sea coast mostly via minibus to check out the beaches. There are trains but minibuses, or microbuses I've also heard them called, tend to be more convenient for getting from point to point or getting information. They are more efficient but often packed to the ceiling with passengers. This was true of the minibus to Mangalia - Mangalia was almost the southernmost resort town so we had to backtrack to where we wanted to go but it worked better timewise since there was an express minibus to Mangalia. This way was faster than taking a bus south from Constanza directly to the beach towns north of Mangalia.

The first place we went to after waking up at a reasonbly late hour, meaning not unreasonably early, was a place called Neptun-Olimp. Many of the first few resort towns are named after planets or Roman gods depending on your point of view. I can't remember which ones there are but Venus definitely one of them; Mars is not. Mr. Hondrila had a friend in Neptun-Olimp and to prepare, he bought a volleyball. Maybe he was once a colleague who taught volleyball. I was never quite clear on that for he wasn't so keen on chatting with the foreigner whose words you are reading. We first went to visit the beach - it was one of the more posh ones during the Communist era. We were greeted by newly painted and renovated buildings and then soon after pounding American bass music - some of it actually OK - and the searing noon sun.

I like to consider the playing of American music just a way for Romanians to welcome me to their country... Probably not. Later they played popular Romanian ballads which was soon followed by some hip-hop. Missy Elliot maybe? Not that it matters.

The water was pleasant and I went out as far as I dared, being not that strong a swimmer. Iulius and I swam while his father kept an eye on our stuff and he swam when we came back. This would be Iulius' father's first time at the beach this year. The beach was quite packed with people. I didn't have to step over anybody but it wasn't so straightforward finding a space to lay out some towels. This was not my first taste of people sunbathin topless but it still made me a little uncomfortable. Eventually I wouldn't even bat an eye at a naked breast on the beach. Well, maybe I would. OK, I probably would still but I'm definitely used to it by the time of writing. Eventually Iulius and I came to the decision that simply hanging out on the beach was quite boring.

We had an appointment with Costell (a shortform for Constantin - I'm not sure why) at the restaurant and hotel where he worked sometimes. He was down on his luck, having sold some apartments and cars to invest money in a terrace on the beach. It went bankrupt and now he is helping his mother out who works at a one star hotel on Neptun-Olimp. This gave Iulius and me the chance to shower since the hot water wasn't working in our neighborhood in Constanza. Of course, if we went in the water again it would nullify the effects of the shower. The paradox was maddening.

The four of us proceeded to have an immense late lunch that made swimming for the rest of the day a bad idea (problem solved). It started out as we were emerging from the hotel room freshly showered. Something resembling Tadziki - containing fish eggs - was already on the table, as was a green eggplant puree. Both were delicious and I ate them hungrily with bread and shushka. Soon Iulius' father asked Costell to bring out a "bouqet" of shushka to take care of my piquancy needs. Then the primi piata was my first taste of ciorba de burta. Although they gave me a choice of different ciorbas since they were convinced that I would find ciorba de burta disgusting, it's what I chose. As a Westerner, something like tripe might seem disgusting but as I often say: we Cantonese will eat anything, and do eat anything. Beef tripe is actually a quite popular dim sum item. The big mistake was choosing a dish called "Fasole de..." can't remember the name. I'll have to ask Iulius later on. It was some tasty cuts of pork with beans and bread and a few other things but it basically knocked me out for the rest of the day. Palinka and white wine were also served (red wine is not so commonly drunk in Romania - especially in the summer).

After the weighty lunch, Iulius and I ran a short but painfully stomach thumping distance to catch the minibus back to Mangalia, the main resort in the far south. We were going to head to Vama Veche, literally Old Customs - probably meaning the old customs point for the Bulgaria-Romania border. It lies right on the border. There we would meet up with my friends Donald and Dana that I met in the Dacia, the train running between Vienna, Budapest and Bucharest. Upon arriving in Mangalia, few minibuses were present going further south. One was present containing a snoring driver. It didn't look like he was leaving anytime soon. Eventually Iulius and I decided on going to the penultimate beach called Doi (2) Mai and walking our way down to Vama Veche.

The walk was very pleasant and there were some dramatic red sand cliffs on the beach. It was a rocky rather than sandy beach along the way - strewn with lots of garbage unfortunately. Mostly plastic bottles, cans, synthetic materials. The garbage most likely was washed up from the Black Sea because of the storm one day before as there was lots of seaweed as well. Regardless, plenty of breathtaking scenery. Another part of the scenery were all the naked people. What we found out was that Vama Veche used to be a refuge for hippies and other social outcasts like "naturalists". In the past few years, many younger people have gone to Vama Veche to relax and have a good time with the hippies, inadvertently pushing the traditional visitors further north to Doi Mai. So basically Iulius and I had to walk through people with much less modesty (whether deserved or not - generally not) than us.... well, me at least.

Once we arrived at Vama Veche after the longer than expected walk of about one hour, we went to search for Donald at the Ex-Pirata where we agreed to meet after a quick telephone call from Doi Mai. On the way, we walked by a city of tents. Hundreds of people were camped on the beach immediately behind a sign that forbade camping on the beach. There were also fixed places to stay but if tent you have, money you don't pay. We searched around for some time as Iulius was only expecting two bars on the beach. They had multiplied exponentially since the last time he was in Vama Veche. There was also the first stages of a tall concrete beach resort - Donald and Dana were telling me about the heavy protests against the commercialization of the beach and the many "Save Vama Veche" movements. Eventually we simply followed the Ivan Bregovitch to Ex-Pirata and Donald.

So there is not much more to tell about the rest of the day. The atmosphere there was incredibly friendly and relaxed. The two hours left until dusk and further into the evening involved talking to a quite inebriated Donald and a sunbathing Dana plus a few others on the beach. Also there was much over-intellectual discussion between Iulius and me, which left many eavesdroppers a little bewildered. During some of these discussions, Iulius' pessimism about the future of Romania was lifted and continued to improve through the next few days. Of course, Iulius and I also became quite inebriated in the process but you don't need to know the details of all that.
  ¶ 8/22/2004 05:18:00 PM

  Politics, Pensions, Corruption, Cronyism By the end of this specific blog you'll realise that it eventually breaks down into lots of different ideas that don't necessarily connect directly with one another. Read it if you like but it was written after only a few hours of sleep. It might be interesting but it isn't necessarily gospel. Read it witha grain of salt. (Sibiu)

Staying with the Hondrilas and getting to meet many of the people that deal first-hand with the dirty parts of Romanian political culture was an enlightening experience that most travelers through this country will not get. Unless they speak Romanian or have an able and consistent interpretor and also are able to meet people who are willing to talk about different woes about politics, pensions, corruption and the like, it's a world only heard about in published reports and possibly the news. The typical backpacker experience with Romanians will be talking to young English-speaking people in the service industry. Otherwise, if travelers hit the clubs or any other social situation where they meet random Romanians, those they meet will still be relatively young and better off - sometimes monetarily but always in the outlook towards life.

Iulius' parents are by no means well off or even comfortable at many points. This is not to say that they are dirt poor. Both of Iulius' parents are educated and held stable jobs for many years and even excelled. Iulius' mother taught Romanian language and literature to young Romanian minds, and Iulius' father started off as a basketball coach but also worked as a technical consultant and sports inspector for schools. These are only OK paying jobs even at the higher levels, but do not even come close to the money available in private industry. Moreover, Iulius' father had recently been laid off - many suspect because he was not a member of the current political party in power. Iulius father has much to say about the political system and spending time with just him and Iulius shifts it from the didactic and ideological discussions with Mrs. Hondrila and brings it to a much more tangible problem.

Mr. Hondrila and many of Mr. Hondrila's friends had decided they were not interested in joining the Communist Party and this continued through to their sentiments towards the ruling party - the heir to the Communist Party and often the same people. Fane, one of the codenames that the elder Hondrila's friends call each other, worked as a crew member aboard a cargo ship for some time and was thrown in jail by the communist regime for five years for transporting contraband. Often contraband simply means luxury items that were not produced in Romania like American cigarettes. Also, many of his domestic contracts now as a shipyard and crew logistics firm get passed on to people in the right party (new generation communist or otherwise) rather than him - be they the best qualified or not. Gogo, another of the circle of friends, had been passed up many times for jobs and advancements in his work. Needless to say, these are not amongst the fat and wealthy in Romania simply because of political affiliation. Generally they are men of principles - not necessarily the same ones, but not ones who are willing to switch parties simply out of opportunism.

All were quite good natured and liked to drink well, eat well, and overall have a good time. During one of my first days in Constanza, Gogo and another friend had taken a boat out and caught several fish and invited us to dine on them. The fish was not bad but was full of bones and was quite a chore to eat. I'm not really a fish fan. Another part of the meal, mamaliga, was interesting; it was sort of a polenta but with a slightly different consistency. The other friend didn't make it as they had been drinking palinka all day - a strong plum brandy that can reach over 60% in alcohol. As we entered the restaurant where he cooked up the fish (I guess Gogo knows the owner or is part owner), Gogo drunkenly introduced himself and later Fane appeared. Gogo repeatedly made attempts at English that usually ended being something like, "You good boy." I'm not exactly sure what that is supposed to insinuate. Fane spoke English the best amongst the three but often I couldn't follow what he was saying - sometimes because he mumbled and sometimes he used a word that was neither English (and later I would find) nor Romanian. I mostly got that he was not a shady guy but he didn't always play by the rules.

Often times the breaking of the rules and the accusation of corruption towards "Eastern" or "Southern" countries are considered as an unquestionable malaise. This ignores the possibility that it may be the laws that are being broken that are at fault for being poorly crafted. A strong legal code along with the strong rule of law are necessary as a foundation for a stable society and economy. This is true, but it is a rather general statement. A weak legal code may not simply be one that is not well written, it could also mean one that does not reflect the realities of society and who needs to be protected. Rule of law might be strong in a nation's capital but once outside where people feel less like they had anything to do with the creation of the laws, and henceforth might feel less like they have to follow those laws. It isn't always just putting law enforcers on the street. If you fail to pay those law enforcers or public officials well, they will simply feel like the government is not rewarding them enough for their hard work. It may sound like a simple carrot and stick approach, but it works in places like Singapore where public officials are paid quite well and incidences of bribery are nominal.

Also, in many cases of law-breaking that I've seen or heard about, once an individual or a company considers itself above the law other social and legal norms become less taboo as well. This could be seen as "gateway corruption". This is not necessarily true in terms of small scale corruption leading to large scale corruption. Sometimes companies may simply consider a certain law as creating an inefficiency rather than serving the greater good - and sometimes they don't serve the greater good. There are also other cases where businesses and individuals realize how much they can get away with and push their law-breaking further and further.

At the higher levels of corruption, the cost is higher but less visible. In the US, the possiblity to legally bribe politicians into giving time to different interests has come under higher scrutiny. Mavericks like John McCain go against the grain in order to try to push through campaign finance reforms that will largely not be in the interest of politicians but may be of interest for the common voter. In other countries like the People's Republic of China, corruption exists in many sectors of society but not at the highest level where a combination of high peer scrutiny, so many levels of hierarchy to pass that knowing somebody is simply one of the many requirements, and now an increasing demand by outsiders and insiders in China to eliminate corruption have made the technocratic leaders squeaky clean relative to their counterparts in other developing economies. The other levels of bureaucracy however are still vulnerable to the temptation of easy money.

This diatribe should end soon for much of it is speculation and hearsay. Additionally many of the things said about Constanzan folk are via a translation or people speaking English quite poorly. I'm also not very coherent today and probably shouldn't be blogging.

  ¶ 8/22/2004 10:51:00 AM

  Who are these Romanians anyways? Writing now from Sibiu in Transylvania. Large German-speaking presence here - but they are tourists as well as locals. There are not as many internet cafes but I was able to manage this one blog. I need to spend one whole day catching you up with the last week. My money is really going quickly here. I've been quite bad at keeping track. Need to tighten my budget - not at the expense of blogging of course. 26 August 2004 Sibiu

One of the ongoing discussions between Iulius, his mother and me were the makeup of the Romanian population. This stems from a larger ongoing discussion about the real distinction (or lack thereof) between the peoples of the world. A lot of this goes towards the direction East - namely the East-West divide. Iulius, being from Romania, has many things to say about his country essentially being in the "East". This is true for different reasons but one thing (just in case you read this Iulius) we didn't touch as much as we should have was the North-South divide. Even more interesting is the East-South divide - for those of you looking for something to research, hot topic (not yet, but the oracle in me says so).

So often over dinner of bell peppers, bread, shushka (chili peppers), tomatoes, and some hot dish Mrs. Hondrila prepared for us, the topic of the Romanian people often came up. Let's start with the line that goes along with the national myth. The country's namesake is supposed to conjure up the image of the stalwart Roman soldier. The reason is that the myth has the Dacians, a people who were reported to have lived in the area according that old tune sung by historian of old, our good pal, Herodotus. There were also some Greeks here centuries before (see Port Tomis) but it doesn't fit into the nationalist myth so they are conveniently considered too small an influence. The Dacians resisted Roman rule for quite some time into the common era (after that Christ guy was born). Eventually they succumbed and the men were killed and the women married the Roman soldiers garrisoned in the new Roman province of Pannonia. Soldiers in the Roman army were not necessarily from Rome and in fact this was rarely the case. This explains the lack of a specific Romanian "look". This also explains the fact that the Romanian language is still quite close to the Latin of old with some smattering of Dacian and other influences. The Slavic influence is present but in a sea of Slavs, there exists a Latin language and so Romanian culture is preserved.

If you want to swallow all that propaganda, you probably shouldn't read on. One of the small details forgotten conveniently by the nationalists are the waves of Central Asians coming in during the thousand years between the creation of Pannonia and the modern Wallachian (the central state and cultural heart of Romania). Avars, Magyars, Tatars, Mongols and other Turkic peoples including Turks - and let's not forget the Roma and Germanic peoples - came into the area for centuries. Some were not so interested in settling down but mostly in busting some heads like the Mongols, but many very likely settled in the area and inter-married with locals. For those West-leaning Romanias, this clangs of too much influence from the East though in the end it doesn't change anything. Also, there are political issues with the Turks and Tatars still in the region moved there during the Ottoman occupation. These ethnic groups are very much seen as not really that Romanian.

I have a slightly different view on it. Any kingdom or nation, especially those on a crossroads like Romania is, will have people settling in it from all sorts of places. This is even true of traditional backwaters like the British Isles, which as the word Isle impies is isolated. But especially in crossroad nations, there needs to be a common tongue to cut through the confusion (babble if you will) of a multilingual society. Plus it always helps in uniting the people when dealing with the occasional invasion. In the case of Romania, quite occasional. So after the Dacian language, the closest thing Romania or Wallachia had to a lingua franca was Latin and then as it morphed along the years, Romanian. So all the diverse groups coming in, like the Central Asians, or there already, like the Greeks and Dacians, would be absorbed into the society by the Latin language and later the Romanian language. On the peripheries, you have peoples with other linguistic brethren like the German-speakers, Turkish-speakers, or Magyar-speakers in Hungary. So those people have retained their roots by literature and the occasional invasion. But since there is no Avarstan, for example, those people get more easily absorbed.

Well, now that most Romanian nationalists are hiring the hit-men to track me down, I'll have to run and get a quick drink before my last minutes. Wish me luck!



  ¶ 8/20/2004 06:40:00 PM

  Life's a Beeatch, unless you're in Constanza. My hopes were high for several days of just chilling out and not doing much. My hopes were high because the month preceding were filled with days of hurrying from one place to another to see things - not a bad thing in and of itself but I quite needed a break after one month of it. This was not to be. Iulius' father, who seemed to have an appreciation German efficiency, was eager to "program" my itinerary for my time in Constanza. My first thoughts were "Don't people come to a beach town to relax?" but then I returned to the role of a guest respectful of his hosts. Of course, I have a different definition of relaxing than most folks. My first loyalty is to my readers and recipients of my emails (don't you feel special?). So when I am 4 weeks behind in my blogging I get rather stressed out about it. So what do I do? I go to the beach.

Not immediately though. Iulius and I were to take a walking tour throughout Constanza during the day. It was hot but not as hot as it is today (patience, I'll get to today tomorrow - or maybe a few days after that..... that didn't make any sense at all, did it?) Much happened during the one year that had passed since Iulius' last time in Constanza. According to him, many of the public works projects had taken place within the last year. These are sometimes quite basic like public yellow benches with umbrellas over them - park benches are no good if they are undr the searing sun. Trees would have been a good idea as well but a bright yellow umbrella will suffice - unless of course the sun isn't directly overhead. New trees were in no short supply either. Many privatized communist era blocs now had flower gardens in front and were much less the eye-sore for it. Some were repainted to bright colors.

Some of the bigger projects were quite impressive like large fountains. If you are a person in power in a sunny town (like you folks in Florida), PUBLIC FOUNTAINS - a really good idea and worth the expense. For those of you profitniks, aren't happy citizens worth the expense? One interesting project was the solution to the problem of stray dogs. If you've read anything about Romanian life, you'll know that roaming packs of stray dogs are a big problem - most are harmless but some are actually aggressive. There was a city-wide plan to sterilize many of them (partly due to an incident where two American military-men bitten by them) and also to tag the with an plastic earring marking them as "community dogs" belonging to a certain neighborhood. What I've heard is that the demolition of many buildings during Ceaucescu's time resulted in homeless people and even more homeless dogs that the owners could no longer support.

Another new things were the public drinking fountains that made sure people weren't passing out from heatstroke. Disney employers, take note: charging $10 a bottle for water is simply mean-spirited and malicious. A poor country like Romania is doing better than Disney World. Also notable were the bricked sidewalks instead of gravel and concrete. These were very small details but Iulius took note and was quite happy about them. Many changes were still in progress. Some public and some private but it looked like things were going in a good direction.

Iulius said that the mayor of Constanza had much to do with it. He is quite progressive and was hoping to put in changes like those I mentioned. He had once belonged to the opposition party but switched parties for survival reasons (rather than the maintainance and accumulation of power like many politicians). Even popular politicians do poorly when they are not in the ruling party. This is what happened to the mayor of Bucharest who is unable to get funding for anything since the ruling party cuts funding for oppositon party projects despite the fact that they are good projects. More about Bucharest later.

Iulius and I eventually walked past the Roman and Greek ruins of Port Tomis to the Black Sea coast where the shipyard was. Further around was the beach. Before the beach was a 19th century casino - beautiful except for an ugly sign in front in the shape of the Eiffel Tower and the word "Paris". Really, was that necessary? It totally spoiled the facade of the building. The beach was full even though it was not at all the best of the beaches in the area. The Mamaia beaches and the ones further south from Constanza are much nicer but I've heard that all of them are getting more popular as a tourist destination.

I would be spending more time at the beach in the days to come. I'll tell you more about them but right now I have to meet up with Iulius to go to Mamaia (I've only seen it at night). It's supposed to hit 45 degrees today so the beach is probably packed, but it is ideal beach weather and not really sitting in an internet cafe weather.  ¶ 8/18/2004 02:23:00 PM

 
Stray dogs - grande problem in Romania. Note the eartag, this one has been sterilized and now belongs to a community   ¶ 8/18/2004 07:26:00 AM

  Hypnotized by Zeroes (in Lei Country) I'm going to write to you a little bit about Romania before I backtrack towards the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary. Anyways, those blogs are going to be stale news. Wouldn't you prefer to read fresh blogs about things that happened only a few days ago? I don't know if I can get up to speed in Romania by the time I leave Constanza (tomorrow morning - the 22nd of August), but definitely when I'm on my own in Sighisoara I'll be spending more time in internet cafes for better or worse. For now, I have to follow Papa Hondrila's "programme". More about this... read on.

There were many hours left over in Budapest Keleti (east) station where other travelers, often other backpackers, milled around sometimes half the day. As one of the richer cities in the frontier between the "West" and the "East" Keleti station was very much a jumping off point for folks going on further to the south and east. Trains came and went from the former Yugoslav Republics, Ukraine, Istanbul, and my destination, Bucharest. My forints were quite low and I was schlepping around a heavy bag; it made quite a lot of sense to simply whittle away the minutes at the train station. The sun was long gone and I was halfway through the Economist, and from where I was sitting further down the platform I could smell the trains emptying out their sewage. You see, my train was schedule to depart almost at midnight, so all the unsavory elements of the train station make themselves sense and all the conveniences (like food and toilets) disappear. As always, I made do.

The remaining hour and a half before my scheduled departure I decided to spend within eyeshot of the schedule. Since I still wasn't 100% sure which platform my train would be arriving in, I sat directly under the indicator of the one where I thought it would show up. The Dacia Express would be arriving from Vienna and continuing on to Bucharest - Gara de Nord. Under the platform schedule indicator is apparently where all the other backpackers hang out. This includes a fellow from Oregon I was told by Benny from Yellow Zebra that was heading also to Romania - Sigishoara to be exact. Just chance that I picked him out from the hundreds of other people waiting for the train.

Also I had managed to befriend an easygoing Romanian couple waiting for the train and dispensing advice to nearby backpackers. They had been making a trip from Vienna to Budapest for the Sziget festival that made it a pain in the rear for Kristien and I to find a room, and eventually to Bucharest where they both live, but continuing onwards towards the coast and a place called Vama Veche, a beach village they raved on and on about. Apparently all night parties, incredible beaches, and supercool people were everywhere to be found there. The guy, Donald (though I found out later it was not his real name - it's rather not Romanian sounding), played upright bass in a traditional Romanian acoustic band that often went to Salzburg and Brugge. He was an anything goes kind of guy who seemed focused only every once in a while. Maybe it was because he was on vacation. Dana, the girl of the couple (according to traditional definitions), was more gregarious but less easy going. She was working as an auto-insurance claims clerk for a private company and recently finished studying economics in Bucharest. Both were living at home and living at the beach during the summer.

Donald was able to convince me that the intercity overnight trains from Budapest to Bucharest were relatively safe. What I wanted to watch out for were the local trains. Avoid avoid avoid was the mantra. I felt a little bit better about it and by that time I was resigned to believing bad things were going to happen regardless of how much I prepared, and since I was already quite careful with my belongings, it was time to relax. Unfortunately more relaxing had to be done at the trains station. Every twenty minutes or so, an recorded announcement in English would come on following one in Hungarian saying that the Dacia Express would be 20 minutes late. This went on for over one hour until finally, the other recorded announcement came on saying the train was arriving. I'm guessing 20 minutes is the only amount they are ready to handle.

The train compartments were quite comfortable even though I had made a reservation in the four bed compartment - the more luxurious three bed compartments I've heard are not that much more expensive. I figured that there would be more space to sit up in the beds if there were only two beds per wall instead of three beds on one wall. In the end, my ticket was around 15,000 forint (roughly 35 euros) and the reservation in the couchette added roughly another 5000 forint. This was quite good considering that it was a return ticket. Apparently there are huge discounts for return tickets. 70% off a return ticket, whereas the one-way ticket was full price. So even if I never used the return part of the ticket, it would still be cheaper. I'm not sure why there's a discount. Maybe the Ministry of Tourism in Romania is really hard up for people to come and leave.

After waking up and trying to convince the two Romanians already sleeping in the compartment to unlock the door, I got in slept, woke up for the passport authorities on the Hungarian side, went back to sleep for about 15 minutes (I guess the immigration authorities of Romania and Hungary can't stand to be that close to each other) for the Romanian passport authorities.

In the morning, I was able to find Dana and a slumbering Donald and hung out with them for most of the day drinking my white wine disguised as icea tea. Also a Portuguese couple came on board looking for their reserved seats. They were taken by a blind woman and her grandson. "This is Romanian-style," answered Donald and they had a pretty good sense of humor about it. As you can see I was not so stressed out about getting robbed anymore. Now the stress was to be able to find my way around the Bucharest North station without getting mugged. As it turns out, Iulius' friend Alex - dressed like a businessman - swooped down and whisked me away from the Portuguese and Romanian couple. Suddenly I was drunk in the back of a taxicab and was then sitting in the terrace of an Italian restaurant drinking more beer. Eventually, Iulius showed up and another round of drinks were bought.

As this part of the day was becoming quite fuzzy, I'll tell you a little about my good friend Iulius Hondrila. I met him and his wife at the very beginning of my stint doing the European Studies program in Leuven. Both are toweringly tall. They contrast each other, Iulius being from a relatively poor southern country and is somewhat reserved, and has jet-black hair. Kristina is from northern countries and her looks (ie blonde hair and other things you could imagine a Scandanavian having) reflect that. Her father from Germany, her mother from Denmark and is much more talkative - not in a bad way. She'll provide the engine for discussion but still remain asking questions if others are not saying enough. Both can get quite animanted and heated during discussions, but all-in-all great folks. They are some of the few people I met during the program (and in all my travels) who are genuine concerning just about everything they say. They are also one of the few people from the program who took the time to find out my background and motives.

So I was very interested in finding out what kind of people brought up Iulius. He, in his mother's words, is a clone of his father in terms of physical traits. However, Iulius very much plays the familial role his father does when it comes to Kristina. Iulius' mother however, had plenty to say. She is educated as a philologist and a teacher of Romanian. She takes the didactic approach and takes her time to build and argument and then defends it like she were defending her own children. Through all the things that Iulius' parents had to say, it was all in Romanian and Iulius played the role of the interpretor until I could get up to speed with my Romanian.

The first dinner from the first evening in Romania went as follows. We had chicken schnitsels in a vegetable salad. Most vegetable salads in Romanian menus are comprised of cucumber or white cabbage, both with a dill and vinegar sauce. Almost every Romanian meal has 1) light green bell-peppers, 2) very very red and juicy tomatoes, 3) bread, and 4) chili peppers of varying degrees of piquancy with some salt to dip them in. This includes breakfast but not all meals eaten in restaurant. Every meal I've had at the Hondrila's have had these things. Red hot chili peppers and bell peppers first thing in the morning usually takes getting used to but I had no problems. Vegetables that are not imported in Romania are always "bio" or "organic". Well, these words in fact mean nothing when industrial agriculture is not yet the norm. Everything is very very fresh and healthy and bursting with flavor. I doubt that cube-shaped watermelons will make in-roads anytime soon.  ¶ 8/16/2004 01:17:00 PM