Vacation

Attention:

If you will be in the featured region of the map at any point during the month of August please let me know. Maybe we can arrange a little rendez-vous. I'm getting a little stir crazy and I need to take a vacation. Climbing, biking, hiking, touring, or just plain site seeing. LET'S DO IT!!!!Psssssstttt................click to enlarge

Cheile Turzii (Turda Gorge)

Last Friday I went with a few coworkers and one of our Board Members from Holland to the Turda Gorge just outside of Cluj-Napoca. We had fantastic weather with lots of sunshine and cool breezes. Its only about 2 hours away from where I live and supposedly has some great rock climbing. Unfortunately all of the bolts looked like old hammered in pitons circa WWI. Nonetheless it was a very nice relaxed hike through the gorge with running water right through the center. If the weather is nice, and you have a chance to visit it comes highly recommended.

Ro Vision

As I sit here in my living room, sorry, the 2^nd room, I don’t look back on my last year in Romania in vain. Some of my fellow volunteers hate their locations, their jobs, the people they associate with, and the feeling of impotence when trying to communicate to locals that you just aren’t interested in cross country travel with home made cheese. Me, I don’t hate any of those things. What I hate about living in Romania is that every time I am about to switch off my TV. and go to sleep at night I see a familiar face from a forgotten moment in my pop culture days of old. Perhaps its Bill and Ted (most recently spotted in “Bill and Ted merg in iarasi”), maybe Cuba Gooding Jr. speaking Hungarian, or perhaps the current governor of Cali-for-nia in his portrayal of Detective John Kimble but whatever it is it makes me reluctant to hit that little red button in the top right corner of my telecomanda. Unfortunately, this makes for difficult mornings and lengthy afternoons filled with delusions of trading it all in for a nice Romanian siesta.

Of course, the cycle repeats itself and the mindless flipping through tv stations occurs over and over again until that bizarrely formed Romanian version of “Prime Time” occurs (somewhere in between 11pm and 2am.) For a period of time my cable had been switched off for an oversight regarding payment of the mysterious bill which never seems to show up at my apartment. At the time I wasn’t in any kind of hurry to pay it. Not because I didn’t have the money, though I didn’t have the money, but because I thought it would be more productive for me in the long run. Sure, I could read books, magazine articles, and generally do other things which make could make me more productive. And yes, for a while I did do those things. But you know what? There were certain things that “books” and “learning” could never replace. To be more specific I am talking about Romanian TV shows that give you real insight into the culture like No Comment where a 50 year old Romanian fat guy plays the real life role of Sugar Daddy to an 18? year old, still-in-high-school model. Let me assure you that the diologue between the two main characters is stunning in nature. From an entire episode where the girl attempts to convince her Granddaddy Don Juan to make an appearance at her high school prom via the teleconference mode on her latest thousand dollar Nokia phone to the episode where they spend 15 minutes laughing about how (insert name ending in “escu” here)’s shirt matches the sails of a toy sailboat he received as a birthday gift. This high brow intellectual program for appreciators of the fashion choices of the nouvou riche should not be missed. But be sure to manage your time wisely so you can catch loads of these programs as well:

-Soft core porn set to "sports themes"
-B movies
-Romanian music Videos (take a half naked Romanian chick, add a disco ball and some shaky camera work and you’ve got the makings of a Romanian music video.
-Stupid TV shows involving mostly naked Romanian chicks, traditional dancers and singers, and stupid pet tricks along with highly obnoxious game show hosts who use contestants as a means to distract the audience and show just how charismatic, likeable, and Romanian he or she is.
-Why not throw in the occasional hard alcohol commercial featuring the incompetent “working man” who either screws one of his colleagues or scams the system, and always takes a break to thin out his blood well before lunch. It’s a hard life, but somebody’s got to be drunk while living it.

So in the end I have to convince myself that the same bizarre news stories (bizarre mostly because it’s not news at all), the shaky disco pop groups, the bird flu updates, and the o-so- clever tag lines of Patrick Swazey, Richard Prior, and Christian Slater will be waiting for me tomorrow. Until then it’s sweet dreams and g’night Romania I’m out!

World Cup Practice

Shout outs from a very hot, very humid, very Half-Hungarian Targu-Mures. Yes, the summer season has beer, uh, been turned on with full force. Ill be heading to my local communist super sized swimming pool to keep from over heating. In the mean time, the woman at the barber shop shaved my head, which might also help a bit. Sorry Chadeedoowadee, but on the flip side I have been told that I have a perfectly shaped head. I think that’s a compliment.

Well, so much to say, so much to catch up on. Thursday night I got a phone call from the boyfriend of a coworker who has been trying to invite me to play soccer (from here on out referred to as football) for a few months now. I finally took him up on the offer. Coincidentally I had a Peace Corps buddy coming into town about 10 mins before the game was supposed to start. So I just picked him up and told him we were off for a little World Cup practice.

The field was impressive. Its an outdoor private Astroturf field that is well lit and used all night till the last player leaves. Its a bit expensive by Romanian standards but definitely worth it for some mid week quality exercise. Romanians, like almost everyone in the world except for Americans and Canadians go ape-shit over football. My buddy and I apologized for our lack of ability before we got started. Their response was “thats o.k. we know you’re American. We arent expecting much.” I wasn’t offended in the slightest, just glad that I had an expectable excuse for being a poor sportsman.

Surprisingly I stayed in the entire game without a sub, and I did alright. I stole the ball a few times, was a “team player,” had a few shots at the goal and all was good.

We finished up the game at around 11pm and were invited to “a few beers” at a bar. We figured why not, it was a Thursday night after all. When we got to the place it turns out we were celebrating a team mates newborn baby. He bought us loads of drinks and then they brought out the midnight snitzle smorgasborg. We scarfed down the goods while grown men all around me questioned why their home made snitzle never came out so crispy. “Too many eggs” was the response from a Vlad or a Bogdan. “Ah, yes.” Head nods of agreement. We spoke in Romanian mostly, told stories of journeys and long lost cousins who had migrated to the United States. One guy wearing a I heart N.Y. t-shirt said that he had lived in New Jersey with his family between 1991 and 1993. I asked why he was there and he said “We went for a vacation and we stayed for 2 years.”

As my friend Bridger pointed out as we were leaving the restaurant youve really got to appreciate these unexpected and genuine moments of inclusion on the part of Romanians when it comes to meeting new people. “Hey random American guy who I just met 10 minutes ago, come out with me and my boys to celebrate the birth of my brand new baby girl.” You definitely dont get those kind of hospitable invitations where we come from and it is definitely something that makes Romania unique and a pleasurable place to live, if only for a short period of time.