I look at this road and I wonder...

Apologies, apologies...last time I wrote the weather was sweltering and this morning it was snowing – I really have severely neglected my blogging duties. If anyone is still out there reading this – îmi pare rău!

So, what is this title blathering on about? Well, it started out as an ironic reference to the street I live on. Although far from perfectly smooth, we did once have a tarmac-ed road outside our house. Until, that was, the water board finally connected us to a new water supply using plastic pipes – no more brown water, hoorah! Just intermittent water supply in August and September, right when people are coming to visit you – boo! One hot and sticky day, men with diggers and pick axes came and dug a lot of trenches in our road which filled with water. Then they left them over the weekend to stagnate. In the meantime, the neighbours had to dig their own trenches in order to access the pipes running into their homes (luckily we were spared this task as our new house had been fitted with plastic pipes as far as the street. I just had to give the guys a few beers so they'd connect us up properly). Eventually the water supply got back to normal – well actually it got better because now it is clean! – but sadly the same cannot be said for the street. The holes have been covered over with mud and, with time, this mud has been spread around the street. Now, when it rains you would be well advised to wear wellingtons to cross the street – unbelievable really.

Looking back at the picture, I got to thinking about other things...

*the picture on this blog is not actually of my street, but one in a village in South East Romania somewhere – mine is now far more primitive looking. I like it because it seems to say something metaphorical to me – about a journey I'm taking here, or some shit like that.*

I have now been in Romania for a year and to be honest the time has both flown and dragged by. So many things that I didn't plan for have happened, and so many things I have planned for haven't.

Let's see what the next twelve months bring!

Pitzipoance

Strutting their stuff with their fake (Buzău) or real (Bucharest) Fendis, these are the kind of women who step out of their car and hoist their G-string up. They have long blond hair, large amounts of make-up, particularly on their eyes, and their cleavage on full display, wherever possible. They are of the Victoria Beckham School of Style, but the distinct Romanian sub-branch that skips the modules on Less Is More and Don't Let Your Weight Creep Up Over 6 Stone.

For this, of course, they should be commended; these girls of usually healthy-looking and curvaceous and they proudly wear bold patterns and bright colours, which is a sight for sore eyes, after years in France where any female over the age of ten is restricted to wearing black in any social context.

I somehow doubt I could ever obtain the perfected grooming needed to be a pitzipoancă, and although I do have some of the necessary accessories – a lurid coloured house and robust 4x4 – one essential detail is missing, and that is a Fat Man.

The Malteaser is not so-named for his love of scoffing chocolate and decidedly not of portly dimensions. He has been told by many locals that he is too thin, which is not true. He is simply thinner than many young men here, who are definitely overweight. (And I should make a point here that although I often belittle the Malteaser on this blog, I am actually very happy that he hasn't given in to the pressure of Romanians to try and fatten him up!)

So my message is this. Girls, either ditch the fat lump or get him out jogging. If you like a big man, make sure it's muscle he's packing, not lard. If you go to all that effort I don't see why he shouldn't. Aim high! Think big toned!

For pictures and Romanian explanations, click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmkVBUpAao4

“This is my dance space. That is your dance space”

Hot and bothered, I struggle with my bags to the car park. And there, gathered around my car are three people, one with their foot on the wheel, another with his hand on the scorching bonnet. "Make yourselves at home", I snarl in English at them, regretting it the moment I'd said it.

I just need to get used to the fact that people's idea of personal space are a little different here.

When I go to pay my bills at UPC, it always takes me five times longer than anyone else. This is mainly because I patiently wait my turn, subsequently everybody else pushes past me. I just don't feel comfortable standing next to people as they discuss confidential account information. Apparently, others don't.

It seems that others go even further – someone recently took the bold step of taking tomatoes from my garden. They were still green! But they felt comfortable taking them.

Not long ago, I was upstairs with the radio on. The Malteaser was in the shower so we didn't hear the door. When I came downstairs there was a large bunch of home-grown flowers. Not a romantic gesture from the Malteaser (fat chance) but our neighbour who'd come into the house, found a vase and arranged the flowers carefully in the dining room.

Guess that there are some advantages.

For a very long time I was...

...disturbed to find a dead cat next to my house. And even more disturbed by the suggestion that I put it in the dustbin.

....I am over it now!

The Fortune-teller and the Bin Fairy

Bin day's Monday. The bin-men come round around 11 but the bins are on display and ready for inspection from about 9. You don't have 6 different bins like you might do in other countries but there is definitely an ad hoc system in place for dealing with recycling (and the amount of waste each household has for the week would put most Guardian readers to shame).

I learnt pretty early on that polite etiquette was to remove plastic bottles from the rubbish and leave them to the side of the bin. They are quickly squirreled away by some "less-fortunate-than-ourselves" to group together until they have a kilo. That earns them a whole 10p!

However, until recently I had the curious problem of finding much of my rubbish littered over the street when I went to collect my empty bin back in. This could sometimes be embarrassing, depending on the contents of my bin that week, and the number of neighbours in the vicinity. It was whilst playing with Ferdi in the front yard that I saw the culprit; our very own Bin Fairy.

She works deftly and nimbly, pouncing upon a full trash can, and looting it for its bounty in a matter of seconds. As I watched through the fence she'd emptied the drawstring bin bag, mostly back into the bin (now I know why no one else uses them) and whisked it off to use for further treasure-hunting, along with some of the more highly prized items from our bin. Leaving me to pick up what is discarded on the street. More recently she has caught me sorting out my recycling on a Sunday evening and wrestled the plastic bottles away from me through the fence.

Whilst I wouldn't exactly describe Romanians as particularly 'green', there certainly isn't a lot of waste in this neighbourhood.

A few weeks ago, back when the weather was slightly less stormy, I was walking home through the drizzle when someone called out to me from the side of the street. At first I didn't believe my ears, because it seemed such a cliché, but this old gypsy woman wanted to read my palm and tell my fortune.

This doesn't come cheap. I understood that I had to cross the fortune teller's h    and with silver before she would reveal my fortune about my future.

Having always been a sceptic, I reluctantly handed over a leu note. I got a curled lip. "Mai mare! Mai mare!" she shouted at me.

So I gave her five more lei.

"What do you want to know?" she crowed, finger waggling dangerously near my face.

"I don't know" I answered pathetically.

"Work, money, love....you married?"

"No"

"You will marry in one year. You have a boyfriend?"

I nod

"He Romanian?"

I shake my head

"He a doctor? Engineer?"

"Yes, he's an engineer"

"Give me more money and I tell you what to do so that he marries you"

"Don't have any"

"Yes you do, you're English, lots of money. Give me a bigger note.

"No I don't have any more money, I must go now"

"Mr Bulibaşă thinks you should give me money" (Mr Bulibaşă barely looks up on his way to the bar)

"Show me your purse. I know you have more money, a bigger note"

"I really must go now, Goodbye"

"Oh, go on. You've annoyed me now. Hey, where do you live?"

I ran.

Ferdi and the Bear

Despite a less than auspicious start with Romanian dogs, the Malteaser and I made the rash decision to adopt one. But then, wouldn't you be tempted?

His name is Ferdinand, or Ferdi for short. Romanian history buffs will recognise the name as being that of one of the kings of their short lived dynesty. His being from Sinaia, it seemed appropriate.

The Malteaser and I found Ferdi and many other small dogs in a layby on the mountain road behind the historic castle. I'm not really sure who chose who, but he didn't put up much resistence. Funnily enough, neither did anyone else, as we whisked away a 4 week old pup, barely able to walk without falling over.

We're just hoping he gets a bit better with the potty training.

Within minutes of the kidnapping we met an interesting mother and baby combo. We were very excited about seeing them so close, evn if we were slightly afraid. We like to think of our little canine adoption as having saved him from the clutches of a big scary bear!

For months now, I have been wondering....

....what on Earth these little plastic things are. I found one in the garden the other day and they're everywhere arounf the streets of Buzău. Anyone able to shed some light on the subject?

A visit from Geo

We had our first visitor in Romania a few weeks ago. I could tell you all about it but I think I the best thing to do is to read about it in her own words; http://joabroadeurope.blogspot.com/2009/06/romanian-hospitals.html

I think it'll remain a memorable trip for if not necessarily for all the right reasons. For one thing, it has earned her the nickname "Geo". Before finally being remedied at the hands of the Francophone doctor with the leather-clad door, we tried some more alternative therapy. Whilst passing through a mountain spa-retreat (yes, Romania does have some of those) we stopped at a cafe which "Geo" limped up to. As we were accompanied by a four week old puppy (more about that later) we soon made friends with the cafe's patrons and one of them, let's call him "Matchmaker", introduced us to his young friend, a masseur. Quite what a massage was supposed to do to for an insect bite I don't know but we ended up in this masseur's bedroom, as the only convenient place for her to receive treatment. His hotel room (for this is where he worked) was shared, as indeed was his bed, with a fellow worker who merely moved over to allow enough room for "Geo" to lie down. It quickly became apparent that I was playing the role of chaperone - they both seemed beside themselves to have two girls in their room and we suspect the one in the bed may have taken a surreptitious photo from under the bedclothes. About twenty minutes later, we managed to free ourselves (Geo still limping) and return to the cafe where the Malteaser was anxiously waiting dog-sitting.

We bought our new friends a beer for their services (not that they didn't enjoy every minute of it) before getting back in the car, not before exchanging numbers and promises to return next weekend (fat chance with Geo living in Swirzerland, mate!). Sure enough, later on that afternoon I received a text. "Y like Geo verry much. Love. Kiss."

Rather her than me! I still haven't replied!

The Malteaser’s tale

My apologies for the lack of posts of late! I have a whole stack of subjects that I'm hopefully going to trot out in the near future. For now I have a little story that the Malteaser recently shared with me about a business trip.

Whilst travelling with one of his heads of department, who is Romanian, in her car, but with him driving, the Malteaser was pulled over by the police. Not aware that he had committed any kind of offence, he calmly pulled over and produced his driving licence. His colleague did the talking and it turned out that his heinous crime was that of driving, in daylight, without his headlights on. Obviously this awful law-breaking could not go unpunished so the police officer wrote down his name (luckily for the Malteaser just his two Christian names) and informed him (via his interpreter) that he was going to be prosecuted.

Despite repeated pleas and arguments the officer seemed hellbent on making an example of the Malteaser. There was a brief round of Gallic shrugging before his Romanian counterpart decided on a different tack. As fortune would have it, the police officer in question, along with his colleague, had been whiling away his time in their stationary vehicle by drinking. So the Malteaser's plucky right-hand woman offered the law-enforcers a little bribe;

• "Perhaps you'd be interested to know that I have a case of wine in the boot," she proffered.
  
• "Hmm, you'd have to speak to my boss about that," replied the polițist, hesitantly.
  
• "It's French wine".
  
• "Oh no. We don't want that!
  
• "Well, what I meant was it was made by French producers in Romania.
  
• "Oh, well if it's Romanian wine...."
  

So, it seems that silence can be bought – but only if the goods are top quality. Don't even think about offering something as shoddy as French wine.

And that's how a Frenchman gets evades the law in this country.

Home sweet home

I'm back from two weeks in the UK and yet again I am staggered by the differences between my two – one childhood, one temporary – homelands.

I was back to go to my sister's hen do in London, complete with fancy dress, cocktails, a bar crawl and a big shiny double-decker bus. It was strangely liberating to be out with a big group of girls, drinking and dancing and speaking English in the way that is frowned upon in France and expect is not the norm in Romania.

We spent more in one night than I usually spend in a month here, and London was full of shops, bars, cafés, restaurants etc, all willing me to spend money. Normally I would be slightly opposed to this brazen capitalism but I do feel now comforted by what I grew up with as normal.

That being said, I did not like my first visit to the new shopping centre in Bury St Edmunds. It looks out of place in the quaint Olde Worlde town, and was so squeaky clean it was uncomfortable. So, maybe I'm not ready to become a WAG just yet.

After the hen do, comes the wedding of course. Which was lovely, if a little damp and chilly.

And then all too soon I'd waved good-bye to my family again and I was back on a plane to Bucharest. The weather here was decidedly not chilly – the taxi driver was in shorts. At half past 11 at night.

And when we crawled back onto out muggy street there was a party going on; not quite like the one I'd been at the previous night in a smart hall, in a park with everyone in their finery. One with people dancing on their driveway by songs sung by their uncle, not unlike this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-61EW799GkE

If only it hadn't gone on 'til sunrise, I might got some sleep!

In the beginning of April 2009, I was mostly....

...fretting about having no TV. It's sad how lost I am without it. Seems like the TV drought is set to continue, too. :-(

Watch Your Language

As you are probably aware, I'm learning trying to learn the great language of this country, so as I don't have to spend the rest of my time here as a mute social outsider. Despite taking lessons for over a year now I still feel like I understand next to nothing and inarticulately stumble through verb/adjective/nounless sentences (and sometimes all three) with the help of hand gestures.

However, I came to the realisation that I must be making progress following some recent events.

I just stepped out to get milk and bread when a neighbour came over and starting badgering me about buying a camera from him (he's already snared the Malteaser at lunchtime and he understood as much without ever having a Romanian lesson in his life, so no medals so far). He explained to me it was very cheap and that it was a surveillance camera and I could take it and check to see if it worked on my computer before buying it. I agreed, seeing no polite way out of it. He went into his house to fetch said item and two of the young Romani girls from next door came over to ask if I was coming to pay for the camera. When he came back they were pawing him, asking for the money. He told them he hadn't got it and that I was going to try the camera first. I duly went back to the house with the minute (and clearly nicked not new) camera in tow. When I returned I explained that it didn't plug into the computer (which it didn't) and that we didn't need a surveillance camera, thank you. I don't know if he managed to sell the thing or where the girls got it from, but I knew I was best off out of it.

By now, another neighbour had joined us who, fortunately enough, spoke good English so could help the conversation along. He invited us into his garden and gave us strong homemade (is there any other kind?) țuica, he then invited us to have some food with him and his wife, which I felt obliged to accept because a) it looked good and b) he had told me all about how good Romanian food was. The other neighbour left for a family party so we went inside to eat. I sat in the kitchen and waited for him and his wife to come back. Eventually he came back and his wife stomped past me, without so much as a glance in my direction, picked up her plate and stormed out again, saying "I just want to be alone, why did you have to invite her, you sit with her if you like her so much" or words to that effect.

In hind-sight I'm not so sure it wasn't better before I knew what was going on.

A Europe without borders...

This post was supposed to be me telling you all about how I spent a fantastic Easter weekend on the beach in Bulgaria. But I am an idiot and left my passport behind so instead it'll have to be another story about Romania.

The Malteaser assured me we were going to a touristy area and we even bravely packed the camping gear and made for the Romanian coast. The plan was to stop in Vama Veche, (Once the private domain of Cluj university faculty members and associated with hippies and nudism. Apparently. ) before hopping over the border. Unfortunately, without a passport/official identity card (of which no Briton has) it was access denied. The border official was having none of my driving license and big flashing smile. I'd got so used to living in the Schengen zone, just a short car drive from 5 European countries you could just waltz into that I didn't even think about the need to account for my identity, especially as I was still in Europe.

So, we ended up in Vama Veche which seemed a long way from the packed tourist spot the Malteaser had promised. There wasn't a sole around apart from a growing motley crew of nasty dogs. The weather was sunny and bright but the evening brought the wind in and the temperature dropped. There didn't seem to be any hotels open and we struggled to even find anywhere to sell us a beer. We spent the night in the back of our car, listening to the dogs fighting. I'm sure in the height of summer that this place is heaving with people and abound with entertainment (the Lonely Planet indeed describes it thusly) but the place was deader than a dodo for Easter weekend.

Later the next day, I got to thinking... (Feel free to imagine me à la Carrie Bradshaw, in front of my shiny laptop, but perhaps minus the designer shoes and plus a couple of stone. Other than that, frankly, the physical resemblance is uncanny)...about why this place was not cashing in on the Bank Holiday weekend. Here is what I narrowed it down to;

1. Romanian people don't consider that it's hot enough to go to the beach. As someone who once got sunburned in April in Northern Ireland (but don't tell anyone), I consider anything over 20°C to be mandatory summer clothes weather. Here, with temperatures in the high teens and bright sunshine, children are still in woolly hats. All of them.
   
2. Everyone had gone to the beach in Bulgaria. There was a long line to cross the border but seemed to be almost nobody coming the other way. Apparently it is cheaper too, and a news report on Tuesday suggested the same thing; Romanians were defying the economic crisis and holidaying abroad.
   
3. It is not appropriate holiday time. In France everybody goes on holiday at the same time – skiing in February, beach in August. They even refer to the first week in September as "la rentrée" as the world and his dog returns from the coast en masse and goes back to work. In Britain we tend to take our holidays abroad but summer Bank Holidays are notoriously busy on the roads, even more so at Bluewater, and utter mayhem at the entrance to B&Q. Perhaps people just don't go away for the weekend at Easter (although this would contradict point 2).
   
4. They are all having picnics and fishing.
   

After our polite refusal at the Bulgarian border we headed back up the Black sea coast and again found ourselves in the Danube Delta. Every winding path took us past families and groups outside, barbecuing and dancing (traditional Romanian dancing where you all stand in a circle and hold hands). We stopped by the Danube where people had set up camp, presumably to fish all weekend (there not being much else to do) at the point where the "road" (and I use this term lightly) had been submerged by flooding. It was a fantastic spot but as we were rather underequipped, having barely any water and no food or beer, we left after a few hours.

The Malteaser was disappointed – where was the bar? Why had no one thought of setting up some kind of café/ice-cream stand. I thought he was wishing the full-felt might of advanced capitalism onto the place a little too soon. If you have a bar then it has to be built on land that somebody owns and be paid for. If you follow this logic it is not far down the slippery slope before people have to pay to fish here, pay to camp and that access is limited to certain routes. You would no longer be able to explore the countryside as you wanted; in short, most of the things that we appreciate about Romania, their difference from Westren Europe, would disappear.

For all the crappy things that you have to put up with in Romania there are some absolutely fantastic advantages. I hope that they are not going to papered over sanitized in the name of progress and the EU.

This aint no upwardly mobile freeway...

...despite what the name might suggest! The town-planners were obviously on a coffee break when somebody thought up "Street of the prosperous", although I must say that it actually looks more attractive with the blossom on the trees, and probably beats my street hands down, even without bitumen. If you look closely enough you can make out the rugs hanging over the fence (apparently this is part of the big Spring Clean, just in time for [Orthodox] Easter, which is on Sunday).

I have been meaning to take a picture of this for ages but not dared until today - this is a local "insurance broker's", parked outside McDonalds! He's obviously very confident about the quality of his product as he's swanned off and left the door to his "office" open.

in March 2009, I was mostly...

...in Australia.I will get back to blogging as soon as I recover from this strange (tropical?!) illness that I have been afflicted with since my return.

Washing carpets amid the dunes

I'm finally back from Oz a little less pale and jaded than when I left this dreary backdrop and I'm pleased to see that Spring has (finally) sprung.

I had such a great time in "Fritza" our ickle camper-van, cruising around Tasmania which has stunning countryside and beaches and also pleasant, clean towns with friendly people. My friend looked beautiful for her wedding day and although it was a little damper than she may have hoped, it was a great day. And of course it was great to spend time with my friends, chatting and laughing, drinking and eating, hiking and sleeping...until it was time for us all to go back!

Sadly the Malteaser couldn't make it along (let's just say he has a position of greater authority than me, his new responsibility being to keep me as I'm now broke!) so Ozfest 2009 was 100% Anglo-centric. Whilst I caught back up with my French after a couple of days, I fear that the break has set my Romanian language learning back quite a bit more. I shall have to redouble my efforts if I want to reach any level of competency this side of Christmas!

Luckily the sun and rising temperatures put me in an optimistic mood and there has been a noticeable increase in activity levels in and around our street. Building projects that seemed to have been put on hold over the winter months have resumed, resulting in even more untidy piles of raw materials spread over the pavement and onto the street. I don't actually find it irksome to have the road covered in sand, gravel, uncovered earth or, this weekend, rather potent compost (ironically as I came back from buying compost!) but I imagine that this behaviour would have any self respecting middle class resident of any of my previous addresses up in arms and haranguing the perpetrators constantly with terse notes through the letterbox before deciding to write a very stern letter to the local paper (I can feel you all quaking in your boots at the wrath of Middle England). Here it goes almost unnoticed and many mounds have remained untouched over winter, providing convenient areas for dogs to relieve themselves.

The other activity that has seen a steep rise is carpet cleaning. The general practice among the țigani is to hang their washing out over the fences of their houses. This is where they hang large indoor rugs too, before beating them with a stick to remove all the dirt. You will also find teams of women on the street, either with the carpets on the quite dirty pavement or on the not much cleaner fence, scrubbing at the rugs with soap and water. It seems very laborious and rather a thankless task as it seems to have to be repeated ad nauseam.

I've heard rumours that the carpets are placed on bare ground, not on floorboards, hence the need for all teh cleaning. This is thusfar unconfirmed, I'll have to get back to you on that one!

In the first week of March 2009, I was mostly...

...getting into exercise DVDs.Too bad I might have to get into a bikini before they've had any effect on my **insulating** layers of flab!

Chats with the neighbours

One of the great things about Romania is the sense of community. People not only know who their neighbours are, but speak to them regularly. In many cases; this is what actually passes for entertainment – in the country nearly everyone has a small step or wooden bench outside their gate and will sit here in fine weather, watching the events on the street and waiting for people to come by and chat.

I have only recently discovered the joys of these chats, having been too afraid to speak to my neighbours as I presumed I would understand nothing of their conversations. When I did try, the latter did indeed turn out to be true, but my neighbours seem genuinely delighted, not to mention patient, with my incomplete sentences and inability to decipher more than the barebones of any conversation.

As such, I have met (and forgotten the names of) many more people on the street, which has a lot of benefits. They will help you with where to pay bills and find the items you're looking for. They'll collect your bin in after the binmen have been past, as well as your post (this week the two were combined as I found my empty bin back in our courtyard with our letters at the bottom of it!). Unfortunately they will also ask for favours in return, usually help in finding a job, which I, personally, cannot help with, although it is automatically assumed that I can.

In particular, one guy from up the street regular comes to the house calling "Monsieur, Monsieur", until the Malteaser goes out to talk to him. He wants to work for us, from what I understand, but each time we have to tell him we have no work for him. I'm not sure we could actually afford the rates. Recently another neighbour asked the Malteaser to work on the house as he was going door to door. Twenty minutes later we saw him again in the street – another neighbour had given him 30 lei to clean her carpet. 30 LEI FOR 15MINS WORK!?! That works out as £20 an hour! And yet minimum wage earners here get around £250 a month. No wonder the economy's in a mess with these crazy pricing structures.

Even so, 15 minutes of work a week, however well paid, is not enough to support somebody and there is no way you cannot feel the divide. "What you up to?" "Nothing, you?" "Well, just off down the shops to get a couple of new tops and then I thought I'd get my nails done"....you see my problem. I was actually about to say that I was on my way to the dentist's the other day (I'm still plagued by brown teeth, appointment tomorrow) when a woman walked past with a smile that'd give Shane McGowan a fright. In the end I just kept my mouth shut (pun only half intended).

My other appointment this week was to get a bikini wax. You can skip this part if you're of a nervous disposition. Needless to say it was an interesting experience, which took place in a first floor room that looked like someone's kitchen and had an overwhelming smell of gas. When I arrived the door was open and I was concerned that I was going to have to disrobe in view of everyone. However, after a very public consultation about what I wanted done (which can only be made more embarrassing by the fact that I'm now writing about it in a blog) the door was closed and I was lying on a slightly grubby table (where were the protective paper sheet things and the dolphin noises CD? Not that I was particularly worried. I don't believe, as many Romanian women seem to, that infectious diseases can be contracted through the buttocks. This is why I do not stand on toilet seats and squat over the porcelain in public restrooms, leaving muddy footprints behind on the seat for the next person to wipe off). I was also pleased to note that the use of neat alcohol is not restricted to barbers shops.

All I can say is that it smarts!

In the last week of February 2009, I was mostly...

surprised about going into a shop, that I had never been in before in my life, and have the sales-staff greet me with cheery "Hello"s. Thinking I'd probably imagined it, I replied in Romanian and looked around the shop.On coming out of the changing rooms, a third shop assitant called "Excuse me!" at me. How on Earth did they know???

București cosmopoliți

I have never lived anywhere that could be described as cosmopolitan.

I grew up in a village in Norfolk where I think racial diversity meant coming from Norwich. The only non-whites for miles around were airmen from the nearby US Air Force Bases, leading me to the conclusion that black people came from America (a conviction I held until I was at least 10, I'm sure).

At university I was determined to head for the big city; big it might be, but Sheffield is definitely not glamorous. It's been glammed up a fair bit in recent years, and there are probably parts of it that I'd no longer recognize, yet the oppressive post-war concrete structures and the permanent drizzle from September to late May always dampened the esthetic of what was otherwise a fantastic place to be a student.

My studies took me across the channel to France, at last a bit of the exotic! I was sure I was on to a winner by stating I wanted to be placed in a city for my year as a teaching assistant. The excitement continued as I was told I was going to be in the Burgundy region. Wine, mustard, snails and Boeuf Bourgignon, Dukes and history and second homes, this was it. At the welcome meeting we were told how lucky were to be posted to the most affluent region in France…except if we were in the region's second largest town, Chalon-sûr-Sâone, in which case the situation was different. My school turned out to be on the outskirts of said town, between a sink estate and a factory, where I lived in what looked like a nuclear fall-out shelter in the middle of the school field.

After uni I tried again, this time sure I could get that position on Aix-en-Provence. Fate saw differently and I packed my bags for Valenciennes in Northern France, chav-central and a building site. I had by now resigned myself to living slightly askew of the cutting edge.

So, whilst some may have been apprehensive about moving to Romania, having never really lived the high-life myself, I told myself "How hard can it be?"

This answer was, harder than I thought!

Despite certain first impressions, I do love all the places I have lived and will defend them vehemently against snobs and ignoramuses who try to do them down, and I have no doubt I will feel the same about living in Buzău. This doesn't stop me feeling that I am missing out on some fun somewhere along the way.

Last week, I went to my first ever expats meeting in Bucharest. I was a bit nervous about what I would find but all of the women I spoke to were absolutely lovely and it really was a pleasant way to spend a morning. However, I came away with a rather bizarre feeling, knowing that all these women could continue going to their bridge clubs, book groups and coffee meetings (not to mention Monthly Luncheons and aqua gym sessions) whilst I would be two hours away, on my Todd. I didn't necessarily want to take part in all their meetings (I came to Romania in order to find out about Romanian lifestyles, after all) but I envied the escapism it offered them and the company of other expats (of whom there surely are in the town, I just haven't found them yet).

I did enjoy my trip to the big smoke; taking the train, then a cab, speaking English, having a coffee and a chat but it didn't feel very real. I'm obviously not cut out for these bourgeois affairs.

So until further notice I shall be here, running from the dogs, escaping to the swimming pool and dreaming of the day I can understand what all the people around me are talking about.

in the third week of February, I was mostly...

loving my SwiMP3.It allows you to listen to music whilst swimming. The sound is transmitted through bone conduction so you actually wear the headphones over your cheekbones. It was one of the more inspired presents from the Malteaser. I've even found myself singing along underwater and stepping up the pace when a dance track comes on. I love it!http://www.finisinc.com/products-swimp3v2.shtml

Money matters

Credit crunch, economic slump, company lay-offs, falling house prices, pouvoir d'achat, and banks going bust mean that this is not a good time for anyone financially.

Money-wise it was a (personally speaking) disastrous time to move to Romania. The country's entry into the European Union and the steady increase in foreign investment had created a wave of euphoria throughout the land which saw flats in major towns changing hands for higher prices than in Paris or Vienna. Even here in Buzău, flats in run down concrete blocks with dodgy lifts and even dodgier décor were being sold for in excess of 130 000€. I myself feel this figure is insane because the amenities available are nowhere near the standard of a provincial town in France (where you could expect to pay the same price) and you'd still have to contend with other inconveniences such as stray dogs and dirt roads. Luckily the situation is calming a little, but rent remains high – up to 1000€ a month here whilst in Bucharest it is double or triple that.

Quite how Romanian people can afford such prices is beyond me. Renault workers in Piteşti went on strike last year to obtain the princely sum of 300€/month. You'd need three salaries just to cover the rent! Even professional salaries seem incompatible with the cost of living, with an accountant earning around 14 000€ annually. The taxation system also means that lower earners are even worse off. Everybody pays a whopping 16% income tax! If you're a factory worker, that's 48€ of your 300€ gone before you've got it home. (Some of the other problems, like people holding down multiple jobs and widespread corruption seem to be easier to comprehend in this light).

The attitude of Romanians towards Westerners is rather a strange one; it is assumed that you have money to burn. This does not necessarily mean you will be taken advantage of, although I was ripped off by a taxi driver yesterday, but you will undoubtedly differ in opinion as to how money should be spent. I was recently ambushed by an insurance saleswoman who tried to sign me up for some life insurance. In Britain or France they wouldn't have looked twice at a 26 year old in jeans and trainers but here I was being given the hard sell. Having explained the formalities, we discussed how much I'd hypothetically like to pay each month. The default amount was already on the screen but "100 €, is too little" she told me, "for you, 150€ is no problem". Err??? My earnings have taken a nosedive recently (I'm paid by the hour for English training, which is not a priority for companies trying to keep their overheads down) but even before moving to Romania this would have been about 10% of my take home pay. Even in spite of the communication barrier, I felt quite speechless. That's an enormous amount to just "find" from somewhere and in the current economic climate I would not be able to do it. How much did she think I made?

What people spend their money on is vastly different though. Numero uno has to be a flash car, preferably a 4x4. This would come way ahead of fixing up the house or taking a foreign holiday. Many Westerners would spend money on the garden but nobody even has a garden here. Restaurants are often empty, there's no cinema, not many bars and cafés and I haven't been tempted by one single garment since I arrived (except on a trip to Bucharest). When they do go out at night, they're not drinking because they have to drive their flash car home. It seems that the trappings of a Western life come at the expense of a Westerner's lifestyle.

The reason that I have been giving values in €uros is not just because it's now my default value for calculations, it's also the Romanian one too. The currency is used for property, cars (even second-hand) and contracts for services, and everyone can convert values into Euros easily (as I write this the exchange rate is about 4.3 RON, Romanian New Lei, to the €uro). People are very optimistic about entering the €uro zone, which they expect to do in 2014 (I think it will take longer).

However, whilst high end goods and services are calculated in €uro (but often paid for in RON), cheaper items are calculated in the local currency. At the market, a kilo of spuds costs 1 RON (around 20p or 0.23€), meaning that change for anything less than one RON becomes fiddly. At the supermarket the price is often rounded up or down, at least to the nearest tenth of a RON or 10 bani. I'm still coming to grips with the fact that coins are more or less worthless here, and that it is important to always have a good stock of 1RON notes because nobody ever has any change.

The most perturbing thing of all is that the RON is a relatively new currency. It came into circulation in January 2005 and replaced the "old" lei (singular leu, meaning Lion) with 1 RON being equivalent to 10000 ROL. This aimed to bring purchasing power in line with that of Western European states. A nice idea, but as people effectively chose to adopt the €uro as a reference point at this time it would appear a little redundant. Also, most people still refer to the old values, meaning that you may be told that your cheese at the market costs 50 000. Even more confusing is the negation of the thousand when speaking, (so that the cheese would now be priced at 50) which always has me asking the seller the price about seven times, before trying to pay ten quid for a block of bland cheese.

At least they are more adaptable than the French. The Malteaser still converts EVERYTHING from €uros to Francs, as do most French people (they've only had 10 years to get used to it, after all!). My elderly relatives in Ireland converted to the Euro remarkably easily, and after 6 months, prices were no longer displayed in the two currencies. Needless to say that this is not the case in France; indeed if you go out into the country you'll find that the people in villages still talk about anciens francs, the value before the devaluation in 1969! I think this says a lot about people's will to change things. Although they're quick to defend the €uro in the face of les Anglais (Mutter, mutter, mutter, we are les britanniques and if I hear one more time about the "English" Prime Minister Gordon Brown I'll scream).

I think I'll just let someone else worry about the money for now. I quite like the idea of being a kept woman.

Ziua Îndrăgostiților

I'm not usually a fan of this overly commercialised excuse for an "occasion". That being said, this year has been a good one so I'm feeling slightly more ingratiated to it!

Firstly, for the first time ever, (this being our fourth 14th February ensemble) the Malteaser and acknowledged the day's existence and tried to be nice to each other. I baked him a chocolate cake and he took me out for a drink at "Café Romantic" last night. We must be getting soft in our old age!

Having gone a bit overboard on the eve (cake and beer being our absolute limit in terms of romanticism), today we had nothing special planned. We giggle to ourselves in French about the teenage couples in the park with their little red "te iubesc mult" bags or their bunches of flowers. We openly mocked the enormous cushions being sold in Carrefour.

Little did we know we were about to get our come-uppance!

Whilst in one of the aisles looking for dusters (yeah I know, romantic!) there's a load tannoy announcement. I realise that the reason it is so loud is because the guy with the microphone is right next to us. Before we have time to react, we've been cornered and the Malteaser is well and truly put on the spot as the whole supermarket is waiting for his answer. Having not understood the question, he does the only thing he can, and replies "Je suis français", accompanied by the customary Gallic shrug. A lesser microphone-brandishing PR pundit would have been dissuaded, but this bloke was keen.

Pushy supermarket announcer: "You speak English?"

Malteaser: "A little"

Pushy supermarket announcer: "Do you want to tell her how much you love her this day?

Malteaser (now a perfect shade of beetroot): "So much!"

Pushy supermarket announcer: "Aaah! Ok, now we take the photo and here are your presents"

Who knew that all I had to do was to resort to public humiliation to get an (begrudging) declaration of love from him?! I'm not sure where the photos are going to end up but the Malteaser and I are not the most photogenic couple in the world so they may already have been destroyed. These are our presents though!

When we got back to our street, out landlord and his friends were standing outside talking. We stayed talking to them for a while, as they explained the various "career choices" of some people in the street. "His future is in jail!" we were told as a group of guys from further up the street strolled past, curiously brandishing dead fir trees which they deposited on a neighbour's roof. We didn't understand absolutely everything!

Afterwards we were invited in for some fantastic home cooked Romanian food. Sarmale cu mămăligă washed down with țuică and wine. Delicios!

Going for the snip

Although the Malteaser may frustrate me sometimes I don't actually want to go as far as to emasculate him. This title refers to nothing more sinister than the hair on my head.

I've not always had good experiences with hairdressers. In particular, my irregular visit chez le coiffeur en France nearly always resulted in an irregular haircut. Other anglos suffered similar problems, with one friend coming out with what could only be described as a loaf of bread on her head. After four years in France I had finally found a good stylist. And then I left the country. Two months on, I fear that my locks are now in dire need of a trim.

The Malteaser succumbed to his shagginess (still talking about the hair!) a few weeks ago. In the week before I was supposed to be on a reckie for a suitable place. The place I found was full on Saturday morning so we went cruising the mean streets in search of a Frizerie. Having been turned away from two places we eventually happened upon a third which would later become known as "the most Communist hairdressers in the city". Inside, four women in white tabards worked at their own stations. Each station had its own sink, although curiously, none of the patrons had their hair washed. Instead, upon taking their seat, the patrons had their heads past over with a wad of gauze (the same gauze that had been used for any prior customers) moistened with the stagnant water sitting in the sink. The women then took their scissors in hand and made ferocious movements with them, making it look like the scissors had a life of their own. Any hair cutting was merely a by product of the hand being taken closer to the head. Still, the Malteaser came away sufficiently defuzzed and was spared the alcohol treatment (this is apparently where spirit alcohol is wiped over your neck to calm the redness after a close shave). The whole process was surprisingly easy – no appointments, no complicated explanations and no extortionate bill at the end. I think the Malteaser paid five lei (about £1) for the pleasure

When I was in France I thought I could explain most things in everyday life but at the hairdressers I came unstuck. My requests for a fringe generally met with a prolonged attack on my hairline by a barber's razor which inevitably left me with several weeks of tufty mini- antlers protruding from my forehead. I tried in vain to explain that I needed to cover up my cowlick at the front leaving flummoxed coiffeuses asking "Mais qu'est-ce que c'est une lèche de vache?"

I wasn't even safe with just a trim. I once asked a French hairdresser to cut my fringe (which had been cut in previously by a nice hairdresser back home). The one good thing to be said was that nightmarish process was over in less than a minute. She lifted my fringe up so that it was at 180° with my forehead and then took two huge stabs at it with the scissors. This effectively left two fringes, a shorter one overlying the longer. She then sprayed on a vat of Elnette so that the top fringe stuck up in the air and the bottom to my face. The money was whisked out of my hand and I was out again on the pavement before I knew what had hit me. I ran home to wash my hair and I cut my fringe with nail scissors until I next went back to the UK.

I studied French for 10years and still couldn't get my point across about how I wanted my tresses styled. What hope do I have in Romania? Please take part in the vote to help me decide what to do!

In the first week of February 2009, I was mostly...

skint. Roll on Payday!

Liquid brown stuff

This is what our water looked like on Saturday morning!

Not the best start to the weekend, I think you'll admit as it also cast doubt on the day's proceedings. Is it safe to shower? Wash vegetables? Brush our teeth? Drink tea?

As is the usual way of things, the Malteaser (I have yet to find a suitable pseudonym for my LTLP but this one is growing on me) erred on the side of caution, although he did have a shower and wash his hair. He tutted irritatingly as I foolishly boiled the kettle (the operative word being boiled. What's the problem?), and later absent-mindedly rinsed my toothbrush under the tap (it's fine, I have an iron stomach). To cap it all (in his eyes) I then headed to the swimming pool. He went to the park for a nap.

Out of the house, disagreements about water cleanliness subsided and we enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather. We sat together in the park, in bright sunshine and I marvelled at the fact I was in just a tee-shirt in February. The Malteaser and all the Romanians in the park were in hats scarves and duffle coats. Bunch of bloody pansies, these Latin types!

We had lunch out with another Malteaser (bet you're really confused now) and then took him to see some of the sights. Luckily the man outside the restaurant washed the car for us as it was filthy, but it was not much better having been driven through far-flung villagers (i.e. quagmires) and down various "interesting"-looking tracks, (again, quagmires). Undoubtedly, the highlight of any foray into the hills around Buzău is a visit to Volcanii Noroisii. Even if they do smell vaguely like a mechanic's fart (the area is still drilled for crude oil, and the bubbling effect is thought to be due to natural gases), the pleasing "plop" noise they make, as well as the fun that can be had sliding around on the mud flows makes this a fun excursion.

Unfortunately, when we got back home and I was brushing my teeth with cleaner water I noticed my smile was not as pearly white as I would like. I hope this is a temporary effect of water/mud contact and not the sign of a more serious problem!

Vreau să fiu vedetă

This weekly televisual highlight may just be a poor copy of the X factor, with (frankly) rather boring judges, but it certainly has me spellbound!

Vreau să fiu vedetă works on the premise that children are always good for being exploited, especially if their parents are particularly pushy. Although some are undoubtedly talented, many are just over rehearsed puppets. This video being a good example (although he is very cute!)

The show is not without charm – the kids dancing along next to the stage are quite adorable, especially wwhen they dress up! But otherwise the programme just seems wrong, and on so many levels.

For starters, you can't have failed to have noticed the presenters. The one with the facial hair just seems creepy to me. He gets far too close to the kids, and basically just reminds me of the kind of man your mum told you never to take sweets from.

Far more worrying, I think, is the lap dancer female presenter who is dancing with the kids. This video sees her very tamely dressed. The first time I saw this show, just before Christmas she was trussed up like a turkey, being as she seemed just to be wearing just a small piece of Bacofoil. "Anyone for breast? There's plenty to go around." (Incidentally, the Frog's first words upon seeing the lovely Miss Ionescu were "Quelle Horeur!" so it's not just me being jealous.)

I'm not saying she shouldn't show off her cleavage/legs (if I looked like that I imagine I'd want to dress like her too) but when presenting a programme aimed at, and depicting, children, I am a firm believer in less is more!

(*although it would appear that Roxana is already an adept of this expression from a quick search on YouTube; please only watch this if you are not easily offended .I don't think you'll find any clips like this of Blue Peter presenters*)

Asides from the fact that the show is presented by a pedophile and a porn star, that it lasts a interminably long time, and the judges only give benign praise, the other big problem with the show is its treatment of the guests. The kids are usually accompanied by their parents in the studio who are interviewed on a sofa by old double-D Dora (needless to say that they don't know where to look) and they show a film of the family at home so that grandparents and neighbours can get on the telly as well! The worst example was when a family of very poor farmers took their daughter on the show. The video showed how the family lived in a remote hut without mains water, sewerage or electricity (surprisingly common outside of large towns and the parents were wearing old worn out clothes. They'd obviously sold a few goats to get the kid something nice to wear (a traditional Romanian costume) which the judges all praised her on. They had to really; the unfortunate girl had no real talent to speak of and was clearly the night's token charity case. To add insult to injury, the presenter with the bad face pubes said (and you'll have to excuse my paraphrasing, my Romanian being not the best)

"We see your poor so we bought you some presents", at which point Mlle Il y a du monde sûr le balcon
enters the studio with a wheelbarrow containing farm animals. Unfortunately nobody had thought about how the animals might react to this and they fled from the bright lights and applause as fast as they could, with the poor piglet practically breaking its neck in its bid to clamber out of the ill-thought out means-of-transportation. I don't remember exactly what the other presents were but I seem to remember a basket of yoghurts and raw meat (bet that smelt lovely under the studio lights) and probably some chickens. I'm tempted to say there were cows too but I think I might have made that up. In any case the whole thing was grotesque and the family were speechless (and not through joy). If they really had to be so crass, couldn't they just have given them money and avoided the impending lawsuit from animal rights campaigners (if there are any watching Vreau să fiu vedetă)?

If it gets any worse, I'll let you know.

In a spin

On Monday night our washing machine packed in. Never a good sign, but particularly whn you don't even know how to say "Plumber", let alone call one. But here is a description of the shocking events.
Monday night - washing machine suddenly stops, mid cycle.
Tuesday morning - it has not spontaneously tried to repair itself overnight
Tuesday lunchtime - My Love telephoned a neighbour to ask him if he knew the name of a plumber. Neighbour said he'd call back.
Tuesday early afternoon - Neighbour texted to say he was coming round with a repairman between 4-6pm
Tuesday at 5pm - Two men (+neighbour) arrive promptly and fix the the machine (blocked filter due to, ahem, crap left in pockets). Bill - 25RON (approx £5)
Tuesday evening - clothes are washed and hanging out to dry.

If only Western European service providers were so efficient! And so affordable! Can only be a positive in the fight against the rip-off merchants. Or is it that they've not yet learnt about Call-Out Fees, extortionate Hourly Rates (even if the job takes five mins), Ordering Parts, Not Be Able To Make It Round Til A Week Next Wednesday, Love or all the many excuses some so-called professionals employ. grrrr!

And this isn't just a one-off. When the TV wouldn't work we phoned the person who installed it (he had left his mobile). He came round an hour later and, after a few phone calls, fixed the problem. For free!
So, I've seen the shape of thisngs to come.
Watch your backs, the Eastern Europeans are ready to takeover your jobs!

In the last week of January, 2009, I was mostly...

cross about my lack of Sarah Beeny-like house transforming skills

reading "L'amour dure trois ans" by Frédéric Beigbeder (I think My Love is scared - we've been together three and a half!

surprised at the comment "This is not a good neighbourhood." Where are the good neighbourhoods round here?

eating minced beef in any variety of ways I can think to cook it!

Our house, in the middle of our street

This is starting to be a habit. Maybe I will begin all my post with lines from popular 1980s pop-songs.

I LOVE THIS PICTURE.

Although neither of these realty gems is in fact mine.

If you've travelled any way outside the tourist loop of Bucharest-Brașov-Bran Castle you may well be familiar with the modern miracle that is the "gypsy palace" some of which may be occupied by a local "Bulibaşă", or as I prefer to call them, Gypsy Kings.

Whilst not typical of most Romanian dwellings, they do go to prove a certain number of things that I have been able to find out about Romanians attitudes to their houses.

For starters, just look how close together they are! If I'd had a decent plot of land like that, big enough to build two houses, I would have thought that it'd be nice to have a bit of space around it. You know, for a garden and what not. But like so many other Romanian houses I've seen, including my own, the building extends as close as possible to the garden fence and you're like to be able to see into your neighbours' property. In this one I reckon they could probably shake hands across the divide.

Yet although you'll not be able to swing a cat between the two houses, you'd have ample room to do so in the corridors. Don't ask me why but Romanians love their big corridors. We've had to stick a sofa in one of ours to try and use up the space. What do you do with a big hallway, otherwise? Answers on a postcard, please.

I'm presuming that the house on the left is unfinished because it is clearly far too sober for Romanian tastes. I'm not making any judgement about this, but the Romanians do love their bright colours! I mean, two such moderately sized homes, with neat and unimposing roofs couldn't possibly stand out unless you painted the windows a violent shade of mustard, could they? (Incidentally, the whole of the outside of our house is painted a similar hue).

So, I think you get the message about these houses (and other scaled down versions) being status symbols. Hence the big satellite dish and double garage, undoubtedly to hold an unyielding gas-guzzler to tower over the plebs in their knackered, old Dacias. Like I said, no judgement, but it does seem strange for me, coming from a background where ostentatiously displaying wealth is seen as vulgar or just plain 'being a chav', to be so eager to bow to the holy grail of avarice. But that's easy for me to say; I was sat at home in my nice warm living room waiting for my cooked dinner whilst watching the Blue Peter "Romanian Orphans Appeal" on telly not so many moons ago.

Inevitably, though, the downside to all this superficiality is the, well, superficiality. In the race to catch up, certain traits such as craftsmanship, attention to detail, and practicality seem to have been forgotten; you need only to look at the photos below to see where the workmanship has not come up to par.

For those of you in need of further elucidation, having been blinded by the décor, that is indeed an ideally placed TV aerial socket for functional kitchen use (i.e. above the kitchen sink), as well as a state of the art extractor fan unit, (a.k.a. a ruddy great hole in the wall revealing woefully insufficient insulation for any country, let alone one which suffers such extremes of temperature).If only the property market weren't so slack at the moment, I think I'm discovering a real talent for Estate Agentese. A.k.a.Bullshit.

As if that's not enough, all the interior walls are also made up of concrete breeze-blocks. Great in the event of an earthquake (Buzău is at the epicentre of Romanian seismic activity, apparently. Why did nobody tell me this before I moved here? At least they only have a bad tremor every thirty. Guess when the last one was….1977. Looks like they were waiting for me to arrive) but not so great if all you want to do is hang a few pictures.

Good thing Hello aren't coming until next month then.

Today’s headlines

"I can't believe the news today. I can't close my eyes and make it go away"

Not just a rather trite reference to U2, but the actual, honest-to-God truth.

These were all genuine items of news on the lunchtime edition. Should I be scared that they are all related to death???

First up was the grizzly story of a mother and daughter were found dead in their flat. The discovery was made after...yes, you've guessed it, residents of the block of flats complained of the smell coming from their dwelling. It is thought that the daughter suffered a heart attack and the mother, who was bed-bound, subsequently died of starvation and dehydration. I put down the digestive, no longer feeling hungry.

Next was a story from my (new) home town, Buzău. Keeping on the same theme, a family stood with official documents of their relative who had been the posthumous victim of a gross administration error. This poor man had apparently been in the fridge of a morgue for TWO YEARS because his name got left off a list of some kind. There was a kind of bizarre altercation between the family and the staff of the mortuary which I didn't really understand and one woman barged inside what looked like a the concrete bunker and emerged, triumphant but shaking to confirm the man's identity. I'm not really sure of the upshot of all this was, but I was beginning to feel like I was watching some twisted misadventure in TV programming, a sort of Watchdog-cum-Romania's Worst Civil Servants. I'd certainly never seen such a strange culmination of stories on any news bulletin before. It was a far cry from the Anglia News* and its comfy sofa.

*as a little aside here, I would just like to share this investigative journalism gem from the Eastern Counties that I had the fortune to witness a few years ago. One of the top stories that evening was about the regions oldest lightbulb that had seen its light extinguished after 90 years of service. This could be "verified" by what looked like the regions oldest resident, who specifically remembered his father putting in the lightbulb (it being state-of-the-art technology back then) and was accompanied by the "testimonies" of various friends and neighbours who had taken an interest in the 40 watt bulb over the years. Shocking platitudes were bandied around, how the bulb would be "missed", a piece of the past "lost forever" and I think the old bloke even shed a tear. Report over, they returned to the studio where I expected to see the two presenters, not on the usual sofa, but inside barrels, energetically scraping the bottoms. But no, unabashed and comfortably seated they smiled inanely, inviting viewers; "If you've got an object that had lasted a really long time, FOR EXAMPLE A PEN!!!!, why not write to us as Anglia News… I bet the production team were secretly glad when Tony Martin shot that boy on his farm just to have something newsworthy happen in the region.*

So back to today's news, the next story was by far the most disturbing, not just for the information itself, but also the video footage. Inside a particularly sparsely furnished flat sat an old woman, crying as she has just lost her husband. Yet, for some reason I'm not able to understand (she's too poor, doesn't want to, no-one to help???) her husband's body is still in the flat. Zoom out to reveal the deceased on the bed behind her, wrapped in what looked an old carpet. I nearly choked on my cuppa! His face may have been pixilated but this didn't disguise the fact that it had turned blue. Underneath scrolled the all-important salacious information – this woman had slept next to the corpse for the past two nights! Cue pounding at the door as local residents demand that something is done; the old woman, resplendent in her apron, headscarf and wellington boots is angry and starts swearing, a crowd gathering on the stairwell. I check to see that this is still the news and not a Romanian Jerry Springer Show. There seems to me to be that nasty air of voyeurism; we're successful journalists and live in comfortable flats in affluent Bucharest, let's make some footage about how the other half are doing! It really brings home the huge divides there are here, and what a large number of social problems still need to addressed.

Outside the flats, a neighbour had cleared out the back of his old transit van, presumably to cart off the cadaver, whilst more people loitered outside, angling for few seconds of small-screen celebrity, where one day they could look back on the day they said "we're worried that if the dead body's going to start to smell" to the nation. Or some such.

So, in just a few minutes the news had come full circle, and we were back on the subject of decomposing flesh. At this point I phased out of trying to concentrate on what was said and just marveled at the on-screen banners – man in one year battle to prove his identity after he was apparently reported dead, children killed in house fire caused by gas leak – continued their morbid tirade of news. I reached for the remote.

If nothing else, it really has brought home to me just how different living in Romania is to anywhere I've been before.

And people think that I'm backward because I come from Norfolk! You don't know the half of it.

la petite anglaise

Catherine Sanderson, aka petite anglaise, has become my new idol this last week. Her brilliant blog has had me engrossed for several reasons, which I'm about to come to, even if I'm terribly jealous of her fantastic gift she has for prose and annoyed about the fact that she's done it all first.
By checking out http://www.petiteanglaise.com/ , which I recommend to anyone, you'll soon be embroiled in the sagas of her (sometimes deeply complicated) personal life. Bridget Jones-esque (I'm sure she's sick of this particular comparison), and surprisingly candid, she has built such a rapport with her followers that thousands of people probably now feel, as I do, that they know her. The success speaks for itself as she is now a published author, firstly of her 'memoirs' and there is also an upcoming novel in the pipeline.
Before she underwent the drastic transformation from bored mum/secretary to postmodern representation of nouvelle célébrité, "petite"'s posts had a somewhat different emphasis. There she was, night after night,in her Paris appartment, waiting for her long-term Frog partner (appropriately nicknamed "Mr Frog") to return home, having put their little "tadpole" to bed. She pines for the hedonistic days of her first few years in Paris which sit in stark contrast to the metro-boulot-dodo she now exists through. She tells us what it is really like for a "little English woman" amongst all these French people - and I fully concur. They are hypochodriacs, obsessed with their bottoms and women can be very cold to other women (no offence to any froggies reading this, not least my own Monsieur Grenouille). But why did she have to write down all of these well observed and timely anecdotes before I got to get my stories out?
I had this idea that my blog would be the Romanian equivalent. Immitation is the most sincere form of flattery, hence my pseudonym, englezoaica. Yet somehow the comic events don't flow as they did when I first arrived in France. I don't understand enough of the language/culture to recognise these little "quirks" and I don't have other expat friends to compare notes with (whilst simultaneously cackling like drains).
Thinking about it, perhaps the real problem lies in the fact that this blog is making me nostalgic for my life back in France. So until that passes, there may be future indulgence of past stories that belittle the French.
Pas de problème, I hear you cry???

Progress

I'm feeling very proud of myself, as today was the first time I didn't cry, run, whimper or even flinch as a dog made for me.
Today's example was particularly unpleasant - the mangey, saggy-titted bitch emerged from out of the bushes running towards me, barking and baring her teeth; I merely carried on walking.
The dog did not, like all but one of the other times, even touch me, but slunk off, quite literally, with its tail between its legs.
I have also learnt that dog's are likely to go for you if you have a long scarf and belt on your coat that flap (I'm now dog-hypothesizing) not dissimilarly to a tail, thus getting the said animal a bit het up. This was the cause of "the other time" when I was rather unceremoniously bitten (pinched) on the arse. I don't know who was more embarassed afterwards, the dog or me!
Despite my current optimism, I doubt very much that this'll be the last time I talk about the canine race here. For the moment it is câinii unu, englezoaica unu

Surreal

Having spent the day in a cocooned state, predominantly in front of my laptop, devouring other expat women's blogs, it seemed very surprising when I ventured out today to find that I was still in Romania.
By ventured, I do in fact mean I nipped to the post office, where I was severly reprimanded for trying to use my photocard driving license as a form of ID. Not wanting to be picky here, but I'm fairly sure that if that box with my, quite unusual (and particularly in these parts), name on it, has ended up in that God-foresaken, Communist-throwback excuse for a Post Office, it was likely only to contain items of interest to the strange being in a black and white coat and limited grasp of the Romanian language. This was of course the case (thanks mum and dad for the hot water bottle, tights, gloves and teabags!).
Post Offices and I are not getting on at the moment. Since leaving Britain 3 years ago, I have a disproportional amount of post go missing, and this whether cross-channel, in either direction, or, more recently, a letter sent from GB out here. Yet I have always received all bills and bank statements and a large amount of junk. I can't even imagine where it ends up or who's responsable (although having once seen a "Dispatches" documentary on Channel four about Royal Mail I have a fair idea). If anyone does have any tips on how to stop losing post or how to, eventually, get it back (she enquires hopefully) please let me know.
After the Poșta I snuck into the bakers to get some (predictably) bread, where I was confused for a phramacist. This was a first for me but did lead to a lovely little chat with the two women there. It also got me thinking about my notoriety - the women at the pool now say "hello" when they see me (although I imagine I'm fairly easy to remember as I am one of the few people to use the pool) and the other day a man was calling down the street after me "Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle". Unfortunately the rest of what he said was completly lost due to my poor understanding of Romanian but also to his lack of teeth.
So I am becoming a bit of a local celebrity (that might be building it up too much) or at least a figure of curiosity around here.
But its a very surreal experience to know that everyone's talking about you but you can't tell what they're saying.

Sport for all

Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming to be a great athelete. I'm not even a mediocre athelete. But that still doesn't stop me from thinking that the people of Buzău have missed a trick where sports are concerned.

Take the gym I've started going to. Full of modern equipment and offering regular classes of abs, aerobics and tae-bo. Fantastic! I'd found a new passtime and, hopefully a way to meet people so I happily trotted along to my first class. Having got changed I was then beginning to get a bit scared. There were only a few of us in the group and a huge mirror covered wall. They'd soon see that I was not up to the challenge of 45 minutes of aerobic workout.

Turns out that I had nothing to worry about. The class basically consisted of stretches, repeated 16 times over. All the instructor did was count to eight....and then count to eight again. I felt cheated out of a complicated dance type routine (that I would never have been able to follow in English, let alone Romanian) and, although the one where you have to swing your leg round close to your head is bloody difficult (and meant that the next day I had trouble sitting down) I think even a septegenarian Jane Fonda would be wondering when the aerobic part of the aerobics was happening.

So I decided to try the swimming pool. It was blowing a gale and trying to snow but I trecked to the "Aqua Center" across town. I found it to be almost completely empty! I looked around the sparkling marble lobby (where were all the vending machines?) but couldn't see anywhere to pay so I headed to the changing rooms where there seemed to be some kind of party going on. Several staff members in uniform were sat round a table drinking fizzy pop and eating crisps. I walked in and asked if I had to pay here, to which one of the women replied "Cine?" (Who?). Feeling doubly intimidated I repeted my request and evetually got my ticket (more expensive than in France!) and was allowed to change in the corner (there were not changing rooms, per se, just portable screens on wheels with a bench behind to hang your clothes on. I had a locker but had to leave the key behind. Still, with staff to swimmers ratio of 3:1 I felt sure that my smalls were being well looked after.

The pool itself is modern, well maintained and pretty warm. It's also a fulll size Olympic one which seems a little unneccesary given the fact that you'd have to swim in zig zags to actually bump into someone.

There is the unpleasant problem of the lingering aftertaste of the water. Somebody told me it was the cleaning pastilles that left the water looking white and cloudy. I'd not noticed this personally but the water certainly tasted rank! For the rest of the day I felt like my mouth had been sandblasted. Not very nice and perhaps the reason for the low frequentation of the said facilities.

If the manager of Aqua Center is reading this, you need to;

1. employ less staff (two of them were hiding in the toilets when I went in) to help decrease prices

2. open at more convenient times. 9-6pm Monday to Friday maybe be convenient for your staff but it's not great for anyone who goes to school or college or works a regular job (ie everyone)

3. sort out that nasty taste!

on my way back from the pool I saw a youth flailing around on inline skates. The light was fading and temperature below zero but he still insisted on wobbling along in a very uncertain manner, in the middle of the road, swerving from angry drivers, beeping their horns in their Dacias/4x4s.

Maybe there is hope for Sport in Buzău after all - with determination like that he could go far.

Or he could end up in Casualty!

Sinaia

Sinaia. Secondary home of the short-lived dynasty of Romanian monarchs (they were technically German, although I think the same is true of the Windsors) and other noted Romanians, although this particular castle never had a vampire. Even if it was said that Queen Maria (incidently Queen Victoria's daughter) was a bit on the feisty side.

The two castles, Peleș and Pelișor, are well worth a visit and quite refreshingly modern, especially compared to the stuffy old Stately Homes we have back in Blighty.

As the photos show the weather was bright and crisp. It hadn't snowed for several days so the grass was beginning to poke through, and even when we headed up the mountain to 1500m, there was still barely enough snow to ski. The mild daytime temperatures did have the unfortunate side effect of leaving ice patches on the ground formed from refrozen melted snow. Now, admittedly I am British and am probably guilty of being mollycoddled to such an extent that I think the Nanny State should provide under-pavement heating to prevent such dangerous occurunces. Coupled with this, I have just escaped after four years in France, where the government is assumed to be responsible for all possible woes that befall its people, natural or otherwise. (Case in point, the reason snow in Marseilles - for the first time in 22 years there were a few inches of snow on the French Riviera and the residents blamed the closure of schools and public transport on the government for not having snow-clearing equipment on standby. In Marseilles!) Yet even, after theis I still think something could have been done to prevent me, and many others, tottering around like Bambi. The low point, admittedly of our own making, was when we realised we had parked the car on top of what can only be described as a glacier. I could barely get down from the car and inched my way down the treacherous slope grabbing on to people's garden fences. As for moving said vehicle afterwards...sadly no video evidence of this event exists but we basically had to smash the ice behind the back tyres with a rock then reverse/slide the car off the slope. Inevitably the car did spin round like a top and crash into the fence a few times. Nobody was hurt in the process.

So all's well that ends well. Looking forward to getting back up to the mountains again soon. It's beautiful!