I thought that Romania was in a temperate climate zone...I guess I was wrong.
When it's May, you have more than 80% of your final thesis to write before June 30th, the last undergraduate examination period is in one week and all you can think about is shade, sweat and "Please not the bus again!!!", then people, we have got a problem!
For the past five years I have been saying over and over, every summer, that we should just have showers on streets corners and changing booths next to them. People should be able to slip in their bathing suit and jump under the shower....or...skip the clothes altogether and get on the streets in swimsuits: business swimsuits, casual swimsuits, skateboarding swimsuits etc. etc. etc..
We should also have windowless buses :).
Another thing, in case you're familiar with the street vendors that sell overpriced, cheep umbrellas during the rain in the main squares of Bucharest, well, they should sell sun umbrellas and ice on skewers during the awful heat that will follow.
Enjoy the months of smell hell!
Showing posts with label Living in Romania vs..... Show all posts
Showing posts with label Living in Romania vs..... Show all posts
Monday, May 19, 2008
Thursday, January 31, 2008
The TV "dumbelization"
I've been home since this Tuesday afternoon. So far I've spent most of my awake hours doing stuff on my computer (reinstalling, reorganizing and fixing things), but in the background, the TV was on, all the time.
During my computer-fixing hours I've kind of surfed the channels with the remote, leaving it on random programs. After a few hours of just hearing the TV as an ignorable background sound, I started listening...What has happened to TV in general? Do TV program creators consider viewers that dumb or are they on a solemn quest to lower the Romanian population's IQ?
I have unwillingly heard hours and hours of crime news, soap-operas, bad TV shows about who slept with whom, who has had her boobs done in the past week, which girl band looks more slutty, which Chinese guy stole who's baby, who got killed by whom, what politician set what on fire etc. etc. etc..
After I realized the dreadful (at least for me) downfall of the quality of Romanian TV programming, I took the remote and tried the last oasis of smart TV, I could find...the Discovery Channel...great for me that How it's made was on :).
Speaking of smart things to watch, you should definitely have a look at Imax Deep Sea. It's narrated by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet and it's absolutely fascinating.
OK, OK...so it's a little about crimes, but these ones keep the ocean ecosystem balanced...at least when we're not spilling oil in it or do any other mess.
During my computer-fixing hours I've kind of surfed the channels with the remote, leaving it on random programs. After a few hours of just hearing the TV as an ignorable background sound, I started listening...What has happened to TV in general? Do TV program creators consider viewers that dumb or are they on a solemn quest to lower the Romanian population's IQ?
I have unwillingly heard hours and hours of crime news, soap-operas, bad TV shows about who slept with whom, who has had her boobs done in the past week, which girl band looks more slutty, which Chinese guy stole who's baby, who got killed by whom, what politician set what on fire etc. etc. etc..
After I realized the dreadful (at least for me) downfall of the quality of Romanian TV programming, I took the remote and tried the last oasis of smart TV, I could find...the Discovery Channel...great for me that How it's made was on :).
Speaking of smart things to watch, you should definitely have a look at Imax Deep Sea. It's narrated by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet and it's absolutely fascinating.
OK, OK...so it's a little about crimes, but these ones keep the ocean ecosystem balanced...at least when we're not spilling oil in it or do any other mess.
Friday, January 11, 2008
American Christmas...part 4 (final) - 36 hours on the road
I finally made it our of the Sates. The day I left the sky was clear, the flights weren't canceled and after being super searched at LA International Airport, LAX, I finally boarded on a Boeing 747-400 over the Atlantic.
A funny thing happened to me on the plane. I sat next to a German teenager (9th grade) and her father. After we started talking for a while, she asked me where I was from, so I told her I was from Romania. At that moment she said a most disturbing thing and I quote..."When I think about Romania, Poland and Russia, I think about criminals."...and I replied..."What a coincidence, when I think about Germany, I immediately think about Hitler and the Nazi ", she smiled and said "No, no, no."
After this lovely trip under the influence of the Second World War, I waited for 8 whole hours in Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, which I officially hate. I don't have anything particularly against the staff of the airport, or even against the airport itself, I just got so bored of those yellow signs and the announcements in Dutch, made from 5 to 5 minutes, non-stop, for 8 hours.
And after a short delay due to the fact that the plane had ice on its wings, I finally landed on Henri Coanda in Bucharest. Now think about this for a moment: Reno, snow everywhere, airport runway super clear and dry, Amsterdam, foggy and cold, airport runway super clean and dry, Bucharest, snow, airport runway super full of snow and ice...no comment.
To top it all, after they managed to ruin both my big suit cases up to the point where they are unusable and after I've waited about 20 minutes in the cold for my taxi (the taxi drivers at the airport were so nice that they offered to give me a ride to my dorm building for twice the actual current cab fare), I went home in a taxi driven by the only antisemitic person I now know in Romania.
Welcome to your home country Lumi, the place where you land in snow, cab drivers want to rob you and people publicly announce that they want all the USA destroyed and the Jews along with them (same taxi driver)!
Now I'm struggling to overcome the 10 hour time difference and to finish all my school projects before the deadlines. Overall, the trip to the USA was very eventful and pleasant, when I wasn't sick.
Have a great examination period and a fantastic holiday after!
Best of luck to you all,
Lumi
A funny thing happened to me on the plane. I sat next to a German teenager (9th grade) and her father. After we started talking for a while, she asked me where I was from, so I told her I was from Romania. At that moment she said a most disturbing thing and I quote..."When I think about Romania, Poland and Russia, I think about criminals."...and I replied..."What a coincidence, when I think about Germany, I immediately think about Hitler and the Nazi ", she smiled and said "No, no, no."
After this lovely trip under the influence of the Second World War, I waited for 8 whole hours in Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, which I officially hate. I don't have anything particularly against the staff of the airport, or even against the airport itself, I just got so bored of those yellow signs and the announcements in Dutch, made from 5 to 5 minutes, non-stop, for 8 hours.
And after a short delay due to the fact that the plane had ice on its wings, I finally landed on Henri Coanda in Bucharest. Now think about this for a moment: Reno, snow everywhere, airport runway super clear and dry, Amsterdam, foggy and cold, airport runway super clean and dry, Bucharest, snow, airport runway super full of snow and ice...no comment.
To top it all, after they managed to ruin both my big suit cases up to the point where they are unusable and after I've waited about 20 minutes in the cold for my taxi (the taxi drivers at the airport were so nice that they offered to give me a ride to my dorm building for twice the actual current cab fare), I went home in a taxi driven by the only antisemitic person I now know in Romania.
Welcome to your home country Lumi, the place where you land in snow, cab drivers want to rob you and people publicly announce that they want all the USA destroyed and the Jews along with them (same taxi driver)!
Now I'm struggling to overcome the 10 hour time difference and to finish all my school projects before the deadlines. Overall, the trip to the USA was very eventful and pleasant, when I wasn't sick.
Have a great examination period and a fantastic holiday after!
Best of luck to you all,
Lumi
Thursday, November 1, 2007
The saddest day of Autumn :(
Today has truly been the saddest day of autumn.
Today I read in the press that the Romanians are almost the saddest people in Europe. (only 1% difference, for those who read the article)
Today I didn't manage to achieve anything worth writing in this post.
Today I found out that it's year 47 D.D., that means that for the Maradonians (yes, the sect that worships the famous soccer player, Diego Armando Maradona) 47 years have passed since the birth of their idol. (D.D.="Dopo Diego", that means After Diego)...find out more about this here.
Today it was too rainy for me to go outside.
Today I got mad at a site that had Botswana in their country list, but not Romania.
Today I have to write a paper on FDI (Foreign Direct Investments) in the country that's 1% closer to being the saddest in Europe.
Today is almost over.
Today I read in the press that the Romanians are almost the saddest people in Europe. (only 1% difference, for those who read the article)
Today I didn't manage to achieve anything worth writing in this post.
Today I found out that it's year 47 D.D., that means that for the Maradonians (yes, the sect that worships the famous soccer player, Diego Armando Maradona) 47 years have passed since the birth of their idol. (D.D.="Dopo Diego", that means After Diego)...find out more about this here.
Today it was too rainy for me to go outside.
Today I got mad at a site that had Botswana in their country list, but not Romania.
Today I have to write a paper on FDI (Foreign Direct Investments) in the country that's 1% closer to being the saddest in Europe.
Today is almost over.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Peace of mind on Halloween
It's funny how much we value the simplest of things: a ray of sunlight, a walk on leaves in the park, the noise of falling water, hearing small birds sing...all for the precious peace of mind...
So here comes my question:
If our conscience were clear, would we really need peace of mind?
Let's say the problem is that we are so chore-absorbed every day, that we sometimes need to be reminded it still doesn't take much for us to find a corner of tranquility. I dread to think what we will do without the little nature that human kind has got left. But it's more than that, it's like every day we are confronted with situations that make, at some level, question our integrity.
For instance, I recently tried to get a signature from my dorm building landlord, in order to prove that on October 1st, I was in the country, fighting with the bureaucracy of my beloved Romania and my esteemed college representatives. He had to sign a written declaration (written by myself, because he didn't know what to write in order to prove that I truly, personally picked up my dorm room from him on the previous mentioned day, despite the several official papers I had signed then).
The declaration was inspired from a declaration of income I had found on the net, so it had the following final print: "I hereby recognize that this is a public document and I take full responsibility in the court of law, according to the penal law, for the inexactness or falseness of what has been declared."
The landlord dreaded this final phrase so much, that he refused to sign a document with no falseness and no inexactness in it. An the thing that surprised me the most is that, he agreed with everything else written there, that means agreeing to the the part where "I state on my own responsibility that...", which was the first part of the declaration. So the first part and the final print seemed so different to him, that he refused to sign the declaration.
The funny thing is, even without the final print, if he signed the rest, he would have still been responsible in the court of law, because that declaration was a public document.
Therefore, returning to the main idea of this post, people have a lot on their conscience, a lot that gets triggered by expressions like: take responsibility for one's acts, court of law, law etc..
The feared equation for a guilty conscience is:
TODAY+RESPONSIBILITY FOR DONE ACTS=DREADED TOMORROW
I guess we all have our conscience spooks haunting us every, not just on Halloween :). This actually reminds me of a very interesting commercial.
Try guessing what it's for!(don't cheat by first looking up information about it :D!)
Happy Halloween for those who care!
So here comes my question:
If our conscience were clear, would we really need peace of mind?
Let's say the problem is that we are so chore-absorbed every day, that we sometimes need to be reminded it still doesn't take much for us to find a corner of tranquility. I dread to think what we will do without the little nature that human kind has got left. But it's more than that, it's like every day we are confronted with situations that make, at some level, question our integrity.
For instance, I recently tried to get a signature from my dorm building landlord, in order to prove that on October 1st, I was in the country, fighting with the bureaucracy of my beloved Romania and my esteemed college representatives. He had to sign a written declaration (written by myself, because he didn't know what to write in order to prove that I truly, personally picked up my dorm room from him on the previous mentioned day, despite the several official papers I had signed then).
The declaration was inspired from a declaration of income I had found on the net, so it had the following final print: "I hereby recognize that this is a public document and I take full responsibility in the court of law, according to the penal law, for the inexactness or falseness of what has been declared."
The landlord dreaded this final phrase so much, that he refused to sign a document with no falseness and no inexactness in it. An the thing that surprised me the most is that, he agreed with everything else written there, that means agreeing to the the part where "I state on my own responsibility that...", which was the first part of the declaration. So the first part and the final print seemed so different to him, that he refused to sign the declaration.
The funny thing is, even without the final print, if he signed the rest, he would have still been responsible in the court of law, because that declaration was a public document.
Therefore, returning to the main idea of this post, people have a lot on their conscience, a lot that gets triggered by expressions like: take responsibility for one's acts, court of law, law etc..
The feared equation for a guilty conscience is:
TODAY+RESPONSIBILITY FOR DONE ACTS=DREADED TOMORROW
I guess we all have our conscience spooks haunting us every, not just on Halloween :). This actually reminds me of a very interesting commercial.
Try guessing what it's for!(don't cheat by first looking up information about it :D!)
Happy Halloween for those who care!
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Back to Romania
After three flights with a little, a bit and a lot of turbulence, I finally made it home. From the first moments of my time back in Romania I've sadly noticed the striking difference between the American client service and the Romanian one.
I left a "Hello! How are you this morning? How may I help you?" for a "Miscati-va si voi mai repede cu bagajele ale!"("Move faster with that luggage!"), said by a very polite Otopeni employee at the same airport.
What can I say?!... when it comes to the behavior of tellers and any other kind of public functionaries , the American system kicks the Romanian system's ass (*it's a private blog and I can use any kind of language I see fit to use :D).
The things I haven't missed in Romania:...everything except my family, my friends and my pets, so I figured out that I can live anywhere in the world that's habitable, as long as I have the people I like and love with me and I can even live without them...but not for very long.
I went to the USA with 7 friends, I came back from the USA with loads more.
On our big trip on the West Coast we traveled over 2300 miles (2300*1.609344Km=3701.4912Km) and we visited: San Francisco (If I ever had a sh** load of money, I would surely move to SF...it's the most beautiful city I have ever set foot in.), Alcatraz (the famous prison of Al Capone), San Jose, Monterey(there is a beautiful aquarium there), Santa Barbara (where they have a Zoo that recreates the natural habitat of the animals so they feel like home; the facility is made only with the help of donations), Los Angeles (where we visited Hollywood with the Walk of Fame, Disneyland - "Where all your dreams come true..." and Long Beach), Las Vegas (the city that never sleeps, the city of kitsch opulence, the city of fake Venice and casinos), Hoover Dam, Yosemite Park and the breathtaking West Coast shore, where the Pacific Ocean mesmerizes you.
The West Coast has been a fantastic place to spend our summer and I can honestly say that this has been the best vacation ever.
Have a great beginning of the new school year!Hopefully you will not face the cruel bureaucracy I had to fight with in order to get my dorm room.
For those I left in the USA: I'll miss you guys a lot. Hope you'll come and visit sooner than I expect that to happen.
Joe: Take care, stay safe, don't smoke, dream sweet..the dream-catcher is guarding you for me :)!
Chris: stay away from that bong, keep your head smooth as a baby's bottom :)!
Paypay: keep writing on those walls Logic one, Paypay the dawn, but don't get caught :).
Here's a glimpse of what we visited:
I left a "Hello! How are you this morning? How may I help you?" for a "Miscati-va si voi mai repede cu bagajele ale!"("Move faster with that luggage!"), said by a very polite Otopeni employee at the same airport.
What can I say?!... when it comes to the behavior of tellers and any other kind of public functionaries , the American system kicks the Romanian system's ass (*it's a private blog and I can use any kind of language I see fit to use :D).
The things I haven't missed in Romania:...everything except my family, my friends and my pets, so I figured out that I can live anywhere in the world that's habitable, as long as I have the people I like and love with me and I can even live without them...but not for very long.
I went to the USA with 7 friends, I came back from the USA with loads more.
On our big trip on the West Coast we traveled over 2300 miles (2300*1.609344Km=3701.4912Km) and we visited: San Francisco (If I ever had a sh** load of money, I would surely move to SF...it's the most beautiful city I have ever set foot in.), Alcatraz (the famous prison of Al Capone), San Jose, Monterey(there is a beautiful aquarium there), Santa Barbara (where they have a Zoo that recreates the natural habitat of the animals so they feel like home; the facility is made only with the help of donations), Los Angeles (where we visited Hollywood with the Walk of Fame, Disneyland - "Where all your dreams come true..." and Long Beach), Las Vegas (the city that never sleeps, the city of kitsch opulence, the city of fake Venice and casinos), Hoover Dam, Yosemite Park and the breathtaking West Coast shore, where the Pacific Ocean mesmerizes you.
The West Coast has been a fantastic place to spend our summer and I can honestly say that this has been the best vacation ever.
Have a great beginning of the new school year!Hopefully you will not face the cruel bureaucracy I had to fight with in order to get my dorm room.
For those I left in the USA: I'll miss you guys a lot. Hope you'll come and visit sooner than I expect that to happen.
Joe: Take care, stay safe, don't smoke, dream sweet..the dream-catcher is guarding you for me :)!
Chris: stay away from that bong, keep your head smooth as a baby's bottom :)!
Paypay: keep writing on those walls Logic one, Paypay the dawn, but don't get caught :).
Here's a glimpse of what we visited:
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