Pretty Much Spring

We had a St. Patrick's Day party Saturday night and had a few friends over. There was entirely too much whiskey. We had raw veggies, and Mark made a sort of random sauce. When the guests came, a few of the guys exclaimed, “Dracula sauce!” It disappeared quickly. They didn't think much of the honey mustard, though.

All in all, it was a good night.

Today we went to the little park and watched the kids play ball among the old ladies sitting on benches. It was amazing that no one got conked in the head. I'm sure sometimes they do. The young German shepherd mix who plays with the kids was there. Trees were blooming. Spring and Ikea arrive in two days.

Ikea Coming to Bucharest

I opened the front door to our apartment the other day to find a plastic sack hanging on the handle with something heavy in it, which appeared to be a catalog. Upon closer inspection, I discovered it was an Ikea catalog.

When you've been out of the country for a while, there is nothing quite like getting something as familiar as an Ikea catalog in the mail. Ikea is a furniture company that takes modern living seriously. They know people don't have a lot of space to work with. For myself, I have my eye on some bare-bones office furniture that looks like it should be onboard a spaceship like Serenity.

Ikea is perfect for Bucharest. Most people here live in tiny apartments, and would welcome furniture that doesn't take up a lot of space, yet still looks nice.

Well, it's obvious how much sales copy I've been writing lately. This wasn't meant to be an Ikea cheerleading session. But the presence of the company in Bucharest is one of those signs of changes to come. Ikea is a big store. It won't be the last big store to come to Bucharest, or probably to other cities in Romania as well. That may mean that the smaller stores will go out of business. Remember what happened to bookstores like Magnolia (near Augusta State University) when Barnes and Noble came to town? I can't be certain whether it was a cause-and-effect relationship, but the guy I spoke to at the small bookstore seemed to think it was at the time.

The small stores stuffed into every conceivable nook and cranny are one of the more enjoyable things about neighborhoods like Dristor, which is where I live. You have to really keep your eyes open when you walk around. When I leave my apartment, I can walk for a block before coming to a bend in the road. A few meters later, I come to an unmarked white building that usually has a loaf of bread hanging in a plastic sack outside the door with a price on it. Inside is a curb market about a third the size of Johnson's Curb Market in Augusta. Most of the goods are kept behind the counter. You can get maybe 10 Americans in there if you try really hard, and probably 20 Romanians. (Partly due to the size of Americans and partly because Romanians really know how to squeeze.)

If you cross the street, there is a row of curb marts, most of which are small grocery stores like the one in the white building. One is a pharmacy. Then there are the piatas, which are open-air markets surrounded by rows of these tiny curb marts. A very few of those are furniture stores, which tend to be a bit larger than the grocery stores, but they're still tiny. And they're everywhere. There's something neat about that. It's convenient, because there isn't one central location that draws a huge, uncomfortable crowd. In a neighborhood like mine, no matter where you live, there are several little curb marts nearby, several pharmacies, several everything. I wonder if joining the European Union and bringing in stores like Ikea will mean the eventual demise of the little proprietorships.

At any rate, Ikea will open in Bucharest Wednesday. We'll see what happens.

Amusing Ourselves in Bucharest

There is absolutely nothing interesting happening right now, except that some guy is playing with his power tools in the very next apartment. One day he's going to wind up standing right in my bedroom, I think. (We've just seen “X-Men III,” so I'm very concerned with people coming through walls right now.)

Yesterday, Mark and I stood out on the balcony and watched sea gulls fly around the courtyard. They took turns perching on the building across the way and flying in circles. Pretty graceful birds, those. We're going to turn our balcony into a game room. We're going to do this by nailing our dart board to the slab of particle board that makes up the wall on one end of the balcony. The balcony is just about long enough to make it perfect. And it's blue. I'm sure that in itself will improve my aim.

I've been using our building's exerciser to strengthen my legs and other things. It's like a stair-climber except with actual stairs. We have 10 floors in our building so three going all the way up and down three times makes me see pretty colors.

Last night we went to a new pub, at the suggestion of friends who go there to hear gothy type music. They are very friendly people who tend to go down rows of band names they keep in their heads in the hopes of finding one we will recognize. Since we aren't big collectors of music and don't devote a lot of time to learning about it, our more musical friends tend to roll their eyes a lot.

We met a Romanian guy last night who has a grandparent from Ireland. He enjoys the Irish portion of his heritage very much. We invited him to the St. Patrick's Day party we're having on Saturday. I figured it must be lucky to meet a sort-of Irish guy in Romania two days before St. Patrick's Day.

The Restaurant at the End of the Piata

There is a dove outside my window this very minute, you know. It's been a few days since I've interacted with them. Maybe I should leave some bread. They could be planning something.

They may like one of the pretzels we bought yesterday at a little walk-by shop in the piata. We weren't thinking of the doves when we bought them, though. We were thinking about the 3-cent street pretzels we saw in the travel books two years ago. They aren't 3 cents anymore. We did the math. They're 10 cents now, and climbing. Anyone who wants to see Old World Bucharest had better hurry. Things are changing fast. If the European Union doesn't like them, the little piatas may not last. That's my worry. They're not something that would be allowed in the U.S., being a little haphazard and random and probably not visited by Inspector No. 9. It's a bit like Anakin Skywalker's hometown, minus the desert and the slavery.

Inside our little piata is a little restaurant called Mini-Mi. I was not prepared for that, let me tell you. “Mini Me??” I exclaimed gleefully, turning the heads of a few of the customers. It has a terrace, and an inside that doesn't really look like an “inside” at all, as the walls are made of clear plastic. Hard plastic, not plastic wrap. It has red-and-white checkerboard tablecloths and looks like a cross between a little diner and a Renaissance Faire teahouse. The sun comes through the wall fairly cheerfully and they have wine.

They also have a no-smoking section, consisting of a table behind a hanging blanket. I think it will have to become a haunt of mine. My only complaint is the severe lack of dry red wines on the menu. That sunny little room would be such a wonderful place to sit with a glass of wine. I used to do that on the terrace at the Pizza Joint whenever I managed to escape work early on a Wednesday afternoon. At Mini-Mi, though, everything is either sweet or semi-sweet. People like to pour gassy water into their sweet red wine and make spritzers. I try not to think about it.

How I Got My Very Own Romanian Stalker

My mother always told me not to talk to strangers. In fact, there is even a Rick Springfield song about just that sort of thing. It's called, “Don't Talk to Strangers.” Or at least he did. A long time ago. It's a very creepy song in retrospect.

Neither my mother nor Rick Springfield said anything about cooing to strangers, however. They said absolutely nothing about what could possibly happen if you stood on the balcony in the middle of Bucharest, Romania, and imitated the cooing noises of the local doves while leaving breadcrumbs.

Yep, that's what I did, and here is what happened.

There is a tree outside our fifth-story window in which about a half-dozen of the little gray-brown-lavender-ish birds perch. They watch me and Mark as we stand outside. When we are inside, with the door open, one will occasionally perch on the balcony and strain its neck to look inside the apartment.

Last week, I thought I would have some fun with them. So I imitated their sound and figured they would ignore me the same way the cows back home do. Nuh-uh. One bird seemed to get very excited and came to perch on the building. Then it came closer, and perched on the bar my clothesline is attached to. It began cooing enthusiastically and shaking its wings and tail feathers. It was downright embarrassing. Cute, but embarrassing.

I wasn't quite sure, culturally speaking, what the correct response on my part was. So I said, “Oh look, how cute!” or something equally inspiring.

That wasn't the end of it. There is a window in the bathroom too. Later that day, my dove (I'm going to assume for the sake of my own sanity that there is only one dove who is convinced I'm The One) perched in the bathroom window, cooing its little head off, craning its neck and trying to find a way through the closed window. I cooed back. It stopped, cocked its head and cooed again. I answered and we went on like this for about a minute and a half. When I stopped, the bird set up such a fuss, I began to feel a bit...concerned. And all the while it was on the window sill shaking its tail feathers at me.

Now I find myself checking the windows uneasily for doves every time I go into a room. I wonder what it was that I actually said?

Romanian Goose Chase: Epilogue

As it turns out The Girls were in Taverna Veche even as Mark and I stood outside thinking the place was closed. They were downstairs, in another dimension, where people dance till they drop.

Sometimes negotiating Bucharest is a bit like negotiating J.K. Rowling's wizard world. You just have to know how to get in between places, and into other places that don't seem to even exist. And riding in a taxi is an awful lot like riding the Knight Bus. Actually it's exactly like riding the Knight Bus, but without the talking shrunken head. Bucharest Taxi drivers actually prefer to hang tiny, cute, stuffed Teddy bears and things from their rearview mirrors.

As if that weren't interesting enough, it appears I have a stalker.

Romanian Goose Chase

We weren't chasing actual geese. We were chasing a small flock of Romanian girls.

That so doesn't look right on the screen.

As you know, Mark and I find ourselves back at Butterfly Villa, the hostel where we lived for several weeks when we first arrived, semi-often. Not nearly often enough, but that's another story. Anyway, when we went to try to catch up with the guy who's won the Longest Butterfly Villa Resident Award, we found him missing, kidnapped by his brother and not due back for a while. We found that one of the girls was having a birthday celebration on Wednesday, which was yesterday. We promised to come and join in the fun, which included a late-night-early-morning-dawn expedition to Club Fire. She would finish with her shift at 10 p.m.

We arrived at the hostel at 10:30 p.m. last night. The girl who had the late shift told us the other hostel clerks, which are really one entity known simply as “The Girls,” had already gone. They were not at Fire. They were at Taverna Veche at Nr. 69, B-dul George Cosbuc. So we dropped off the Birthday Girl's gifts and went to catch the metro.

Unfortunately, the metro didn't take us as far as we thought it would, because the night ended for the trains. So we had to take a taxi the rest of the way. We discovered, too late, that it was a taxi with a defuncta meter. He took us up a dead end. We thought maybe that wasn't such a good thing. Maybe he had friends in the alley. But he didn't and we arrived at our destination with a 10 lei bill, which was probably actually less than a healthy meter would have asked for.

We walked into the bar and found ourselves in a tiny, smoke-filled room with a boar's head on the wall. Although the place was simply eaten up with atmosphere (it was the sort of place that an urban Aragorn would love), we knew our girls' natural habitat is the dance club. We also knew that, had they come into this bar, being both beautiful and young, they would have been eaten by the natives. So we left, assuming we were in the wrong place.

(We're going back though. Like I said, urban Aragorn atmosphere.)

Taverna Veche was next door. Taverna Veche was inchis. Closed. (And before midnight. That's unheard of.) The Girls were nowhere to be seen and both of us had forgotten our cell phones. So we hailed yet another taxi.

The taxi driver was young. The radio played contemporary music, which very appropriately declared, “I don' t know if we'll make it” as he scooted into the lane next to us, which was already occupied by a car, forcing that car to slow so he could slide in front of it just in time to avoid hitting the open door of the truck parked in our lane.

There's a reason there's no Six Flags Over Bucharest.

No Escape for Vlad, Part II

Vlad the Cameraman sat trapped in El Comandante. He wanted to leave, since the music he'd come to hear wasn't going to be played after all. But since, previously unknown to him, his colleages were the reason it wasn't going to be played, he couldn't very well leave without seeming very moody at the very least. So there he sat, turning the thing around in his brain, lamenting the lack of a back door or windows of any kind, while assuming some solution would present itself and that he could perhaps sneak by the table without being noticed.

Within the hour, the building contained what must have been every actor, cameraman and makeup artist in Bucharest. The place was packed with presumably famous people (or famous-people-to-be) that we didn't recognize. So I spent the evening trying to guess which were the actors and actresses based on the expressions on their faces. Seeing the episode as it played didn't help either, because actors never quite look the same in person as they do on screen, with the possible exception of Jon Pertwee (who was not, come to think of it, black-and-white).

So that was our evening. There was lots of clapping and shouting in Romanian. Everyone down below was very excited. Those of us who had come for the music huddled in bewildered angst on the upper level. (We had to huddle, as the actors managed to commandeer most of the upper-level tables.)

At one point all the lights went out.

Finally, we decided to make a break for it while they were all entranced. Pushing your way through a Romanian crowd is different than pushing your way through an American crowd. Americans, when it comes right down to it, really don't like being that close to strangers, and will go to great lengths to avoid physical contact with them. Romanians see you are in their way and keep coming. They just keep coming. Just the other day, I was in the grocery store and a little old lady ran into me with her shopping cart. Then she ran into me again, and again, as though she thought she might have been mistaken about my being there the first and second time. Granted, she wasn't looking at me when it happened, but I suspect that was a calculated move.

Crowds are just exactly the same and you wind up in all sorts of improbable positions as you exit a crowded building. Last night I had to actually bend over a table sideways to get through the crowd.

We did manage to escape with our lives, but we had to leave Vlad behind. I think he may have been enjoying himself after all.

No Escape for Vlad, Part I

Sometimes you stumble into things. Sometimes you stumble into things you wouldn't have stepped into on purpose. Sometimes you get trapped there.

Last night, Mark and I were convinced we were on our way to a goth night. We were convinced of this because the bar El Comandante, the owner of which is very attached to the famous image of Chez Guevara, has been in the habit of allowing a handful of rogue DJs provide “goth” music for the handful of us in Bucharest who like to go out and listen to it with other people of like minds. This generally happens on Monday nights, from 7 p.m. onward.

When we arrived, things seemed normal enough. Anna Maria was playing somewhat hard-hitting music that, to my ears, sounds industrial. (You have to be careful, because people who have devoted their lives to classifying music are always waiting in the rafters with giant hammers with which to bonk you on the head.)

Anna Maria is as much of a delight to watch as the music she spins is a delight to hear. Few human beings exhibit such obvious enjoyment as she does, dancing and smiling in the booth as though she were on Cloud 9.

At any rate, when the night's organizer, a personable guy named Tudor, came to say hello, and we put in a good word for the dancing DJ, he said, “Yes, but it's not a good night for music.”

That didn't sound nearly portentous enough to match what actually happened later.

In the meantime, Stephan, another of the DJs, whose name is pronounced “Schtefan,” and his friend Vlad, with whom he shares a band, came and sat with us. I was going to ask him if he'd impaled anyone recently, but he was having a Seinfeld moment.

That moment was going something like this: Some of my coworkers are here, and I will have to walk by their table if I leave, which I want to do now that “it is not a good night for music,” but I don't want to look as though their presence is driving me away, because that would seem rude.

He explained that he worked as a cameraman for one of the local television studios. One of the tables on the bar's lower level was full of actors whose sitcom pilot was to air that night. Their presence in El Comandante meant that is where the premiere party was going to be, which meant there would be no goth, industrial, darkwave or any other kind of music for very much longer. So Vlad wanted to leave. Without dissing his colleagues.

Stay tuned for the conclusion of this hair-raising saga.

Spring in Romania? Et-cetera and Et-cetera

Spring seems to be here. I am, however, very suspicious of spring-like weather because of cold snaps. I don't know if Romania does cold snaps. “Cold snap” doesn't seem to want to jump over the language barrier. The phrase is a bit like a three-legged sheep trying to clear a barbed-wire fence. Conversations in which it makes an appearance tend to get a bit messy and more than a bit off-track.

Regardless, it is nicely sunny today. That means it's partly cloudy and the sun goes away periodically. On top of all of that, the wind doesn't appear to be blowing particularly strongly.

I am mystified by what is growing outside my apartment building. At first I thought it might be another apartment building. But if that's the case, the thing won't be up for another decade or so. It's taken two, maybe three, weeks for a crew of about 10 men dressed in blue jumpers to lay concrete bricks around the periphery and put down a concrete pad. There was a lot of playing around with jackhammers in the process. At 8:00 in the morning.

But now they seem to be extending the bricks down the alley and around the corner, so maybe they're building a curb. (I very nearly typed “cerb.” My spelling has been a disaster worthy of federal relief since my high school British lit class.)

The doves are...well, they're not cooing, exactly. They seem to be moaning in time to some unseen clock. They do that all the time, even at night. That's probably because there are no birds of prey here.

Tonight we are going out. We missed our goth music event last week because of our travels, but tonight we'll be back at it. It will be nice to sit in a cozy place with a beer bigger than my head. Everyone drinks them. It's amazing. I think I am the only one amazed by them.

I'll let you know how it goes. Until then, la revedere.

Going Out, Chimpanzees and Not Much Else

I had originally, and very optimistically, titled this piece “Going Out in Romania,” but the truth is, I have absolutely nothing enlightening to say about going out in Romania. It is exactly like going out in the U.S., except with more of all the things that make you say, “I hate going out in the U.S. I wish I were in Europe.”

The truth is, I fail to see the point, unless the point actually IS being crushed against strangers and saving cigarette money via mass inhalation of secondhand smoke. Works out great for smokers and for people who like to dress in “ashtray chic.”

Of course, there's dancing. I have enjoyed dancing on many occasions. But when there are millions of people crowded into one fire-extinguisherless room, bobbing to the music is about all you can manage.

We won't talk about the music. I think there may be some sort of international law about playing actual music in dance clubs.

Clubs are terrible places to meet people. If you do manage the beginnings of a conversation with a clubber, you're in for an experience that feels a lot like talking to a foreigner in a language neither of you is familiar with, over a fast-food speaker that misses two out of three words. And that's in the States where everyone presumably speaks the same language.

The solution is obvious, of course. Bring your own friends, especially if you don't actually like talking to them. That might actually explain it. We don't converse, therefore we club.

I actually like all the components that go into “going out.” I'm very fond of beer and several other dangerous concoctions. I believe dancing is essential to human happiness. People can be very interesting at times too. Music is also essential to human happiness, as long as no one with the last name Timberlake goes anywhere near it. Put them all together, however, and it is virtually impossible to properly enjoy any of them.

Live music, now that's a different story. The act of going to see a band perform is the one thing that really does separate us from the rest of the animals. So chimpanzees are hunting with spears and hanging out in caves. When they start forming rock bands, then we'll know we're in trouble.

Lights Out in Romania

Every morning we awaken to the lovely chorus of jackhammers outside our window. Except, for some reason, this morning. This morning it is eerily quiet out there.

Last night, there was an explosion in the shed in what I am going to optimistically call the courtyard. Then the lights dimmed. Then the lights went out, and there was a lot of discussion in Romanian in the courtyard in a tone that meant this sort of thing doesn't usually happen on a Thursday evening.

I said, “Since the lights are out, would you like a glass of wine?”

I knew something was due to go out, but I thought it might be the Internet. For some reason I am much more annoyed when the Internet goes out with the power still on. Maybe because the Madnet guys told us the Internet is on 99 percent of the time. Of course, I never took Romanian math, so he could have been telling the absolute truth.

Numbers all seem to have different meanings here. Like 24-7, which is on a lot of the stores. It seems to have the same meaning as “Non-Stop,” in that they're open until about 10 p.m., most of the days of the week.

About an hour and a half after the lights went out, they came back on just as mysteriously. We didn't ask questions. Except, maybe, “Since the lights are back on, would you like a glass of wine?”

One should never drink for the wrong reasons.

The Wonders of Internet Networks

When Mark and I first began speaking with the man who would become our landlord about this apartment, we were very concerned about whether we could get the Internet here. We weren't so concerned with the lack of a refrigerator, which the landlord was very apologetic about and rectified the very next day, but we impressed upon him the fact that, without the Internet, our very survival would be in question.

There had been Internet service in this apartment he told us. We asked for the company's name. He didn't know. But he did point to a white plug in the wall and say cheerfully, “If you unplug this, they'll come.”

We thought he was joking. He wasn't. As it seemed our only option, we unplugged the cord. That night, there was a knock on our door.

By unplugging the cord, we had wiped out the Internet service of many, many people. Possibly hundreds. Maybe more. I began to feel giddy with power.

We also have a box which carries The Switch. It's a Very Important Switch. Apparently, not everyone has one. I suspect we're at the top of the line in our network.

According to an e-mail I received from Andrei, that may mean we should be getting our Internet service for free. That probably explains why no one from the Internet provider knocks on our door asking for money. Other people knock on our door asking for money.

According to Andrei, these mega-networks began when some neighbors decided to all go in on one Internet connection and shared the payments. Someone else wanted in, and then another neighbor heard what they were doing and it snowballed from there. Networking businesses sprung up, offering cheaper prices than the big providers. An Internet Utopia was born. Networks have their own digital libraries.

The big providers dropped their prices after that, but still can't compete with the cheaper networks with all the perks.

Andrei says he would be shocked if he had to pay for the Internet. He says it is like air. I say, forget air. Give me my hookup. I'm sure I can learn to breath e-mails.

Back From Bulgaria

After two trips to the border town of Rousse (or Pyce, depending on which alphabet you're using and how much you've had to drink), I am beginning to suspect that Bulgaria was invented for the sole reason of providing a place to eat and test the wine.

Wine-testing is my own personal service to humanity.

I have an odd relationship with Bulgaria, similar to the relationship you might have with an insane, yet beloved, uncle. There is affection. There is uneasiness. It is often difficult, if not impossible, to tell where one ends and another begins. For one thing, there is the train ride.

In normal time, it would probably take about an hour and a half to get from Bucharest to Rousse. But this is Romania, and the space-time continuum doesn't really apply here. After about an hour of travel, the train stops. Several nice men in uniforms board and ask to see your passport. They give you odd looks and ask where you're going.

Why is it, that when a uniformed man with a European accent asks where we're going, we feel lucky if we actually wind up arriving there? It's as though we half-expect a border guard to say, “Rousse?? What do you mean you're going to Rousse? You can't go to Rousse, you silly Americans.”

For some reason all border guards inevitably become John Cleese in my imagination after the fact.

I can just imagine if the same conversation attempted to take place in the U.S. For one thing, if an American gets stopped at a state border for no apparent reason, they always speak to the officer with that respectful tone that suggests there had better be an APB out on an escaped Charles Manson. Or at least suspect you of having a body in the trunk.

“Is there a PROBLEM officer?”

I can just imagine someone saying to a motorist, “South Carolina? How long you planning on being there?”

Badge numbers would be flying. And, in Georgia, the conversation may just end with, “How would your poor, sweet old mother feel about you stopping motorists for no reason and prying into their business? Shame on you, Junior, shame on you. And tell your cousin Clarisse I'll see her on Sunday.”

Here, travel involves scrutiny. And travel to Bulgaria also involves freezing weather.

It never fails. Last time we went to Bulgaria, I thought I might have a future in a museum in a thousand years or so because obviously scientists were going to find my well-preserved frozen body lying at the foot of some Bulgarian ruin. Then we returned to Romania and had an unnaturally balmy winter. Then we returned to Bulgaria and couldn't walk outside without turning an engaging shade of blue.

Except for the day when we got back on the train for Bucharest. That day it was bikini weather. Well, bikini-and-woolen scarf weather anyway.

Laibach Correction and Other Things

From Andrei, who comments quite frequently: "Laibach is a Slovenian experimental music group, strongly associated with industrial, martial and neo-classical.

"Laibach formed June 1, 1980 in Trbovlje, Slovenia (Yugoslavia).

"The name "Laibach" is the German name for Slovenia's capital city, Ljubljana."

Slovenia, not Slovakia, as I said in my Laibach entry of the other day. (Thanks, Andrei!)

Hey, at least I haven't called Bucharest, Budapest yet. ;) And don't even get me started about Mufasa and Mustafa, which are both "cats," by the way, a fact that doesn't help the situation at all.

Andrei, who is from Bucharest, has given me some wonderful ideas to address in the future as well, which I will begin to do next week. I am about to take a trip to Bulgaria and will probably have a bit to say about that as well.

Romanian Uniform Groupie, Part II

But back to uniformed men. I know there are far too many in Bucharest because they're everywhere. You can hardly walk ten feet without smacking into one. I don't think Romanian women have uniform fetishes. You don't make a fetish from something that is plentiful. Romanian women could probably care less.

“Uniform. Yeah. Look, chocolate.”

But an unsuspecting American woman could have serious trouble watching out where she's walking. I believe my first words upon arriving in Bucharest were, “Oooh, they should do a calendar.”

Let's just say that there aren't a whole lot of doughnut shops around here.

And there are so many different types of uniforms, you can't keep up with them all. You have the traffic officers, who wear blue and have to stand out in the middle of intersections. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen the same one twice. One branch wears an awesome black uniform with military-style cap that would make the Goth community back home simply drool. According to the official police department website, the uniform once involved a black frock and top hat. Unfortunately, I did not see a photo on the site. I can't imagine a frock and a top hat existing in the same universe, but I'm sure it must have been quite pretty.

It isn't just the police officers wearing uniforms either. Every pharmacy in the city has its own security guard. And the metro tunnels have guards that get to carry some pretty cool nightsticks. Those guys are out in force now that the metro company has added on some spiffy new trains.

The metro has gotten a couple of brand spanking new trains, in which you can go from one car to another without having to exit the train. Guards patrol these, probably to keep out guerilla artists and beggars. Being the uniform groupie that I now am, I have this ritual: Check out uniform until guard notices. Look away. Sneak glance to make sure he's looking elsewhere. Check out uniform until guard notices. Look completely innocent. Check out uniform. Wonder how he's supposed to yank that nightstick off his back in an emergency. Check out cool boots.

I'm sure they all think I'm mad by now. It's the same with the police. You can't help but look at them because they have such nice uniforms and they carry themselves so well, you think you're in the movies. Then you remember how crazy things get in the movies with uniformed Europeans, and think, "Maybe I'll go check out the guitarist doing Bob Dylan instead."

At any rate, they should be a tourist attraction. I'm far too fascinated by them. I've always been fascinated by things that I shouldn't be. It's a wonder I'm not dead.

Romanian Uniform Groupie, Part I

There are far too many uniformed men in Europe. I know this because of the news. I've seen French policemen on the news. I have never seen one face-to-face. I'm really glad about that. On the news, they carry very large military-looking guns and yell a lot. I do not want to be yelled at in French. I'm really afraid I may say something like, “That was really cool. Could you say that again?”

Back home, in Augusta, I enjoyed speaking with policemen on First Friday, a once-a-month arts and music happening downtown. Like the time I whispered, “That's jaywalking,” to an officer as he passed me in the crosswalk. I think he may have actually growled and said something impolite. But that's the sort of semi-harmless fun you can have back in Augusta.

No way am I doing that here. For one thing, I think police officers here simply think you deserve what you get if you're fool enough to jaywalk in Bucharest. Why issue a ticket? The person probably won't live to pay it. The officers themselves know better than to go anywhere near the street if they can help it. Or the sidewalk for that matter. You know that bumper-sticker, “If you don't like the way I drive, stay off the sidewalk”? It wouldn't even get a chuckle here, because the sidewalk is practically considered a passing lane.

More later.

Utilities in Romania

Two days ago I woke up to something that would have been a surprise a year ago. But now it gets only an, “Oh. OK,” response from me. There was no water of any kind working in the apartment. I thought, “Oh well. It'll be back on before tomorrow.” And it was. By noon, the faucets were gushing. Of course, it was several minutes before they were gushing anything I actually wanted to touch, but at least the toilet would flush.

Then the Internet connection went down for the next 12 hours.

So far, the only thing we haven't lost for at least half a day is the gas. I'm not going to get too happy about that yet, though.

Things just can't be expected to work for more than about a week and a half at a time without a hitch here. If at all. Mark has been assembling a body count for all the things we've bought that just refused, under any circumstances, operate. Like the blender. And the zipper on some pants I bought. And the first TV card that we bought. (Software was missing.) Manual can opener. (How in the world does a manual can opener not work?) RoboSapien. (That one didn't come with the remote control in which the batteries were supposed to go.)

There are more but trying to think of them all is making me hyperventillate.

It's pretty common to see people in the grocery store open boxes of hot chocolate or coffee to see if all the packages are inside. No one seems to have a problem with this. Everyone understands. It's even more common, however, to open an appliance to make sure all the parts are there. You're out a whole lot more if you take home cake mixer that is missing one of the paddles than if you take home 7 packs of hot chocolate when the box promised you 8.

If you tend toward becoming outraged, you may need to be on serious drugs before going grocery shopping in Bucharest.

The Faces of Bucharest

Tonight is goth night and I promised to talk about the guitarist from the two-man band I went to see last week. He's also a bartender at El Comandante so the first time Mark and I noticed him he was behind the bar looking like he could kick some serious butt. He's another one of those guys that inspire you to write a character. He has a tough-looking face that is chisled enough to really catch the shadows in a dim bar. The kind of face that surprises when it smiles and makes me wish I had the patience to be a painter.

He has very intense, dark eyes. I don't know what color they are. I'm not brave enough to get that close. I mean dark in the sense that they are very intense, like the eyes of a hawk. He shaves his head and ambles comfortably across the room when walking from the stage to the bar. On stage, he stands with feet apart and shoulders back, eyes sometimes traveling to his fingers as they move along the fretboard of his guitar. He holds a cigarette in his mouth and makes me wonder how much of music is visual. I always think in terms of “seeing” music. I can't hear a piano without imagining a particular character of mine seated and tuxedoed, his graceful fingers dancing on the keys.

One of the regulars has a rather striking face as well. I told Mark he looks like a historical painting come to life. He could be 35 or five years in either direction, with an old-world goatee, which is the only kind of goatee worth having if you ask me. It isn't square like so many guys wear their beards today, but sculpted to a point, with long hairs. The hairs of the moustache are long as well, and overlap each other, then reach down past the corners of his mouth. He has a crown of black curls and a prominent nose. He and looks as though he's about to break into a smile, as though he is sitting on a very interesting secret. He looks like a conquistador.

“That man ought to be in a painting,” I said.

“He is,” Mark said. “We saw a painting in a museum that looked just like him.”

Oh, and the other band I went to see—Laibach—is from Slovenia not Slovakia. Please don't abuse the writer.

Strange Creatures

Today I saw two of the strangest creatures I have ever seen, both sea animals. One was a black spiny thing, just large enough to fit in my hand. The dense part of its body was a little smaller than a golf ball and the spines were between two and three inches long, at different lengths. There was an opening among the spines on top through which produded a sort of antenae with an orange eye on the end. It could retract this at will.

No joke.

The other thing was very obviously a fish, the sort of dingy yellow that you find on gum erasers. It was shaped somewhat like an anvil, with a square bottom. It could have sat very nicely on a desk as a paperweight, but it had a bit of trouble negotiating the water. It just wasn't at all streamlined. Poor thing had to beat its tiny little fins like mad to negotiate the water at all, and he constantly appeared on the verge of flipping upside-down.

“I think Darwin missed this one,” I said.

Mark and I were at the last exhibit of the natural history museum. Other live things we saw today included a room full of the biggest (live) chickens I have ever seen in my life. The roosters were about five times the size of any rooster I had ever seen before, and they were perfectly round. There were tickets on each cage that appeared to be judges' results, so I suppose the chickens—a rooster and a hen in each cage—had been contestents in a 4H-type event.

They were very nice-looking chickens. But the roosters were in competition with each other to see who could make the most noise. The room also housed some of the largest rabbits I have ever seen. Freakishly large. Larger than a large watermelon. Huge, carnivore, man-eating bunnies.

Ok, I made up most of that last part. But that fact does not negate the fact that they were monsters.