English Rapers

I always suspected that there were some people out there who were taking gratuitous advantage of the English language for their own selfish and perverted purposes. Luckily, my friend Constantin from Moldova made a list of suspects. We can only hope that it's only a matter of time before these perps are off the street and in the good hands of the English police.

After almost a year... we're back.

Can you tell that we like Photoshop?

I don’t know if I mentioned before to anyone but I picked up some classes at one of the German schools here in Bucharest.  So if you are trying to figure it all out in your head, I am teaching English at a German school in Romania.  I know, it sounds strange.  Even stranger is the fact that I find myself teaching English to kids that don’t even know how to read.  And those of you who know me know that I absolutely loathe little kids but I continue to find myself stuck with them.

I don’t know if anyone has seen that blockbuster of a movie, “Kindergarten Cop”, but Aaahnold’s first class experience in the movie (where the kids pretty much just go ape-shit) is what I go through for about 30 minutes every Thursday.  Even worse, the Governator’s role in the movie and my real-life role are kind of reversed because I don’t know any German, and ol’ Schwarzenegger still doesn’t know any English (kidding… God!).

Thankfully the class is only for 30 minutes.  But then I have the “older kids” (i.e. 2^nd graders) for another 30 minutes.  I do get paid though, praise Jesus.  The older kids are actually my saving grace because they can comprehend the English language, and they can even read and write!  This makes mass-producing worksheets and taking up class time so much easier.  Plus, there are no stupid songs and singing involved.  All I have to do is keep my eye out for the booger-pickers and chastise them in front of the whole group in English and that pretty much solves the problems on its own.

The kindergartners are another story.  They are evil incarnate.  They haven’t yet learned that they should turn against each other and make fun of their classmates who have their fingers up their noses.  Even worse, they don’t understand English, and I don’t understand the language of these descendents of the “godless hordes” who defended themselves against the Roman Empire.  In Romanian, Germans are commonly referred to as “nemti”, which literally translates as “barbarians”.  It becomes obvious as to why they received this moniker after working with one of the worst German inventions ever, the kindergarten.

Every parent wants their precious child to be fluent in millions of languages and fortunately enough I happen to be a native speaker of one of the most sought-after languages in the world, English… and I have to make a living somehow.  The problem is not that the parents want their little German/Romanian-speaking angel to be completely fluent in the world’s dominant language but that the kids themselves don’t care to learn a friggin’ word of English.  They just want to play/fight/cry/pick boogers with each other in a language that they can communicate in.  And that’s not English.  I really can’t blame them though.

I usually come in about an hour ahead of time, plan a lesson, take a deep breath and head to the classroom.  The kids have been showing up earlier and earlier since their parents have gotten word that there is a native English speaker in town and the other teachers (pretty much all female) get a kick out of this quasi-homeless-looking American dude trying to teach colors to kids who don’t even know how to dress themselves.

Lately I have had the luxury of working with one of the other teachers who sits there and translates everything I say to the kids so they adequately understand the rules of “duck duck goose”, “Simon says”, and “head, shoulders, knees and toes”.  The kids continue to not care though.  I really wish they understood everything I say to them because sometimes I can use some pretty flowery English words.  Those don’t always get translated.  The bad thing is that the translating kindergarten teacher brings all the kids she’s supposed to be watching with her and it’s all of a sudden double booger-picking time.

All of that being said, I have already achieved one of my most rewarding experiences ever as an educator.  One of the kindergarten parents wrote a thank-you note to the German school’s class coordinator which found its way to me.  Here’s what it said:

I am writing to you in relation with the new English language professor, as I feel that you equally need positive feedback for outstanding results. Since the new professor took off the English language lessons, I have noticed an impressive progress in [nose spelunker]'s ability to express herself in English, as well as a genuine interest in English language - which was not the case before. She is asking me to watch cartoon movies in English instead of Romanian, she became - almost overnight - able to express herself in English and she is happy to talk about the English lessons and the English teacher, 'who only knows English, Mom, so we have to help him out by making the effort of talking in English to him'. She is always happy to anticipate the English lessons and has an extra-reason to enjoy the Thursdays in kindergarten.

Please receive my sincere congratulations for your choice and my gratitude for my child's amazing progress. Until I will personally meet and greet the teacher, please pass these congratulations to him as well.

Mit freundlichen Grussen,

-Mrs. Booger-Picker’s Mom

Ok, so that’s not entirely fair… her daughter has never been caught digging for goober goblins and she’s actually very pleasant to have in class.  I just really don’t understand why, after 6 years of working with smelly children and painful teenagers professionally, this is the first bit of positive feedback that I have ever received.  Ever.  I mean… I’m supposed to have one of those “Dangerous Minds”/”Stand and Deliver”/”Lean on Me” etc. experiences  after working in some of the most jacked-up places in the US and poorest villages in Europe. 

Why do I finally get a movie-worthy letter like this teaching kids who have trophy moms waiting outside the kindergarten for them in their 2010 Audis with German plates, and all I had to do was teach a few 30-minute sessions on Thursdays?  I mean… I went through things way worse than anything you saw in the movies and I think the best feedback that I got was getting cussed out a little bit less severely on the phone by someone’s mom or talked to a little less condescendingly by an overpaid boss.  I should have been in Romania this whole time!  What was I thinking?!

Ok, just had to get that off my chest.  I feel better now.  I really like the folks at the German school, so I was just kidding about all that barbarian talk.  All in all, spending my days having occasional lessons and making a fraction of what I made in the US is overall still better than how things were when we were home.  The kids here really aren’t that bad.  This is where I will leave it for today.  Got to go get a haircut for the first time in over a year!  More on this later.

The Jiu-Jitsu Jesus and Me

So I just got back from about 5 days in Moldova.  Every time I get back to Romania I always breathe a sigh of relief because it means no more Russian.  For a while I always thought it was because I had a deep-seeded hate for the language; Russian has always kind of sounded like nails on a chalkboard to me.  But I think I have changed my mind on where this sense of relief comes from, deciding that the culprits are God-awful Russian pop music and movies that are dubbed in Russian.

My 5 days in Moldova were spent with a guy named Christ… er… Christian from Denmark who is traveling the world, teaching Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in exchange for a place to sleep and food to eat (see my last post and check out his blog for more pictures and stories).  Since we went to Chisinau, we spent time with lots of Russian speakers and obviously there was a lot of Russian going on.  This didn’t bother me so much I think because I enjoyed the company.

Then came the bus rides.  Guess what was playing on the radios, TV screens and passengers’ cell phones (occasionally at the same time)?  You guessed it.  Crappy Russian stuff.  Don’t get me wrong, one of my favorite songs of all time is “Chornye Glaza”, and it’s in Russian.  But if you can find anything redeemable about the music like this then please let me know.  Also, if you can find anything that tickles your fancy about Nicholas Cage screaming something in a particularly harsh, unintelligible language at 3am while you are trying to sleep, then you are crazy.  For real.

ANYWAY…

So we picked Christian up at the crap-tastic Baneasa airport (also see my earlier post for a description of this airport) and got him to Jiu-Jitsu practice.  He was super tired as he just came in from France but he got right in to it and showed some fancy-pants techniques to the Bucharest crew.  Christian fielded some questions about Jiu-Jitsu, his travels and why he was only spending less than 24 hours in Romania while at the same time he would be spending 5 days in that armpit of a country, Moldova.  And by the way did we know that Moldova used to be part of Romania?  The fact that anyone would want to see Moldova is always something that is difficult to explain to Romanians, I think because many feel that they need a hierarchy of crappiness and Moldova is consistently below Romania on their list.

The next day we went on a quick walking tour of parts of Bucharest.  If we would have had more time we would have went to a park because Bucharest has awesome parks.  We didn’t have much time so we went to a more historical district of Bucharest that, like most of Bucharest, is still “under construction”.  Christian got some good pictures and then we went to Jiu-Jitsu practice again.  Christian introduced some cool new warm-ups and positioning techniques, took some pictures with all his new disciples and then went back to our apartment to get ready for the bus to Chisinau.

We picked up a hamburger from “Spring Time”, a Romanian fast-food joint that should probably just be closed down because they have some sad hamburgers and not much else.  Amazingly there was a long line and we got our food just in time to eat before we got on the bus.  Christian, Sandu and I were just riding along, minding our own business. I was going over the cultural rules of the Moldovan village with Christian while Sandu was glued to the Russian garbage blasting on the TV when all of a sudden the bus started skidding out of control.

Then, a brilliant burst of light came from the sky.  It engulfed the entire bus and seemed otherworldly and I was totally focused on this fact probably so that I could forget for a second that we were in the middle of a car crash.  The light turned out to be just some snow flying over the bus with the bus’ headlights shining on it.  Miraculously we hit one of the only places on the side of the road with no trees.  Also, just as miraculously there happened to be a big snow plow coming from the other direction.  It took about 20 minutes to pull the huge bus out of the snow bank and get back on the road.  I looked at my travel companion next to me and wondered if he understood the extent of our luck.  He seemed eerily un-phased as if he expected this to happen.  Like this was all part of the plan. We pressed on into the night.

We arrived in Cahul at about 1:30am with no problems at the border and as I pulled out my map, trying to make sense of these strange markings on my piece of paper, we made our way toward our place to crash for the night.  I was unable to translate the strange hieroglyphs that made up the map.  Luckily there was a savior among us.  Within minutes, Christian walked us down the street to the correct apartment and we slept the whole night, long into the morning after manually blowing up an air mattress and eating some tasty food (thanks, Na’Ima!). Christian seemed disappointed that we insisted he sleep on the mattress and not in the manger but he was kind of tall so we insisted.

The next morning we ate a hearty brunch at Na’Ima’s (thanks again!) and went to one of the classiest establishments in the city, “La Placinta”.  We ordered some placinta, which is kind of like a small pie but with various things in the middle like meat or potatoes, cheese or cabbage.  We also ordered what I expected to be water because that’s obviously what I always order at such a fine place as “La Placinta”, but it turned out to be wine.  This was strange.  Again, Christian was un-phased, as if he expected this to happen.  We enjoyed our order and pressed on to the village.

I gave a quick tour to our guest as Sandu went on his way.  We decided to meet up with him the next day at 12pm to recruit a couple Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu teams.  We agreed to meet at the local bar and later on that night we went to the bone-chilling village bar and had a few drinks.  Unfortunately we couldn’t move on to the village “discoteca” because, as the bartender put it, she wasn’t going to do anything unless some girls showed up.  They never showed so it was just a bunch of dudes, some beer and some vodka.  Christian said something about fish and bread but all that showed up was more beer.

We slept well in our respective rooms, under our respective “Hello Kitty” blankets with a little bit of heat from the stove and a lot of alcohol to keep us warm.  We woke up in the morning and as I enjoyed some Russian TV, Christian went to the old sports hall to take some pictures.  We met at twelve and struggled to get some kids together for some Jiu-Jitsu.  Luckily we happened upon the mayor and the former mayor of the village (who is now one of the vice-directors of the school).  They said it would be no problem to open up the gym and do some training.

I met up with one of the other vice-directors later on and although she was happy to see me, she wasn’t trying to let us do any Jiu-Jitsu training whatsoever for whatever nonsensical internal reason she had.  I assured her that we had been given the OK by the mayor so it was all good.  We went to see the gym teacher who is also Sandu’s dad and along with showing us some fabulous gymnastic moves on the parallel bar, he gave us an extra key to get into the school just in case and he helped us get the mats set up for our training.

We met outside the school at 4pm for the training.  It was the little guys’ turn first and we sat outside and joked until everyone showed.  We went to get dressed and watched as their eyes lit up as they got their gis on.  Some of them were new to the gis and belts so we had to demonstrate how to put on a belt and all that.  Christian did some fun drills and games and afterward we had a little time to roll before the bigger kids came in.  Most of the kids were new to Jiu-Jitsu so it was fun showing the ropes to the new generation of Burlacu fighters.

Sandu went outside to meet the bigger kids and after getting dressed and warming up, we had the chance to go over some new moves and drills for them too.  It was really good because these were all drills they could do regardless of the level that they understood the real game.  The Jiu-Jitsu Jesus was getting cold so we shut down slightly early and headed to Sandu’s house.  We engaged in some typical conversation with the family, including “how much money do you make”, and “what is better, Moldova or Denmark”.  This was normal of course.

The next morning we went to “the big city” (Chisinau).  Christian declined to check out the worst public bathroom in the country along the way after having already seen the bathroom at the school the previous day.  Good choice.  Upon reaching Chisinau, I decided to hunt down one of the notorious bus stop Moldovan hamburgers for Christian before going to our next training.  He ordered two.

One of my old acquaintances, Vanya, said that he would meet us at the bus stop.  Up until this point we were referring to him and his colleagues as “the ninjas”.  This was in part due to a misnomer that had long been established before we even decided to meet the guys.  Vanya didn’t appear in a poof of smoke before our eyes wearing all black so we decided that he wasn’t a ninja after all.  Vanya was actually one of the instructors at a traditional Jiu-Jitsu school that I had trained at the previous summer and they wanted to meet Jesus and learn some new stuff.

Even though Christian hadn’t walked on water over to Chisinau, he was treated like he had.  He was afforded the very best of Moldovan hospitality, getting taken all over the city and I was lucky enough to be along for the ride.  Since the translating situation switched to a Russian one, I was finally off the hook as far as translations go.  Christian wasn’t so fortunate with the questions.  It was a non-stop wide-eyed question-and-answer fest for the entire stint.  We went for an afternoon practice session with some of the guys where Christian was filmed, sufficiently interrogated and commented on for a couple hours.  I have never seen such a display of admiration for another person in real life before this.  He was the man who would bring a new philosophy of life, and only he knew how this religion worked.

At the end both Christian and I received one of the most awesome t-shirts I have ever owned.  It read “BJJ Globetrotter, Martisor Grappling Fest”, and then it had the name of their school along with the location of the event.  I will probably keep this t-shirt for years to come.  After the umpteenth round of photos, some of which I was asked to participate in (and not just holding the camera!) we went to take a shower and then were treated to lunch by Vanya, Kiril and Alexei (aka “Sensei”).

We went on a quick driving tour of the city in Sensei’s car and then went to the huge wrestling/Judo hall where there were adults and kids warming up for the seminar.  The entire group had a grim look on their faces and it was clear that this grappling fest was a serious matter.  Nobody was laughing.  The Jiu-Jitsu Jesus turned to me and said something to the effect of, “my son, I will bring smiles to the faces of my disciples”.  I wasn’t entirely convinced that this would work but I agreed to help him with whatever he needed.

We warmed up with some body mechanic drills and there was not a smile being cracked on any of the hard faces in the sports hall.  Even the kids were concentrating so hard on the silly techniques that they had no time to enjoy themselves.  I happened to be laughing like a fool because my belly was preventing me from moving as flawlessly as Christian.  The next drill was the “sumo” drill and it was guaranteed to make people start laughing.  Or so I thought.  Half the group was smiling and having fun and the other half was seriously trying to win at this ridiculous game.  How could you not laugh at a game called “sumo”?

Finally, we played “the Jiu-Jitsu Virus” game.  This game is the same idea as “bulldog”, or any other name for that one game where a couple guys stay in the middle of the floor and try to scoot around, tackling others on the ground and then they become “viruses”, or “bulldogs” as well.  People were absolutely smiling and laughing after this game.  Christian had reached his goal but his teachings weren’t over yet.  We transitioned to the “non-stop grappling fest”, where one guy with a stop-watch times 3 minutes for wrestling with one partner and then one minute for switching partners and then you start all over again.

I rolled with Christian for the first 3 minutes and I was totally schooling him of course but then he used the power of his magnetic personality to attract Sensei to wrestle with for the second round.  I never saw him again.  He stayed on the first mat, surrounded by his new followers watching in awe while I rolled around with the kids for about an hour or so.  After a while people stopped paying attention to the timer guy and everyone was just watching Christian roll with the big wigs.

After all the pictures and talking and rolling, Sensei came to me with a huge grin on his face saying that he had never been beat like that before.  He was a convert.  We went out for some tea afterwards and then we went to see a picturesque view of the city at night in Sensei’s car.  They said that in addition to teaching traditional Jiu-Jitsu and self-defense techniques, they would also concentrate on learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.  I agreed to bring out more top-level grapplers should they happen to come through the area.

The next day we went to Transnistria to meet up with Andrey, my friend from Tiraspol.  We didn’t know what to expect but we heard rumors that we would go to a Tae Kwon Do school.  We got through the “border”, no problem and went to have some tea with Andrey.  I finally got to meet his daughter who was quiet and crawling around the house.  Maybe Christian had some sort of calming effect because the dog didn’t bark and there were no crying baby noises in the house.  On our way out we saw a switch-blade lying in the middle of the street.  We didn’t know what to do except to take some pictures.  We picked up the blade and moved it out of the street just when Andrey’s wife came around the corner.  She told us to keep it so I folded it up and put it in my pocket.

Armed with a pocket full of Transnistrian Rubles and a Transnistrian switch-blade, we made our way to get another burger.  After a surprisingly sub-par meal at “Andy’s Pizza”, we walked around the city, took pictures, got some cognac for people at home and then headed back to Chisinau.  The next day we went to visit Petru, the head of the Judo Federation of Moldova.  He promised Christian that he would be going to Denmark soon to visit, and of course Christian welcomed him.  We didn’t get the full Judo Federation experience because we met Petru in the hotel lobby instead of his office.  Maybe next time.

We went for some coffee with Vanya who informed us that they had tried some of the exercises and warm-ups that Christian had showed and that they decided that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was something that they would start trying to learn with more effort.  Christian was very inspiring, telling them that he had started his program from scratch with just some youtube videos to help.  We said goodbye to Vanya and headed for the airport.

Christian checked in, we shook hands and said goodbye, and then just like that the Jiu-Jitsu Jesus ascended into the heavens in a Turkish Airlines passenger jet.  I was on my own now and I headed to the center to buy my bus ticket for Bucharest.  I had a good meal, got on the bus and put my headphones in to drown out the horrible Russian pop music playing on the radio.  The border experience was one of the most bootleg experiences I have yet to have at the Romania-Moldova border.

After waiting for about a half hour for the border patrol to show up, the Moldovan border guard asked if I had any cigarettes and asked me to open my bag to prove it.  He saw that I had some cognac but he totally missed the Transnistrian switch-blade at the bottom of the bag.  As I zipped up the bag I was asked if I had any marijuana.  I laughed and said no.  The guard wasn’t laughing but he let me by.

We drove for one minute to the Romanian check point and after waiting for another half hour the guards showed up and asked us to put our bags through an x-ray machine.  This was the first time I had seen the machine actually working.  I put my bag on the conveyor belt and guess what?  Yup, they didn’t see any evidence of any illegal amounts of cognac or switch-blades.  I went through and got back on the bus.

Unfortunately my mp3 player ran out of battery life half-way through the trip and I was trapped in my own version of hell at about 2am.  Despite plenty of open seats on the bus, one guy had to sit right next to me by the window and talk loudly on a cell phone while Russian pop music blared in the background.  I didn’t sleep until after I got home, took a shower, and passed right out in my nice warm bed next to my wife.

The Jiu-Jitsu Jesus was on to his next adventure in Ankara and I was fully enjoying warmth, silence and cleanliness for the first time in a week.  Hopefully Christian will continue having success teaching his way of life to the masses but I think it’s gonna take a lot to beat this trip to an unknown country full of forgotten people.  Despite the Russian, the cold, and the chaos, I would go back in a heartbeat.  I love Moldova, and their people won’t be forgotten to me.  I have no problem bringing the next Jiu-Jitsu Buddha, the Submission Wrestling Muhammad or the MMA Zeus to visit one of my most favorite places on earth.

Year One

Yup, so it’s been over a year now since we left for Romania.  I guess to sum things up (especially since I haven’t blogged anything in like 3 months) we’ve rented or stayed semi-permanently in no less than 4 apartments, got engaged, went into “exile”, had a wedding, got married and got a job.  It’s been pretty eventful, or so it seems… it’s tough to know what to blog after all of that.  Apparently you get to have less adventures the more stable you are in life.

After being here for a year it’s tricky to remember what would be interesting to write for people although one of our good friends continues to hound us for more info.  It’s because of him that I’m writing this right now (thanks Andrew!). 

Maybe it would help us to remember some of the things that we haven’t done for a year:

driven a car ● worked more than 18 hrs in one week ● gone to Wal-Mart ● ordered wings from Wing Zone ● eaten at an all-you-can-eat buffet ● got carded when buying alcohol ● used a microwave* ● dried our clothes in a dryer* ● used craigslist ● gone through a drive-through ●  got a free refill on pop*● talked to a telemarketer or other solicitor ● met a vegan or Jehovah’s Witness ● been in a fire/safety drill ● written a check ● got asked for 25 cents ● used a vacuum cleaner ● rented a movie ● eaten blue crabs or have anything with Old Bay seasoning on it.  

I’m sure the list could go on but I think that’s fairly impressive so far. 

*we were in the US Virgin Islands for a week where we had the chance to engage in these activities

So what are we up to now?  Well, our job is finally paying us for certain things and we have gone a couple of solid months without dipping into savings so far.  Like I said earlier we went on a short trip to the US a few weeks ago and I will write about this later, but for now we have a lot of free time on our hands and we don’t really know what the next step in our lives will be.

I spend a lot of my free time playing computer games and Amanda has felt bored and direction-less for the first time in quite a while.  I suppose we are both a little bored but we both definitely want to continue to live here for a while as Romania continues to impress us.  We do have a number of ideas that we are tossing around but unfortunately all of them will take a bit of a financial investment and we are hesitant because both of us are fairly miserly with our funds.  On the other hand, starting a business is a sure-fire answer to the coveted visa issue.

Sandu and Jiu-Jitsu

My good friend and former student from Moldova, Sandu, is here in Bucharest now.  He had been attending the military academy in Chisinau and got a scholarship to attend the academy in Bucharest.  As I understand he was one of only 10 Moldovan cadets who got accepted due to academics and behavior.  It is very rare for kids to get out of their village/town in Moldova let alone make it out of the country legally.

Anyway, Sandu encouraged me to start training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu again.  I talked with my friend who owns a BJJ school here in Bucharest and he said that Sandu could train there for free since he knows of Sandu’s circumstances.  Sandu entered in the annual Romanian BJJ championship and took second place, beating plenty of talented opponents and losing to one of them as he hadn’t trained in BJJ for a couple years at that point.  It was a fairly significant win.

I’ve been training for about 3 months now and my back has been in surprisingly good shape.  I am more aware of what will give me pain so I wrestle more conservatively but of course at least I am networking and working out and all that.  I avoid IB profin and other stuff because otherwise I tend to over-train because I feel good at the time which leads to bigger problems in the end.

At the end of this month we will host a guy from Denmark who is traveling around the world giving free Jiu-Jitsu seminars/lessons in exchange for a place to sleep and food to eat.  Since he linked our blog I feel we should link his as well: http://www.bjjglobetrotter.com/.  It’s a really good idea and worth checking out.  We will take him to Moldova, to the village with us so he can see the project I started a few years back during my Peace Corps stint.

The Trip to the US

As we mentioned earlier, we took a trip to the USVI about a month back now.  This involved us flying to Belgium, heading up to Amsterdam, flying to London, Miami and then finally St. Thomas and spending a week in St. John.  As usual, we had a good time.  But those of you who know our visa situation may ask “Wait, so how did you circumvent the 90-day-within-180-days-issue that has traditionally plagued you guys before,”?  Good question.

So we heard through the grapevine that although the 90-day-within-180-days law exists on paper, like most things in these parts, nobody is really checking or cares.  Still, this was kind of a big risk for us since we didn’t want to miss our flight out of Romania due to some border official who actually wanted to do his job.  We found out that you can overstay your visa in so many ways if you have a doctor’s note saying that you need to be in Romania for medical treatment.

I won’t go into details but we happened upon a doctor’s note with proper official stamps that said Amanda had to be in Romania due to the emotional trauma of having a miscarriage (not true).  In case that didn’t work I had one that said I was having back surgery (also not true).  It turns out that we didn’t need either one.  The Baneasa airport (the other airport that our wedding guests did not come in to) is probably the most third-world-esque airport in Europe, and in case you are wondering I am including Chisinau’s airport in this statement.

First of all, Baneasa doesn’t have lines, or at least they didn’t when we flew out; they just kind of funneled people toward the customs officials and “security point”.  Despite going around to the front of the funnel and being astounded that others were still voluntarily waiting in the back of the funnel, we got our passports looked at and stamped without having to bust out our fake doctor’s note.  We thought we were doing pretty good as we were still early for our flight.

Our optimism was shattered when we noticed that at the end of the funnel was an enormous backup and still no line as you started the process of going through the security line.  As half the security staff was sitting around telling jokes and flirting with the cute female security staff, the other half was running a remarkably inefficient security process.

While people were sitting in a hot room, with all their winter gear on of course, the security guards were allowing all people with small children to go to the front of the line, all the way from the back of the line so as more people piled up in the front, all the families were taking their kids through the security check-point which is time-consuming as nobody starts to take off the necessary gear before getting up to the metal detector.  Obviously people started to complain and the security had to bust out their biggest security staff guy to push people back.

At most airports they ask people to be prepared to go through the metal detector by taking off belts, coats, second coats, jewelry, hats, boots, shoes, or whatever else needs to come off and to do this way ahead of time.  Not here.  The metal detector would go unused for up to 10 minutes at a time while ladies with fur coats, earrings, furry hats, sunglasses or whatever else is necessary to look good on the airplane waited to take everything off when it was their turn to go through the one working security point.  To make a long story short we waited, sweating for about an hour standing up next to irate Romanians who couldn’t understand why things were taking so long.  But we did make our flight.

When we got to Belgium we had to somehow get from near Brussels to Utrecht as we were Couch Surfing.  Coming out of Eastern Europe we were initially stunned by the prices of everything in Western Europe, including public transport.  We decided to hitchhike in the freezing cold to avoid paying for a bus and the first guy we hitched with was an Albanian dude whose English was limited but he did “love America”, so much so that he took us as far as he could and bought us coffees.  We met a Dutch family at the gas station who crammed into the back of their car so we could get where we needed to go.  Nice people so far.

The first guy we surfed with in Utrecht is a young composer who composes that slow, epic music you hear in movies and video games.  He had a dog, which Amanda liked, and as she slept her cold away I went and wandered around Utrecht.  Very nice city.  Our next stop was Gouda (pronounced “how-duh”) which is obviously famous for its cheese.  We stayed with a very nice couple; a Dutch guy and Romanian girl who now live in the Netherlands.  They were really nice and we spent 4 days there, including Christmas where we went to a community center and helped hand food out, clean up and provide a very nice dinner for the folks there.

Our next stop was Delft which is famous for their blue and white ceramics.  We went to check out Rotterdam on the way which is like a brand new city with modern buildings because it was bombed out during WW2.  The rest of Holland is really old so this was a big contrast.  In Delft we stayed with a younger guy who was finishing up school to be an architect.  He was really cool too, so we really lucked out with hosts in the Netherlands.

Eventually we made it to the Virgin Islands, just in time for the New Years Eve firework show.  As usual the USVI was a bit of a shock coming from freezing Europe.  We did the normal stuff: kayaking, swimming, chillin’, seeing the family and all that.  I was disappointed that only one of my brothers could make the trip but it was good seeing Luke all the same.

Our trip back was less adventurous.  We only had two days to make it from Amsterdam to Brussels so we stayed a night in Amsterdam and a night in Brussels but didn’t really get to see much.  We couldn’t find Couch Surfing hosts and Amanda didn’t want to hitchhike again so we shelled out some cash and it wasn’t in Romanian Lei.  We were a little worried about getting back into Romania due to the passport issue but we had little to fear as the customs agent didn’t even look at us and stamped our passport, reminding us not to overstay our visa.  We assured him we wouldn’t.

The good thing is that we avoided a second round at the Baneasa airport because there was too much fog on the runway so we landed in Otopeni.  We got back to the apartment, took a few days of naps and got back into the swing of things.  That’s where I’m leaving off for now.  I have a class in a couple hours so I will play a little bit of “Bloons Tower Defense 4” before heading out.  Take care for now and we will post something else at another time.

A Marriage and a Paycheck

So we finally got married. Legally. Now I have a wife. I’m somebody’s husband. It will take some getting used to but I think I can handle it. The ceremony actually went off without a hitch. The entire official process, which was promised to be about 10 minutes in duration clocked in at just over 4 minutes. We arrived at the courthouse dressed in our “bride” and “groom” baseball caps and mulled about in the courtyard as other couples and their families started showing up as well. We were greeted by one of our new friends, Blake and his wife Iulia. We met Blake, who is originally from Gay, Michigan in the U.P. (that’s “Upper Peninsula”, for you non-Michiganders) at one of our (unpaid) trainings and have been hanging out ever since.

Side note on Blake: Blake was in the Navy and served on a nuclear sub like my dad, was born maybe 50-75 miles from Marquette where I spent about 7 years of my life, went to Missouri Military Academy which was Wentworth’s arch rival after the closing of Kemper Military Academy. Blake is on Couchsurfing and previously surfed with the same guy in the Transnistrian region of Moldova where we went this winter and spring. Small world.

Blake and Iulia had already gone through the Romanian marriage process so they were our guides as well as our stand-in “best man” and “maid of honor.” I use these terms loosely not because they are crappy people but because the “ceremony” wasn’t exactly set up for these kinds of positions. We also brought along one of our Couchsurfers, Paula from Germany. She was our stand-in “flower girl,” meaning she had to hold the flowers through the ordeal. Anyway, so we were waiting around outside and a dude with a clipboard comes outside where everyone is waiting and stammers, “Is…” That’s how I knew we were going to be the first ones because I knew he was sitting there trying to pronounce my last name.

He looks at our group and walks down the steps, over to where we are standing, eyes glued to his clipboard, tilts his head and gives it a try, “Mac…Masters Robert?”

“Da.”

(In Romanian) “We will be calling you in a few minutes. You will wait outside the room until we call your names but you don’t have to go now because we have some time. The ceremony will take about 10 minutes. You need two witnesses, are they present with you today?”

“Yes, we have these guys right here.”


“Do they have their documents?”


“Yes, of course.”


“Do you need a translator?”


(In my brain) “No, dipshit, we were able to comprehend your fairly complicated series of statements and questions, but I really need a translator.”

(In real life) “No thank you.”


“And Miss… Golub…? Is she present”?


Amanda responds in the affirmative.


After looking at her name a bit longer, probably reading about her citizenship, “Do you require a translator?”



Entrance to the Civil Court



Ok, I would’ve normally let him slide on this since he only read her name, but why did we have to fill out no less than 5 OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS stating that we knew how to speak Romanian and thus didn’t need a translator?! What did they DO with these papers? You could have easily given one document to the guard, one to his friend who probably was assigned to another floor but wasn’t doing his job, one to the ceremony officiator, one to the clipboard guy and one to the next couple getting married so when we come out the door they know it’s ok to congratulate us in Romanian.

“No, I understand,” says Amanda.

We went upstairs and waited for our names to be called.

We took some pictures and BS-ed and discussed how the ceremony would go and who would hold what camera and what flowers. Eventually the doors to the official marriage office opened and we were summoned inside by the clipboard guy. The official marriage-ceremony guy put out his cigarette, brushed his freshly-dyed hair away from his eye, and put on his blue, gold and red beauty-queen sash and started into his spiel. He read from a big book of official marriage words or whatever it was, and basically asked us if we willfully entered into the marriage, we said that we did. Then he went on and on about family stuff and family stuff in Romania and all that. Of course we have video of all this and will show the whole thing with subtitles once we get together with a Romanian to make sure we get all the words.

We had to ask the man if we could do the “ring thing.” He said we could and waved us on. He seemed impatient. After this we went and signed our names in his huge official books, and so did our witnesses. He took our hands, put them together and told us “casa de piatra,” which literally means “house of stone.” This is like saying congratulations but is specific for marriages. We walked out and were assaulted with rice by our wedding party. We had some champagne outside and went to a café. 



Riding bikes in Herastrau

Later we were meeting some more friends at a restaurant, but we had a few hours to kill in the meantime.  The civil court where we got married is right next to one of Bucharest's best parks - Herastrau - which incidentally also has free bike rentals!  Riding the bike with flowers and a long white dress was a little challenging, but well worth it.  We rode all the way around the lake in the middle and by the time we returned our bikes, it was time to go to the restaurant. And that was pretty much it. We had to get up early the next morning and teach classes which brings me to our next subject.

We have paying jobs! This is good for now. We still don’t have visas but hopefully we will be able to sort this out within the month. Surprisingly and disappointingly, the place where we work has never had to help any of their employees to get visas despite the fact that they specialize in teachers who are native speakers of the target language.

They really don’t want to give us a work permit because they have to pay 80% of what they are paying us to the Romanian government in taxes. On top of that, we would have to pay 26% of our paycheck to the government. It seems hard to believe that this country claims they aren’t communist anymore. Luckily, since they are still kind of communist, there are bootleg ways you can get around taxes. We will go for our first visit to the immigration soon to see if there is a way we can get around the system. Hopefully the immigration official will be helpful.

In any case, we still get paid, and we get paid every month. Our last paycheck came out to being 150 lei (~$50). Don’t laugh. After all our (unpaid) training for the month of September, we only had time to teach a total of 2 lessons between the two of us. We should be doing a lot better when November rolls around since we are teaching at least 7 lessons a week on average.

Bureaucracy Wars: Part… Who’s Counting?

Here's a slideshow of some selected pictures from everyone who came to our party - links to everyone's pictures can be found on our party page!

So much has happened since our last post, I will sum it up in the shortest, incomplete yet deepest sentences possible. Think of it as a Haiku or something poetic and beautiful like that.

Belgrade was awesome. Better than we expected. Checked out Timisoara. Timisoara was ok. Decided not to live in Timisoara in favor of Bucharest. Went to Bucharest. Went to Brasov. Rented an apartment for a month. Landlady had no teeth. Toothless landlady offered Amanda her old wedding dress. Planned our party. Learned how to use Torrents. Tried to get married legally. Got shut down due to a missing document. Amanda broke down in the civil court room. Forged some documents. Amanda chickened out. Still not married. Continued planning for the party. Bought some alcohol. Bought some plates. Bought some spoons, knives, forks. Reserved the citadel on the hill. Reserved the hotels. Organized transport for trips. Asked family members to bring things. Made welcome packets. Made welcome fliers. Went to Bucharest. Met family members. Everyone was on time. Everyone made it. Went out to eat with entire family. Slept at Vlad & Carmina’s place. Family members discovered roosters crow at all hours of the night. Went to Brasov. Train ride was stressful. Got a call from the Romanian border guard. Border guard was giving our Moldovan friends a hassle at the border. Talked him into letting them through. Got to hotel. Went to organ concert. Went to eat. Moldovans arrived. Went to sleep. Problems with rooms. Small breakfasts. City tour with Alex. Free time. Genealogy and potluck night. Went to Brancoveanu Monastery. Problem with minibus. Went on Transfagarasan. Went to Balea Lac. Went to Curtea de Arges. Arrived home to eat some more. Bed time. Setting up for the party. Long walk to the citadel. Party was awesome. Mom danced. Cheech was drunk. Alex says inappropriate things. Barbeque was delicious. Nathan gets freaked out by singing children in the woods at night. Everyone gets home. Trip to Bran castle. Waited for a bus for way too long. Checked out “Za Pub”. Got some shwarmas. Went to Sinaia. Michelle was sick. Went to Bucharest. Went to Otopeni. Slept at Vlad and Carmina’s. Said goodbye. Went to Brasov. Overpaid the toothless landlady. Got suitcases full of stuff. Went to Bucharest. Dropped stuff at Andra and Razvan’s. Went to Moldova. Got into Cahul at 2am. Stayed at PC Volunteers’ place. Went to the village. Met Alex, Simona, Cristi and Mihaela. Ate well. Toured the village. Saw village’s museum. Back to Bucharest. Started (unpaid) training at work. Looked for apartments. Found an apartment. Landlady didn’t want to rent. Amanda was upset. The search continued. (Unpaid) training continued. Settled on an apartment. Decided on a good apartment at a good price. Moved into the apartment. Continued (unpaid) training. And then…

Ok where was I… Oh yeah… another battle with the bureaucracy. Here’s how that went:

We finally received all of our necessary documents for getting married. No forgeries were necessary with the exception of one. We had received our health evaluation about 2 months ago in the same fashion that we had received it for our visas. We went to the doctor and asked for a health evaluation. She explained to us that we could get the evaluation, but if we both felt that we were healthy enough she could just give us the document and avoid making us take x-rays and getting blood drawn which would be cheaper for her and less work for us. Since the evaluation is only good for 14 days, and the paper-pushing process at the marriage office takes 10 days, that gave us a 4-day interval to get all the documents in but as I said before in my “haiku” that we were missing a document. We went back to the doctor who agreed to write another evaluation, free of charge, and we could write the date in the blank at our convenience for next time. We thanked her.

We took all of our documents to the civil court with the exception of our health evaluation since it was missing a date and obviously would need to receive its forged date later so that we could get it in on time. This trip was just to make sure that everything was ok and we weren’t missing anything. The lady looked through our stuff and told us that we needed a notarized statement saying that we were both able to marry legally in Romania although we already had one of these from the US Embassy. We needed another one with a few stamps and signatures. We went and had this done for 100 lei, and the notary lady said that if we had any problems then we could come back and they would change what needed to be changed. We said that we understood.

Now we had everything. Our documents comprised of our birth certificates, an apostille with an attached copy of our birth certificates, a translation of both apostilles and birth certificates, a copy of our passports, an affidavit from the US Embassy, health certificates, a notarized statement saying we are legal to be married in Romania, and a notarized statement giving up the rights of our first-born child. Ok, so one of those is made up but it was a lot of paperwork! No wonder Romanians are always surprised when we tell them that you can get married in Vegas in a drive through and have the ceremony conducted by Elvis. Their next question is if it’s legal. Yes it is my friends. Yes it is.

This past Tuesday we went back to the courthouse with all our documents, including the two that were still outstanding the last time we went there. This time it was a different lady. And this lady was kind of a… not nice lady. She looked through our documents and half-way through she kind of huffed and asked where our residency permits were. We said that we didn’t have any, that we were both foreign and that residency permits were not required if two foreigners want to be married in her frustrating country. She was adamant that we needed residency permits and pointed to some documents that a past married couple had turned in, one of the couple being Romanian, and a copy of her ID. We again tried to explain that according to her country’s laws that are remarkably easy to find online, and according to our remarkably efficient embassy, a residency permit was not required.

The not-nice lady wasn’t having any of this nonsense. She wouldn’t look at Amanda’s printed document that stated the rules, probably since it didn’t have any official stamps on it. She opened her circa 1973 law book and pointed to a clause stating that one person in the party has to have a residency permit, but this was talking about when a Romanian marries a foreigner. I was starting to get angry and was probably red in the face at the time because the lady’s not-niceness was hard to manage. We said that she doesn’t understand the law and that we would just go somewhere else.

I should have left for an (unpaid) training that was coming up in a couple hours but Amanda convinced me to go to another civil court office and give it another try. The worst that would happen would be that we get turned down again. I was glad that she was not upset and that there were no more breakdowns at the courthouse. She promised that I wouldn’t miss my (unpaid) training so I agreed to go with her.

When we finally found the place we were surprised by how nice the building and the flowers and everything looked. We went up the stairs into the yellow building and straight into the door on the right. We sat in front of the desk of another sulky government employee. We should mention that the government employees just discovered that their salaries would be cut significantly (25%) so this is not the best time to be getting good service at the courthouse. The lady quickly looked through our papers and asked sharply what my mother’s maiden name was. My heart was beating quickly and I was getting ready to be my normally patient self without a red face. I answered her that it was Gresham but that she was married to my father at the time of my birth, and I indicated where it was written. I don’t know what this had to do with anything but I was feeling defensive.

The lady asked me what should be written on our marriage certificate. Did this mean that we were getting a marriage certificate? I didn’t quite feel at ease. I asked her if she could write “Gresham” for my mother’s name but she said that couldn’t be done since it was written “Gwendolyn” (my mother’s middle name). I said ok, whatever. As long as we could get a certificate. The lady went on to explain that we had four options as to what our last names would be. First, she could take my last name. Second, I could take hers. Third and fourth, we could have some hybrid (McMasters-Golub/Golub-McMasters or probably even McGolub). Amanda said she was prepared to take my name, no problem.

The lady eventually cracked a smile and said that our Romanian was very good. She wanted to know our story. We obliged her and said that we would have liked to get married in Moldova but this wasn’t possible. She was warming up to us. She had us fill out no less than 5 other documents. She signed, dated and stamped them. She sent us out into the corridor to fill out some more paperwork. Amanda and I discussed whether or not this means we would really be getting married. We admitted it looked good though. We went back with our paperwork and she filled out another couple of official documents and then told us to go across the hall to the director’s office.

We went to see the director but he motioned us to wait as he was in there with one of his cronies and they were having a chat fest over a crappy-smelling cigarette or two, or twenty. We waited for about a half hour as they finished their BS session and I was getting antsy since I had to go to my (unpaid) training. Finally we were called in and were asked to sit down in the nice chairs in his office, not the uncomfortable ones in front of his desk. With his cigarette slowly burning down to the butt in his ash tray, he looked over his glasses at us after reading our official documents. He tried some English with me, and I answered in Romanian (this was to avoid having to get a court-appointed translator that we would have to pay for). He tried the same thing with Amanda, but at the end he felt confident that we could speak the language well enough to forego the translator. I will mention that in no less than two of our documents, it officially stated with an official stamp that we are able to speak the language. Our new friend across the hall said that she wanted to write “super” but obviously this would be in violation of official bureaucratic protocol.

He brought us into the back room (where we’d actually get married) which was pretty big. There were two desks at the opposite side of the room by the window, and both the desks had some imposing-looking Romanian flags on poles behind them. He explained to us that we would be here at 3:30pm in 10 days and he quickly explained to us what to expect. He made sure that we would have two witnesses and explained that if they were Romanian then they needed their IDs, and if they were foreign then they needed their passports. He explained that Romanian passports were not good enough because they are just legal for foreign travel. Whatever.

We assured him that we would have our witnesses. They would have their documents. We shook hands with ol’ Smoky and left the courthouse. He had our number in case something happened and we couldn’t get married. So far we haven’t received a call. This is a good sign. Now we wait. We are planning to wear our “bride/groom” baseball hats if the old commie guy will let us. We have some prospects for witnesses. We should be good to go, and we will write more on this later. Keep your fingers crossed.

Of course, we weren't allowed to have cameras in any of the government buildings, but if we were, here's what it would have looked like...

Rijeka and Cres, Croatia

After Lokve, still reeling from all the money spent on the house we slept in but thankful for all the help that the school director gave to us, we headed out to Rijeka. Rijeka is a port town, and it is the port that the Mihelcic family sailed out of on their way to the US. It was a fairly quick 30-minute trip down the mountains to a surprisingly beautiful town right down on the water. The buildings were all old and there was a pedestrian street with stores on it. There was even a castle up on the hill so it was very picturesque.

We were staying with some Couchsurfers who were living right in the middle of the city, right off the pedestrian street. We took it as a good sign that the apartment was right below the Romanian Consulate. Our host greeted us in her underwear and we had a long conversation with her and her boyfriend but she stayed in her underwear. I wrote it off to it being hot out. She turned out to be excellent and also eventually put some clothes on. She was just a little eccentric which is something that we can deal with. There were about 9 other Couchsurfers staying there as well so we were lucky to get a bed to ourselves. There were three Mexican girls, a Slovakian couple, a guy from Israel, a Spanish girl and two guys from Zagreb (Croatia).

It was like a hostel. A free hostel. We took some trips around town, met with some more CSers, and we also went to a beach. It was a rocky beach but it was good nonetheless. We read our books while the other guys swam in the sea. All of the Couchsurfers were pretty young. I was the oldest one in the group, clocking in at 29 years. They liked to stay up late and hang out. At first we thought this would be annoying but we were able to sleep in and they were all pretty respectful so it wasn’t a big deal.

We asked everyone for advice for our next trip. Everyone suggested going to see one of the islands nearby or going out to the Dalmatian coast in the south. Lots of people said we should go and see Bosnia. When we asked more about the southern coast it was apparent that it would be remarkably expensive. It would be even more expensive than the rest of Croatia which is kind of stiff. We planned to scratch seeing the south in favor of going to one of the islands for a couple days and then down to Bosnia for a day. We were in a time crunch at this point in time because we had to be back in Romania to take care of business.

When we asked how much accommodation costs on the island of Cres, it was not surprisingly expensive, especially since they charge by person and not by room. The Couchsurfers suggested that we do some “wild camping”, i.e. “homeless camping”. They suggested a great spot that was about a mile away from the center of town on Cres. The weather was perfect at the time being so we figured we would just take our sleeping bag and sleep either in the woods or on the beach with no tent. This is technically illegal, but nobody is checking so we figured we would take the risk. We took only what we needed for 2 nights and left everything else with our CS hosts.

We had to take a ferry out to Cres. They only had transport once a day so once we were out there, we were out there. The water was very calm and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was a nice trip. When we got to Cres, we followed the Couchsurfers’ directions and took a left at the marina and headed down the beach. We came across some old camping pads by a dumpster and since we were doing the whole homeless thing we figured we would go all-out and pick up the pads and take them with us since we didn’t know what we would be sleeping on. Don’t worry, we smelled them first and they didn’t smell like homeless or like urine.

By now it was starting to get dark and we were in a hurry to find a spot. All the places on the beach looked a little suspicious so we headed up to the woods across from the beach. On the way over I thought I saw an old man with no pants and just a t-shirt on. I blocked it out of my mind, figuring that he was just confused, or I was, and then I went and found our spot. I smelled around to make sure that it wasn’t a make-shift bathroom because if I had to go I would probably go there. It seemed ok so we laid down our homeless pads for our “wild camping”.

Like I said, the weather was great and we were glad we had our homeless pads because we only had one sleeping bag. When we woke up the next morning, we went down to the beach. I should have heeded the warning sign of the old man with no pants on the night before because when we got to the beach, every old person or any other person who should have had clothes on, didn’t. That’s right. We were at the nude beach. It was totally nasty and now I am aware of what geriatric doctors go through on a daily basis and I have a significantly greater amount of respect for them.

Luckily the entire island wasn’t naked. We had to walk down the beach to get back to sanity. We basically put our horse-blinders on and walked past the nude families of naked mom and dad complete with pre-pubescent boy and girl, past the naked fat lady bending over to collect sea shells. It was not pleasant. I just wanted to come back during the night time when my eyes had recovered and it was too chilly for nakedness.

Since the accommodation was free, we were able to spend our money at restaurants and buy souvenirs for future Couchsurfing hosts. We also hung out at clothes-only beach which was really nice. The whole place was packed with Germans who I am told own pretty much the whole beach and the Croatians don’t have enough money to buy them out. Obviously it is the place to go if you are German-speaking because half the signs were in German. We didn’t hear any English the whole time we were there.

We went back to Rijeka after 2 nights at Cres. We wanted to go to Bosnia but there was no reliable transportation out there on the day we needed to leave. We also found out that our Rijeka Couchsurfers’ landlord came over and kicked them out of their apartment. Something about a missing TV. I was a little worried about getting my bag back. Since we only took what we needed to the island, the rest of our stuff was floating around Rijeka somewhere. I got in contact with the Couchsurfers and they said that my bag was at someone’s parents’ house and it was safe. We returned to Rijeka and hung out some more with the friendly relocated Coushsurfers, I got my bag back and we got on the bus and headed back east to Belgrade.