New Developments

So we heard back from the American Hospitality Academy. They said that they wouldn’t be able to work through the mire of the Romanian bureaucracy and be able to legally employ us. This was somewhat disappointing but we can hardly say that it’s surprising. Time is kind of running out on our 90-day tourism stamp and we are investigating fully into other options. We suggested to AHA that they take us on as interns. We will keep you all posted of course.

Our gas got cut off the other day because we didn’t pay our bill. We didn’t exactly receive a bill, but because we didn’t pay it they cut it off on us. They don’t do it like they do in the US where they’ll give you a little while and notify you again, warning about the repercussions. They just stop it. Luckily we still had electricity and it wasn’t that cold out. Amanda went and paid the bill and they blamed the situation on the post office for not properly delivering us our mail.

We have both been getting over some nasty stomach bug for the past few days. I will spare you the details but I can say that we are recovering. And there was one more item of news… I can’t quite put my finger on it… hold on...

Oh yeah, we’re gonna get hitched.



So to all my relatives who had their money on me and not my little brother David, I’m sorry that I let you all down. But did you really all think that any of my brothers would ever do something before I did it first?

To my brothers and other male friends who may be reading, I’m sorry for selling out. You must understand that this move has a more practical application as well. Especially when it comes to visas and taxes. After almost 5 years of “dating” (living in sin/shacking up or whatever else people with better morals wish to call it) I figure that it was about time to make an honest woman out of my girlfriend.

To my female relatives and friends, it was a beautiful, beautiful thing and I will treasure it forever. Rest assured that this has absolutely no practical value whatsoever. I had to go where my heart told me to. Anything else that I missed, please let me know so that I can add it to my automated female-responding system. I’m not single anymore.

So probably what will happen is we’ll sign some papers behind locked doors somewhere far, far away from prying eyes (and jeering relatives) and will opt to have a few giant-sized parties instead of some nightmare-inducing ceremony (I’ve literally had nightmares on more than one occasion). We have brainstormed a very tentative plan but we need your feedback on this stuff:

As it looks right now we will probably have a party here in Transylvania (visa willing) late this summer before school starts since half the people I know are working around a school schedule. We’ll set up some sort of sponsorship program for our broke friends and family to come and see us without going further into debt. This sponsorship program will be funded by folks who aren’t able to come due to a career or babies but want to help out. If you don’t have a career or a baby then you have no excuse not to come (pets and your “counseling career” don’t count).

The second party will probably take place in Moldova in a village. This will be awesome because the wine (the best wine in the world) will be fresh and the weather should be just right and the girls will have graduated high school and will be looking for MRS degrees, as my Aunt Dana says. We will set up those who can come with places to stay with people we know. This party will take place right after the Brasov party so you won’t have to buy two tickets for yourself or some post-GenX slacker.

We will hammer out all of the details (we need your feedback for this) but if you can, plan to take 2 weeks for both parties or 1 week for one of them. The parties won’t last for a week of course but there is so much to see out here and who wants to get over jet lag just in time for more jet lag? You can even come to both of them in 1 week. Don’t worry we have plenty of fluent English-speaking Romanian friends that will help facilitate transport once you get into the country.

The last party will be in the States at some point. This will be for those who weren’t able to come out or who just love parties and can come to all three of them. Heck, we might have even more than one party in the States.

For those who were really looking forward to something more traditional I apologize but we decided that we would sacrifice expensive dresses, flowers, churches etc in favor of spending quality time with loved ones in a place that we talk way too much about (I know you guys love our “one time, in Moldova” stories). Besides, let’s be real, parties are the only good part of weddings anyway.

Here’s an extremely tentative sample itinerary for two weeks in Romania/Moldova:
Day 1: Jet-lag day! Depending on how you do on planes you will spend this day sleeping or staying up very late. We will go to a bar if you are in the latter group. We will try and get everyone in the same hotel/house. We’re looking into renting out a pension so we can have everyone in the same place together.
Day 2: Orientation of Brasov. See the city on a walking tour and get your bearings so that you can go out and see it for yourself when you want.
Day 3: Castle day. See some of the infamous Transylvanian castles.
Day 4: Nature day. Go hiking, get out of the city or just do what you want in the city.
Day 5: Party day. Romanians know how to party and since they will be helping to set most of this up, you can expect a good one.
Day 6: Recovery day. This explains itself.
Day 7: Travel day. We will get on the bus or train and head for Chisinau, Moldova
Day 8: Winery day/Transdnistria day. We’ll go to one or two of Moldova’s world-famous wineries (one of which has the largest underground collection in the world). OR we will set you up with someone to show you around a country that doesn’t exist!
Day 9: Village day. Travel to my old host village and get to know your host family (you also have the option to stay in Cahul, the regional center, if you are uncomfortable with this. But we wouldn’t do you wrong).
Day 10: Party day. You thought the Romanian parties rocked? Wait until you have a Moldovan party. They don’t stop.
Day 11: Recovery day. Also self-explanatory. And very necessary.
Day 12: Sports & games day. Go play soccer with the kids or basketball or something. Relax.
Day 13: Bucharest day. Since most of you will be leaving out of Bucharest we will see a little bit of the city before you leave. We’ll probably spend the night there.
Day 14: Go home. Thanks for coming.

AND NOW FOR AMANDA’S CONTRIBUTION:
I figured I should be sure to contribute to this post since it’s kind of a big deal. :) For those of you who want details, I’ll see how much I can get in here without being censured by Robert.

I have to admit, I went along with the Ice Hotel idea without whining or complaining mostly because Robert was so excited about it. Although I was pretty convinced it would be my own personal version of hell – cold outside and inside, beds made of ice, darknesss… - I was pleasantly surprised at how good of a job they did keeping it cozy. Another pleasant surprise (and definitely something that will improve my memory of the Ice Hotel) was Robert’s proposal – no, there was no getting down on one knee or public announcement, but he did manage to carry (and not lose!) the engagement ring all the way from America and throughout our two months away.

The ring actually was handed down to me from my grandmother on my dad’s side. It had belonged to my great-grandmother who immigrated from Lithuania during the pogroms in the early 1900s. Where or when or how she acquired it (they were not rich people), we don’t know. So Robert had to ask my mom for it before we left for Romania and then had to keep it secret from me for the following two months.

Unlike a lot of little girls, I never planned out my wedding or had a particular image of what it should be like. I believe a big party will do. :) As Robert mentioned above, we’re still brainstorming how exactly we want to celebrate, so if you have any thoughts or ideas, we’d love to hear them.

Balea Lac and Sibiu

It has been unseasonably warm here in Transylvania for the last week or so. This has really been a blessing. Especially since we decided to go the “Ice Hotel” this weekend. Earlier this week I booked an ice room at the Ice Hotel at the suggestion of one of our friend’s uncle. Florin (uncle) called us up on Tuesday and suggested that maybe the Ice Hotel in Balea Lac [Lake Balea], which is really out of the way but not too out of the way, would be a nice place for us to stay. We looked the place up online and decided that this would be a good place to stay while there was still winter around.

It’s a good thing that we went when we went. On the way back from the Hotel we asked the gondola (cable car… the thing you take up a mountain that is like a chairlift) driver when they shut down the hotel. He said “when there’s a hole in the roof of the hotel and you can see all the way through”. We asked him when this usually takes place and he said that the end of March or the beginning of April is typically when they shut it down.

On March 20th, we set out from our apartment and went to the bus/train station. We asked around how to get to Cartisoara, which is a town near where the gondola leaves from Balea Cascada [Balea Waterfalls]. One helpful guy said that we would have to take the maxi-taxi [van] to another town and then we could find transportation to Balea Lac [Lake Balea]. The driver said that he had no idea what we were talking about.

We talked with enough people and they said that we needed to get off at some village and then hitch-hike to get to the waterfall, and then we would take a gondola to the lake. It seemed pretty simple. And in reality it really was. But Amanda is sometimes hard to convince.

We arrived at the village in the “center” of their “town”. We decided to ask someone how to get to the lake. The cashier at a small store decided to make things difficult for us and speak exceptionally fast and tell us essentially to go 3km down the road and there would be a Lukoil gas station where we could get a ride to the waterfalls. She made sure that we knew that we would have to get a ride on the gondola to the lake because the road would be closed from the waterfalls on up.

This road that she was talking about is arguably the most awesome road to drive on in the world. The road was set up by the Communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu during his early years. The road follows Ceausescu’s pattern of grandiose, ridiculous, megalomaniac infrastructure-building. It is constructed up and over the top of the Fagaras mountain range, near the end of the Carpathians. It is about as winding as you can get and it is also closed during the winter time. Luckily there is a gondola.

We took the cashier’s advice and walked from the little village that we got off at and headed for the Lukoil station. Amanda wasn’t happy and said that she “wanted to keep positive”. I did my job and said that it would be fine. When we were almost to the station a guy pulled over and asked us if we needed a ride.

We obliged and as we were asked if we spoke German (the Ice Hotel is run by Germans) we finally decided that Romanian was the best language when he dropped us off in the little village of Cartisoara. We hitched another ride up the beginning of the Transfagarasan highway to the waterfalls with a young couple that was going to do some skiing. I asked if there were ski rentals but they said no (they had their own). At the end of our trip they invited us up to their ski hut. More on this later.

After a white-knuckle ride (for Amanda, but she was very brave) up the gondola, we arrived in what was like something out of a movie. There were huge, beautiful tops of mountains that surrounded a frozen glacial lake (Lake Balea) at the top of some of the most picturesque mountains in the country. We stared at the mountains for some time before we looked around for the hotel.

The Ice Hotel is actually made out of ice that is carved from Lake Balea, piece-by-piece. There is also an “Ice Church” there as well. The Ice Church is complete with pews, a crucifix with a remarkably realistic Jesus and even a “Last Supper” ice carving on the wall at the back of the church.

But the church is nothing compared to the hotel. After we checked in at the “Cabana” (cabin that is set up for permanent places to stay at the lake) we went to check out the hotel. We were asked by the lady at the front to find a room that we liked and then to come back and tell her which one we wanted. We looked around for about a half an hour. There were tables that were cut out of ice. The bar was made of ice. There was an ice “Discoteca”. There was a statue of David replica, complete with penis, made from ice. This place is a once-in-a-lifetime place to see. And it’s in the middle of nowhere.













Amanda chose the “Eliade” room. Each room was specifically designed to represent the ideas of various famous philosophers. Eliade is a great Romanian philosopher, although there were plenty of international (mostly Greek) philosophers. I wanted to stay in the Confucius room which had an ice statue of a woman on a bench near the bed. Amanda thought that the statue would be creepy so we stayed in the Eliade room where we had an ice wall that separated us from the rest of the world.

All of the rooms just had a curtain to put up instead of a normal hotel room door, so our extra wall was an added bonus. Not only our wall, but the bed and night table were made completely out of ice. This sounds cold. It was. We heard someone say that they slept in the bed with just their underwear. I don’t know how they managed this because we were all wrapped up in our refrigerator room but our faces still couldn’t escape the elements.









We tried to enjoy the warmth of the cabin as much as we could before we went to our icy bed. Before bed we ate a meal, half of which was served on ice plates. I won’t say how much it was but it was very good. Before we left the U.S. we set aside Christmas cash from our family (thanks guys!) for a “luxury item”. The ice hotel, including the meal was our luxury item. There were some hidden costs but overall it was worth it. Even Amanda enjoyed it. I figured if she would follow me to an ice hotel then she would follow me just about anywhere.

We made some new friends and went to their cabin to have some drinks. There we happened to run into the first Romanian who managed to hike to the top of Everest. He was even wearing his “Everest Expedition 2003. ‘8828 meters’” shirt. He wanted us to know. But he was very friendly. At 2054 meters, the air was still easy to breath and the cool drinks in the hot cabin went down easy.

Our friends told us that if we needed a ride back to the Lukoil station then they would be leaving at 3 or 4 and we could come with them. We thanked them and went back to our ice hotel for the night. We made some more friends at the hotel though. Oh so many friends.

After a couple more drinks with our newer new friends, we agreed to go with a couple guys to see Sibiu the next day. Sibiu was declared the “Cultural Capital of Europe” by the European Union in 2007, along with Luxembourg. Before I went I thought that the EU was just trying to make their new member feel welcome. I was surprised by how nice Sibiu is. It almost rivals our new home, Brasov. If I didn’t know any better I would say that Sibiu is more beautiful than Brasov if I was forced, at gunpoint of course, to compare the two.

Needless to say, we had a really good weekend vacation. All of that fun and excitement, however, was followed by a nasty couple of days of stomach flu for the both of us. So this is our first day out of the apartment since Monday! Hurray!

Romanian Music Review

We’ve been here long enough to get a good feel for the popular songs and music videos for right now. Aside from the usual universal pop music that is enjoyed, tolerated or detested across the globe such as Lady Gaga, Timbaland, Rihanna or Justin Timberlake, the radio stations also play plenty of their own Romanian pop music.

When I first arrived I was a little thirsty for the Romanian pop music (as many of you know I’m actually a big fan of this stuff) but over the past few weeks I’ve leveled out a bit and feel that I can give an accurate account of what is good and what is crap on the airwaves. Here’s a short sample because I know that people have other things to do. Unlike me.

[Translations are in these bracket thingies]

New Romanian Hits:

“Locul Portivit” by Guess Who [The Alocated Place… or something close to that]
Most Romanian pop, ESPECIALLY Romanian pop and even more especially Romanian rap music tends to be looked on by those who wasted their college tuition on music classes as total garbage. I would argue that this song, and especially video, is an exception to the rule.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOBfGWcQ0TM


“V.I.P.” by Puya
This song is the rule and not so much the exception to the Romanian rap rule. If you want a Rihanna/Eminem duo that really isn’t Rihanna/Eminem, this is the video for you. It plays all of the time and it’s not even fresh.

Ok, so I can't find a real video for this but in Puya's defense, here's one that is (slightly) better. At least it's optimistic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOzsHsZmJKE&feature=PlayList&p=261DE933C746FB19&index=1


“Chica Boom” by Dan Balan
One of Moldova’s only claims to fame, Dan Balan was the mastermind of the band Ozone and their international hit “Numa Numa” (Dragostei Din Tei) [Love from the Linden Tree]. Amanda hates this song because she feels that Dan looks like he is… er… that is… has an IQ that would qualify him for special educational services in the US if you know what I mean. I feel that the song is catchy but definitely not sweet.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=E5E1845E4456FE87&search_query=boom+dan+balan


“Break Your Heart” by Taio Cruz
I don’t know if this song qualifies as Romanian because it’s in English and is not sung by a Romanian… Ok so it shouldn’t qualify at all but I never heard it before I came out here. The video isn’t anything special and the first time you hear it but the song grows on you and it’s Amanda’s favorite song now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFG6AoEScVE


Songs that you can’t NOT find on the radio but are not necessarily Romanian:

“Sexy ‘Chick’” [Sexy Bitch] by Akon and David Guetta
Of course you all probably know the song. You can’t escape it even on American radio but have you seen the video? Despite all the girls in the bikinis you can’t help but get the “golf party” feel, as my Uncle Bill would say (not that this is a bad thing… We love you Andrew). But still a good, catchy song. Try to get this one on MP3 and not MP4.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzNR9c82XLg


"Tick Tock" by Kesha
This song is pure filth. Barf starts to spray out of my mouth uncontrollably when I hear this song. This becomes uncomfortable when I’m in public places. The video makes you want to scrape out the insides of your eardrums with an ice pick when you finish listening to it. The video makes you hate yourself. Exercise caution when watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP_nlrfxpfM&feature=PlayList&p=4A3CAFA298B58DBD&index=2


Classic Videos that You Can’t Miss:

“Buna Dimineata”—[Good Morning] by Zdob si Zdob
This is a Moldovan band but they are also very popular out here. I love this video more than the song (but the song is cool too) because they don’t deny that Cyrillic and the Soviet Union was a big part of present-day reality they actually embrace this and have a good sense of humor. They try and maintain a realistic nostalgia and they don’t pretend that the USSR never happened. This is what Moldova needs right now. Also check out their biggest hit “Bunica Bate Doba” [Grandma Beats the Drum] which is also very good. These guys love Moldova and so do I.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=E7F597EA55B1132A&search_query=buna+dimineata+zdob+si+zdub


“Doar Cu Tine” [Only With You] by Activ
You can’t escape the awesomeness of this song even if you don’t understand it. This was their first major hit and they haven’t been so good lately but they are still great. The video struggles but the song goes hard. I promise. We hope to see Activ live at some point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQmD6byvsGs&feature=PlayList&p=BC79549F94F41BAA&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=17


This is all that I have for now. Let me know what you think on our comment section. We love hearing from you.

March 13, 2010

So what have we been doing for the past week or so? We’d like to call it ‘networking.’ What does that amount to? Wandering around in the cold and knocking on doors. Ok, so it’s not quite that bad. Actually it’s not bad at all.

We waited patiently for the company that has language courses to call us back about our (frankly ridiculous) offer of paying them for one lesson a month for fourteen months so we could establish a reason for staying in Romania for our visa. We originally talked to them that previous Wednesday and decided that if we heard nothing by Monday afternoon, we would pursue other visa options. Monday afternoon came and went, as did the rest of the week, and still we haven’t heard from them. I’ll take that as a “no.”

Our other visa options included finding a place to volunteer and the less likely possibility of finding someplace that would officially and legally hire us. Finding a place to volunteer isn’t quite as easy as it sounds. Unlike America, community service isn’t very common here in Romania. As one of our Romanian friends put it, “Nobody wants to work for free.” Understandable. There are no handy websites with volunteer projects listed by category or date or interest. So we had to work a little harder to find non-profit organizations enlisting volunteers.

Our first stop Monday afternoon was the Projects Abroad office. They organize volunteer opportunities in a bunch of countries including Romania and Moldova. Essentially, it’s a short-term Peace Corps experience, except you have to pay for it. We thought that they might be interested in hiring us, and if not, they’d be able to give us some leads for volunteer opportunities at least. Their office was especially difficult to find and it was snowing like crazy that day. After wandering up and down backstreets all sharing the same name with slightly different spellings (Horia versus Horea) for about 45 minutes, we finally found the unmarked building in a hilly neighborhood. I knocked on the door hoping this was the right place and thankfully it was. We were welcomed in as if we were volunteers ourselves and immediately found ourselves sitting in front of a cup of warm coffee and plates of mamaliga and sweets. Although they weren’t hiring, they were more than happy to talk to us about some volunteer opportunities and gave us some contact info as well. This was a good start.

Our next stop was the American Hospitality Academy out at the other end of the city. A former Brasov Peace Corps volunteer suggested this to us a while ago and since we hadn’t met with much luck contacting places by internet, we figured going in person would be a safer bet. Another 45 minutes of travel and wandering ensued and we finally made it to their doorstep weary and cold. We walked in the glass doorway to the entrance and stomped the snow off our boots as we unzipped our coats and shook the snow from our jackets and hats. Beyond another set of glass doors was the large, ostentatious reception desk where three well-dressed young Romanians sat. The building appeared empty except for a lone cleaning woman and the well-dressed Romanians seemed to be watching our every move. We approached the reception desk and the young man wearing a full suit and tie greeted us and asked how he could be of service. We said that we wanted to know if they were hiring. “So you’re looking for jobs?” he asked. We said yes. He looked from one to the other with raised eyebrows and asked, more out of personal curiosity I think, “Do you have any experience with hotels or the hospitality business?” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to make something up, or just say yes, or simply say no – I didn’t want to be turned away this quickly. Instead, Robert responded, “Well…see... um… we’re American.” Yes. That was our “experience,” that was our qualification – we’re American. Our greeter appeared surprised and then proceeded to call his superior to let her know that there were “two people here who are asking about jobs…they’re American. You’re busy though, right?....Oh, you’re not?...So you want to talk to them now?... Ok, I’ll send them up.” So up we went!

We met with the academic coordinator of the school and she talked about the American Hospitality Academy’s goals and plans for further development. She seemed very enthusiastic and thought we could work something out where we could enroll in a course there (thus satisfying the visa requirements) and also possibly work part- or full-time in some position. My experience with university housing (thanks Norfolk State!) and Robert’s experience with counseling seems to be what they’re interested in. We’ll meet again with them this coming Monday for a more formal kind of interview. I’m trying not to get my hopes up, but this would be perfect – visa stuff would be taken care of AND we’d get an interesting job out of it.

****

Luckily, I’ve been finding paths to great success despite not having a job. I’ve beaten three of my PSP games now. “GTA: Vice City Stories” was somewhat challenging. I had a jackass brother that I had to take care of throughout the duration of the game. “GTA: Liberty City Stories” was a little easier although still a bit of a challenge. It’s probably a good thing that I don’t drive here. After a GTA marathon I went for a walk around the neighborhood fully expecting a drive-by to take place and having an itching desire to snipe a pedestrian and take their money.

Ratchet and Clank was also no match for me. I beat it 3 times. Now the only thing I have to play is “The Sims 2: Pets” which I bought for Amanda but she refuses to play. I need a job I think.

We went skiing the other day and it was surprisingly pleasant and not third-world at all. I was amazed at how much better the Romanian skiing is when compared to any of the “mountains” in Michigan or even Boulder, CO. First of all I’d like to point out that Amanda and I spent $50 for an entire day (this includes skiing, ski rental and a meal) at Poiana resort. Amanda is very brave on her skis now. Ok not really. She is still scared of the rope tow and of going faster than a snail’s pace on the bunny hill but at least she’s doing that much.

There are no chair lifts, only gondolas which are awesome. It’s pretty easy to get one to yourself, they protect you from the wind and once you get to the top it takes you a good 20 minutes to get to the bottom going full speed. There are a lot of snowboarders who can be annoying but otherwise it’s really not crowded on the week days. Even the “rope tow” isn’t a rope at all but a clever device that you straddle like a toy horse and it pulls you on your skis so you don’t trash your gloves and hands on a rope.

We also participated in a “pub quiz”, which if you all aren’t familiar with this, it’s a trivia contest and it’s put on in English at the local Irish bar. I invited all of the Brasov Couchsurfers (http://www.couchsurfing.org/) because it’s better if you have a big team. The guys who came and had participated in the quiz before said that they had never won and it’s pretty tough.

The questions were pretty challenging and so was the accent of the owner (who is Irish). After the first round our multi-national team (Americans, Portuguese and both Romanians and Hungarian-Romanians) was in third place. Some of the categories included “Music” (which I rocked faces at), “Romanian trivia” (thankfully we had Romanians on our team), “Sports”, “History”, “Geography”, etc.

In the end we all pitched in with our unique skills. Amanda and I deciphered the Irish accent, our Portuguese guy knew all the Spanish questions and the Romanians did an excellent job of discreetly cheating on their cell phones to find missing answers. We won first place which is quite a feat. We beat the regular-winning team which looked like an assembled all-star cast of Comedy Central’s former show “Beat the Geeks”. As a prize we won a “meter of beer” which in reality is just a tray of full beer glasses. But we drank them with pleasure.

Anyway, we go to our first overseas job interview on Monday so wish us luck. Corey Haim RIP. Happy birthday, mom.

How We’re Livin’

Some folks may be wondering what our quality of life is here. It’s really not that bad. We eat pretty well and with the exception of a few items (like the aforementioned BBQ sauce) we can find almost anything that we want. Most of our food comes from the market place down the street which comes straight from the farms on the surrounding areas. Otherwise we get normal stuff from the stores like cereal and jam and eggs and all that stuff. The bread here is good and so is the soup.

As you probably saw from the pictures of our apartment, the conditions here aren’t quite the same as in the village in Moldova. Our friends laughed at the fact that one of my preconditions for a Brasov apartment was to have an indoor bathroom and hot water. The city of Brasov used to be entirely made up of individual houses until the Communists came in and decided that bloc apartment buildings would be a more efficient way of packing more people into a small city. The bloc apartments were first built close to the factories for the factory-workers to have someplace to live. Then the Communists systematically started tearing down the houses in the center for more apartments. One of our friends said that two weeks before the 1989 Revolution, her grandmother received a notice saying she had one month to vacate her house because her land was slated for an apartment building – good timing! Anyhow, we were lucky enough to find an apartment in a former house, rather than a bloc apartment.

Here in the city the cost of living is high for Romanian standards but it’s still pretty low for American standards. We’ve been gone for about a month now and not to brag but all of our meals, transportation costs going from one end to the other of two different countries, one month’s rent, and extras just now expended all of the $700 we each pulled out of the bank before we left.

Our rent is only $200 a month which is pretty cheap for being in the city center. We spend probably an average of about $10 in total for two meals out on the town. I’m probably going to go and open a bank account in the next couple of days. Probably at ING. There’s a lot of ING banks and it’s international.

The language isn’t that much different from Moldova and conveniently there is NO RUSSIAN. That’s what’s up. There’s a bit of an accent difference and they tend to use a larger variety of words compared to in the Moldovan villages. There has been more than one occasion where we’ve been asked if we are from Moldova which is kind of silly because we sound like foreigners. This would be like the Quicky Mart guy talking to you for a while and you asking if he’s from Tennessee. Hopefully the Romanians don’t think that all Moldovans speak like we do.

On the other hand we do have at least a partial Moldovan accent because we learned to speak Romanian there. But I’ve found that there are words that Romanians use that Moldovans don’t and vice-versa. Also, I can’t sprinkle Russian words in every now-and-again which Moldovans think is funny but Romanians don’t understand. I’ve been laughed at a few times using Moldovan-Romanian words for “sunflower seeds”, “watermelon”, “cherry wine” and probably other stuff that I can’t think of.

Speaking of language, we’re off now to find a Romanian class that will teach us for the whole year so we can get our visa. We’ll write again soon.

Getting Visas and the Job Hunt

So… we have finally had our first run-in with the dreaded Romanian bureaucracy. Staying in Romania for 90 days on a “tourist visa” is no problem. The major issues happen when you want to stay for a longer period of time. We went to the office at the police station the other day that is set up to deal with foreigners and visas. My initial plan was to get a visa for “Other goals that do not violate Romanian laws” (and yes, there is really such a thing).

I asked the man at the office for some forms that I needed to fill out in order to get a visa. He asked me what I wanted to do in Romania that would necessitate my staying over the 90-day policy. This is when the “dueling banjos” started to play… the Romanian version.

I said that I wanted to live here because the air is clean and it’s good for the soul (our conversation was in Romanian so don’t laugh).

He agreed with me on the issue but said that I had to have an official reason.

I told him that I was writing a book.

What is the book about? Is it an official book?

It’s a science fiction book.

He opened up his official-looking binder and with his official-looking hand he searched in his official-looking book for the answer. No, this is not a good enough reason. You can write a science fiction book outside of Romania from the ideas in your head.

But I need to be in Romania for this. I draw my inspiration from your culture.

I understand. But you will need an official letter from an official library or some other official institution stating that you need their official documents and/or books in order to complete your research for your book. Your official book.

Well on top of writing a book I would also like to further my learning of the Romanian language so that I don’t arrive at official visa-granting institutions talking like a caveman.

Well this is what you have to do… You must get an official letter from an official institution stating that they are providing official language instruction for the entire period of your stay here. And it must have a stamp on it.

Ok… so he didn’t say anything about the stamp thing. But it for sure was implied. As our friend Alex says, “Romania has an addiction to stamps”. This is true not only for Romania but for other post-communist countries as well. It can be a McDonald’s receipt for a 4-piece Chicken McNuggets without BBQ sauce (they don’t have BBQ sauce in Romania) and as long as it has a stamp on it, it can be used for official purposes in these parts.

So I asked the man for the official forms that I need in order to complete my official mission. I mainly wanted to get a head-start on my official medical examination and my official purchase of Romanian health insurance.

I will give you the forms when you have your official documents.

I left the office at this time and downloaded the documents. Even though he had the official documents next to his official-looking book which was being flipped through by his official hand. Dueling banjos had stopped playing a while ago. I couldn’t keep up and I lost to the inbred child in the form of an antiquated bureaucratic process. But we have yet to get to the part where we have to squeal like a pig.

Hopefully I won’t have to disclose this to you in future emails.

So now we are looking into two different kinds of visas; the aforementioned one, where it apparently needs to be way more official than just the officially-written, “Other Goals that don’t Violate Romanian Laws”. In this case we will find an official institution that will give us Romanian lessons like once a month for a year (one year is the maximum amount of time that you can have a visa for). The other option is to find someone to officially hire us and get a work visa.

I say officially because most places want to hire you under the table in order to avoid paying taxes. We will also need an official document stating that we are living somewhere. This is also a problem at this time because as we mentioned, the landlord for this place won’t give us the official document because he wants to avoid tax problems and, understandably, bureaucracy.

So this is where we are now. We have about another month before the official paperwork needs to be in with nice stamps all over it. Maybe I will submit my BBQ sauce-less receipt for part of it.