Day Off
Today was very odd. No kids.
I slept the latest I have since arriving (10:00) and did very little. Managed to do a little research… very little. I also wrote some brainstorming notes about how I’ll plan the next few weeks and quickly realized that I needed to read more of the two books I brought with me on this sort of theatre.
I also finally managed to get someone to let me into the laundry room and washed almost all the clothes I brought. I should be just fine washing things once a week. Thankfully, it’s so warm that everything dries super fast.
And then I hit about 5PM or so and found myself bored and feeling particularly homesick and at loose ends…
So I went for a looooong walk (about two hours). I found that following the river leads me to a path along the side of the water sanitation plant and out towards the edge of town. I, um, sort of think I trespassed at one point because I went through a gate into the sanitation grounds. It’s funny, because they have all this barbed wire and then these gates with no locks. I wandered along a path for a few minutes and took some shots of some curly metal scrap and then went back out to the public path.
I eventually crossed a bridge (which gave me the highest vantage point I’ve had since arriving in Timişoara). At this point I wasn’t entirely sure how to get back to where I started without retracing my steps. This led to trying one road, being stopped by a barking (unsecured) dog, redirected by some older ladies, and following a road out and around until I found myself somewhere familiar.
I had been faintly nervous during the whole walk about being a woman out in a less busy area alone. However, it wasn’t until I was nearly back to the river park area that one man yelled “chou” (sp?) at me from a taxi and another man made kissy motions with his mouth from a parked car. Very mild, but annoying.
I actually do notice that a lot of people glance at me. I’m wondering what gives me away as a foreigner. I wear the same sort of clothes as people my age do here (jeans, t-shirt or tank top, and runners). People are generally darker, but not strikingly and I see others with my coloring. Maybe it’s my features? I don’t know.
It’s pretty warm here. Sometimes it’s downright hot. For some reason I didn’t think about being further south and it being summer and so didn’t bring my sandals. I think I may need to buy a cheap pair.
Took a few photos that might be interesting today and wrote in my journal a bit.
Not much else to say really.
Oh! Except that on my way home from my walk I passed the tram stop and one of the boys who comes to the center recognizes me and waved. Then his two sisters waved. It made me so happy to have them recognize me and look *pleased* to see me outside the center. It feels like I’ve made a good impression with some of the kids at least. ( :