Visas and fires and bears - oh my!
So. Now let’s transition to my commute back to Romania. My first flight was to leave Chicago the evening of July 2nd, I had nearly three hours to make my connection in Amsterdam the following day (my birthday), then I’d land in Bucharest at about 4pm on the 3rd. This was my 10th time flying to Romania, so I should have the routine down smoothly by now! But luck wasn’t on my side - we were delayed leaving Chicago (first awaiting inbound aircraft, then because of mechanical problems, then because of weather), so by the time we landed in Amsterdam I was just a hair too late to make the connection. Grrrr. Unfortunately the next Bucharest flight I could get on wasn’t for another EIGHT HOURS! So I spent a lot of quality time wandering around Schipol Airport and trying DESPERATELY not to fall asleep because I’d been awake for many, many hours by this point. Wish I could sleep on planes. On the plus side, I got a food voucher for 10 euros and a KLM flight voucher for 50 euros. Still doesn’t make up for the fact that because I got in so late, I no longer had my free 2 hour ride home from the airport (Susan was already in Bucharest to pick me up when she found out I’d missed my connection, and couldn’t be expected to wait around for me an extra 8 hours!), and instead had to pay $110 for a taxi driver when I got in at 1:30 in the morning! But ANYWAY, the later flight took off without incident, had bags by 1:30am. Susan had called and arranged for adriver for me, and I almost missed him - he was holding a sign that read “BRIHITE - BRASOV” I did walk right past him at first, then figured . . . well maybe. Turns out it was him, and just a bad speller. After a harrowing mountain drive, got to the apartment by 3:30am, then stayed up another hour or two catching up with the roomie and admiring my Welcome Home and Happy Birthday and Happy Fourth of July signs!
Okay, I need to keep moving along here. So that was two months ago that I landed . . . where the heck does the time go?!?!? My first week back I had all sorts of wonderful sicknesses, including several migraines, a VERY bad tummy and a day with super-fun cat allergies where I was sneezing about 50 times an hour! And I had another random week last month where I had a bad cold/flu type thing. BUT BUT BUT, I say as I knock on wood, I’ve been feeling 100% almost all of the other days in between! Not so much as even a twitchy tummy or beginnings of a headache! I think even two weeks healthy is an all time record for me in this country, and I’ve been coming here for over 6 years now!!
On the social front, I had surprise birthday party!! I was sung to and got to blow out candles on the Friday I arrived (at Sarah and Steffi’s 4th of July party) and the Saturday after that (at Jan’s), but neither were technically birthday parties. I suspected something might be coming up later the following week, but wasn't sure and was too exhausted to even care very much! Saturday night was my chance to crash. I took drugs to make sure I’d sleep, and was unconscious until nearly 11am the next day. Unfortunately, little did I know that when I finally stumbled out of my room in my pj's at 11am, across town a dozen people were already assembled at Kate's apartment waiting for the guest of honor to arrive! Oops!! Geordie rushed me out of the house, saying we needed to see a performance that little Alex's group home was putting on in the center . . . but I was a little suspicious that she was carrying a wrapped present, and that we needed to stop and pick up croussaints on the way?!? We parked in front of Kate's apartment (by then she'd admitted that the whole Alex thing was a hoax!), and when we walked through the gate into the courtyard, sure enough, there was everybody shouting SURPRISE!! Balloons and streamers and a big brunch spread - mmmmm! There was even a homemade birthday cake . . . which I later found out was made from one of MY OWN boxes of cake mix and frosting I'd brought from home! Geordie had dug it out of the cabinet, figuring it was only fair I contributed something to my own birthday party :)
Earlier in the day two of the kids (10 year old Mihaela and 16 year old Niko) asked if I’d go up Mt. Tampa with them after the party and walk back down. I said sure, not thinking they’d remember and follow up on it later. They did! It was very tempting to try and offer them a raincheck, but call me crazy, I try not to break promises to kids. So when things finally wound down and most of the other guests had left, Geordie and Rozi (a friend from the hospital) and I took the cablecar up Mt. Tampa with Miha and Niko. The little ones were running ahead, but us old-timers weren't quite so sure of our footing on the steep, narrow mountainside trail and took our own sweet time! It was a lot of fun, though, and added a nice extra dimension to the birthday celebration: Communing with nature! When we got back, we decided to get pizza delivered to Kate's place (Jo and Alex had come back by that point, too!) and all sat around the TV watching the Goonies and eating Pizza Inn - what a fairy tale ending!
Let's see, what else . . . around the apartment . . . they finally finished the massive “renovations” that were so long in coming: They painted, bought in new closet storage units in each room (a step up from the mirrored curio cabinet I’d been using as a dresser the past year and a half!), and they moved the washing machine from the bathroom into the kitchen. Oh, and they moved the box to control the heat from my bedroom into the kitchen . . . which unfortunately meant they completely removed our pantry. So now we’re left with hardly anywhere in the kitchen to store our food - at the moment I’m stashing food in the dresser drawers in my bedroom! We’re still waiting for them to make one more trip back to paint the pipes. Was supposed to be Wednesday, then Friday, and now it's a month later and still no word on when they’re REALLY coming, but we’re trying to keep the house clean in the meantime.
While we’ve been rearranging stuff post-renovations, we’re already starting to pack, or at least divide things up into what we can take home with us, what things we can send home with visitors, what things can be left behind when we go, etc. Sad to think that day is coming up so quickly. Better not dwell.
Ummm . . . with the help of tech support in Naperville (thanks, Christina!) I was able to get wireless working at our apartment, so now both Geordie and I can be online at the same time! What else, what else . . . we saw a lunar eclipse last month! And the next morning, someone in our building was getting married so there was much activity and accordion music and dancing!
My current fun experience is trying to get my visa. Never ceases to amaze me how complicated it all is for seemingly no reason! All sorts of paperwork and requests need to be sent to the mayor of the city where you’re volunteering, then you wait for a letter of recommendation back from the mayor. Then you have to submit that letter from the mayor and a crapload of other papers and requests (letter of recommendation from volunteer organization, volunteer contract, a report of what the organization does - all needing to have official stamps, of course - everything needs official stamps here!) to the Ministry of Health in Bucharest and wait for them to send you another letter of recommendation. THEN you need to go with that letter (ideally the original, but they’ll begrudgingly accept the fax until the original comes in the mail) and a boatload of OTHER papers and requests (rental contract with official stamp, note from doctor with official stamp, letter of request (with official stamp) from the mayor again but this time addressed to the police instead of the Ministry of Health), copy of diploma or college transcripts, copies of passport, passport photos, etc etc etc.. Before I turn the big handful into the police next week, I have to find where I pay the application tax and get an official stamp for THAT, too. Then once to the police station I have to fill out more forms, get photos taken, etc, THEN wait about a month until the new visa hopefully arrives. I think the frustrating part this time is that I’m going through all of this effort just to stay an extra three months past when my current visa expires! ~~~ Ok, so I wrote that paragraph last month, here's an update: I did get all of my paperwork submitted on the last day possible (I won't get into the nightmare that was paying the application tax and wating in line at the police station!!!), which was 7/31 (mine expires 8/31, and papers need to be in a month early). BUT, I still only had the faxed letter from the Ministry of Health in Bucharest, not the original. The police station did accept the fax - temporarily - but said I had to bring in the original when I receieved it (which we assumed would be the following week) before they submitted the papers to the next higher Powers That Be that would actually issue the visa. Well, it's now over a month later, my visa's expired, and I still don't even have the original letter of recommendation! Word on the street is that the lady in the Ministry of Health was on vacation for all of August. All of Romania seems to be on vacation in August. So I'll give it another week to see if I get that in the mail. And in the meantime, hopefully nobody will knock on my door and deport me, and hopefully I won't get fined!!
Slightly amusing anecdote from trying to get my doctor’s check. For our visa applications, both Amanda and I needed this note from a doctor saying we were free of contagious diseases. Which in this country consists of a chest x-ray, throat culture, and check of stool for worms. Further proving what a joke all of this is, we didn’t even need to see a doctor. After half an hour in the waiting room, an assistant just asked us for our passports and 25 lei ($10), went in a back room, and came out with officially stamped notes saying both of us were in perfect health. Not that I’m complaining, I’ve had enough medical checks here for our passes from Child Protection, was NOT looking forward to yet another chest x-ray without a protective apron! Anyway, back up a little while. We were given an address of the doctor’s office, including street name and number. Luckily Amanda had borrowed someone’s car because it was pouring rain . . . and had we more than a little trouble finding this place!! It was in a neighborhood of the big blocs, and even though I’d been to this doctor’s office several times before, everything looks the same in these neighborhoods - grey and concrete. We thought we were in good shape because we’d found the street very quickly, and it was a very short street - only maybe two or three city blocks from end to end - how hard could it be to find the right building? Very. It didn’t help that the numbering system was INSANE! We’d see a building marked Number 7, and think we’re close because we’re looking for Number 5 . . . but then right next door to it is Number 36! Go a little further down the road and see yet another Number 7, but this time on the opposite side of the road! Next door to that is Number 108, and so on with the randomness. We did find a building Number 5 on this street, and entirely circled it with no signs of a doctor’s office in any of the 1st floor entrances. Hmmmm. We asked about a half-dozen people if they knew where this place was - bless their hearts, they all tried to help us, even as they stood under their umbrellas in the pouring rain. I was reminded once again how I think a PERFECT Amazing Race challenge would be to simply give contestants an address in a neighborhood full of blocs and have them try to find it. It would be one of their hardest yet, trust me! At one point we had turned down a side street, nowhere near the previous Number 5 building - I think this time we were next to Number 72 or something - and asked an old man with an umbrella. He said he didn’t know where it was, but we were on a side street now and needed to turn back to the main road we’d just turned off of (that had the street name we were looking for - made sense). A mother and her teenage daughter happened by, and the man asked them what they thought. The teenager said we definitely needed to turn around and go left. She wasn’t sure exactly where, but definitely to the left back on the main road. We’d gone up and down that road at least 20 times by this point, but didn’t know what else to try. So we drove up a little further to find somewhere to turn around, when Amanda noticed what looked like a sign for a doctor’s office! But it couldn’t be, because this building was blatantly not on the street given in the address, it was two buildings back, putting it on another street. But I hopped out in the rain for a closer look just in case, and sure enough - this was the place! Number 5 (well, another Number 5) directly IN BACK OF Number 72! This place is nuts. We always run into problems when drivers are coming to pick me (or Christina!) up in the middle of the night for early morning flights - they can never find our building, and with it being so late they can’t find anyone to ask for help . . . and even if they could, probably wouldn’t do them any good!
Ooooh, one other bit of excitement! We went bear watching! There’s a neighborhood not very far from us where it’s well-known that the bears creep down from the hills after dark and raid the dumpsters. I’d seen them plenty of times when Jo used to live in that area, but Kate and Amanda had never been, so Geordie took us on a bear-watching adventure! I don’t think people are technically supposed to because it’s meant to be a protected habitat for the bears, and there actually have been a lot of bear attacks lately. But still, we cruised up and down that back road along the dumpster for a good half hour and got up close and personal with lots of bears only a few feet from our car!! When they would stand up to get in the dumpsters (and sometimes crawl all the way in) they were clearly much taller than me, probably a good 7 or 8 feet. And even though Susan was ready to squeal away if any of the bears got any closer, it was still enough to get the pulse pounding seeing them that close! Very exciting!!
One other bit of excitement from the next day - we saw a fire! We had just finished lunch in the center and were wandering down Republicii (the main cobblestone road of shops and restaurants) when I noticed loads of black smoke pouring out of a second-floor restaurant. Now we’re talking old, pretty medieval buildings, not the concrete blocs. Anyway, it was getting thicker and thicker, and we could see it pouring out of a window in the back of the building, too. We didn’t see any actual flames, but the heat of the smoke had burned straight through the awnings over the windows, popped out windows, and we were hearing small explosions and glass shattering inside, too. We were standing a few doors down watching to see what would happen . . . the interesting thing was that instead of mass chaos, or even organized chaos, was that everyone seemed to ignore it! About five feet back from the base of the building where the fire was, there’s a series of outdoor restaurant tables with umbrellas. There were EASILY 40-50 tables within what I’d consider an unsafe distance from the burning restaurant (what if more windows blew out, or a falling ember caught their umbrella on fire, or there was a bigger explosion??), but people just continued on eating. There’s a clothing store in the first floor of the building where the fire was, and not only did the store remain open, but people kept wandering INTO A BURNING BUILDING to shop! Am I being paranoid in thinking it a legitimate fear that the ceiling might collapse on you or something? There’s no way they couldn’t have seen the smoke billowing out directly above, it had blacked the sky over the entire street! After a full fifteen minutes of people carrying on about their day and the smoke getting even thicker and blacker, a Barney Fife-type cop leisurely started telling people they might want to consider leaving their tables because of the fire. Some took his advice, most just carried on eating. Then another five or ten minutes later a firetruck pulled into the square. Only because Republicii is a pedestrian-only street, the entire street is full of tables from all the cafes and restaurants, so the firetruck couldn’t get very close at all. We saw a few firemen climbing up a ladder, putting on their gasmasks, all very exciting! One shoutded back down for an axe! It was amusing at first because the hose the first batch brought in was literally the size of a garden hose!! A few minutes later a proper fire hose appeared, though, and a different set of firemen brought it in through the alley entrance and up the stairs instead of window. Eventually order was restored and we carried on with our day, but that added some adventure!
Oh, and I went to visit my old TAPA host mom Marta recently!! I ran into a volunteer at the hospital who was currently living with Marta, a Dutch girl named Marijn. Marijn didn't have a roommate out there, and didn't speak a lick of Romanian either, so I said I'd go out one night to a. Surprise Marta since I hadn't seen her in nearly two years! and b. Translate for Marijn so they could get some of the basics communicated! So I went over there one night, and hid behind a bedroom door when I heard Marta opening the front door, all prepared to jump out and surprise her . . . only to hear her excitedly shouting "Brigeetay!!!" - she already knew I was there!! Apparently one of her neighbors had recognized me (from over four years ago!!) and tipped off Marta outside the building, so the surprise wasn't quite surprising. But she sure was excited to see me!! She's her same zany self! She even took Marijn and I over to visit her friend Chiva, who was equally excited to see me, Marta had taken me over to visit her quite a bit when I lived with her. Anyway, the most exciting part of the evening for me was that I was there for maybe three or four hours, and was able to translate between Marijn and Marta and back the ENTIRE time with no show-stoppers! I know my grammar was far from perfect, but Marta seemed to understand everything I said to her in Romanian, and I understood probably 90% of what Marta was saying! I was so proud of myself! Whenever Marta and I were talking in Romanian, Marijn would want to know what she'd missed, and same for Marta when Marijn and I said anything in English, so my brain was very busy!
Some pictures from July and August:
Romania - July 08
Romania - August 08
Okay, that should be enough ramblings on that, I'll move on to another entry about the kids now!!