(no subject)
Since I am in Europe and all... I've decided I might as well do a public update.
So word has it (word meaning a very unreliable newspaper called "Liberty" that has a section devoted to showing "your sexiest picture of yourself") that Romania is the poorest country in all of Europe. Unreliable as the newspaper may be, it sounds about right. I really enjoy being here. I mean, it's very interesting and there are a lot of things that I like, like hte fact that you really don't need a car. At all. But it's also incredibly polluted. I've stopped wearing my contacts becasue the dust stings like a bitch. Also, there are a LOT of poor people. The same newspaper told me that more than 1/4 of Romania's population falls under the "poor" category (about 30 to 50 dollars a month) and about 1/10 falls under the "extremely poor category" (less than 30 dollars a month). It's all pretty obvious. I'm accosted by more beggars in one day here than I ever was in my entire time living in Reno. I guess you can say you really come to apprectiate where you live once you see things like this.
The other night I had a dream that there was a fire up by McQ. It was one of the most beautiful dreams I've had in a while. I was there with Aja and Ramzi. We were just walking around when we saw that the hill was on fire. It was a massive fire that was quickly spreading toward us. We ran to my house to get my parakeets, but we realized that we didn't have the key to my house (I had left it with my dad... where it actually is now). Then it occurred to me that I was dreaming and that in reality I wasn't even in Nevada, so I just kind of sat back and enjoyed the spectacle of the fire. I just spoke to Morgan and it turns out that there was recently a fire in NW Reno. Interesting.
I hung out with my friend Alin who is 18, and some of his friends. Romanian boys are hilarious! We went to a bar and just sat around talking. I'm kind of quiet around people because I make a lot of mistakes with the language (I'm especially quiet around old people because I don't really know how to use the formal "you" so I just shut up and don't use it, ha ha). But WOW. They're awesome. Yay people! Yay young people! And some of htem are so pretty. Alin is absolutely gorgeous. He's got long hair and powerful eyes. His eyes bore into you and know what you're thinking. I swear it. Among the guys I met, there was one named Serban. He is the image that I have in my mind of that amazing guy who I'd love to meet. Well, I've met him! ... but he was on the opposite side of the table and I didn't get to talk to him much. He has long dark hair, and amazing dark eyes. Ears pierced many times. And this intense look. Friggin America, hot guys are much harder to come by. Actually, I dare say most Romanian boys are kind of funny looking, but most would look REALLY good if they had long hair.
They asked me a lot of questions about Nevada. I think they imagine that by "desert" I mean "sand dunes and cactuses(cacti?)." They asked me "Are there rednecks in Nevada?" I said, "Yeah, Republicans." By how much they laughed, it seems they must've found that to be the funniest thing in the world.
I love it that when I was hanging out with Alin and his friends, they all made Bush jokes. They sometimes refer to him as "the American Monkey" (in Romanian of course... although they do often use English, but mostly if they want to cuss, because they mostly use American cuss words which don't really fit in with Romanian sentence structure, so they just say the entire sentence in English).
I really enjoy travelling by subway. But sometimes weird things happen there. For instance, the other day, all of hte subway stations were filled with Gendarmes. Those are kind of like police, except they're decked out in combat gear or something. They have helmets on and wear massive amounts of body armor, and have these really big guns (machine guns of some sort). Also, the intercom kept announcing "If you see anything suspicious..." And there were major delays. Okay, by major I mean like 10 minutes, but that seems pretty major for a train that comes every 5 minutes or so. Maybe they were afraid that something would happen like in London.
Also on the subway: A man walked in and began speaking loudly in the voice of a preacher. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I wan't you to know taht I don't do this because I'm lazy and don't want to work. I ask for money because my mother is paralyzed from a disease, I have many brothers and sisters..." After enumerating his grievences, he appealed to people's religious beliefs and began saying the Lord's prayer or whatever it's called (The one that starts with "Our father taht art in heaven"). "Tatal nostru, care esti in ceruri, fie sfintia ta, faca sevoia ta, precum in cer, asa si pe pamint... Numele tatalui, si al fiului, si al sfintului duh, Amin." This is the prayer I grew up saying, back before I realized that Christianity is ridiculous. This is the only prayer I've ever known. The man's speech made me want to cry. I was with Alin and I spoke to him about it afterward. He told me that he's pretty much developed an immunity to the pleas of the poor, because he sees so much of this every single day.
Oh, and my hair is really short now. It cost 60,000 lei to get it cut. It's about 30,000 lei to the dollar.
As interesting as it is over here, I miss Reno! I miss my friends, and I miss rock climbing!!!! It seems like there's so much to be said about Romania that I could write a book. But I think I've already written enough. Ciao!
So word has it (word meaning a very unreliable newspaper called "Liberty" that has a section devoted to showing "your sexiest picture of yourself") that Romania is the poorest country in all of Europe. Unreliable as the newspaper may be, it sounds about right. I really enjoy being here. I mean, it's very interesting and there are a lot of things that I like, like hte fact that you really don't need a car. At all. But it's also incredibly polluted. I've stopped wearing my contacts becasue the dust stings like a bitch. Also, there are a LOT of poor people. The same newspaper told me that more than 1/4 of Romania's population falls under the "poor" category (about 30 to 50 dollars a month) and about 1/10 falls under the "extremely poor category" (less than 30 dollars a month). It's all pretty obvious. I'm accosted by more beggars in one day here than I ever was in my entire time living in Reno. I guess you can say you really come to apprectiate where you live once you see things like this.
The other night I had a dream that there was a fire up by McQ. It was one of the most beautiful dreams I've had in a while. I was there with Aja and Ramzi. We were just walking around when we saw that the hill was on fire. It was a massive fire that was quickly spreading toward us. We ran to my house to get my parakeets, but we realized that we didn't have the key to my house (I had left it with my dad... where it actually is now). Then it occurred to me that I was dreaming and that in reality I wasn't even in Nevada, so I just kind of sat back and enjoyed the spectacle of the fire. I just spoke to Morgan and it turns out that there was recently a fire in NW Reno. Interesting.
I hung out with my friend Alin who is 18, and some of his friends. Romanian boys are hilarious! We went to a bar and just sat around talking. I'm kind of quiet around people because I make a lot of mistakes with the language (I'm especially quiet around old people because I don't really know how to use the formal "you" so I just shut up and don't use it, ha ha). But WOW. They're awesome. Yay people! Yay young people! And some of htem are so pretty. Alin is absolutely gorgeous. He's got long hair and powerful eyes. His eyes bore into you and know what you're thinking. I swear it. Among the guys I met, there was one named Serban. He is the image that I have in my mind of that amazing guy who I'd love to meet. Well, I've met him! ... but he was on the opposite side of the table and I didn't get to talk to him much. He has long dark hair, and amazing dark eyes. Ears pierced many times. And this intense look. Friggin America, hot guys are much harder to come by. Actually, I dare say most Romanian boys are kind of funny looking, but most would look REALLY good if they had long hair.
They asked me a lot of questions about Nevada. I think they imagine that by "desert" I mean "sand dunes and cactuses(cacti?)." They asked me "Are there rednecks in Nevada?" I said, "Yeah, Republicans." By how much they laughed, it seems they must've found that to be the funniest thing in the world.
I love it that when I was hanging out with Alin and his friends, they all made Bush jokes. They sometimes refer to him as "the American Monkey" (in Romanian of course... although they do often use English, but mostly if they want to cuss, because they mostly use American cuss words which don't really fit in with Romanian sentence structure, so they just say the entire sentence in English).
I really enjoy travelling by subway. But sometimes weird things happen there. For instance, the other day, all of hte subway stations were filled with Gendarmes. Those are kind of like police, except they're decked out in combat gear or something. They have helmets on and wear massive amounts of body armor, and have these really big guns (machine guns of some sort). Also, the intercom kept announcing "If you see anything suspicious..." And there were major delays. Okay, by major I mean like 10 minutes, but that seems pretty major for a train that comes every 5 minutes or so. Maybe they were afraid that something would happen like in London.
Also on the subway: A man walked in and began speaking loudly in the voice of a preacher. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I wan't you to know taht I don't do this because I'm lazy and don't want to work. I ask for money because my mother is paralyzed from a disease, I have many brothers and sisters..." After enumerating his grievences, he appealed to people's religious beliefs and began saying the Lord's prayer or whatever it's called (The one that starts with "Our father taht art in heaven"). "Tatal nostru, care esti in ceruri, fie sfintia ta, faca sevoia ta, precum in cer, asa si pe pamint... Numele tatalui, si al fiului, si al sfintului duh, Amin." This is the prayer I grew up saying, back before I realized that Christianity is ridiculous. This is the only prayer I've ever known. The man's speech made me want to cry. I was with Alin and I spoke to him about it afterward. He told me that he's pretty much developed an immunity to the pleas of the poor, because he sees so much of this every single day.
Oh, and my hair is really short now. It cost 60,000 lei to get it cut. It's about 30,000 lei to the dollar.
As interesting as it is over here, I miss Reno! I miss my friends, and I miss rock climbing!!!! It seems like there's so much to be said about Romania that I could write a book. But I think I've already written enough. Ciao!