I was not feeling 100% after a long travel day on Tuesday of being up for about 24 hours with an early morning flight and the time difference, so I’ve been laying low, doing my best to live life like a Romanian and stay anonymous. I think I am doing pretty well with clothes that fit in (cute scarf + dark denim skinny jeans + black trench + not wearing tennis shoes) and my Norwegian-German mix confuses people (first they thought I was Ukrainian, now they think I am Romanian…yes!), but my cover is blown when people try to speak Romanian to me. Surprisingly the language has a lot of similarities to Spanish, so I can usually get the gist of what people are saying, but in no way can respond.
Thank goodness for our curling loving neighbors to the north and our tea connoisseur allies across the pond! I had no desire to talk to anyone when I got off the plane in Bucharest, but met a nice Canadian who gave me some tips on how to survive the city. I do not know his exact title, but he was on his way to the Canadian embassy to enforce some things, so he must have been pretty legitimate. On the bus to the main part of town, I met a nice British couple who helped me get a taxi to my hotel (apparently one of the taxi companies is run by the mafia?) and even gave me a suggestion for a nice bookstore + tea shop combination where I spent my first afternoon! They know me so well!
So what have I been up to? Basically I have been walking around the city, visiting gorgeous parks, staring at beautiful churches, marveling at all the buildings that probably have no actual significance, eating pastries and shopping for patterned tights. I actually have done more than that. Sort of...
I started my morning at Obor Park (or Parcul Obor as the Romanians call it), which is where I can catch the subway into the heart of the city and is only a short walk from my hotel. Here I technically did nothing but sit and people watch and think. Sit and watch the old men playing chess, the kids chasing birds, the stray dogs sleeping on the vents because they are warm, grandparents helping their grandkids in the play area, leaves falling off the trees and the like. As weird as it sounds, it is really hard for me to do just that, so it was a little challenge to myself.
Being in Europe means a couple of things for me: I will eat lots of chocolate (usually in the form of Nutella deliciousness), I will buy lots of scarves and I will (at times) have an uncontrollable urge to purchase semi-ridiculous fashions that I would never wear outside the respective city or country. I am doing my best to limit the number of chocolate comas I put myself into on a daily basis, but I am very concerned because they import most of their chocolate here from Budapest (my next stop). This is seriously going to be a disaster. I did, however, give in and get a Nutella filled pastry for my mid-morning walk. I am glad they do not have pastry stands on every corner in Seattle selling these…
As for my scarf obsession (or escarfe in Romania), I thought that maybe it would help if I publicized my scarf count because then I would buy less. Maybe? Last time I was in Europe for 8 days, I came home with 8 scarves, so as long as I come back with less than 45 scarves, I will beat my ratio from last time. J Let’s see if this works. So far, I have purchased 2 scarves in Romania and 1 in Thailand (the technical count might be higher than that, but the others are for gifts, so I don’t think that counts). And the only semi-ridiculous fashions I have purchased so far were a couple pairs of patterned tights (I resisted a fur coat and some furry earmuffs). I might be able to wear a pair for work, so they aren’t too bad at all.
