Expat In Romania

Most lists don't begin at number 6, so if you want to start at the beginning, head over to Part 1 . 6.  The Clothes Dryer The mighty clothes dryer, a staple appliance in just about every North American home, is essentially non-existent in Romania. While it isn't suspiciously regarded as a harbinger of death, as is the A/C unit, it takes up a lot of space and consumes plenty of energy, both of which come in short supply relative to Romanian preferences. Besides, if everyone had a dryer, then balconies, clothes lines, and drying racks would take up space for no good reason, and doing the laundry would be an all too efficient endeavour (generally considered bad taste in our neck of the woods).  Of course dryers do exist, usually on a steam-drying system, sometimes in a 2-in-1 washer/dryer combination (which requires no external vent or filters), but it's nonetheless a long-forgotten luxury for many a nostalgic expat. 7. Sidewalk Parking I could write several blog post...

A few days ago, after walking into a grocery store, I couldn't help noticing I was in a state of trepidation. The reason? I'd walked in with my gym bag, purposely avoiding the security guy at the entrance. I felt his eyes must be following me and that a loud, "Hey, you!" would ring out the moment I turned into an aisle. It turns out that the longer you live somewhere, the more you get used to it. A truism, of course. What is not immediately apparent is that this isn't necessarily a good thing, especially when you find that you've become used to something you may have found, at some point in the past, in another place, entirely unacceptable. This is why, now that I've crossed over the honeymoon period of my move to Romania, I find my enthusiasm for life here wanes when, for the 286th time, I  am forced to walk into a supermarket through the designated entrance point, even if an empty checkout is much closer and no less accessible. Then, upon entry, a gr...

Cemeteries have never bothered me. I think this applies to most Romanians who grew up celebrating October 31st with a visit to the final resting place of friends and family members. It's probably the same for Mexicans. I've already written about All Souls' Day , and shared the requisite images of the event, so I won't go into it here, but I'm always impressed by the bustle of activity around cemeteries on this day. Small businesses pop-up as flower and candle sellers line the roads leading to the entrance, while the cars parked on either side inevitably take up the sidewalk. In spite of the bazaar-like character, it is still a solemn and subdued event by Romanian standards. On my way from an unrelated errand today, I passed the Jewish cemetery, tucked off to the side of a small dead-end road. It's relatively easy to miss, though easy enough to identify once you're standing in front of the wrought iron gate. I'd been curious about the place for y...

It is not enough that Romania's politicians are smug, incompetent, and generally reprehensible, but their pathetic lack of self-awareness also feeds a seemingly overpowering impulse for outrageous narcissism. It's as if they were saying, "Step aside, Trump, let us show you how it's done." The phenomenon can be summed up in the wisdom of an old Romanian proverb, 'Prostul nu e prost destul, daca nu e si fudul' . It basically means, "a fool is not enough a fool,  if he's not a blowhard too." Which brings me to the matter at hand. I've never directly addressed Romania's plagiarism scandals. In part, maybe, because if that was the worst thing our politicians were doing to this country, I wouldn't have other things to write about. But also because I always saw it as symptomatic of a more deeply rooted cultural issue. For added context, for non-Romanian readers, think of the Asian parents stereotype. From an early age kids are ...

The guy on TV is saying, " you're doing something that nobody else is doing, and that's special! " I'm watching Guy Fieri take another trip to flavour town with his iconic food porn series, Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives ('Triple D'). A guest on the show, speaking to the head chef as Fieri looms, is raving about the chef's creativity. He is telling the chef how important it is for customers to get something different while Guy, smiling benignly like a peroxide headed Buddha, is no doubt thinking about what a great job he's got, or maybe about how this show will be the death of him. "Looks like nobody in this country got the memo." I tell my wife. 'Different', as a concept, is rarely revered in Romania. More often than not, it is vilified. On the other hand the 'me-too' culture is just out of this world. When I first moved here, every restaurant served pizza. If there had been a burger joint around at the time, it too ...

The lineup looked as familiar as ever, but it was no less than expected when we signed up for tickets to the third edition of Romania's premier summer festival and Cluj-Napoca's major event of the year. I could write about the artists, the massive crowds, surprises at the peripheral stages, Argatu's captivating performance, the unexpectedly heavy security presence, the street food, the #buckets , or the impressive logistics, but instead I'd rather highlight how a single event has become, for Cluj, a sort of beacon of the local culture. It's as though most Clujans -and every corporate entity in Cluj - becomes a part of Untold. On the street, at the mall, at work, Cluj is split between two types of wrists: those adorned with a festival bracelet and the rest. In a sense, even those who escape town for the duration of the festival take part by way of their intentional non-participation. I've written about the typical Romanian apathy when it comes to uniting f...

Wedding season, like the highly anticipated cherry season in Romania, starts around the middle of May. Within a month, it is a fact of life. Much like the 'very, very, very, sweet cherries' advertised at farmer's markets, brides, along with their wedding parties, also start to pop up all over the country. The parade continues all the way through to the end of summer, thus outlasting the short-lived cherry harvest. Although I've attended several Romanian weddings, enough to 'get the gist', these observations are partly fueled by the readily available bottles of Jack Daniels, wine, and the occasional tuica,  without which no Romanian wedding is complete. You must first understand that Romanian weddings fall into one of two categories: for the couple's friends and family, or for the couple's parents and friends. There is a distinction here and, keep in mind, it's almost impossible to combine the two. The former tend to be smaller weddings, in qu...

"Jos Comunistii!" "PSD, Ciuma Rosie!" Why are there now, as I'm writing, protesters out in the streets chanting, "down with the communists" and "PSD is the Red Plague"? Hasn't it been nearly thirty years since a bloody revolution rid us of the Red Plague? It had poisoned our minds and imprisoned our souls for nearly fifty years. Globally, Communism has killed more people and lasted longer than any historical plague. Yet here we are, still fighting this insidious disease, as if it never went away. Judging by much of the Romania around me, it hasn't. Without a doubt, the Romania of '89 and the Romania of today are two different countries - at least on the surface. Cars are not all Dacias, people aren't toting worn-out raffia bags wherever they go (even if Luis Vuiton has made them fashionable in the West ), there is more colour, more glass alongside the concrete, more neon, more music. Roads are flatter, (some) sidewalks w...

In Chinua Achebe's, A Man of the People, the narrator, Odilli,  describes an incident between villagers and a greedy local shopkeeper, Josiah. Although he was disliked by many, the villagers could tolerate his greed so long as the shop remained well-stocked and convenient. But one day Josiah is caught stealing a blind beggar's walking stick. He was planning to use it for a medicine that would "turn [the villagers] into blind buyers of his wares." This act epitomizes Josiah's greed and turns the entire village against him. "Josiah has taken away enough for the owner to notice," a villager says. "I thought much afterwards about that proverb, about the man taking things away until the owner at last notices. In the mouth of our people there was no greater condemnation. It was not just a simple question of a man's cup being full. A man's cup might be full and none be the wiser. But here the owner knew, and the owner, I discovered, is the will ...

Gotta be honest here, a 5-month break wasn't what I expected when I wrote about Untold Festival back in August. There are plenty of reasons I haven't been writing, but as I list them off, I can see that none are particularly good... Work - Yeah, everyone works Felt like doing other stuff - Don't we all Ran out of things to write about - No I didn't A little bit blasé about my Romanian life - Welcome to any life It does seem we're at the cusp of something, and maybe I just don't know quite what it is nor how to approach it. Maybe it's not "we", and it's just me, but I doubt it - we're all in this together. 2016 was weird for everyone. In spite of the absence I didn't feel all that disconnected from my Romania blogging. Email has come in fairy regularly from blog readers, and -although I'm hardly going crazy with it - I've been keeping my Instagram updated with Romania themed images. But, this absence has been nagging ...