Skip to main content

An Average Day in Romania - Morning

In Romania, nobody is immune from life's minor inconveniences, and your day could even start with one. Say you get up and you're looking forward to a glass of cold milk with last night's fresh baked cozonac, but you're all out of milk. That is inconvenient, but what is convenient is that little ABC in your neighbourhood This Romanian miracle of ultra-convenience is no more than a five minute walk from just about anywhere. 

If you're a fat North American like me you might choose to drive, it's like 30 seconds away and you won't find parking anywhere except on a sidewalk, if you're lucky. This parking spot hunt would be your day's second inconvenience, but probably the fourth or fifth for the hapless mom who comes across your car while taking the baby for a stroll. No, the scribbled phone number on your dash won't make it any more convenient for her when she needs to get the stroller out on the road to get around, but what do you care, you can almost taste that milk & cozo.

Beautiful example of sidewalk parking

The ABC is aptly named because even though the name is meant to imply the store will carry all items, from A to Z (for your convenience), it may only have items A through C. Okay, I'm being unfair, it's at least A through M or P.  Which is convenient because those letters include the basics; Milk and Paine (bread). So you get the milk and leave your money with the dour-face clerk who, in spite of appearances, doesn't hate you she just doesn't care about you at all, and you head back home. 


Romanian 7-11

Hopefully you walked and didn't ruin anyone's morning with your sidewalk parking and instead it's others who are ruining yours with theirs. As you walk on the street back to your home, you pray that you don't get run over, or that don't end up taking a tumble on the unshoveled and unsalted ice and snow, breaking your coccyx in the process, because that would be no minor inconvenience. 

You slip and swish along, trying not to imagine having to explain it to the doctor who would no doubt berate you for such a stupid accident, but then, as you explain what happened, you would both find common ground in lambasting Romanian cities for their sidewalk parking obsession, and eventually you're given a bunch of painkillers and told to go home to lie on your stomach, or sides, for the next three weeks. 


"Ouch, my coccyx!" (Dramatization)

A few minutes later you make it back home, milk and coccyx intact, and you drink your milk and eat your cozo while warming your bones in your toasty kitchen, counting your blessings. It could've been a disastrous morning, but here you are, ready to face the rest of the day in one piece, your belly full, with that trademarked Romanian can-do attitude leading the charge. 

Mission Accomplished




Recipe for cozonac: https://sugaryums.co.uk/milk-brioche-with-chocolate-walnut-filling/
Image Sources: 123

Comments

  1. LOL! Soooo funny, I could soo picture this 'adventure' :))) on another note, the milk was well worth it, that cozonac looks very yummy!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Matt, thanks gor your posts. Me and my wife always read them. I have been a long time lurker, but finally decided to post.

    Keep it up. Since I was a child, I have had an almost obsessive admiration for Romania. Always have wanted to live there.

    Now Im 40 tho, and things are obviously different and more difficult, specially in these crazy days the world lives.

    Still loving Romanian landscapes and towns. I even always read the news everyday!

    Greetings from Venezuela

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

10 Reasons Why Romania is Better Than America

Really? Yes, really. Let me count the ways. In America you can get everything you've ever dreamed of: GameBoy, Sega Genesis, plants that look like faces , and more.  Maybe if you work really hard long hours at the job you hate (but that you tell everybody you love lest you appear to be a miserable person), you can even get a flat panel home theater TV that takes up half your basement (on credit, of course). Awesomeness!! In America you can always be sure to be on top of the latest fad, such as devil sticks or Tamagochi and you will be first to read bestsellers like The DaVinci Code and Fifty Shades of Crap literature. Basically there are thousands of ways of feeling accomplished -or pretending that you are - you just need to be there to catch all these wonderful trends on time! I know what you're thinking, how can Romania possibly top all that considering America is also the land of Root beer floats and Antoine Dodson? Everything's been done in America, that's

Is Cluj The Best City On Earth?

It's a question I ask myself at times. Let's put it this way; I've been around. Maybe not all around the world, but halway-ish maybe. Sailed the canals of Amsterdam, biked from one end of Paris to the other, took the train from Budapest to Berlin, drove the 405 in LA, and yeah, I even rode a hay cart back in the day. But other than enjoying all these forms of transportation, I got to enjoy the places I visited. I don't know about you, but when I visit a place I always ask myself,  'would I live here?' While the answer is often 'yes, why not', the only place I moved to was Cluj. Cluj, how do I love thee, let me count the ways: 1. I love your smell. It's like earth, and air, and city. I will never forget my first day here, when I  walked out of the arrivals building at the airport and breathed in your smell. Spring. You're the city of eternal Spring. On a balmy day, it's what you smell like, even if it's December, or August. 2. I l

Are Romanian Women The Most Beautiful In The World?

More than once, I was asked to write about the beauty of Romanian women, but... I have no words. Besides, I may be biased, but clearly it's a rhetorical question. However, there is no shortage of Facebook pages dedicated to the subject. Image: A typical Romanian woman, Madalina Ghenea.

10 More Reasons Romania is Better Than America

I get it. The US is special. I hate to say it, especially as a Canadian, but it is. But it's mostly special because of the America that it used to be. The idea of America is special. There was, once, an American Dream within the reach of any hard working man. It was a country that offered unprecedented freedoms and opportunities unmatched by any other. The great melting pot was about inclusion towards one common goal, it was not divisive, individualistic and driven by a Bergeron-esque vision of 'equality'. Assets were not based on decades-long lines of credit, and salaries kept up with cost of living increases. I could go on about 'the way things used to be' but you can look it all up if you're interested. If you live there, you should be. The reality in America is different now. Sure, it's still the land of plenty. But the plenty is not all good. Plenty of debt, plenty of poverty, plenty of obesity, plenty of civil unrest coupled with plenty of he

10 Things Romania Does (A Bit) Differently - Part 1

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

You Can't Plan a Romania Road Trip, But You Should Anyway

I started writing this post in September 2014, not long after coming back from vacation. I dropped it because I got sick of going through the hundreds of pictures we took just to pick the perfect ones for this post. But, like a seed once planted, it needs some water and the right conditions to flourish. In my case: an email from a reader, asking me about road-tripping through Romania, and the chance to lift this weight off my back. So here it is, a summary of one Romania road trip, from Cluj and back. The Itinerary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2,656 Kilometers. 188 Liters of gas. 2,919 RON. That's more or less the tally for the Romania road trip I took with my roomie/wife Roxana. We could have booked an all-inclusive vacation to Greece, Turkey, or Bulgaria at about the same cost, but how could we resist a road trip? A unique waterfall , the ' tunnel of love ', the best dri

What I Learned About Driving In Romania

I get it now. I understand Romanian drivers and their follies. It's something I thought would never happen. All it took to shape me into a Romanian road rage machine was one month of driving around Cluj and a 400 km round trip. I'm kidding about the rage part. The idea of driving in Cluj was intimidating. Last time I'd driven manual shift was almost ten years ago when a co-worker asked me to drive her and her newly purchased, Pontiac Firefly  home because she had no idea how to do it. So of course I stalled that little bastard all over the place. Little surprise that the idea of driving along busy and narrow European streets was unappealing - especially after years of driving automatic on wide, North American roads. But I managed. Stalled an average of once per trip during the first week, and then a couple of times in the second week, and now, a little over a month later, I sometimes stall at stoplights when I forget I'm driving stick and leave it in gear when I rel

Why Romanians Don't Like Romanians

To my knowledge, this national self-loathing is a uniquely Romanian experience. Maybe we share it with some of our neighbours, but I doubt it. I've never seen a people dislike their own as much as the Romanians. This is going to be highly generalized, but as with most things I write here it's rooted in personal experience and observations. Don't hate the player, hate the game. 1. Romanians like the exotic, to be Romanian is the antithesis of what it means to be exotic. 2 . Romanians are often prejudiced. The thought process goes something like this: If you're Romanian you're probably bereft of interesting experiences and financially limited. You're from 'the-worst-country-on-earth', after all. If  you're well off, then you're just a rich asshole (probably a thief, too). Either way, your Romanian-ness ensures you're seen as a person with limited horizons who likely can't offer anything new or different. If you're Western Europe

10 Things Romania Does (A Bit) Differently - Part 2

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

Here Is Why Romania's Future Is Bright

The festival is only in its second edition, but following last year's inaugural event, Electric Castle has stirred up enough buzz to attract visitors from beyond Romania's borders. Walking around the festival grounds I had the impression that every other group was comprised of foreigners speaking Hungarian, English, German, or French. And judging by the license plates in the parking lots, every county in Romania was well represented. While there's plenty to be said about the artists and the music, there's something else I want to discuss in this post. When you think "music festival", the image that comes to mind is that of overly excited youth on a drug and alcohol infused rampage, laying waste to everything in their path. Maybe it has something to do with the way festivals like to promote themselves; these are basically the images that stand out on most 'Official Aftermovie' videos from major music festivals. But obviously the experience is defined