It’s quite cold around the motu today and I’ve finally been to the wharepaku – what a relief that was. I hope my command of Te Reo can attain a solid B2 level by the time I leave. This morning I went with Dad into Peel Forest and down the Rangitata – he was out of things to paint. There was less snow on the Four Peaks than we expected. The road became icy though, so we turned around.
Yesterday we saw my aunt and uncle who visited Timișoara five years ago, and also dropped in my aunt – the third and last wife of my uncle who died in 2014. This morning one of my many cousins popped in briefly on the way to the airport in Timaru. I hadn’t seen her for a decade or more.
Loud drilling is taking place as I write this.
Sixto Rodriguez, star of the wonderful film Searching for Sugar Man, has died at the age of 81.
Mum and Dad’s placePeople playing croquet in Geraldine DomainA sadly deceased monarch butterflyThe Orari RiverThe church at Peel Forest
What a trip. It started early on Friday morning when I took the tram to the train station. I had sinus pain and was sleep-starved from the steaming hot night before. How will I possibly survive this? My train to Budapest was delayed by half an hour, and that was just the beginning. Opposite me on the train was a man who’d been travelling with his large dog for four days. It was a cross between a golden retriever and a Siberian husky, and totally out of its happy place in such hot weather, poor thing. We had longish stops on both sides of the border – at Curtici and Lőkösháza – for passport checks, and things went properly pear-shaped soon after that. At Békéscsaba our sweaty air-con-free train went back and forth half a dozen times over 45 minutes so that a new engine could be connected, then we found out that there’d been a storm in Budapest the night before and our train would only go as far as Szolnok and we’d have to change. We lumbered on to Szolnok, and then neither me nor the dog-man nor anyone else had a clue which train to get on next. I got on a modern train whose destination was supposedly Budapest Keleti – the main train station – but had to get off at the small town of Maglód which I couldn’t see on any map. From Maglód I had to get two buses and the metro, then finally a bus to the airport. Trees had been uprooted in the storm – it looked like what happened in Timișoara in 2017. I’d given myself absolutely bloody ages to reach the airport, and that was just as well – the delays added up to three hours.
My online check-in hadn’t worked, so I wanted to get to the desk ASAP to hopefully get myself sorted. The lady at the desk was lovely. She had a good laugh at my itinerary, even showing it to her colleague. “Look what he’s doing. Going to Christchurch! Four flights! I haven’t seen this for months.” She asked me if had an electronic weeza for New Zealand. Huh? Then I remembered my Hungarian student who had a wery difficult time with Vs and Ws. I said I had a New Zealand passport so I didn’t need a weeza, then she checked my baggage right through to Christchurch and I was good to go. Getting to the airport in the first place was a such a hassle that I felt shattered – concerningly so – before I’d even stepped on the plane. Budapest Airport was remarkably unbusy. My flight, like almost all flights departing that evening, was delayed by over an hour and a half. My connection would now be pretty damn tight. The two-hour flight to Istanbul was fine. I got off the plane and onto the tarmac where I boarded the shuttle bus to the vast terminal. Inside I saw the departure board with my flight to Singapore – due to leave in half an hour – flashing red. Shit. I ran as fast as I could – pathetically slow, actually – to my gate which of course was right at the end of the vast concourse.
Istanbul to Singapore (ten and a bit hours) was a good flight. I was impressed with Turkish Airlines. They run their 777s with nine seats per row in a 3-3-3 configuration (most airlines do ten in a 3-4-3). What’s more, I had a spare seat next to me, so even though I was alarmingly close to the baby zone I got maybe four hours of shut-eye. The second half of the flight wasn’t much fun as I battled sinus pain and struggled to get enough drinking water. The days of flight attendants coming up and down the aisles with trays full of water or juice are over – now they create an artificial night to cut down on their workload. After our approach to the runway was caught by a camera under the plane, we landed in Singapore at 6pm – it didn’t feel like any time on the clock at all to me. With three-plus hours until my next flight boarded, I lay on a chaise longue and watched the sunset, which when you’re one degree north of the equator happens quickly. I was over half-way there, and out of Europe for the first time in seven years. I took the Skytrack train to another terminal, then got on the plane to Melbourne. Slightly annoyingly, there was a direct flight to Christchurch that left just before my flight. My flight to Melbourne was on an incredibly quiet A350 – I’m talking about the plane itself rather than the people on it. During those seven hours, I saw the second Avatar film – such an expansive film isn’t really worth it on a tiny seat-back screen. I only had a short stop in Melbourne before the final leg of my marathon journey – just over three hours to Christchurch. The plane was no more than 60% full and the service was exceptional, although when “Welcome aboard Flight 212 to Ōtautahi” came over the PA, I wondered momentarily if I’d got on the right plane.
I had great flights overall, but everything leading up to Budapest put me on the back foot, and my sinus problem was a huge handicap. Finally, at 3pm yesterday, I’d got through customs without having to pay hundreds of dollars for a rogue banana, then Mum met me in the arrivals lounge and we joined Dad in the car. It felt good to be back in New Zealand, and obviously seeing Mum and Dad again was quite wonderful. Waves of tiredness came over me on the drive to Geraldine. My parents’ place is homely and character-heavy, but all the work – now happening in earnest – would be beyond overwhelming to me. We had sausages and chips for dinner and I held out until nine before going to bed. I was out like a light and to my complete surprise I got ten hours.
I’ve managed to stay awake all day today – I’m coping much better than I imagined. Mum played golf today – it’s weird being back in a land of golfers – and Dad and I went for a walk up the Downs and through the beautiful Talbot Forest reserve, nicely done up with a new walkway. It was lovely to see the totaras and hear the sound of bellbirds, tuis and fantails.
My parents are staying in Moeraki. This morning (my time) they called me from the hotspot in Hampden to wish me a good trip. The signal was dodgy as ever. They’ll be picking me up in Christchurch on Monday afternoon.
It’s my last full day before I jet off. I’ve made these sorts of trips before without batting an eyelid, but this time it all feels like a bigger deal. Maybe it’s because I’m getting old, maybe it’s because I haven’t done anything like this for seven years and the world isn’t the same place now, or maybe it’s the reactions I get from other people. New Zealand is unimaginably far off most Romanians’ mental maps. Few of them could locate the country on a real map of the world, even one that actually shows New Zealand. When it’s stinking hot (like it is right now) and I open up a weather app that says it’s currently one degree in Geraldine, it doesn’t compute. How can it be both winter and night-time? The US and Canada certainly do feature, however, and this morning I dropped in on my neighbour above me, who told me she (or some member of her family) had just booked a flight to Canada for next Friday, and she’ll be gone for five months.
I managed to keep today free of lessons. My last lesson before I go – my 614th of the year – was an online session last night with a woman who broke her ankle two weeks ago playing tennis. The one before that was with a woman I started with way back in 2017. Since then our lessons have been off and on, and two years ago she gave birth to a girl. Last night’s meeting with her was on Skype; she was at her parents’ place in a small town. It was a traditional house that her grandparents had built – the family house, to be passed down through generations, is a feature of Romanian life – and it seemed to be overrun by animals of all sorts. My student is lovely, and easy to build a rapport with, but she lacks the attention to detail required to really improve. She’s been at about the same level for years. For example, the word “freight” came up on numerous occasions last night because she works in logistics. The first time, she pronounced it like “fright”. It could logically be pronounced that way, if you consider height, but it isn’t, so I corrected her, emphasising that “fright” is a different word. But despite my best efforts she kept on pronouncing it “fright” regardless, and I gave up. I expect that if I’m still teaching her in 2029, I’ll still get messages from her saying “I will late 2 minutes”.
Yesterday was Ziua Timișoarei, the 104th anniversary of when Banat – the region where I live – officially became part of Romania. In the gap between my two pairs of lessons I met Dorothy and we chatted for an hour in one of the cafés in Piața Victoriei – inside, to get out of the heat.
My bags are now packed. I’ve used up half my 30 kg allowance and I’m wondering what the hell I’ve missed.
Update: In tonight’s Muzicorama, the big highlight for me was Paul Young.
The Rose Garden this morningA volleyball court, where the European youth finals were played, outside the Opera House
I had two lessons this morning. First I had an hour with the young woman who looks like a similar-aged Martina Hingis when she ties her hair back. Her English isn’t bad, but – as is often the case with the young ones – her vocabulary is a couple of thousand words shy of where it needs to be, and I don’t think she’s all that interested in expanding it. Then I had Alexandru, the twelve-year-old football fanatic who lives in Spain. I asked him whether he goes by Alexandru or Alejandro or just Alex, and to my surprise he said Alek, with a k, a letter that doesn’t exist natively in either Romanian or Spanish – he clearly just wants to be a bit fancy. I’ve got three more lessons planned for later today, and with a bit of luck they’ll actually happen.
On Sunday I had a longish chat to Mum and Dad. How did you get into this mess with the plumber? Well, it’s not that much mess, but the how is because I’m in Romania. The Wild West (or East). You literally just pay for the building or plumbing work, in cash of course, and if there’s collateral damage (that could in some cases be lethal), that’s your lookout. I spoke to my upstairs neighbour who has family in Canada and she said how “civilised” it all seemed over there. I then met Mark for lunch. He also has a Canada connection – his daughter lives in Vancouver – and he and his girlfriend had just got back from there. Later I played tennis, with thousands of squawking crows flying overhead and somebody in a nearby church banging on a toacă. When I got home I called my brother who has his knee op tomorrow. His mood was about what you’d expect from someone about to be put of commission for a while. We didn’t talk for long.
My parents said that they’re unlikely to see their grandson in New Zealand anytime soon because the cost would be beyond my brother’s means. Well then, Mum, how did you afford to fly your two boys – both under two years old – to New Zealand in 1982? My brother is ten years older than you were. They have two incomes, not the one-and-a-tiny-bit you had. Just how? Oh yes, your double-digit (ha!) monthly mortgage which you were able to achieve by, let me see what the trick was, let me think for a sec, hmm, oh yes that’s it, being born at the right time. To be fair, my parents were pretty frugal too, but society somehow allowed them to be.
Muzicorama last night. Big birthdays were the theme. Lobo (born 31/7/43) was first up with Me and You and a Dog Named Boo (1971) – the wonders of a simple life on the road. Most of the rest of the programme was devoted to Norman Cook, a.k.a. Fatboy Slim (born 31/7/63), with those massive hits in 1998-99 that remind me so much of my first year of university. Some I liked, some I didn’t, and that’s OK.
Though it’s now August, we still have long evenings, mostly as a result of our geographical position and time zone. I should make the most of my final four of them. (Sunset tonight is 9:11.)
by 
