by This morning I posted 250-odd flyers in people’s letterboxes in a part of the city that I’d picked essentially at random last night. I’d only posted three or four when I ended up in a longish conversation with a man of 79 (he said) on the corner of Strada Mangalia and Strada Johann Nepomuk Preyer. The man mostly wanted to talk about the history of western Romania, and what he perceived as a gradual brain drain in the region since it became part of Romania a century ago. I rarely got a word in edgeways. He seemed a perfectly nice bloke though. I’d missed last year’s flyer postings, when I’d get to walk down picturesque streets and try not to be attacked by dogs. I still had several hundred flyers left, so I thought I’d give it a go once more. There were fewer dogs today than I remembered, but quite a lot of chickens. Eventually I saw these two signs, which looked like they were for a place that used to serve food. The bottom sign was so faded I couldn’t work out what was FREE!! anymore. (It didn’t matter of course; if you have to buy something to get the free stuff, the stuff ain’t free.) To my surprise the place was still running, and I dared to walk in. Or around the back, and then in, to be more accurate. The place was extremely basic, and traditional Romanian music was playing. The meal was absolutely fine though; noodle soup (supposedly containing chicken), fried potatoes, pork schnitzel, some salad, and a small sweet pastry, all for just 10 lei (as advertised). I’d happily go back.
I didn’t use the loo there. I was happy to wait till I got home. The signs were pink for girls and blue for boys. Bărbați (“men”), which you can see on the right of the picture above, literally means “bearded”, which I currently am. There are two words for “man” in Romanian: bărbat (“man as opposed to woman”) and om (closer to “human”). The plural of om is oameni, which means “people”.
During my walk today I was thinking that having lived for nearly two years in Timișoara, visually imperfect but with a heart and a soul, I couldn’t possibly face living somewhere like the North Shore of Auckland again, with all its utterly depressing open home signs. (It’s interesting that Romanians’ desire for home ownership is just as great as in New Zealand or the UK, and not at all like Germany and France where people are happy to rent, but the property market here lacks any in-your-faceness.)
I spoke to Mum recently; she was frustrated after a bad day on the golf course. I suggested that she took up tennis seriously, and played golf purely as a hobby. If she really tried, she could do extremely well in tennis against people her own age, and the challenge of competition could be quite stimulating for her. She doesn’t have the same potential in golf, and at any rate the world of a golf club is a rather artificial one. I’m sure everything I said fell on deaf ears.
I’ve recently watched two streams of Red Sox home games. The first was dire (for me; I’m still unable to appreciate a pitching duel) and the second (last night) was heading in the same direction until the Red Sox broke out for six runs in a single inning on a flurry of doubles. Even when the action is exciting, it’s nothing like being there was three years ago. Still, seeing the vendors wander through the stands selling Sam Adams and Harpoon (another of their local beers) brought back happy memories. In fact, I was in Boston exactly three years ago. Today might have been the day I visited Cape Cod.
