by I can’t say I enjoyed my first day in Timișoara all that much. My hotel, which is almost right next to a large abattoir, seemed a long way from town. I meandered into the city centre, enjoying the incredible buildings, but I felt disoriented. The lady at the tourist office had me wondering what the big “i” stood for. Inconvenience? That’s certainly what I felt like. I found Union Square, and touched Casa Brück and the Banca de Scont like I promised to nearly a year ago, but I wasn’t feeling it. I walked round Piața 700, one of the produce markets, and went to a nearby supermarket. There I caused a mega shit-storm by going in through the out door. Apparently that’s very much frowned upon. (I didn’t even know it was the out door. There were no signs.) They decided that the kind of person who enters through the out door is also the sort of person who nicks stuff, and I was manhandled as I tried to leave. I didn’t know what was going on at first. Eventually I was able to leave, but not until I’d had the mick taken out of me for saying “I understand now” in Romanian. After getting a pleșcavița for lunch I wandered aimlessly, taking pictures of graffiti and bumping into another bloke who was doing the same thing. He lived in Budapest. Unlike me, his body was also graffitied. We walked for about three hours, getting a bit lost in the process, and had dinner together. I got back to the hotel thinking I’d seen enough of Timișoara already.
Day two was a different story. It was a few degrees warmer and it was Sunday. Church day. Family day. People were milling about in their thousands in the beautiful squares. The place felt happy and lively. Peaceful too. I walked along the Bega canal and to my surprise the free boat trips were still running. I hopped on. The boat took us to a lock and back, and lasted about 45 minutes. I walked through the many parks and found one that was full of hammocks. I lay in one for a while. I then found an alley full of eateries not far from my hotel, and had a shaworma (or something) and a beer for just 14 lei, or about three quid. As I walked back to the hotel people were playing table tennis in a park. Some of them I could have probably beaten; others looked like regional champions.
Since then I’ve been to the museum which was all about the revolution, taken a few mystery tram rides, and got my mobile phone sorted. The events of 1989 feel close to home; you can still see the bullet holes in what is now McDonald’s. Outside the museum there is a piece of the Berlin Wall which came down just before the Romanian Revolution. Today I had fun (or not) trying to get a bus ticket to Deva, which is my next port of call. I went to the station (taking the correct tram, which was nice) but got nowhere. I made a phone call on a busy street; the lady at the other end read me out a phone number in English but she was hard to understand. Was that “four four” or “four four four”? I then made another call from the comfort of my hotel room and was able to book my bus ride in Romanian.
Speaking a foreign language, when you’re at the fairly basic level I’m at, requires a certain amount of balls. I’m naturally a shy person, so at times I’ve really had to steel myself. However, the people at the hotel have complemented me on my Romanian, in particular my accent. Tonight, one of the hotel staff asked me if I was a linguist. Not exactly, I said. She then talked about opportunities at language schools in Timișoara, saying there should be plenty for a native speaker who is good with languages, and gave me her business card. I’ve already stored her details on this computer in case I lose the card. It all sounds very promising but I mustn’t get my hopes up too much.
Deva is about 150 km from here but the bus is scheduled to take 3¼ hours, stopping at every little town imaginable. After that I’ll be heading to the beautiful city of Sibiu.
