by Earlier today I did a 50 km bike ride. On the city bike that I have, that’s a lot. There were the usual flashes of lycra from people going at twice my speed. I went down the Bega to Sânmihaiu Român, where I’ve been countless times, but then took a different route, going through the sister village of Sânmihaiu German, which as the name suggests was settled by Germans, in the early 18th century. Even in the middle of the 20th century it was still Germans living there, as you could tell by the houses which were inscribed with their date of construction and owners’ names. The middle of the trip was the most interesting, as I went through Bobda (a fun name to say), Beregsău Mic and Beregsău Mare (where I stopped for lunch). The land is as flat as a pancake – it reminded me of the Fens, even more so because we’d had plenty of rain and some of then fields were semi-flooded. I didn’t see as much wildlife as I might have expected: the odd magpie, the usual farm animals, and that was about it. After lunch, with the kilometres-to-go figure still in the high teens, I just wanted to get home. I found myself on what was basically a main road, and cycling along it wasn’t that pleasant. I stopped for a quick coffee at Săcălaz, which I’d call a town rather than a village, and before too long I was back home. I took a few pictures until my phone gave out, and I can’t get the ones I took to show up here, so utter crap on that score all round. (I currently have an iPhone 5½. It’s not actually called that, but that’s effectively what it is. I need an upgrade.)
The date stamp for this blog post will be 1st January 2022, but that’s because I have it set to New Zealand time. For me it’s still the old year. I suspect we’ll have celebrations in the square tonight, unlike last year when there was a curfew. My neighbours have invited me over, but seem to have given me licence to come (and go) when I want, which is great because so often I’ve been to some New Year’s Eve thing and it’s felt worse than being stuck at an airport for hours on end. Yesterday I had my final two lessons of 2021. In one of them we watched part of The Terminal, a film all about being stuck in an airport. I have fond memories of that film, in a way. I saw it at the cinema in 2004, the night before I had one of my first actuarial exams. I only saw it to take my mind of the exam – I’d studied hard and knew the material well, but was worried that my nerves would get the better of me. I passed it comfortably, as it turned out. In the early days I quite liked studying for those exams – I could employ a method that worked for me, unlike in my job itself, where I was locked into systems that were pointless and mind-numbing.
I’ll play one more poker tournament before the year is out. I’ve had a couple of good results in the last week but from plenty of attempts; my bankroll is still in the low $1400s. Edit: It was a fixed-limit badugi and I came fourth, for a profit of $28. After making $254 in December, my bankroll is $1443.
The Covid numbers in Romania are climbing again. In the first two months of 2022 we’re going to be swamped with Omicron.
