stuff just as i think about it

[branza]

1. haha the american president was just described as the most powerful man on earth. that makes me so sad. although this is a retrospective of the 20 years of freedom (communism fell here circa christmas 20 years ago), and so it refers to gwb in like 2007.

2. i like that our politicians use english as the bridging language to foreign dignitaries. excellent. y'all i am watching the news! something i would never do in the states.

3. to die politely is "to pass into unbeing"

4. the news from '08 "imagine that the global economy is the titanic. and it's just hit the iceberg. the rooms at the bottom have waist high water but on the top stories there are waltzes. and romania is waltzing."

5. for new years' there is a tradition of people coming from house to house with the goat. the goat is not an actual goat inasmuch as it is a person dressed up as a goat but in a stylized manner. the goat-man should, and i stress the word, should have a wooden head with a moveable jaw and an inside out cojoc which is a traditional romanian winter coat. the effect is something like this:

Click to view

in reality in our modern world the goat is a man wearing a mouldy bathrobe or a rug and some carefully molded head-tinsel. unsavory. in all cases, the goat wanders the streets and sings, very loudly, at all hours of the day. very loudly. most people here are disgruntled by this. i just think it's funny. why get angry about things you have no control over? that's silly. another new years thing is sorcova, which is a stick decorated with paper flowers that is waved at people while a little chant is sung, the chant being about the wish for youth and blessings for the person it's being waved at.

6. there it is again. michael jackson "passed into unbeing"

7. my uncle bubu has something that may not be cirrhosis but actually an ulcer that was bleeding but in any case he requires a blood transfusion. here in romania we are experiencing a blood shortage. this has been solved by the functional yet non-expedient medium of having people donate blood in exchange for tickets that are worth an equivalent amount of blood of any blood group which can be donated in the name of whomever, such as a relative of yours that needs blood for whaever reason, or can be sold to people who need these tickets. we had to buy someone else's ticket today for instance because my parents didn't think it necessary i should come and out of the three family members that did go only my dad could donate because my uncle tibi has weird blood pressure and my mom has a very obvious cold.

8. being gay was described as "not in vogue." by someone who then said that as far as she understands 95% of gayness is psychological anyway. (does this imply it could be "corrected?" i didn't ask. i just steered the conversation in a different direction). additionally, people here are racist on a level that would stagger most americans, particularly against black and vietnamese people. i was told there was practically a vietnamese invasion of bucharest and people think of them less than of gypsies. this is like a multi-layered racism pudding, y'all.

9. this 86 year old dude raped an 11 year old girl, according to the paternity test done on the 3 month old fetus in her? goddammit countrymen. also, HORRIFYING. apparently he also raped her sister in 2000 who was also at the time 11. despite knowing this, their parents remained on good terms with him (? !!).

10. the architecture is weird. it's a mix of the classical, art deco, communist cement coffins, and modern.

10.b. there is garbage everywhere. the entire city looks filthy. after america it's almost horrifying. the buildings themselves look filthy, for various reasons. cement facades absorb rain well, so as they dry they look stained. they haven't been whitewashed or painted in any way in years. buildings in various states of ruin, literal ruin, lie around the city, beyond a point of fixing but not demolished. many buildings lie eternally half-built, cranes lying near them, like a life-sized version of a bored child's city, perpetually interrupted. but beyond the apartment buildings which would hypothetically represent an administrative failure, there are houses in similar states. why anyone would have a house then let it rot in their hands is beyond me. this is contrasted by houses that are well maintained, like gems in the rubble, in bright green or orange (with white trimming, allison's creamsicle dream) or red.

11. dolphin speak is subtitled as wingdings. thanks, local news program.

12. we have a supermarket in a mall. the checkout lines disgorge themselves directly into a mall. it's weird having people wander a mall with shopping carts.

13. in america, the national passtime is baseball. in romania, the national passtime is queuing. i think i've been in more and longer lines here than i have in years. cheers, country!

14. romania changed its currency from the leu (pl. lei) to the heavy leu (pl. lei) aka the "ron" (romanian new currency? something.). this involved issuing new monies that are essentially worth the same but have 4 fewer zeroes. most people still think in terms of the old terminology. confusion ensues.

15. the tv news has a horoscope section. finally, real science. suck on that, meteorology!