Romania

Traveling around Romania

We´re organizing a trip to Romania with some friends of ours since I want to show them a glimpse of my mother country and at the same time discover some more of it myself. We´re planning it in May, since it´s her birthday, but also because spring is awesome everywhere, and even more so back home. A week´s time flies fast and we want to make sure we get to see as much as possible, but still enjoy it at a nice pace. We´re hoping to get to see Bucharest, Sinaia, Brasov and Cluj-Napoca. If the latter proves to be too far, we´ll choose Sibiu instead. What do you think? Any suggestions?

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Last days

During the last days I´ve been thinking elections, revolution, patriotism and how my life would have been if Romania was a country one could go back to. As in living there. Not that I necessarily would do that, but I wish it were a viable option. I was barely able to sleep and I felt light and full of color. I felt a sense of belonging in all this story, a feeling I often miss both as a foreigner here and in my line of work. You see we, interpreters, are neutral, we don´t belong in any camps.

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An expat´s confessions

I always think in terms of an expat, I wonder how come I didn´t write about this topic earlier. I was inspired by a friend of mine, Lavinia, whose blog I get to read every once in a while. She lives in England and mentioned a couple of things she had to change since she´d moved there. So I thought I should explore the topic myself, since Romania and Norway are two very different countries, indeed.

First thing that stroke me here was the weather. I´m sure that´s no news to the ones of you who have been reading my blog for a while now. 😉 You see, I´m from Southern Romania where we get temperatures close to 40 degrees C in summer. It seldom rains (or I chose not to remember rainy days) and I´ve always felt like staying inside when it does. In Norway, rain is just an everyday phenomenon and even though Oslo is much drier than the West Coast, it´s still too much rain for this cutie! After 13 years here, I went and bought myself a pair of rubber boots and a rain coat last year, to be able to walk my Sammy without swearing and fussing about. Yesterday it poured though and I ordered a cab. I just couldn´t bring myself to get an umbrella and risk getting wet.

Another thing I didn´t managed to change entirely is my way of dressing. I don´t wear as much makeup any more and my clothes are definitely simpler (I adore Scandinavian wear!), but I´m still overdressed for most occasions. Haha!;-) I stopped caring long time ago though, instead I just enjoy every opportunity to shine. 😉 haha!

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Marble is in again

I´ve always loved marble! Coming from Romania, where furniture and inventory was supposed to last for a lifetime, I grew up learning to appreciate natural materials as leather, wood, marble, granite, in short- the real deal. My parents bought a house when they were 37 and it took them 4 years to finish it, but they used the best materials they could afford at that time. So I walked on marble floors and I learned to love it even more.

These days it´s awfully fancy to decorate with marble, everything from the coffee table to the countertop desk and even bathroom tiles. I´ve written about it before, but I can´t help it, I love it so much! Here are some of my favorite pieces! Which one do you like best?

Source: http://www.pilotfrun.se

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Easter blues

It´s strange how holidays always are a bit tricky when you´re far away from your family, even as a grown-up. It´s like the thread of  “the way it´s always been” gets cut. And I like things to be the way they´ve always been, even though I have an ambivalent relationship to traditions.  Like it or not, traditions are the glue that keeps together past and present. We can chose to keep some and forget others, but they do define us in a way or another. All these years, I´ve let customs go and embraced others, we´ve created our own traditions as a family of two and we´ve been with the big family sometimes, too. Since my husband was born a Buddhist, Easter never had loud resonances in his family. In Romania however, we celebrate by going to church, meeting family and friends and eating until we end up in a hospital. 😉

Norwegians are said to go skiing on Easter holiday. The paper said it´s more of a myth nowadays, but I still feel it´s the general rule. Since we don´t ski, we go to Romania every now and then, take a city break other times, but mostly stay at home and celebrate an urban Easter. We´ve had amazing weather, we´ve gone on lovely trips, met people for lunch and coffee and still I feel there´s something missing. I´ve been trying not to fall prey to melancholy all this time, but the church bells this morning were too much. Why don´t I go to church or dye some eggs then? Because it wouldn´t be like home anyway. So why even try?

Source: uneromaineaparis.com

I´m a Communist Biddy

I´m a Communist Biddy joins the ranks of great Romanian post 2000 movies  and made me really proud to be Romanian. I have to say,  the way Europe regards Romania, both due to the problems with the Roma and on account of the crimes committed by Eastern Europeans, pride is not the first thing I have in mind when I think of my mother country. Pride seems to be reserved for those with a great historical past or with a blooming economy. Luckily, this is where culture comes in. One shouldn´t judge a book by its cover and neither should one judge a nation by its reputation. And while Romania´s people are the ones who bring shame to their country, they are also the ones who save it from disgrace.

But let´s get back to the movie. I´m a Communist Biddy is a warm and humorous family drama sprinkled with bizarre elements of Romanian culture, the tuica drinking, the living in the past and the worshiping of all things foreign. The daughter who emigrated to Canada and then moved to America comes back with her fiancé Alain, whom her parents insist on calling Alin, since that is a common Romanian name and they can´t be bothered with foreign pronunciation. One of the presents they bring home is a sort of an egg cutter that shapes the egg into a square. This absurd device is perfect to illustrate the admiration Romanians have for all things fancy, although they might not have a function at all. The whole audience laughed as hard as they could at this recognition.

After a while, the family is let in on the young couple´s secret, that they are about to lose their home if they don´t pay 15000$ to the bank. The parents agonize about it and end up mortgaging their own apartment to borrow money from a Chinese pawn-broker.

All in all, the movie is not so much about Ceausescu and the old communist times as it is about youth, nostalgia and family values. And since the mother lived her best years under Communism, she idealizes the impact it had on people´s lives.

You should all see it if you get the chance! And while I´m at it, check out this short movie, too!

Source: http://www.oslokino.no

Return from Mother Country

As you might have realized, I´ve been away for a week. Back to my mother country, or, to be more precise, Bucharest. More than anything, it was a time travel- as I implied last time I mentioned my trip- to a stage in my life when the future still held everything in store and my hopes were sky-high. I´ve been living in Norway for 14 years now and I look back on my year in Bucharest with a mixture of nostalgia and of “things that could have been”.

This being said, my “future” turned out just right, my country´s, however, never raised to my expectations. Buildings are crumbling down, corruption is still everywhere, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, even the middle class seems to be flattening out into a mass of people learning how to survive with what they have.

Leaving politics and the deplorable speed at which things happen aside, Bucharest is a nice city to visit. Plenty of coffee shops, restaurants, stores and bookstores. Throw in some museums, lovely architecture in the old town and some of the city´s main streets, fairly low prices and welcoming people, there´s no reason why you shouldn´t give it a chance for a weekend or so.

I was there for a week to see my family, especially my niece, who is the crown jewel of our “dynasty”, to meet up with friends, have some laughs, some drinks, get hold on some books in Romanian and shop. I love Max Mara and they don´t have it in Norway any more! Can you even imagine?;-)

So I dined and wined, visited people and places, mostly the same places (and people!;-)), as my need for stability is ever so present, ate the eclairs and the pies my body had craved for an entire year, stayed in the same lovely hotel Cismigiu and explored. The city was sad and grey in the dirty February light, the temperature was nothing to fuss over, either, but the 1st of March brought a token of spring and people gave each other flowers and symbolic jewelry as they do every year. And it was lovely to see everybody, now I´ve recharged my batteries for a while. I´m sure I´ll go back to feeling home sick in no time!

Check out Amsterdamming´s entries on Bucharest!

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Slow motion

Although I have lots to do and an exam coming up, I think I´ll actually take a day off today. I feel a bit unwell and the last working weekends have taken their toll on me. I think I just need to lay on the couch all day and watch one of my favorite series, the Danish-Swedish coproduction- The bridge.

Yesterday was a glorious day with lots of sunshine and bird chirping, so spring seems a  couple of weeks away. I´m happy I´ll get to celebrate the 1st of March in Romania, it´s the day we mark the return of spring. Here are a couple of pictures of a beautiful spring celebration in Corfu, Greece, a couple of years ago. Have a lovely Tuesday!

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Snowy days

It´s been snowing for days and it´s so very pretty outside! Snowflakes big like butterflies, they keep on falling down hurriedly, with vigor, as though they had only one purpose in life. It´s windy and it´s ruthless outside and I feel like a polar explorer when I dare leave the house. I hadn´t realized how much I´d missed it, it reminds me of my mother country, the panic on the news and the closed schools. Yet I´m not a winter´s child, I prefer admiring it from under the blanket, with a cup of tea in my hand.  Staring at the snow safe and sound with the cat besides me, I can feel nostalgia slipping into my thoughts.

I´m going home in February and I´m as excited as ever. Every time I go back home it´s like taking a trip back in time. I don´t just go on a holiday, I go back to being 19. And it´s soaring. It´s not about age or accomplishments, it´s just that beginning, the promise of something bigger, I always wonder when I decided I got there. Don´t get me wrong, I´m pretty happy. The only thing I want is a baby and a picket fence, otherwise I´m good. I have it all. Just not the promise. I´m not 19 any more and the promise is gone. And I don´t know how to go home and not look for the time that passed…

2013 in pictures

2013 was a good year in many ways. I established myself as an interpreter and worked hard, so hard that I needed almost a month´s break to realize how burnt out I was. I won´t repeat that mistake in 2014. Besides, I alienated many of my friends because I didn´t even have time for myself, let alone for others.

On a personal level, we´re still going strong, trying to have a baby one way or the other.  Meanwhile, we decided to get a dog and that´s how Sam the samoyed entered our lives. We got him in February and he´s been filling every day with pure bliss ever since. He´s such a good natured pup and so affectionate, I never thought you could love anybody as much as we love him! He even befriended our 9 years old cat, at least at a frenemy-level.

Family-wise,  I rejoiced in my niece´s presence when I visited my family in Romania for Easter, as well as in everybody else´s. My parents visited us in July, when Norway showed itself from its best side, it was hot and not a cloud in the sky. Christmas was spent with friends and my husband´s family.

Travel-wise, I savored Palma de Mallorca during our summer holidays, unfortunately we didn´t think of bringing the camera with us, so only Instagram can tell the tale. The fall was busy and stressful, but a short break to Berlin for a conference made it bearable. To get into Christmas mood we went to Tallinn for 3 days and it proved to be a terrific idea. Christmas break was long and lazy, I indulged myself in doing as little as possible.

2014 is the year! I´ll get my driving license, travel outside Europe and work my body in good shape again. And be kind. I´ll start with myself. Have a good one!

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