So even though I was terribly homesick at the end (see last posting) and all I wanted to do was get back here I did overall have a cool time, although parts of it got quite bizzare:
- Every morning and evening I walked and admired the above statue. I still have no idea who it is.
- It was very nice to be with my colleagues and see them all again- they're all so sweet and lovely. I even warmed up a lot to my least favourite one . They're all terribly sensitive though, while I was there, there were 4 crying sessions in 10 days. I get stressed at work and have a little sob every now and then but even I've never done that.
- I have learnt lots of Romanian. I can now say yes, no, and, with, for, sleep, cream, cheese, chicken, polenta, bread, soup, thank you, please, hello, goodbye, good morning, good evening, sixty and shut the fuck up you devil.
- One morning we were all in a meeting and I heard some police sirens go along the street. I thought nothing of it till we were all back in the office and I saw some people wandering over to the window. There's a construction site behind the office we're in and whilst we were in that meeting, part of a crane collapsed on top of a group of workers, killing 4 of them and seriously injuring two. For the rest of the day, the building was surrounded by police officers and TV news crews. The next day, everyone carried on like normal. Can you imagine if that was the UK or Germany? There'd be a massive investigation and work would be held up for several days whilst they ensure that everything is safe. http://english.hotnews.ro/Four-dead-in-Bucharest-building-site-articol_44129.htm
- That same day, whilst trying to cross Piata Romana (imagine something the size of Trafalgar Square) which was full of traffic as always- bumper to bumper- a police escort came by. I later found out it was Prodi of Italy in the blacked out car. Piata Romana, devoid of traffic on a Sunday afternoon
- His lordship came for the weekend. While I was at work on Friday he explored Bucharest. I think he was pleasantly surprised by the city- how friendly the people were, how cool the city is and how safe it was.
He did the one real touristy thing in the town and went here, the 2nd biggest building in the world:
At the weekend we went to the monastery at Sinai, Peles Castle (below)
Brasov, and Bran's Castle, more commonly/popularly/cashing in on a touristly known as Dracula's Castle (which despite the tacky souvenirs was actually pretty cool:
- Back home the weather struck. The first week there was a hurricane and they evacuated the office early so people wouldn't be stranded and the second week we had our first snow which came down in one great dump so people couldn't make it in to the office on Wednesday morning. Why does this stuff never happen when I am there???
- It feels like I ate my own bodyweight in cheese. Food there is so incredibly stodgy and I found it really hard to find a good variety of food. I did eat a bit of salad but even those mostly came with cheest. By the end, I was screaming for carrots, celery and apples!! The cheese could have also been responsible for my even-more-than-usual lucid dreaming. Had some very weird and sometimes distressing dreams. Have you ever woken up convinced that what you dream is real? I had the most dreadful dream in which I dreamt that a really old buddy of mine had died, and it was my first boyfriend who told me that Rob had died. I'm not sure which part of that was more distressing.... anyway Rob, if by some chance you're reading this, please get in touch, I'd love to know if you became a fully fledged alcoholic or are still practicing.
Anyway I digress. Due to the cheese situation I have decided to go vegan for a week. This means knowingly no standalone milk, cheese, butter or joghurt. In the same way that I don't go looking at the ingredients in things for no meat/fish products, I'm not actively looking for things with milk in them which means I can have a little bit of chocolate. It was pretty hard at work today- all I could eat was a plain bread roll and an apple. Moral of this story- take a packed lunch to work when going vegan!
* Sorry for today's title. I couldn't think of a proper song about an adventure or journey...
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