Vera Lynn

Dave and I's time in Romania is reaching its conclusion. Not soon enough for some, far too prematurely for others. As previously mentioned we won't tell anyone the exact date but it is very soon.
I'll miss everything in Romania. The phenomenal people, the lifestyle, the culture; but I also lie awake at night longing to see everyone at home and to get my job back, something I never appreciated until I didn't have it.
I think I'm a different person now. Well, I hope I am. I used to be an antisocial, miserable bastard who was reluctant to experience new things and to give anybody a chance to prove themselves as anything other than a waste of my time. Four months in an alien culture has beaten these horrible characteristics out of me. Now when I see a new person my first instinct is to talk to them, not to hide behind my pint. I no longer dismiss people if I don't find myself interested by them at first glance, I feel so very...different. Don't get me wrong, I'm still cynical and sarcastic, but I think now I might be happy as well. What that will mean in the long run escapes me. I hope I can hold onto the things I've learned here and replicate them at home; perhaps be less of a bastard to my friends and appreciate the ephemeral nature of time to a greater extent. Maybe I'll enter a new stage of my life where I achieve things and follow through with plans, maybe I'll throw myself into my music and my writing and finally become the kind of person I want to be. This might be the start of a whole new Gordon for the world to deal with.
I still tell paedophile jokes though. Because they're funny.

Getting Ahead In The Lucrative Field of Discourse Analysis

So here I am at 5am stirring cheap coffee with a toothbrush and listening to Rammstein, eating other people's leftovers, writing an essay about a subject I don't understand with the creeping sound of inevitability whispering sweet nothings into my ear, and yet I still find myself wondering; what would happen if time were to stop?

Poli

My sporting endeavours know no bounds. I went to my first football match (in Romania or otherwise)a few nights ago to see Poli Timisoara play Bucharest. It was madness from start to finish. Rather than try to do it any justice with words, here are some small videos of the fans' celebration after Poli scored the only goal of the match.






Not long now, not long now...

Elba

As some of you may know I have recently began to become interested in basketball. As some of you may know, this is somewhat out of character for me, what with me being a dyspraxic idiot who harbours a natural resentment towards the fit and the beautiful. Well, that was the old Gordon. My trips to the matches began as an excuse to spend time with a particular someone, but they soon grew into a genuine interest in the team's development and the fan psychology. Elba (the name of the Timisoara team) fans are the best kind; loud, invetive and more supportive than any team could possibly wish for. Some of their chants include:
"We're Timisoara and we're better than you."
"Your mother is a penguin" (because it rhymes)
"Fuck you [insert name of opposing player]"
"You're from [insert name of opposing team], you're poor and everyone should know."
They have drums, improvised chants and there's dancing afoot.
Elba have reached the finals of the championship and are playing the best team in Romania, Asesoft from Praest (sp?). The players walked out from the dressing room carrying a banner that thanked all the fans for their support and brought a tear to many an eye.
While Elba are a great team last night they narrowly lost out. What amazed me however was the reaction of the fans who didn't seem to care they their team had lost, you'd barely know anything bad had happened. The players were understandably distraught. The captain of the team was particularly upset and cried slightly. The players left the hall to the deafening chants of "You're our champions anyway" and the fans at the barrier bowing to the players. It was the most heartbreakingly lovely thing I've seen in years. The fans are there to support the team and Timisoara because they are genuinely proud of them, not just because they love sport or basketball or competition. The players love their sport but they love their fans as much, you get the feeling that while they're playing to win they're also playing to make their fans happy and proud. One by one the players came out with their young children and the crowd waved and cheered for them. The team left the court again to the sound of a thousand fans singing "Suntem mândri de tine". We're proud of you.

I apologise for not blogging very much recently. While my adventures at the beginning of the trip were group affairs I felt ok about telling the world about them. Now most of my time is spent with a few individuals and I feel there'd be something voyeuristic about writing about everything we do. I've had an amazing time though. I've seen philharmonic orchestras in forests, rap metal concerts in rose gardens, gospel choirs in orthodox cathedrals; I've lived a lifetime in a few months. While I'll be poor, confused and exhausted when I get home I wouldn't change a single second.
To those who don't already know, Dave and I will be home very soon. I'll be coming to a doorstep near you. And to answer your next question; yes. You can buy me a drink.

Bears are the Alligators of the Black Sea

The prospect of going to the beach will no doubt conjure up similar images in the mind of many Britons; relentless wind, horizontal rain, sandwiches with unhealthily high sand content etc. That is the traditional British weekend getaway. As it so happens a very similar version of events transpires when one tries to holiday in Romania as well. Batten down the hatches and lock the children in the basement, there's a storm coming.

Thursday
We decided to go to the Black Sea for a small holiday and to experience a festival that celebrates the first of May. I don't know why Romanians celebrate it but God knows they love a good bank holiday. The travellers were going to be Dave, Martin, Loic, Jeane, Sore, Sandra, Eda, Juliet, Dana, Dave and myself. We were fearless pioneers delving into the arse-end of nowhere with little to our names besides a few flimsy tents, a volleyball and the lust for adventure. As some of you may know I have a very bad habit of listening to what someone is saying and instead of hearing what is said I hear a more preferable version of events. So when my friend Dana said to me repeatedly that the whole journey was going to take 23 hours I simply hear "the whole journey is going to be easy and a lot of fun". While aspects of the journey were fun, easy it most certainly was not.
The train from Timisoara to Arad left at 17:10 or there abouts. The first leg of the journey was on an uncomfortable modern train with plastic seats and charmless facades. When we left Timisoara the weather was glorious; the kind you would hope for when going to the beach. A few minutes out of the city the skies closed up and the clouds became dense and unforgiving. I looked down at my tshirt and shorts ensemble and gave a little sigh.
In Arad we met up with our Galacian friend Xacobe and shared a few beers and stories, catching up with the gossip in our respective cities. Before we knew it we had to once again depart and begin the second leg of the journey from Arad to Constanta. We were about to see what was on the other side of the looking glass.
The train looked like a monstrosity from a steam-punk novel written by someone with sado-masocistic tendencies. The seats smelled faintly of fish and sweat while the lights shone with the brilliance of a broken glove-box. We piled our stuff into the rickety overhead shelves and settled down into our groove. And by groove I mean drinking. The wine and beer was flowing like an ancient Roman vomitorium and the music came from our own under developed vocal chords. Volleyball and football were played liberally in the corridor and we generally enjoyed having a train carriage to ourselves. I fell asleep clutching my valuables to my body and tried to ignore the feeling that the train track was made of lego.

Friday
I woke up abruptly and found myself staring into the eyes of a large Romanian man. He was busy putting his belongings over my head and handing me my glasses; the international hint that I'm taking up a whole seat and that he wanted to sit down where my face was. We were in Bucharest.
I staggered into the corridor and found Martin smoking out the window. There were two small signs that sported pictures of a man leaning out the window and a man drinking. There were no red crosses through the pictures so we assumed these activities were just fine.
While my belongings had been in my pockets and any attempt to steal them out have been tantamount to rape, others had not been so lucky. Both Dana and Sore had their money, phones and MP3 players stolen in the night and the Bucharest police seemed less than inclined to give a single solitary shit. I was amazed at the girls' composure and attitude towards it all. Throughout the weekend we made sure they didn't go hungry or thirsty, nothing should ruin someone's time at the beach. The rest of the journey went reasonably smoothly and we arrived in Constanta in the afternoon. Due to it being a May holiday most eateries were closed and we were forced to eat at KFC. At this point I was nearly 3000km from home; finding myself in a KFC made me a little homesick for the times I spent there with Spanky. The food was rotten.
The last hurdle before the beach was getting onto a tiny minibus with about three billion other people and a reckless driver. Within minutes we were at the beach. The sky was blue, the sun was unbearably hot and the sea was only a few feet away; things were finally perfect.
What with Dave and I being British and useless we had to rely on Sore and Jeane to erect our tents for us while we adopted a more passive, supervisory role. They did a fantastic job, although Jeane did find our two tiny tents somewhat hilarious.
We played some volleyball, drank some beer, ate some seafood etc. When night fell we went to a bar for drinks and suddenly the night becomes hazy. I remember eating a shaorma with Martin and Loic, I also remember it raining and that I got very wet. My camera reminded me that I tried to go back to the tent by myself. Looking for a dark blue tent in the dark with a backdrop of a black sea and a black sky while guttered out one's dignity is quite the arduous task. I took dozens of pictures for the benefit of the flash to try and guide myself home. I eventually gave up and went back to the town to find the others. Find them I did, I also found more alcohol and they in turn found me my tent. I fell asleep in a mound of sand inside the tent with the relaxing sounds of water ebbing and flowing mere feet away from where I lay.

Saturday
I woke up to the relaxing sound of water ebbing and flowing mere feet away from where I lay and began to panic. Why can I hear water? Why am I in a tent? And good God why am I wearing shorts? After a few seconds of thrashing around and beating the feeling back into my legs I fell out of the tent and surveyed my surroundings. The beach stretched for miles and every square inch was occupied by tent or beer bottle castle, people in the distance played in the surf and dogs sniffed idly at discarded fast food.
Dave, Sore and I dined in a small restaurant for breakfast and instantly my fellow Scot and I were overcome with childlike glee. We had to travel 929km but we found it. We found a fried breakfast. It was only fried eggs and bacon by by God it was the best eggs and bacon I've ever had, my feelings undoubtedly fuelled by my desperation and crippling hangover.
It was at this point that Dave and I had an idea that proved to be as amazing as it was ridiculous. We wanted cocktails. We wanted all our favourite drinks in the same glass. I have no idea what time we started but it was definitely before British licencing hours. Once we ran out of cocktails we knew we began to order by colour, starting with blue and working our way through the rainbow and beyond. We met some minor Romanian celebrities, some people who were altogether too fond of our nationality, a man who is the closest thing to a Herculean figure I've ever met and more people wearing their pants outside their trousers than I could count. We concluded our night by sitting beside enormous fires drinking with the rest of our companions, watching Romanian TV stations filming people jumping over fires and being young and reckless. Dave, Sore and I learned from our mistakes and slept in the same tent to stave off numbness and frostbite. I fell asleep to the none-too-distant cries of Jeane shouting "hopen zis fackhing tent!".

Sunday
On Sunday we played God and had a day of rest. I lay on the beach playing with shells and digging small holes while the others ventured into the town to freshen up and regain some sense of normality.
The journey home closely resembled the one there with a few notable differences. The train where we spent the majority of the trip, almost 15 hours, lacked any curtains or privacy saving devices. The conductors of the train were similarly socially unaware of the rudeness of barging into someone's room and demanding to see the same fucking ticket over and over again. It's difficult enough to sleep on a bench made of pain without being woken up at all times of the night. We arrived back in Timisoara on

Monday
and headed straight for the showers. I've never felt so dirty as I did when I got back to the room. It was almost worth not showering for four days to have a shower that good again.
Dave and I enjoyed a quick game of darts and went our seperate ways for the evening. I filled my friend Anca in about the weekend's events and realised what a completely ass-backwards and surreal time I had. The people I know here have the special ability to make even a trip to the beach something remarkable and memorable; something I miss about the people back home.
Monday night ended with Anca and I staying up until 5am watching the stars and discussing bears and the Black Sea. I suppose all the best nights do.

Bi-annual Birthday Bashes

As some of you may know it was my 21st birthday yesterday. I tried to blog before then but my body just wasn't up to it. I have been struck by a mystery ailment that is invulnerable to all known forms of human medicine. And by that I mean paracetamol and a banana didn't shift it. It was just normal flu-ey symptomes; aching joints, skin like sandpaper, loss of the ability to chastise people etc. Normally I wouldn't have given it much though, but the morning I realised I was sick I sat in bed and read the headlines online. What did I see?

"THE WORLD IS DYING OF PIG FLU- DROWN YOUR CHILDREN!"

or at least words to that effect. I'm in a country where you have to bribe doctors with cigarettes to get pain-killers so I'm sure you can all imagine my panic when the thought crossed my mind that perhaps I had this killer flu thing. I hadn't been in contact with any Mexicans or rubbed up against any pigs but in my mind I was sure I was dying. Turns out I'm alright now though.
My birthday, dispite being really quite ill, was fantastic. Dave cooked a lovely stew type of affair and himself and the guys chipped in to buy me an electronic darts board. Our plan is to nail it to the door, put the beds together to create a pool table kind of thing and open the room up as a 24 hour casino.
We went to our favourite pub and drank things according to the colours while arguing about how to pronounce things in different languages. There was cake, candles, presents; it was a pretty perfect evening. I wish I had been well enough to enjoy it properly but everyone has to get ill sometime I suppose. I love everyone here dearly, I couldn't ask to be living with a nicer group of people.
Also, our bill came to 314.91 lei which beats our last birthday bill by a clear 15 lei; go team!

In other news I've been experiencing new experiences left right and centre recently. I've been to two basketball games. To the unexperienced reader that might not look like a particularly impressive or outstanding feat. To anyone who knows me and my inherent aversion to all things sporting you'll realise that going to such an event is a life and character changing event. It started when my friend Anca invited me along to one of the games and I went along in an attempt to get to know her better. As it turns out basketball is an incredibly interesting and intense sport when the teams have Romanian fans. It's not a huge hall, around the size of the average gym hall in schools, but they cram hundreds of people in and it sounds like the majority of them have drums and airhorns. The last game ended 102-100 in favour of Timisoara and I thought a riot was going to break out regardless of the outcome. It was fantastically tense, I'm looking forward to the next game with baited breath.

May 1st here is a huge holiday apparently. It seems to be that Romanians take any excuse to take a few days off work and go to the beach. I like their style. Timisoara is in the west of Romania, almost on the Hungarian border, and the seaside is on the other side of the country. It's pretty much Romania- Black Sea- Russia. Quite a scary thought really. Originally the train ride there was going to take around 15 hours. This wasn't ideal, but for 45 euros who can complain? Dave text me at the height of my illness and said, very simply, that the train ride was now going to take 23 hours. Did the fucking country just get wider or what? I don't pretend to understand these things. Basically I'm going to be on a train with almost everyone I know for a whole day with nothing to do apart from talk, read, eat junk food and worry about the train derailing. Kinda like home really. As far as I can make out we're going to some sort of hippy festival so expect many pictures of obscurities and hedonism. We're sleeping on the beach as well, just like Coney Island in the 50s [/postrock reference].

You Shouldn't Be Afraid...

This is the fortieth blog post; a landmark event. A kodak moment, if you will. I haven't been blogging as much recently because I don't want to bore everyone with the mundane details of my day to day life here. That's not to say I haven't been doing alot of great things though. We visited a town called Lugoj last week to see where our friend Dana grew up. It was a pretty town, although I can't imagine being a child there; it was somewhat devoid of entertainment or amusement. We had the most phenomenal garlic sauce with our pizzas though. A few of you may remember me bitching a bit about how doors don't always close on trains here and a few people expressed a certain amount of disbelief. Well. Here you go:

Yesterday I spent a great day with my friend Anca; a veritable 80's montage of events and laughter. I visited the Orthodox cathedral for the first time as well. It's beautifully ornate; I'm sure God would approve.
It's Jesus' second birthday today and everywhere is closed. Dave has left on an expedition to find cigarettes in a town where everyone seems intent on staying very much in church. I think it's nice that people still have religion here. It's good to know that somewhere somebody believes in something.
There was talk of taking a road trip north but I think we might be forsaking that plan in order to go to Serbia. £1 is 105 Dinar, so I think I'll be keeping some of the inevitably awesome banknotes I'll get.
Anyway, Loic and Martin are coming round to play Hearts (a game we all enjoy alot now) and I best watch Dave Tidy up. I'll document some more exciting things soon. Ciao for now lovelies.