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].