The Rip

Last night was a mess. Hell, the whole day was a mess.
Our friends from Galicia are visiting from Arad for the weekend and we decided to show them the best of Timisoara. I'll summerise the next 20 hours because to tell you every detail would require more space than the internet has.
We visited the Flavia market again to show the guys a proper Romanian experience. I bought beige trousers and shorts as well as a small jade turtle. Yes yes, I know. Great shopping. We stopped for several beer breaks and dined on mici (mystery meat sausages) and barbequed chicken. It was gloriously sunny and Dave and I have both started to develop them early stages of a tan. These are strange times and I don't pretend to understand them. We decided to leave the market in order to go back to our rooms, freshen up and then go to a concert at the local jazz club. Now we enter the twilight period of the day; in which Gordon starts to lose his sense of self.

Gordon, Dave, Xacob, Diego, Sonia and Juliet sat in the tiny, cramped club and listened to a band that sounded like Franz Ferdinand being raped by the Artic Monkeys. Gordon wasn't entirely impressed by the band but he appreciated being force fed some culture after a few days of reading sinfully boring political theory. The decision was made by someone to return once more to the rooms to freshen up again and to move onto a club callde Dark. Before this happened the majority of people got distracted and ended up sitting in an Italian girl's room drinking cheap red wine mixed with coke and horrible beer. Gordon hovered near the door and contemplated how the night would progress. Could he face another heavy night out? Is it really worth the inevitable hangover and social faux-pas that have become synonymous with Timisoara?
After lengthy debate the decision was made for him and once more into the subculture of clubbing did Gordon delve. The second he stepped into the club he was affronted by a wall of smoke and heat. Bodies occupied impossible spaces and a constant stream of people coming and going pushed and jostled anyone in their way. Cigarettes bounced around in the night and the sole source of light came from the illuminated adverts behind the bar. Nobody's face was visible; this was the place for the faceless and fearless. Gordon tried his best to fit in with the crowd, dancing and drinking for hours on end, before being faced with another decision. A quiet come-down drink in a 24/7 pub called Papillion or follow the crowd to another club aptly named Art.
The next thing he knew Gordon found himself in Art. The inside of the building featured high domed ceilings painted a violent blood red. Gold fixtures leered at the dancers from the walls and reflected small multicoloured shafts of light into their eyes. Gordon drank more and drank more, meeting people he barely knows and treating them like old friends. One French girl he met once upon a time kept falling into him and shouting the name of the place they met previously. Her hair was stuck to her face and she reeked of vodka. Gordon caught her one last time and pushed her into the arms of one of her companions. He looked away for a second and then she was gone. Amidst the unbearable noise and schizophrenic lights Gordon wondered briefly if they would ever meet again. Most likely, he concluded, and it would almost certainly resemble this encounter.
The clock struck six and the clubbers began the long jaunt home. Gordon walked with his Galician friends, Sonia and a small spanish chap whose name he didn't catch. Upon reaching his room at half past six he found Dave awake and drinking a beer. After exchanging brief stories of the last umpteen hours of nonsense Gordon fell into a dreamless sleep in an uncomfortable bed.

Today I woke up at around 2pm and felt remarkably good. I decided to go to the shop and stock up on supplies; orange juice, peach yoghurt, bananas and some eggs. I made my purchases in broken Romanian dispite the woman speaking perfect English at me. As I was walking down the pedestrian path to the caminul a breeze caught the cherry blossoms of a nearby tree and threw them around the air like confetti at a wedding. I walked through the flowers listening to Planet Telex by Radiohead. I realised once again that while things in Timisoara are heavygoing and self-destructive I wouldn't want to miss a second of it.