Well, as I slowly transcribe my notes from abroad, expect this page to be updated regularly... until I finish the transcription process.  Then I should only update it a couple more times.  I hope you like the page.

--Gordon

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6/22/98, aka "Futbol"

    Well, I'm excited.  Damn right I'm excited, wouldn't you be if your favourite team just won against England at the last moment in the World Cup?  Sure, this isn't the finals, but that doesn't really matter. I got so excited the other day about Romania beating Colombia, I put on my Colombia shirt and thought about calling up Carolina Aldana.  Then I realized how long it's been since I've talked to her.  I haven't talked to Kara in a while, either.  I must call them.

    Anyhow, if you missed the Romania - England game, here's how it went, briefly.  The first half was scoreless.  At the opening of the second half, Romania scored.  Then, at about minute eighty-three, England scored, and the majority of the audience went wild, along with the American announcers.  They didn't quite care as much when Romania scored.

    Just when we thought that all hope was lost, and that we were going to have to settle with a tied game, Romania came back to score in the 90th minute.  Last minute scoring is fantastic, particularly when you break a tie that way.  That was simply superb, I tell you.  I'm looking forward to going there in a week or so.  Whee.

       7/4 : The trip begins
 

        CNN and movies... uncommon typos... the drunk Texan...
blue Camels... a sleepless flight... the drunk passengers... a chilly
cabin... and improved food.

       Aboard airplane.  It's about two o'clock AM EST.  So far, have been treated to CNN news and a movie which I didn't recognize by the name the captain gave us, which was Hush, but it turned out to be a movie about some brothers robbing banks or what not.
       It's been an interesting day, thus far, and I've found a few inaccuracies in the travel guide, most of which dealt with Romanian misspellings or what not.  Airline food, always reported to be terrible, was actually not that bad today.  They gave us a tiny sandwich, some chocolate, various bits of vegetables (with Ranch Dressing to go with that.)  Then a stewardess came around with more sandwiches, in case you were still hungry.  Needless to say, I was.  The only thing I'd eaten previous to that was a bag of Doritos costing an astounding 75 cents.
       My dad and I sat in a bar for a couple of hours overhearing a conversation between a Texas native and a woman going over to Germany.  He seemed to be slightly inebriated, to say the least.  He was being quite friendly.  I don't know about my father, but I was quite amused by what this guy was saying.
       The in-flight catalogue offers a very interesting brand of Camel cigarettes which to date I have never seen before, in a blue box.  Fascinating.  The per carton cost is about twenty eight Swiss Francs, which translates to much less than what you would find in NJ, especially with the pathetically high taxes that are levied against you.  Smoking had to come to an abrupt halt as soon as we came aboard the aircraft.  There hasn't been smoking on airplanes for years, now. Back in the old days, as many people will probably recall, you could smoke just about anywhere.  Now you have to go back to your own room, find your closet, and try to smoke there.
       Speaking of your own room, the Romanian guide had quite a few listings of families willing to take people traveling around there and about how much they'd be charging per night.  Some people would even be nice enough to make you breakfast in the morning.  We, on the other hand, are not going to have to pay any money for our room, as we're going to be staying with some friends of the family.  All they wanted in exchange is that we bring them over some CD-R's and a nice cordless phone.  Unfortunately, we couldn't find the exact colour that they wanted, but that's okay.  Close enough, I say.
       I'm looking forward to having a lot of fun in Romania.  Seeing the monasteries, perhaps the graveyard of, the grave site where my great grandmother, after whom I am named, is buried.  We've already decided on places we're going to be eating, generally speaking.  And so, with that, I hope to see some better movies on the flight, and maybe Good Will Hunting... though that's going to be on the flight over.
       Trying to sleep while on one of these airplanes is like trying to sleep upside down.  It is possible, somehow, but it's exceedingly difficult, and for the most part, annoying.  At times, painful.  The lovely little pillow the gave us, along with the blanket, doesn't seem to make up for the fact that the arm rests, whether up or down, do get in the way quite a lot, and cause a lot of pain if you hit them the wrong way.
       In retrospect, perhaps a couple of shots of cognac would have been just the thing I might have needed to settle me down and get me some sleep.  Alas, I had to settle for Coke, which did quite the opposite.  At this point in time, I don't think that sleep will be at all feasible.  This certainly won't be the first time that I've gone quite a while without sleeping, but going over all these time zones will make it all that more confusing for my body, ultimately.
       Right about now, I would not mind going for a cigarette, but alas, the effort needed to take apart the smoke detector in the bathroom would far outweigh the benefits from doing such a thing.  The only other thing bothering me right now is that for some odd reason, the cabin seems to be extremely chilly... maybe 40 or 50 degrees, or so.  That could be another reason why I'm finding it impossible to sleep.  I notice that people all around me have no difficulty whatsoever, but then again, these people are sloshed.  While I'm not saying that one would have to be inebriated in order to get any rest on this plane, I'm willing to bet that it wouldn't hurt at all.
       We're going to be spending about six or seven hours in Switzerland, in the airport.  I imagine that we're going to be spending most of that time sitting around, smoking and drinking.  This is because basically, we won't be able to leave the airport for whatever technical reason.  Furthermore, by the time that we'd actually go somewhere and get to do something, we'd have to turn around and go right back.  I don't really foresee this as being much of a problem, because the time that we're going to be spending sitting around smoking and drinking will also be spent planning future activities while in Romania.  Places to go, and what not.

       7/4 & 7/5 : Air travel over : fun warms up
 

Sitting, smoking, and drinking...  Athens and New York...
flying stores... spaghetti and beer... the Pink Panther, Rum,
Coke, and Irish Cream...an airport parking lot smaller than
those of a typical mall in NJ... gas stoves and water heaters...
slippers and tea... smoking in the house... Jesus and the Mona
Lisa... mostly sleepless night... and a walk around town

        We arrived here at around two pm swiss time, thankfully, at last.  Right now, as I predicted, we're sitting around smoking and drinking... watching time go by... basically until 8:30. That's when our plane departs.... I hope we make it.
        There's a lovely tax and duty free shop here which makes the interesting observation that New York is 6216 miles (or kilometers) from here whereas Athens is 1631.  For those of us who are not quite as sharp, that means that we're actually closer to Athens than New York, which is not usually the case for me.
        While we were on the plane, my dad got a watch, along with the cigarettes we were planning on getting, which made for a big fun purchase.  It was definitely the first time I've been on a plane and they've brought out a big cart with lots of expensive stuff on it, or anything to buy, for that matter (outside of your usual small bottles of liquor which ironically, I suppose you could say, on this flight were completely free.
        I'd like to get some postcards so I can dash off a couple of notes to some friends so I can let them know I'm still alive and I didn't crash somewhere off in the Atlantic... but I think I'll just leave that off for a later date.
        I was correct in my prediction that I would get absolutely no sleep on the plane which means that sometime tonight when we arrive in Romania, we'll get to Andrei's house, talk for maybe an hour or so, and I will absolutely crash and not burn.  Get plenty of sleep, I hope.
 
        4:45PM : My father and I have taken to playing cards to while away the time.  I just came back from a little restaurant in the airport, where I was expecting them to seat me, but maybe that's just not what they do in these parts.  I stood there for awhile, expecting someone to approach me and say, "Table for one?"  That never happened, so I had to take the initiative and I asked if I could sit down, and they said "Sure," so I did.  I had quite a hearty meal, consisting of spaghetti and beer.  The staples of any good diet.

        8:40PM : We're finally on the plane (Thank God.)  We're going to be leaving shortly.  We should be getting to Bucharest right around midnight.

        11:00PM Romania time.  I just polished off a delicious meal consisting of beef stew and pasta, capped off by Rum and Coke.  Also, for the first time in God knows how many years... Irish Cream... which I now regret having boycotted for stupid reasons.  All is going well.  I don't remember the last time I've used a bed or sleeping facilities at all.  I think at this point I am well beyond simple fatigue.  That's okay, because I'm going to go to bed as soon as I get there, after I talk to the friendly folk we're staying with and... who knows?  Maybe go to a party or two.  We'll just have to see about that.  Now, though we're not being entertained by any movies, we've had the benefit of seeing The Pink Panther and a very lovely nature documentary which my grandmother would have appreciated, of course.  She loves that.

        11:40PM (Romania time.)  For the first time I realize (just like many other trips) for the first time that I'm actually here, and I've actually made it.  Looking outside the window, we could be landing in Newark, if not for the fact that there are 1/15th as many lights glowing.  This means that either we're at Newark (with a slight power failure), or we're in Romania.  The actual case is the latter, of course.  Everybody on the plane has burst into wild applause, as we land safely... we're now facing an airport that is much tinier than any I have ever seen in my entire life.
 
        4:00AM  I'm finally in bed, after not having been in one for about thirty five hours.  The odd thing is that I don't feel the least bit tired... I can only hope that I'll be able to get some sleep at some point.  The problem is that this seemingly soft bed (from looking at it) actually is quite, quite hard.  I'm beginning to wonder... hey... can I do it?  Well, I'll find out.  Thus far, I've found the family that we're staying at (The Larions) to be really hospitable.  They're about as hospitable as a family can get.  A lot of things I noticed that were in that Romanian tour book are quite accurate.  For example, I came into the house, took off my shoes, and they presented me with a pair of slippers.  That was basically verbatim of what was written in the book.
        I've found some other very interesting things which I had no way of knowing what to expect.  I'm used to (at home) having central air, heated... all that beautiful "luxury."  Here, in each room, there is what appears to be a large pile of bricks, for lack of a better word.  A sort of chimney, only that it doesn't go into the ceiling, and it has a metal door on one side.  Each of these contains a gas stove.  You light the stove, you close the door, all the bricks get hot, you turn the stove off, and this heats the room.  (By some scientific fantastic law, which in my groggy mind I cannot possibly conjure.)  According to Fedea, the father here, this is actually healthier than having central air because the air there is not necessarily clean, etc.  A similar sort of thing applies in the bathroom.  There's a water heater in there, which, when they want to take hot showers, they heat a certain amount of water in advance.  The water stays hot, but it's not just hot water on demand, like (I suppose) most Westerners (i.e. the West Hemisphere) are accustomed to.
        Something else that really threw me off : despite the fact that neither Fedea nor Sonya are actual regular smokers, they had ashtrays for you, for use by people who want to smoke, and they are quite open with people smoking in their house.  Actually, they did join in... and that's unusual, for a non-smoker to smoke... I know that my mom likes to occasionally smoke, just recreationally.  Maybe this is nothing new then, really... or maybe it's a major coincidence.
        So, yeah, Fedea seems to be very... anything I mention wanting, he says "We'll get that immediately," or "Oh, we have that here."  I mentioned to him that I had a particular fondness for black tea, and he said "Well, we'll get you some black tea tomorrow."  I have some filterless cigarettes, and I told him I wanted a cigarette holder (can't really translate that too well to Romanian) and he said, "Oh, I know exactly where to get those things, we'll go and get them... first thing."  So I guess I feel quite like a VIP here, and that's quite accurate to how the tour book said that it would be.  Sure, these people are old time friends of my parents, but still... they're great.
        I've also found their son, Andrei, to be quite a friendly person, also I didn't get to spend all that much time with him tonight, because he was, shall we say, hanging out with his woman, and I didn't even know he had one.  Well, we weren't that tight to begin with, so that wasn't exactly the kind of information that he was just going to throw at me.
        Before I go to bed, there are a couple of miscellaneous notes that I would like to mention.  One, there's an interesting replica of the Mona Lisa hanging above my bed.  Second, there's this really awesome picture of what I assume to be Sonya and Fedea around the time of their wedding time... black and white picture... really good looking picture.  These people seem to be rather, shall we say... religious, because they have... a bible on the desk.... and I noticed that Fedea was crossing himself, on various occasions.  Mostly when he was saying thank God this and thank God that...hmm.  That all being said, I'm going to try and get some sleep now.  Tomorrow... or later on today, shall be another wild and outrageous adventure.
        Additional note : this bed was apparently made for midgets... or at least people shorter than six feet tall.

        6:20AM After a turn or few in ye old bed, the sun has come up... and with it, so have I.  I've taken an abbreviated yet hot shower, and I have, at last, shaven.  I was in worse condition, facially speaking... than you can imagine.   Actually, it wasn't that bad... but oh well.  Anyhow, the point I'm getting at here is that I really didn't get all that much sleep "last night"... and at the same time, I feel somewhat refreshed, especially after that shower.  I'm ready to go out for a bit of a walk with my dad, if I can convince him to go with me.
        My dad, by the way, had something to do with the fact that I couldn't sleep last night... this morning or what not.  Nothing against him personally, of course, but it's just that I didn't feel particularly comfortable sharing the bed... just like this one night in New Brunswick when I stayed up all night rather than sleep in the same bed as my (at the time) extremely sloshed, shit-faced, drunk ass brother who... if I didn't mention it, was really drunk... and smelled like it too.
        The only time I've really been able to successfully share my bed has been with people of the opposite sex.  I guess when I was younger, I did it a lot more successfully, but... I guess I might have been more innocent, more naive, not so judgmental, not so caring about who was in the sack with me.  I might end up sleeping on the couch tonight, or... I don't know.... but the bed situation isn't going to work out exactly the way it is.  Something is going to happen, I imagine.
        Sometime last night, they made me this incredible herbal infusion of linden.  I don't mean linden as in... out of tea bags, or even from a tin.  This was actually the linden flower... relatively freshly picked... and in a large bag.  It was incredible, as far as herbal infusions go... I'm going to try my luck and try to score some Earl Grey or Darjeeling.
        Last night I was quite amused when i found what I thought to be a fake bear skin rug.  I was even more amused when I found out that it was a real sheep skin rug.  Kind of a small sheep, but...hey.

        9:00AM  We just came back from a lovely little walk along the cobble stoned streets in Romania.  Really great stuff... we went to where my dad used to live.  We walked to his old schools, some different stores which were not open.  Most interestingly of all this was that basically, none of the things have changed at all in the last twenty five years or so.  The majority of the stores that were here twenty five years ago are in the same place doing the same things, etc.

        9:55PM It's been a long day... not over yet.  I'm slowly getting over all the strange culture shock that hit me all at once in the last couple of days, if that makes any sense.  I saw a sign in a store that said they were hiring, but they only wanted women that were less than thirty-five years old.   They couldn't have done that in the United States.

7/6 :

        8:00AM I have, at last, gotten a good night's sleep... that being last night.  I went to bed at around ten... after the power went out in the house, and they got out a folding bed for me.  That's really good, because I don't think I would have been able to sleep (despite the fact that I was exhausted) in that double bed, next to my dad.  Yesterday, we went for a tour of the city, and we went to some markets and various sight seeing locations.  There was a place where they were restoring old wooden houses from the 18th and 19th century...more from the 19th century.  They had, in this area... small designated smoking areas, which I found to be quite amusing.
        Speaking of which, smoking seems to be a lot more accepted here than it is in the United States.  For example, in the airport, there were designated smoking areas, where (needless to say) there were huge crowds of people standing around smoking.  Imagine a room in which there is a sign posted that says, "Smoking is allowed here."  Now imagine the same room, only the sign says, "Please come in here and smoke."  Basically, that's how it was in the airport.
        We went to a restaurant last night, that was quite crowded despite the fact that it was raining some time while we were eating.  The restaurant seemed to have a "good looking girl only" policy for the waitresses... I don't think they really cared about how the guys looked.  Once again, something that wouldn't really happen in the US... although sometimes it does.  I had one of my favourite soups there... "ciorba de burta", which is basically made out of tripe.  I also had a nice piece of meat, which came with french fries, for whatever reason.
        There seems to be a strange mixture of old and new technology.  For example, the rooms are heated by gas stoves, but there's a 120MHZ Pentium connected at a high speed.  Odd, isn't it?  I can't seem to be able to find any tissues in this house, which is a damn shame, because my nose is rather runny.
        Yesterday, while in the supermarket, I got some tea.  I'm looking forward to seeing how good this tea is going to be.  It's not Republic of Tea, or anything like that, but it will do.  At the present time, I'm finding it difficult to explain the importance of boiling the water, and using that to make the tea... but that's okay.  It's still getting made.
        We're going to walk around today... go and see Mariuca, see what's going on over there.  But now, I'm going to have a big, hearty breakfast... that seems to be the norm around here.  I'm going to try and enjoy this tea that I'm making.  It's looking pretty damn good.

        12:35PM : I'm in what appears to be a dungeon, but it's actually a bathroom.  After descending down a set of stairs and paying 500 Lei (equivalent of 7 cents... still disturbing to pay for rest room facilities.)  We're eating in a lovely little restaurant... in this restaurant we got beer, soup, and other such things.  By the way, I want a cat.  Hmm... on second thought, I may want a dog instead.

        7:20PM : My dad, Mariuca, and I have been walking around Bucharest for a while now, looking for shoes and other such things.  I've found no shoes in my size.  I would like to add, though, that Chuck Taylor low-tops are selling for about three or four dollars a pair.  That's about one seventh of what you'd have to pay in the United States... which is before tax, something they don't seem too keen on paying around here.  I find it interesting that you can go into a store here, find an item, and then go into a store next door and find the exact same item for a dollar or two more or less.
        I found a set of tea cups selling for about nine dollars... in the US they'd be selling for about thirty or forty.  We went into a different store, found the same kind of tea cups selling for about two or three dollars less.  This would mean substantial savings if I were to have found it in the US.   The only equivalent I can think of in the US would be something like a discount store, but those cheap bastards... it's not exactly the same, now is it?  Carton of Dunhills : eight dollars.  Same carton in America : about twenty five or more.  This all due to stupid ass taxes.

        3:20AM : Wow, what a wild evening I've had.  We went to a discotheque, after searching around for one... we went to a Salsa place and it was closed.  Finally, we found one, with good parking, etc.  We went inside, sat down, got drinks, started listening to what they were playing... some very old school stuff.  They were playing some stuff that I haven't heard since the early '90's with some newer stuff mixed in occasionally.  Remixes of songs that were never meant to be technoish songs.
        I met this beautiful girl named Cornelia...well eventually I met her after seeing her dancing on the floor...checking her out and all that.  She was a pretty, pretty girl... with a shirt on that revealed her mid-torso, stomach area, navel academy, that kind of thing... I convinced Christina (Andrei's girlfriend) to maybe come out and dance.  The slow dances had started, after all.  Christina came back and told me that she wanted to hear it from me.  I went over there, didn't even say a word, she offered her hand, and we started dancing.
        We were dancing, I was inventing styles as I went on... we were getting along well.  She seemed to like the way I danced... as it turned out, not that much...but that's okay.  We went, sat down, I bought her a beer, and we started talking.  She asked me if I had a girlfriend in the US, I told her I went to Rutgers.... she apparently knew the name.  She said that she was twenty-four, and had just finished studying law in college, etc.  She said that she wanted to keep in touch with me, and I said, "Sounds great."  She gave me her address, I gave her my address, I asked her if she had an e-mail address, and she looked at me as if I were crazy.  Like, what the hell is an e-mail address?  I gave her my e-mail address in case she ever gets one... hey, you never know.  We talked some more, we went dancing, we talked, we danced, we shmoozed, it was great.
        Meanwhile, I finished my beer, which by the way was really good.  It's called Tuborg.  Rich, dark beer...beautiful, well made.  A million times better than anything you'd find in the United States... of the standard non-import variation.  We continued to talk, and she went to go find a friend of hers... it was getting late, about two forty or so... and ultimately, we both said "Well, I have to go home," and after we exchanged brief little kissies on the cheek (It's the polite way to say goodbye, you know)... I gave her a big hug and picked her up off her feet.  (She was shorter than me...and weighed less.)  We went outside, I said my goodbyes again, and she asked me if I was going to write to her.  I said, "Of course... do you want me to write you short letters or long letters?"  She told me I could decide that.  I asked her if she wanted me to send her some music, and she told me, "Sure!"
        Before the discotheque, we went to a restaurant where I wasn't too hungry because we had just eaten at Mariuca's house at around six, and we were at this restaurant at eight.  We had walked around a bit, but I still wasn't all that hungry.  I got the ciorba de burta again, delicious... and then we went to go pick up Christina.  Somehow, I left my postcards at Mariuca's house, damn shame.  We also got pancakes with sour cream and cheese which were magnificient..  My grandmother has made that for me, but still... Christina got ice cream which seemed like they just ran outside to a local convenience store and bought some.  They must not have had any, because they brought her this ice cream cone with the paper wrapping still on it... at least they removed the price tag from whatever store they bought it from.  She had two bites of her ice cream, and decided not to eat any more... I finished that off.
        All in all, I had a good meal, and a lovely evening dancing at this discotheque.  I wasn't really enjoying it at first,

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