language lessons

so i finally managed to get off my duff and resume romanian language lessons. the best thing i learned today (other good stuff too) was the correct pronunciation of lemon. its kinda like the diff between roof and roof (if pronounced more southern style as ruhf) except that lemon with the OO means oral sex. looking back, i really really like to order ice tea with lemon. sometimes they have had me repeat my order.

which brings me to when romanians learn english. it makes me wonder who their english teachers are and to damn those half-assed translators of movies.

when i first moved into this apt, the landlord (who lives next door) invited me over for a drink. its kinda like the offer you cant refuse. we had wine spritzers (very popular here) and got to talking. he informed that he was still a communist and that life was better under the regime. i tried to talk to him but realized that i'd better hold my tongue. a movie came on - something about sex and race relations on college campuses - its about 15 years old. about the time when ice cube started flexing his acting chops. he then turned the conversation to race relations in the u.s. (its amazing how people - not just this country - feel the need to discuss american race relations but ignore racism in their own countries)

now the language issue is the romanian translation of black into english. somewhere along the line they were taught that negru (black) = nigger. every time he used the word, i flinched (for obvious reasons). feeling massively uncomfortable, i attempted to explain that this is not a word used in english unless one was trying really hard to offend the person speaking to. the funny thing is that he seemed to have this mental block. i had to ask like 4 times. finally i said if it would be nice if i referred to his wife as 'bitch' whenever i spoke of her 9i felt bad syaing this because she is a nice old lady). he then paused and finally asked if it was offensive. and this was after i told him this repeatedly.

did he actually learn anything? who knows but thats me - cultural ambassador and damn me if i'm not diplomatic.

been on my mind

a friend of mine in the Romanian army was deployed to Iraq a few days ago. since he's in the army, he has to go where they tell him to. and i was just thinking how kinda shite it is that he is going to be there for the next 6 months. lots of people in the States are now against the war, but the U.S. is committed and pretty much has to stay, until the situation over there is somewhat stable, given that it was the driving force behind the whole invasion. What gets me about Daniel's situation is that no one really supports it but apparently 5 years ago the Romanian government said they would send people - probably to curry favor with the US. its seems even more senseless that he is being taken away from his family and his life put in danger.

a few months ago at Daniels birthday party, i was talking to his friends - obviously many of his friends are in the military and talk shop. These guys are career military, are officers, (Romania did away with the one years mandatory military service this year) and had served their tour in Iraq. they were talking about the situation and stuff. one of the things that struck me then that i can remember (due to my massively faulty memory which i blame on my thyroid problem), one commented on how poorly some of the American soldiers were doing. he said that he felt so bad for some of them because they were really young people and they're thrown into this situation completely outside of their experience that they are totally unprepared for. they joined the army to pay for college and they wound up in the desert psychologically unprepared.

funnily enough, though i had thought about it and sorta gotten involved (in the UAE, i have my yr 9s run a charity and one class decided to send materials to a school in Iraq and we had an Iraqi speaker come and explain everyday peoples livesat this time) plus crazy inflation in the UAE since many Iraqi refugees came (but only the ones with money/connections to get out). it really struck me this time. He's leaving behind a pregnant wife and will miss the birth of his first child and i still wonder for what?

off the soap box - next post will be travel stuff.

Bucharest, Romania (pt 2)

ah. . . more of bucharest. before wwII and all the bombing, bucharest used to be known as little paris (i really hate when cities get named after other cities as if they dont have their own identity) because of the nod to classical architecture and stuff. have to admit that it did look nice from the photos i've seen.

which brings us to blvd Unirii and piata Unirii (you can pretty much find one in EVERY romanian town. i wonder whether they were named during communism or after the revolution). Ceausescu really really wanted bucharest to be on par with the other great european cities to do this he and his crazy wife went on many building projects (see previous post prt 1). one of which was blvd unirii. so they tore down what was there and built up some new stuff. due to his megalomania (to be fair he did seem really proud of what romania had to offer) he wanted to be BETTER than paris so the made unirii blvd longer and wider than

Champs-Elysee and it has lots of fountains.

during this summer some nutter artist from austria convinced the mayor of bucharest to let him add dye to the fountains. on an exceedingly warm summer day there was an magazine shoot taking place. enjoy the documentation of the day.