Two months reflexion

As I prepare to fly back to Boston for Thanksgiving, and spend quality time with my family, it will be a little bit over two months since I’ve been living here in Cluj, and I thought I would reflect back on these two months.

Despite some somewhat insane hours at work, I still managed to:
- post 18 entries in this blog
- visit Vienna and Delhi (+ other business trips)
- go on two weekend road trips (Moldova area and Carpathian mountains)
- visit a few museums in Cluj
- get lost in the botanical garden
- attend three opera performances
- attend a few jazz concerts organized by the French Culturel Center
- not get killed by a Cluj driver
- have my share of chicken liver and tripe soupe
- gain a few pounds…
- (..and not be able to figure out how folks here stay so thin)

It’s been a great experience so far, from a business and personal enrichment point of view. I am getting more acute about the Romanian culture and especially the way to communicate with people here.

There is a Pink Panther movie in which Peter Sellers asks a passerby “excuse me, do you know what time it is?” and the passerby answers “yes, I know what time it is” and walks on. Communicating with most of Romanians is just like that; be very precise in your question, otherwise you won’t get the answer you’re looking for. To illustrate that point, M. was telling me a story (and I swear it’s true): she was looking for a famous Hungarian restaurant in my neighborhood. She asks a group of people in the street, and one of them gives her detailed directions on how to get there. She goes to the restaurant, only to find out it’s closed. She goes back to the street, and find the same group of people and tells them the restaurant is closed, to which the guy who gave her directions answers “Yes, I know it’s closed; you did not ask me if the restaurant was open, you asked me for directions!”

Talking about restaurants, my excitement of the first few days somewhat lowered. True, you can find some very nice traditional Romanian or Hungarian restaurants, but there is really not a great deal of variety in terms of international food; there are many Italian restaurants here but the ones I know have been average except for Lugano. Sense of service in most restaurants is pretty limited, and can be related to my comment above. For instance, if you ask for a side salad, you get a salad without dressing. You have to ask for a dressing, or at a minimum oil and vinegar.

As Romania prepares to celebrate its 20th anniversary of reunification/independence (and Romania’s independence was the bloodiest of all of those in the same period of time), it is also facing some turbulent times. The prime minister resigned recently, strikes are happening in Bucharest, and the people go back to elect a new president in a few weeks. At the same time, the Romanian royal family has been getting new status in the past few years (and  even one of the royal family members, the prince of Hohenzollern, briefly announced his candidacy). So like in other places, Romania is somewhat renewing with its past. The issue on what's happening with the gypsies population here is still very much unsolved for the most part, if not ignored entirely.

Future plans include to visit Brasov, another fortified city, and Bran castle (so-called Dracula castle), and maybe go to Prague one of these days. Also, I was waiting for a rainy Sunday to visit the art museum in Cluj, but it has really not happened so far!

So until my return, Ciao Cluj!