Romania 2003

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Newsletter Eight

Date: Sunday 31 August 2003.

From Tuesday to Saturday I was in Hungary getting a new visa. More on that later, but first an update on a few old stories.

More pictures from the camp can be found on Adi Foto's web site. http://www.streetkidsro.go.ro/Gifuri/tabara-iulie-august/index.htm

Our mid-year plantings in the Boys' Home garden are coming along nicely, with the radishes (both red and black) being the first to surface.

Before I left for Hungary the basement walls of the Boys' Home were ready to pour, with the walls reinforced, "shuttered" and the shutters supported. The end result made it look much more like a kids' climbing thing than a basement. The poles I think came out of the roof during the demolision phase.

The Dacia runs, and now starts on it's own! The starter motor just needed a bit of cleaning. I jiggled loose a carbon brush that may have been sticking, Cosmin cleaned carbon dust out from between the brush contacts, and it actually works. How 'bout that. No water in the oil or vice versa, just a steady trickle of water somewhere out the bottom of the radiator when things get hot (a vicious circle). [It was later found to be a loose hose clamp and easily fixed.]

The day before I left for Hungary we dropped by the main railway station (about 3pm) to get train times. We found Gianni ("Johnny") outside proving that five coffees don't cancel out four beers after all.

I don't know how often he tries that combination, but I 'spose when the coffee wears off, anywhere will seem a good place for a sleep, even a footpath. The red lunch box is a cute touch. I don't know where he got that from.

(For really observant readers, no I haven't gotten married here. I didn't take the first photo - I was driving.)

As for Hungary, I arrived by train in Budapest a little after 8pm (local time, being an hour later than Romania) on Tuesday. I headed off to the hostel I had selected and a couple of kilometres later found it full. (I suspect their web site is a little behind the times, since it had indicated plenty of space.) They were very nice, though, and phoned another hostel, then sent me off to it - half way back to the station I had just come from. This second hostel also decided that they were a bit full. However, they did have an overflow hostel and sent me off to it - just two blocks away from the train station, with a 4 bed dorm room all to myself. Praise God. Got to bed just after midnight.

Wednesday morning I spent getting oriented, finding the (closed) Romanian embassy, etc. In the afternoon I hooked up with one of the best value for money tourist activities on offer - exploring the caves under the city. This particular cave was formed by thermal water so it doesn't have any stalactites etc. (It's probably empty now because all the water has been redirected to the many thermal baths in Budapest, some of which charge more for entry than this whole caving trip cost. Arguably the most famous thermal baths in Budapest are named after Bishop Gellért, who Christianised the heathen locals - until they rolled him off a big rock in a spiked barrel in AD 1046. But I digress.)

The cave did have a few small inviting holes, and I spent ages trying to get through one of them, providing grand entertainment for the rest of the party. Unfortunately, when my hips were at the right angle to go through my legs wouldn't bend in the right places to follow, and when I backed up and got my legs sorted out my hips were at the wrong angle to fit at all. My face isn't normally that red.

Thanks to the caving and my bruised hips, on Thursday after applying for the visa (let me know if you want to read the nuts and bolts about that adventure) I picked some attractions that didn't require too much walking. One of them was Statue Park. It's a collection of statues from the communist days that any other country would have destroyed and thrown away. Not Hungary - they kept them in storage for a few years and now get tourists to pay to see them in a big outdoor museum/park thing. If I understood my Hungarian correctly, this one was a monument to the dangers of standing too close to each other while doing communist callesthenics.

Incidently, this park symbolises one of the differences between the economic recoveries of Hungary and Romania, both "free" of communism for 13 to 14 years. I was told by a Hungarian chap that Hungary's brand of communism encouraged small farms and businesses, and foreign investment (or at least didn't stamp them out). This contrasts strongly with Romania's communism - ruthless and oppressive, destroying souls and small farms and businesses alike. Because the only people in Romania who knew the system after communism was overthrown were the former communist leaders, many are still in power or doing their old jobs - they're just a bit older now.

On Friday I spent ages at the embassy. (They even said they phoned the Minister of the Interior to find out what was taking so long with the approval.) I eventually got my visa over an hour after the embassy visa office closed, and I was off.

Well, not really, since I had missed the 1pm train. So I checked out the zoo - free as part of my Budapest Card. (Hmmm, a pacing, head-swaying polar bear. Where are the live catfish at feeding time?) Nice place overall, and it's even a historic monument now. I thought I was onto something when I found a stand selling Jesus-fish bracelets, WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) bracelets, and FROG bracelets. The guy selling them had really bad English, my Hungarian was even worse, and I thought the guy was telling me that "FROG" was Hungarian for "WWJD". Nope. "Fully Rely On God" - as I found out after getting back to Timisoara. Which is still pretty cool, since that's basically what I was doing to get the visa.

But FROG or WWJD aside, Hungarian is a strange language. I mean, you just have to see a really big McDonald's sign advertising a McDonalds ban (?!?) to realise that. (Not a bad idea, though.)

At the train station I got on the 19:10 Transbalkan and found out that the two earlier trains to Timisoara that day had been cancelled due to work being done on the tracks. So I was on the earliest train out anyway. Praise God. Got home (driving the now working Dacia!) some time after 3am. It's nice to be back - it's just as hot as Hungary but at least here they sell drinks absolutely everywhere.

Last day of summer today, and we've got a cool week forecast. Stay tuned. God bless.

Ian.
8 )
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/ianman/

"Még ha cigánygyerekek potyognak/esnek is az égböl."
"Even if gypsy children are dropped from the sky."
- Hungarian saying. ("Come hell or high water.")

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