Back in Romania - Impressions

The safest country in the world !

dannyintheworld — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 13:10:01 +0000

Dogs making people feel saf

Yes that is Romania, the country where you are safe to go out, to work, to let your children out playing, it is safe to walk in the middle of the night…because ….they are watching !!!!!

If you go shopping, or just for a walk….they are watching, it is impossible to meet your Girlfriend without them watching….you cannot park the car without being watched by THEM.

When you enter your flat…they are there, getting into the bus…they are there, eating on the street…they for sure are there…if you are running…they will run after you.

I love this country…how can it not be safe when we have MILLIONS of homeless dogs on the street??? We no longer need police, let’s train the darn dogs, why pay for private security? we can just feed the dogs…FOR FUCK SAKE, why have babys??? we can just adopt dogs…

Mean time….Romania is a safe place to be ….Please come back…and bring a bone
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Dream house in Romania

armina — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 23:17:55 +0000

The real estate market is going down – theoretically. but if you look in the newspapers the prices are still there…meaning…up. We rented a flat and had the chance to see all sorts of people and all sorts of real estate agents. it’s amazing. these guys are keeping the prices at around 300eur for a 2 rooms apartment. of course i found a studio at 400, too…WTF…was it covered in platinum?

We saw about 8 flats and then we gave up. we were lucky that we found one corresponding to our wishes for about 250 and sealed the deal.

In other countries, like when i was in Zurich, companies owned entire buildings and if there is a crisis, the prices really do get down. In Romania, everyone and their richy brother bought a flat or two and rents them for some extra money. If they don’t get what they expect for it, they just keep it there and don’t want “less” extra money.

There was this guy…with a suspect look and a 2 kilos necklace on his bull-neck – he had several flats for rent and tried to convince us that he was our only solution in this city…come on…who assures me that one night you will not come with some big guys and kick me out…i mean your face tells me this might be possible…
Then there was this doctor family…they had a very very good opinion about their flat and expected a high price even though the furniture was probably never changed in the last 30 years…and doors were hanging all over, the sink reminded me of the sink i used when i was living in a dormitory…they think that because you are a young couple at the beginning of your life together, you are willing to accept whatever conditions…because “on their times” they did that too.
And there was this funny guy…an agent who was trying to convince us to get a 3 rooms flat…when we clearly mentioned we prefer a 2 rooms flat, with better conditions.

They all expected to convince us they had the best offers just because we look really young and probably seem to be easy to trick.
Well…let’s be serious. I expect more from life than my parents expected and if i am young doesn’t mean that i am naive and that i have to think that “is normal” to live in a shitty flat because i am young and young people should accept stuff.

We finally found a family with whom we negotiate the price to what we wanted and the flat is great – it’s exactly what we wanted. it will be our little “dream house”. but why do you think is like a dream house? because this family made a loan and bought this flat and decorated it for themselves. it was actually THEIR dream house, until they couldn’t afford to pay the loan rates and had to rent it to make it pay itself. They had to move together with their kids, in their parents flat. and there goes their dream house…

I guess my dream house would be around 50000-60000 euros right now. I don’t want to make a loan – anything that makes me be a client for a bank, gives me chicken skin…anyways…I am living in someone’s dream house, and it’s very close to my dream house too, and i am paying 250eur per month.

60 000 / 250 = 20 years.

So if i would make a loan for 60 000 now, it will be for 20 years and i would probably pay back 70 000. the building will be old and the value of the flat in 20 years from now will probably be 40 000…while if i pay 250 per month, i can live 20 years with 60 000, i don’t make any loans, and i will not lose my financial freedom…i guess Romanians don’t calculate these things too often…since we are the only country in Europe where the flats property is above 90%…in other countries probably above 90% of the population lives in a rented flat…hmmm and which is among the poorest countries in Europe?

Once i met this old lady in Zurich…she lived in a flat of around 200sqm and it was gorgeous – facing towards a nice forest, within 30 minutes walk from the town center…and she paid…135 francs…which is about 100euros…amazing…why? because she had a life-rent-contract she signed when she was 20…
Forgot to mention…now the rent for such a flat would be around 2000 euros…
I wonder what would have happened if she made a loan 40 years ago to buy that flat? i guess her traveling budget and her vacations would have been substantially lessened…

Monday…Welcome to RomGUNistan

dannyintheworld — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:34:03 +0000

Well last week was a blast…Romania really made it to the front page of all the tabloids i guess. If you are a journalist Romania is the place to be, there is so much SHIT going on that it started smelling…

A short update of the last week

Monday:

3 people were shot in Brasov by “someone” the police is in shock…

Petrom is dismissing 3000 people

Jiji sold Steaua Bucharest

Jiji bought Steaua back

5 people are sleeping in Ciorogarla

Dacia is stopping the activity, 5000 people are being sent home, the competition is ON for Petrom

The car of Gigi Becali was stolen

The car of Gigi becali was returned 2 hours later, Jiji is in a meeting with the thefts and giving them advices.

The church is protesting against the new passports

Tuesday

Dacia is still leading in the competition, Petrom is increasing the gas price

The police in Brasov is still in shock, they found out about the people that were shot, there is a team meeting in the police office to discuss the case, 2 journalist are called to brief them.

In Ciorogarla the guard is changed, 5 other people are sleeping.

Jiji is thinking about selling steaua

Copos is thinking about selling Rapid

The church is protesting against the new passports

Wednesday

The police in Brasov has about 300 suspects, someone left his yahoo id list at their door

50 guns were stolen from Ciorogarla, the 5 people are still sleeping

Petrom lost the competition.

Jiji bought steaua from himself

Copos is confused

The church is protesting against the new passports

Thursday

There are police filters all over the country, the guns were extracted last week, but the police does not know that, they are following procedures…

The police in Brasov narrowed down the list of suspects to 299. the police announced 1 year to solve the case.

100 Mil euro worth drugs were found in Romania. Police gets a point

300 People were set free from prison and never return (tho they should have)

Reading the news the police discover that 300 criminals are running free in Romania. In brasov the list of suspects is now at 599,

Elena goes to Eurovision…the show at TVR was fuckin racial, if i would be Russian i would drop a bomb on Romania.

The church is protesting against the new passports

Friday

The guns are no longer in Romania, but the police is still pretending to work…they stopped me 3 times in 90 Km.

Petrom and Dacia are making a partnership to get back rating points, this all police thing got them in the back

In Bv the police has one suspect, is time to party.

Jiji decided to sell steaua, there will be 2 days of suspans as the weekend is coming.

All the cops in Romania are getting a raise.

The church is protesting against the new passports

During the weekend the show is off.

In other news: the 5 people sleeping in Ciorogarla are still sleeping. The government lunched the plan for the next term, they decided to save paper and money, the will use CDs, all of them will get new laptops to be able to use the CDs…and personal teachers. Paranoia is still on, the financial crisis is on the move, companies planned their bankruptcy. Rapid was sold, and bought back. Euro is going up. The price of coke went up with 60%, because the lack in the market. The church is protesting against the new passports.

All you Romanians living abroad…you can come back, the guns are out of the country…for sure, Romania is a safe place to be

Racism? discrimination? the daily culture !!! stories from the Bus

dannyintheworld — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 10:01:22 +0000

Now, this might look like one of the posts where i complain, and that is because i do complain. In the last week i realized that i am really in the Reverse culture shock phase, it’s all good, at least i realized that i need to calm down and try to understand what the fuck is going on around me. My patience is on the edge, i am like a boiler room ready to explode at any point, i even started to have dreams where i was beating the bus driver (he deserved it), but i was wandering what was the trigger for this phase of my reintegration…and i got it, it is somehow related with the culture and people behaviour.

Last week, being in the bus i saw a woman being beat and pushed out of the bus by the bus driver because she didn’t have a ticket while the people responsible with giving her a normal ticket were just watching…i was so shocked i could not even move, the main reason to do that was because the woman was a Gypsy, people in the bus were laughing and having fun…

Today buying the newspaper on the front page there was an article about “a group of EMO’s” that were arrested in the bus because they did not have tickets and become aggressive…the all article was focus on the fact that the individuals were EMO generation representatives and they might have been under the influence of drugs, but the police cannot prove that…

Now, first of all, since when a buss ticket is more important than a person??? 2nd how many people are being aggressive every day in the bus because they don’t have tickets? why don’t they make the first page of the news? maybe they are not drunk, Gypsies or EMO, they gave no chance i guess.

Paying my sisters university tax i had to stay in a line having about 25 people in front of me, while waiting, a “Romanian” guy just went in front of the queue, got first, payed and left, while people were saying nothing…what if that guy was an EMO or Gypsy??

Enjoy your staying in Romania, make sure you have a ticket, don’t get a sun tent and make sure you don’t wear black…

HIV…interview…Negative answer

dannyintheworld — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:21:58 +0000

Here is a tabu subject for Romanians. I was always wandering why Romanians are not taking regular tests or HIV tests on regular bases. This week i discovered why…

I went to take my periodic HIV test in a Romanian private clinic, i entered the place and…i felt as in an interview. I was asked about 6-7 times what are my reasons to take the test, how many unprotected contacts i had, how many times i used needles in the last year and so on…

After the first 5 minutes of questions like that they told me that they need to take me into their database before the test (WTF for????) so they did, they asked for Personal number, address, number and names of brothers/sisters, their ages, my parents names and ages (date of birth) and so on…

Finally they took the blood and run the test…but not before asking me where i have traveled in the last year and if any of the countries had a high HIV risk. After that while waiting all the ladies started talking about HIV cases in between themselves…WTF where is the professional side of all this circus??? did i really had to hear about the guy that suicide because of HIV or about the wife that killed her husband ????

The next day i went to take my results, after they saw them i asked what will happen with my personal details…and they told me that they will keep them in a database for their own use…

Now i can understand why Romanians are not willing to take the test…is much to Communist…somehow i am glad, this is the first interview i am passing in Romania

Welcome to Pitesti city…open 07:00 to 23:00

dannyintheworld — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 13:23:05 +0000

Now, don’t get me wrong, i am not bitching only on Pitesti, i am sure there are other big places in Romania having the same problem…saving energy for the next day, sending the people to sleep at 23.oo or 1:00.

Coming out of a coffee place at 3-4 in the morning (thank you mister waiter for allowing us to be the last clients for some time…) we decided to get something to eat…great idea, wrong city to have it…in the downtown area there were no opened restaurants, fast foods, or others…the only open “thing” was a small corner shop where you can somehow buy some stuff…romantic hot chocolate .

The point is that after the midnight in the city the only place to eat is a Turkish shaorma house in the north part of the city (according to a taxi driver). McDonalds…closed… KFC….closed…fornetti…closed….all closed.

PS: I am bitching on the fact that all this places are closed but i also think that all this might be because of the fact that there is NOTHING to do in the city during the night…not enough bars, the young generations moved to Bucharest, just a few clubs, so the reason might be the fact that there is no night life in the city…..

Happy new year…with limitations…

Xmas in Romania

dannyintheworld — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 14:45:28 +0000

I guess spending is a common practice for Xmas all over the world but as i notice now, when it comes to Romanians Xmas is all about spending, but not spending to have something, spending to have the same or more than the neighbor. I have the feeling that tradition is so much stable here that it does not matter how much you have to spend you need to have all the traditional elements of Xmas and more to feel comfortable during this holiday. For example, you need to have in your house 1/4 of a pig at least, traditional food like “leber”, “toba”, sausages (home made), wine, “tuica”, “cozonac”, “sarmale”, traditional sups, boef salad, etc etc, and all this in huge quantities so you can show that you can afford even if you cannot…

10-15 years ago you did not need to buy all all this products or ingredients in order to have them for X mas as most of Romanians had relatives in the country side or were doing agriculture or so, and this products were available in the back closet, but now most of the Romanians are buying all this products from the stores, hypermarkets, mega markets, supermarkets, gigamarkets, XXLmarkets, city markets and all the other markets.

We use to say that Americans are consumers, living in a consumer market, but Romanians are by definition consumers, being driven by culture, traditions and show off mentality.

Some Romanians are taking credits just for this (Thank God for the economic crisis), some are saving for some months some for the all year, but in the end the money end up being spent in December.

Rhetorical: Do we really need all this spending to have a nice Xmas with the family? or did we lost the meaning of Xmas? By the way, what is the spirit of Xmas now days? is it still related with Family values?

Driving…

dannyintheworld — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 14:23:09 +0000

Well i guess Pitesti is the city of Schumachers. From the beginners to pro’s drivers in Pitesti are all in a hurry, most of them have no idea where they are going but they want to get there FAST. As a returnee, when i am driving in the city i have the feeling that all the other drivers are trying to hit me, hunting me on both lanes, not announcing their intentions, speeding, crossing the continuous line, not respecting the traffic lights and being aggressive. New for me was also the fact that in all the big road crosses there is a cop, most of the time doing nothing or just making the trafic even worst. I saw a few accidents “live” in the last days and i am scared of what will happen in the next 10 days.

Advice: if you have to drive in Pitesti please do it with caution…Schumacher is right around the corner.

How to…buy a ticket

dannyintheworld — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 10:00:34 +0000

Coming back to Pitesti was something i was looking forward to, but taking the bus…nope. When i left there were some things called “maxi-taxi” small wagons with 12-15 places that could take you to any part of the city, i did not like them as the drivers were too aggressive and they were dangerous in traffic. NOW we have a local company dealing with buses in the city. The price of the ticket (one way) is about 50 euro-cents or 1,7 RON for some, like me, that use to live in Vilnius where the bus was 30 Euro-cents it is kind of expensive for a city like Pitesti, but never mind the price. The biggest problem is to buy the tickets.

Option number 1: There are some yellow machines in some places in the city, you put your money in and you get the ticket, the only problem is that this things are only in the center and most of the time…they do not work. (please use the small crack for coins and the big one for bills not the other way around)

Option number 2: Buy from a dedicated place, but again this places are not that many and usually just in the center.

Option 3: Buy in the bus….they do not sell tickets in the bus.

Option 4: Ask the corner street stores, some of them are selling tickets but you have to walk a bit to get them.

Option 5: Get a monthly pass, this will solve the situation.

So make sure that when you get the chance you buy as many tickets as possible.

All in all, is better to walk…long live global warming, i love this December spring.

Tarxa auto

Daniel Sîrbu — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 14:45:35 +0000

Azi de dimineata m-am trezit foarte vesel si vioi. Toate bune si frumoase. M-am uitat un pic la tembelizor, mi-am verificat mail-ul, am mai uploadat un pagina pe site, am ascultat radio. Mai corect spus am ascultat stirile la radio. Mare greseala! De ce? Fiindca am aflat ca taxa auto sau mai bine tarxa auto (tarxa auto – taxa lui tariceanu) o sa se modifice, in rau, de parca nu era de asteptat, si anume taxa auto se va tripla. Si pufff!!! Gata cu veselia pe ziua de azi.

M-am intors de 2 luni in Romanica. Am stat aproape 3 ani in Italia. Am zis ca poate vad eu lucrurile in negru. Ca in Romania nu e chiar asa rau. Ca sunt eu prea carcotas. Da de unde!!! In romania trebuie sa stai ca la un meci de box in grup fara reguli. Nu poti sa stii niciodata de unde ti-o primesti si cat de tare. Nu zic ca in alte parti e raiul pe pamant… dar in romania guvernul te scuipa in fata si apoi te intreaba care e problema. Nu au pic de scrupule si de respect pentru restul oamenilor. Si ce e si mai tris… e ca noi stim asta dar stam cu mainile in san si nu facem nimik. Intotdeauna a fost asa. Pana cand? Cat trebuie sa mai induram ca sa facem ceva?

Cam asa vad eu Romanica. Aste e realitatea. E trista. E cruda. Do something, god damn it!