The Lure of the East

Now that I've reached the cosy environs of Eastern Europe, where I feel so much more at home, I hope to offer up a few slightly more tintillating tales than the drudge I've served up since the start of this year.

I'm currently deep in the heart of Transylvania, where as to be expected, internet connections are slow and shaky. Besides, I hate to while away my time in dark, cramped internet cafes, surrounded by gangly, pimply-faced teens playing computer games and creepy porn-surfing geriatrics. I'm thus hoping to churn these out at a fast and furious rate, though that may mean decent editing and too much thought get neglected for the sake of expediency. I'm really under the kush here, so please don't hold me to my usual standards -whatever those are. I'm aiming for a bulletpoint style, with the as-to-be-expected usual bits of scabrous commentary. I'll save my more in-depth reflections for after my trip and for now will condescend to describe the various antics and eccentricites of the natives.

Part I: Sibiu - getting used to the smoke (& mirrors?)

My first port of call was Sibiu, EU Capital of Culture in 2007. Judging from first, middle and last impressions, the EU certainly doesn't have very high standards when it comes to this. Sure, it's a pleasantly charming* place, with the requisite cobbled streets, winding narrow streets, old churches, atmospheric vistas and baroque architecture, but doesn't that describe every decent-sized town east of the Danube? Sounds like a sop to Romania, a nice little 'welcome to the EU, let's make one of your cute little towns a capital of culture, right up there with Lille, Liverpool and Lillehammer'.

(* perhaps the most overused connotation in this blog: 'pleasantly charming'. By now, I hope it has been realised that this is merely a euphemism for 'I don't know how else to describe this place'. I will no doubt continue to overuse this hackneyed phrase.)

Highlights, lowlights, observations:

* The plane journey over on Romanian budget outfit Blue Air: surely one of the few remaining airlines that allows smoking still? It was only the last few rows and mercifully I was near the front, but still.

* I realise that the low-slung, barely-held up trousers are all the rage among teenagers these days, but I've now seen this style hit the point of utter absurdity. And it's those doyens of sartorial elegance, the Germans (who introduced us to the socks and sandals look), we can thank. I saw a young German man, with his trousers down low, underpants showing and exposing his 'hidden' money belt. Surely this defeats the purpose, does it not? That led me to another thought: anytime you see someone with their trousers hanging off them, at the very least we can assume that they won't be mugging us. No way are they getting very far with anyone's wallet or purse.

* I spent an afternoon visiting the city's vast museum and art collections. I was duped into buying the all-inclusive ticket which guarantees admission to all 7 of the exhibits, spread amongst the compact city. I only paid the student rate, so not too many complaints.

Now, I want to be as respectful as possible to Romanian culture, so I was happy to see not only the 'traditional' European art collection (the Flemish, Italians and Germans, mainly) but also the Romanian. The group of Germans and Italians in front of me in the queue thought otherwise. As I waited patiently, I heard both groups exclaiming that they had no interest in 'such art' and that they only wanted tickets for the great European masters. The poor old ticket seller looked very forlorn and downcast after this, so he was no doubt cheered up when I asked for the all-day ticket and expressed interest in the Romanian contribution to high culture.

And then, irony of all ironies, the guard inexplicably wouldn't allow me to enter the Romanian exhibition! I thrust my ticket into his face, but he was steadfast in his determination to bar my entry. This brought back memories of my sister and I's failed attempt to enter the Bulgakov museum in Kyiv, which I harbour hopes of overcoming when visiting in a few week's time.

I suppose he wasn't used to foreigners trying to see his art.

* This seems to be something that only happens in Eastern Europe, at least in my experience, but if you dare not spend very long at a particular exhibit, or show little interest in seeing a certain room, the dour, stern-faced museum staff take major offence to this and insist on shoving you off in every which direction. A couple of times I tried to sneak off without looking at the treasury - a few rooms consisting of coin after coin - and was chastised and immediately shooed into look. Upon trying to leave after a few minutes, the guard then stood behind my shoulder, furiously pointing in various directions, mumbling something in incoherent Romanian. Like I would have understood had it been coherent.

* A wee while later, I exited the Museum of Pharmacy after a cursory glance at the bottles of pills and old jars with human hands in formaldehyde. I still had about 1 hour left in the day to see the remaining few museums. But I had had enough. The guard insisted I visit the Museum of Hunting, which was a good 3 kilometres away. I lied and said I would. When he saw me an hour later, sipping a large glass of red plonk at the cafe nearby, he predictably wasn't very happy, giving me a right bollocking in front of a few locals, no doubt accusing me of disrespecting Romania's fine hunting culture.

* I ordered black tea at a cafe. The woman insisted I take milk with it: 'You are English, you put milk in your tea!' I never told her what I was, but I wasn't going to disobey this clear order. Yes, ma'am!

* In my hostel room was an older Australian couple. I've not always had the best of luck in my encounters with Aussies on my travels, but I'm willing to give anyone a fair chance these days (except maybe those Canadians who sew Canadian flags on their rucksacks dare they get confused for -horror of horrors!- Americans). This couple seemed pleasant, but my first run-in saw us get off to an awkward start. While I was in the bathroom getting washed, I did what people tend to do in such places, and let one of my more masterful creations rip forth. Unbeknownst to me, there was a gap in the partition between the men's and women's bathrooms, and she heard this. So this is what she says to me when we meet back in the room:

'I hope you're not planning on doing that all night.'

You've got be kidding me. First of all, who plans for that kind of thing? It just bloody well happens for chrissakes. I immediately recalled the passage in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. This is Tereza's mother speaking:

"'Tereza can't reconcile herself to the idea that the human body pisses and farts. What's so terrible about that?' And in answer to her own question she broke wind loudly. All the women laughed."

If you hadn't guessed it already, I'm quite keen on discussing (and performing) bodily functions in a frank manner. I can't help it: it runs in the family.

* In fairness, the couple turned out to be lovely. The woman was an artist, and the man was finishing up his PhD in political philosophy, so we had some interesting chats. In a sign of how old I've become, I passed up on an evening of potential raucous fun on the tiles with their 18 year old son for a discussion on art and politics.

* I've often had a theory about change in countries outside of the 'Western' world. Meaning, if I go into a typical British supermarket, and my total comes to 8.15, the shop assistant will think nothing of me handing her 10.15. Likewise in the US, if something comes to 17.25, and I give 22.25, I can expect to get back a $5 bill. For some reason, attempts to do this in many other parts of the globe (in the, uh, developing world) repeatedly fluster people. I can hand over 10.45 to someone on a 7.45 bill, and they'll looked at me perplexedly, throwing the 45 cents back at me and then giving me the 2.55 in change. They just don't seem to get why anyone would do this. I'm not entirely sure what the theory is behind this, or even if there is one, but I've always been baffled. But maybe I shouldn't be. Twice now, in less than a 24 hour span, I did this, only to get the wrong change handed back to me - in my favour nonetheless. Both times I was honest and gave the extra money back to the sheep-faced shop assistants. At least they chuckled about it. But shouldn't the EU have launched a nationwide training scheme to counteract this? Just earlier, at the post office, trying to buy a 1.60 Lei stamp, I gave the clerk 2.10 - the 50 leu pieces are in great demand here as you need them to use the lockers at the front of shops and I was after one of them. She had no idea what to do, throwing my 10 leu piece at me and then handing me 40 leu in 10 leu pieces. Damn leu, lei, whatevers.

* Similarly, one of the biggest hassles on any trip is the issue of getting change for large banknotes. Upon arrival, I'll hit the bank machine and inevitably get landed with whopping big notes. For whatever reason, airports never seem to prepare for this eventuality and trying to get change can be downright impossible. In foreseeing this problem, I brought along a few $20 bills as a means of getting smaller bits of change. But guess what? The bloody airport didn't even have an exchange office! The EU needs to get on this, asap.

Part II: Sighişoara: birthplace of Dracula - allegedly

* Dracula is loosely based on Vlad Ţepes, or the 'Impaler' as he was known due to his fondness for impaling his subjects and removing their eyes. He was born here, left when he was four, and his early childhood home is now imaginatively named 'The Dracula Cafe'. I daredn't go in.

* I had an odd 'encounter' if you could call it that with a sinister Austrian man on 4 separate occasions: twice at the International Cafe and twice at my hostel. Each time, there he was on the internet looking at some very questionably extreme sites - let's just say that Leopold Van Sacher-Masoch would have been impressed. I tried not to look, but the computer was in a prominent, wide-open place. One site in particular caught my attention: 'Tranny's in Vienna'. Though maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt here. Judging by the position of the apostrophe, he might have only been looking at someone's blog. I hope.

* Language-wise, I've been very lazy on this trip. Normally I at least verse myself with the essentials, the hellos, thank yous, goodbyes, can I have your phone number, etc, but this time I've barely bothered. It's mainly because I'm still cramming Russian for my fast approaching jaunt into Transdniestr (despite a New Yorker in Sibiu telling me about the ordeal he went through, with numerous shakedowns, attempts to procure bribes, and other general tomfoolery from the 'authorities') and also because, well, I can't be bothered. Not too many Romanians speak English, but between my smatterings of Spanish, Italian and French (fellow Romance languages, obviously), German (still the primary 2nd language taught in schools) as well as Russian (an older man knew some), I've managed to get by just fine.

* I caught a little boy stealing from a souvenir stall. I grabbed him, yelled at him, and tossed the little turd in the direction of the woman womanning the stall. And what thanks did I get? She yelled at me for something or other. Probably thought we were in cahoots.

Lastly, a Saturday of great football, beautiful women and Marlboros

I watched the Champions League final in a bar in Sibiu called Caffe Amber. There's an irony in that name, which will soon become clear.

The EU certainly hasn't got their stamp on this yet, but the first thing I noticed in this relatively swish bar, were the repeated cigarette advertisements on the television. Second, was the huge screen next to the television showing a continuous loop of extra-glamorous Marlboro ads, featuring hot young things in all sorts of poses, always with a packet of cigs in their hands or pockets. And then before I knew it, in walked four absolute stunners clad in identical outfits. And they were all smoking. Literally.

Philip Morris must have identified Romania as a prime target to spread its wares. These women, along with their 'pimp', were walking around the cafe, handing out free Marlboros and then posing for photos with the customers. As tempted as I was to get a photo with these beauties, there was no way I was putting one of those filthy things in my gob.

I can hardly compete with Jess Cartner-Morley and her elan for writing about haute couture, but I'll attempt to describe what they were wearing: short, tight white lycra (?) dresses with a Hollywoodish screenprint silhouetted on the their tops (odd, but lovely); short black leather motorcycle jackets sans the excess of straps and zippers (a nice touch); ankle high black booties (not a fan); fishnet tights (ooh la la!); ridiculously intriguing shiny gold belt structures that wrapped around in all sorts of directions (interesting); and black bowler hats (classy). And oodles of makeup and lipgloss (trashy, but effective).

So while they pranced around and did their thing, I tried to focus on the football, for the most part successfully. They eventually gave up trying to get me hooked on their product. I was probably the only holdout in the establishment. For some reason, all I could think about was Philip Morris and all the free cigarettes they handed out to GIs in the Korean and Vietnam Wars.

The most tragicomic moment of the night came much later, when an exasperated waitress lost her cool, and hurled a full plate of food down the dumbwaiter shaft when no one would take the hot plate out of her hands. It was a pretty bizarre occurrence for such an upscale place. Maybe she needed a cigarette.

As for the irony behind the cafe's name, it was my ex-girlfriend Amber, who many years ago worked for an advertising firm in Boston on the Truth Campaign, which used the money resulting in a lawsuit against the big tobacco giants to stamp out smoking usage in America's youth. I think it was quite successful, in the end, though the battle continues. But at least here's a very comforting thought: I haven't noticed much smoking among Romania's youth, despite Philip Morris's blatant attempts to sabotage this (as well as implicating Amber in its attempts). So there's hope, for now.

The end of today's tales

I'm now in Braşov, where earlier today I visited Dracula's Castle. Tomorrow it's on to Bucharest (remember, just like Laurens Van Der Post, I like to save the capitals for the end of my stays). More tales still to come.