The last few days I visited with my grandparents and today I ran a bunch of errands. My grandparents are happy and healthy, just a little older. This time I took some pictures and I posted them on my website at http://comp.uark.edu/~dseghet in the photo section. Take a look to see the “Simple Life” - Romanian Style. You can see my Grandpa’s babies (4 cats) and my Grandma’s colorful chickens. We have a dog too, and the poor baby was terrified by the New Year’s fireworks. Without any exaggeration I think Borca, Neamt, Romania had some of the most impressive fireworks I have ever seen. The tall mountains that closely surround the valley acted as a reverberation chamber and the fact that everybody lighted all the fireworks on a 1 mile radius at the same time, made the whole thing sound like an atomic bomb. The scary part was that all that firepower (including really big fireworks) was operated by amateurs and across Romania hundreds of people were mutilated by fireworks.
Yesterday we came back to Piatra Neamt and in a surprising turn of events my dad got his driver license back. His license was supposed to be suspended for another 2 months but one of his friends came in today and gave him a paper saying that reconsidering the situation he will receive his license in the mail tomorrow. This friend of his has connections with the police and all that and although my father told him that he won’t bribe anybody, he convinced my mom that it would be nice for my dad to have his license back for his new job. So this guy new the right people and the right loopholes in the law, and just with a Xerox copy of my dad’s ID he somehow came back with that paper signed saying that the 90 days suspension was reduced to just 30 days. Ain’t corrupt Romania great? My dad is really confused now. He doesn’t know whether to be happy for having his license back, or to be sad for encouraging another act of corruption. Either way, this was the first day he got to drive the new car which you will be able to see on the website. He concluded that his new purchase was a good choice.
That’s about it here in Romanialand. I will try to keep you posted in a journal-like manner about the excitement of being back to RO. I am already more comfortable with people who don’t smile, with being surrounded and touched by random people in narrow streets and busy markets, and with shop owners that yell at you for no reason. But I am also enjoying at max the natural foods here, the real beer, and the amazing wines for a dollar, while sharing some good ol’ stories with my intentionally funny dad and my unintentionally hilarious mom.
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