Back again...

Romania stayed the same..after almost a year from my previous incursion. Hot hungry and contrasting. Walking through the park and seeing all those high-school kids with music on their cell-phones speakers, you feel the distance, just like those bare footed kids playing in the dirt in rural Cambodia. There is nothing really in common except the language. Pretty slim girls hand in hand with fat-belly guys in debatable summer fashion. Coffee and cigarettes at every corner and high consumption of it. A strange melange of "wow! was i also like this?" & "get me outta here, I never want to come back" is common. And now it's summer which makes things so much better. Hofstede or not, the cultural shock is present since you land in RO: those small luggage belts unavoidable get some chuckles from Dutch, french and german loosers that take low-cost crappy flights to exotic destinations like Eastern Europe, in search of fame, fortune, cheap booze and puss for which their home crummy salaries and days-of-eating-cheese sandwich-after-cheese-sandwich are perfect. Anguish. Revolt. but there's nothing more true that the way people extract an 10% tip out of you, or looking into the eyes of a professional old lady beggar in Le Gare du Nord and saying "Nu" (No) I don't have any spare change. And if this is it you're lucky. Brace yourself for having to deal with any hospital...bribes, doctors, liches, and parents that have this messed-up beliefs that staying at home and doing nothing about it will eventually cure any problem. But this is it. I am here. I am from here. At some point you just loose will in fighting everyone and everything. And you start cutting your losses. Next step would be buying a beach hut somewhere in Mexico and just stock up on those Margarita umbrellas. :) However, blue mountain ridges calm me a bit. Still, Romania is a wonderful country with lots to offer. It is just a pity that we don't exploit these options to the fullest.