The teddy bear incident

The following story happened last Saturday night and it's known as "The teddy bear incident". People who know me pretty well know that I have at my car key a teddy bear keychain so I can easily find it in my bag.

Last Saturday I went to a club with some old good friends who I hadn't seen for a while. The club was El grande Comandante. I don't know how many of you know it, but that thing is like a maze, with endless hallways and many little rooms.

When I usually go clubs I don't like to carry a bag, because I am afraid I might lose it in the crowd, so that night I just took my phone and some money in one pocket and my car key in the other pocket - with the teddy bear hanging outside my jeans.

At one moment in the evening, around 1 a.m. one of my friends wanted to leave and because he didn't know the place I took him to the exit. It was pouring outside, so I just said goodbye and went back in the club. After getting down the staires, I realized the teddy bear was gone...and with it my car key. I freaked out and went directly out in the rain to see if my car is still there - the fact was that I really tried to park it as close to the club as possible, so anyone who had found the key and played a little bit with it could have found the car - great...right? The club was packed, there were hundreds of people everywhere, find the key by myself was close to impossible.

I was already thinking I had to stay all night guarding my car in the pouring rain and I didn't even wanted to go back in the club. As I was staying by the door of the club, trying to call one of my friends up to tell her the story, I thought I might ask the 5 gorillas guarding the entrance if I can talk with someone about the incident.

"What car do you have?" asked one of them. I didn't want to tell them...but I hadn't anything else to lose (except my car:)) so I finaly told them. After letting me boil for a minute or two one of them took out of his pocket my car key and starting waving it in front of my eyes asking me how am I going to prove that it's the key of my car. They eventually gave me my key back but not without making a little fun first.

That's the story of how I almost lost my car key. I began thinking that it was quite impossible for the key to just fell down of my pocket...but as the story had a happy end, I decided to take the positive part and think that there are still some good guys in this freaking city.

Love u. Take care.

I'm still kicking:)

Hope nobody thought that I forgot about my precious blog...well, I didn't, I just wasn't in the mood...it must have been from the awful weather and the stinky rain that always drops uninvited:)

Since my last post I've experienced an Easter, with a lot of food, drinks and guests, a labour day (1st of May) which was unfortunately for us this year a Sunday, but we still took advantage of the weekend and went to visit a Salt Mine - Ocnele Mari and last week the company organized a work shop somewhere in Slanic Moldova...very far and very cold...fortunately for me I was one of the few that got away without a cold (at least until now).

What else???...oh, ya...I am planning a trip to Kiev this summer, most probably in august, 4 days by car...if anyone is interested you know where to find me.

Promise to be back very soon:)

Love u. Take care.

This and that

I've been quite lazy lately and not in the writing mood...it must be from the weather:)) What has been on?...Well first weekend after getting back from India we organized a bike trip to Caldarusani Monastery. Although we knew there would be about 70 km to the monastery and back, we were confident in our physical abilities. We settled the meeting point at Obor, around 11. Of course people were late...so we left around 12.

We were 11 at first, but at an intersection 4 of us took another turn. The first 1 hour, one hour and a half was ok...but when we got out of the city in plain field...there was this terrible wind practically holding us back. And that's how only around 4 p.m. we where arriving at the wonderful monastery. There we met with the others and after taking our breaths for a while we headed back as it was getting pretty late.

The way back was awfully paniful...we had to fight the wind again and we were exhausted. It's hard to explain in words how we managed to get back...so I better stop here and talk about something more nice.

Last week I had to go in a mission in Sighisoara and had the chance to rediscover this old city. The first time I went to Sighisoara I was 14 years old I think and it was nice to get to see it now...with new eyes and I amased to see that some places were the same...some were new, but on the overall it was the same city.

Now...I'm back at the office...same old...same old...waitting for Easter...2 more weeks to go:)

Love u. Take care.

Indians know about Romania

As I already told you, we were the attraction of all the pairs of eyes everywhere we went...and many of them wouldn't stop at just staring, but also making conversation, taking pictures...with or without asking permission...and even if sometimes we felt harassed by their "curiosity" we learned to live with them and go ignoring them most of the time.

I think most of you saw those little movies on youtube where Americans don't know of the existence of such a country as Romania and some not even about Europe....So you can imagine my surprise to see that, even though many of them were illiterate, the Indians knew about Romania, they knew that it's a country in Europe, near to Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine and that it's a former communist country. And I am not talking here just about a couple of people...but all of the hundreds that just came to us, said "hello", asked "where are you from?", received the answer, told us anything they knew (most of which correct), smiled and went on.

There's the saying that "curiosity killed the cat", but I didn't even know the right meaning of the word before India...those guys are really curious.

Love u. Take care.

Experimenting India

So we finally got to india...into an indian home...to an indian bed...and even though we were exhausted from the travel we just slept 2 hours we opened the door and took a first taste of india: narrow, dusty streets...chaotic trafic...people walking on the streets with the cars, bicycles and here and there a cow...monkeys on the rooftops of the houses...and that's just from the view from the apartment's balcony.

The first second we stepped out of the apartment building we became the attraction of all the pairs of eyes on the street. Everyone was practically staring at us...and then I realized that we were for them like the monkeys on the rooftops for us.

The first surprise was the subway...newly opened in 2010 it looked quite modern and nice. Even though it was a Sunday there were quite a lot of persons waiting in ordered line for the metro...but when the trained came the order was broken and everyone was pushing to get in and the ones from inside were stuggling to get out. What the hell had happened to all the order you may ask...oh, well...the thing is that if you wait like a normal person, like we did for the first time, for all the people to get out of the train you will probably remain on the platform as the doors closed automatically no matter if all the people got out or in.

The next thing that intrigued us was the strict security...they had scanners for luggage and persons controlling you from head to the toes...armed guys at each entrance...little barracks made out of sand bags behind which an armed man was staying...it was a little to much if I can say so...but, it was Asia...you know...the land of terorism.

Also at the metro we noticed everywhere signs forbidding spitting...but everywhere...and we were like:"how much can this people spit?'...weeeelll...pretty much. They buy little bags of tobbaco, they chew it and after a while spit everything out on the streets...it's quite disgusting. So...for them spitting at the metro is the worse offense and is punished by law.

I think that's enough for today...many more stories to come.

Love u. Take care.

Let the tale begin

OK...I'm back...safe and sound (at least for the moment, the side effects are yet to come:))...and at everyone's question of "how was it?" I could just say:"totally different from what I have ever lived before, it's like another planet".

The first nice surprise was the how the Turkish Airlines treat their customers. Those 4 flights (bucharest-istanbul, istanbul-delhi and return) worth every cent of those 640 euro we paid.

We arrived in New Delhi's international airport in a Sunday morning, 5 am local time - 1.30 am romanian time. It was a gigantic building with endless halls, equipped with conveyors and covered entirely in carpets. At the end of each conveyor there were restrooms where a nice Indian lady would welcome you with a warm Namaste.

There were 2 old guys at the passport control who thought it funny we were from Romania and starting laughing from one another on our behave and mentioning Ceausescu...the greatest romanian of them all:))

After recovering our luggage we followed the instructions of our indian friends and went in search of a taxi. From the very first contact with an indian salesman we know that these guys will always try to take advantage of the foreigners asking ridiculous sums of money, hoping to make a fortune. They were asking 1200 rupees for a prepaid, but we know we shouldn't pay more than 600. We just took one from in front of the airport after negotiating the sum of 500 rupees as the fee of our drive.

Another surprise was that the driver didn't know the address and that there were no inscriptions on any street in that city (fact which was proven over and over again until the end of our trip). Fortunately for us the guy who was supposed to host us called and explained the driver where exactly is his house. After wandering the streets about half an hour we finally got to the right.

The guy was actually a 19 year old young man who had great care of us, showing us around, cooking and answering to all our pretty stupid questions...but about that I'll tell you more in a future post.

Love u. Take care.

Here we are...

The day has come...tomorrow I am leaving for what I am sure to be one in a lifetime experience. I've been planing this trip for almost 3 months and I am so excited right now that I don't think I'm going to get much sleep tonight.

I can't say that the next two weeks will change my life, but I'm sure I'll be talking about them for a looooong...loooong...time.

See you when I get back.

Mada out.