Transylvania Part 2 -- the Revenge!

Thursday, May 22, 2008


I'm still in Romania. It's still an interesting place. I'm still exhausted, but I'm trying to get the interesting things down before I sleep them out of my system. Here a smattering of the aforementioned interesting things . . .

- There are many, many peasants in Romania. I'm not talking 'poor people,' and I'm not talking 'pheasants' (though there are wild pheasants running around too). These people are straight-out-of-the-history-books peasants. They are exact replicas of the extras you see in movies such as 'Frankenstein,' 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' ("I'm not dead yet!"), and 'Henry V.' They are people of the land, using the exact same tools and wearing the exact same type of clothes as their ancestors did a thousand years ago. I see some herding cattle across the street with a stick with a leather tail attached to the end. People with homemade pitchforks gather fresh hay and put them in horse-drawn carts. The most fascinating thing to see, though, is that they use actual scythes to reap grass on the side of the road. Honest-to-god Grim Reaper scythes. These tools have been around, unchanged, for thousands of years. The only difference that I can guess between these peasants and their great-great-great- great- great- great- great-grandfathers is that the newer models probably own cell phones . . .

- Speaking of cell phones, Romanian people REALLY like to use them. I know we Americans get a bad rap for being a 'rude' people (and maybe we are), but our cell phone etiquette puts theirs to shame (or at least should). Here are the cell phone rules for Romanians, as far as I can tell: 1. Your cell phone must have the most annoying ring-tone you can find and must be set to the highest possible volume. 2. Your cell phone must always be on. Always! Turning your phone off or setting it to vibrate will result in an immediate and agonizing death. 3. If your cell phone rings, you MUST pick it up, regardless of the situation. There are NO exceptions. On the first day of the educational symposium I was helping to film, schoolchildren were brought in to hear the stories of actual Holocaust survivors. During this three hour event, cell phones were going off left and right – and not from the students. From the teachers! One teacher excused himself from the room about six times, as his cell phone blared a techno beat with someone in a heavy accent screaming "HALLO? HALLO? HALLO?" It only got worse on subsequent days where there were only adults in the room. Every single symposium participant whose cell phone went off answered the phone. Most people quickly got up from their chairs and ran out of the room, putting the phone to their ears as they reached the door, and throughout the four day event, only one of participants looked guilty (she pulled the cell phone out of her purse, answered it, and very quietly, from her chair, whispered something to the effect of "I can't answer my phone right now . . ."). One of the helpers of the event, a Romanian kid of about 19 named Tommy, went with me and another American, Adam, to film a Holocaust survivor giving a tour of the city, talking about how things changed since the 1930s (Most of the tour went like this – "This house used to belong to the Long family. They were bakers. They had five children. They all died in Auschwitz. That house belonged to the Fried family. They made jewelry. I went to school with their daughter. They all died in Auschwitz . . . " (There were a few survivors, but not many . . .)). Anyway, Tommy had an expensive, shoulder-mounted video camera (the one I transported from the states), and whenever his phone rang, he would throw his camera off his shoulder and grab his cell phone, regardless of the fact that the survivor was in the middle of an interview. The American who was with me, one of Tommy's bosses, yelled at him. "Tommy, what the hell are you doing?!? Get off your damn cell phone!" Tommy would respond, "I cannot do this!" and looked at Adam like he asked him to castrate himself . . .

- Romanian radio is interesting. It seems like every station plays a random mix of Romanian and American music. The American music is a hodgepodge of songs that, for the most part, I haven't heard of in years. It's almost like we sold them wholesale to countries like Romania . . . I heard both Eddie Murphy's one-hit-wonder "Party All the Time" and Patrick Swayze's one-hit-wonder "She's Like the Wind" on the same day. I heard "Ice Ice Baby" and "What Is Love (Baby Don't Hurt Me)." I heard Abba and, what I think were the first few bars of an Elvis song, but the channel got changed. I obviously don't understand what the radio DJs are saying, but in what I assume to be a preview of the music played, he mentioned Britney Spears and Kenny Loggins in the same sentence. It's kind of funny how in the US, songs by Britney Spears and Kenny Loggins would be on totally separate radio stations (both of which I most likely would stay away from . . . ), but I think in Romania, there are absolutely no difference between a techno song, a rap song and an oldie. They're all just "American."

- It was sunny and pleasant every single day I was here (except for today), and thunderstormed every single night. The power went off in the town three nights in a row . . .

- One of those nights, Adam and I had the car we were using stolen. By Tommy. Here is the story: We had just finished the second to last day of the symposium, which was totally draining. Adam, Tommy and I decided to go to a restaurant and have some food before going back to the house and passing out for our 7:00 wake up the next morning. This was actually the first time I would be eating out since I have been here, and was looking forward to eating something new. At the restaurant, we met up with Daniel, the historian and curator of the museum, and a group of Israelis who were attending the seminar. We joined them for dinner. During the course of the meal, some of the Israelis mentioned that they never got to tour the museum and were leaving the next day. Daniel obliged them by giving them a tour after hours. So, Daniel and a group of Israelis got up and headed into his car for the tour. Tommy mentioned that he needed to get something from Adam's rental car's trunk and went with them. As we continued eating with the remaining Israelis, Adam looked out the window and said, "Is that my car?" I looked out the window too, and saw his blue Fiat leaving the lot. Tommy was a (more-or-less) trusted employee and we knew where he lived, so we weren't terribly worried. Plus, we had another group of guests to stay with, so we both kept calm. I assumed it was some kind of misunderstanding, and that, perhaps, they had taken that car instead of Daniel's. We finished our dinner and the rest of the Israelis left. We went to the lot and looked around. Both Adam and Daniel's cars were gone. The sun was setting and black clouds were forming overhead. We waited a few minutes outside the restaurant, but it soon started absolutely pouring, and we were forced back in. The power went out and the light from the bolts of lightning showed that the parking lot was becoming a lake. By this point, Adam was frantically calling Tommy and Daniel, but because of the storm, the phones weren't working (I know this because Tommy and Daniel are Romanians and would have picked up their phones no matter what if Adam had gotten through). Finally, after about 45 minutes of non-stop dialing, Adam got through to Daniel. "Daniel, what the hell happened? Tommy took my car and we have no way of getting home. Get back here now, and bring Tommy!" He hung up. We waited another half hour in darkness. Nobody showed up. Adam began to call again, and eventually got through. "Daniel, where are you? You're still at the museum! Get back here! NOW!" A short time later, Daniel and Tommy drove to the restaurant parking lot. It was still pouring. I got up to run into the car, but Adam stopped me. "For making us wait, they're going to have to come in and get us," he said. Daniel came in, sopping wet. "Where's Tommy?" Adam asked, angrily. "He will be picking you up now in your car," replied Daniel. "I now have to drop the Israelis at the hotel." And he ran off. He jumped into his car and drove off. Tommy followed him in Adam's rental. "What the fuck?!?" Adam cried. He tried to frantically call again, and eventually got through. Forty-five minutes later, they were back. I wondered what kind of excuse Tommy had for what just happened. The only thing he said was, "Daniel's car got stuck in the mud." I still have no idea what went on . . .

That's it for now. I'll probably write one more post about my Romanian trip, including my adventure riding a horse and a few other stories. Stay tuned!