The Good, The Bad
Things about Romania I really dig:
Apricot or sour cherry jam. Hazelnut yogurt (correction: this comes from Italy, but regardless, it's not available in Canada without a transoceanic flight). Sour cream on food. Good cheese — I like the caşcaval cheese . . . and best of both worlds they even have sour cream (smântână) flavoured cream cheese.
All the cool little ground floor shops at the base of the apartment blocks. This seems like such a practical model for how to keep everything within walking distance, I still don't get North Americans' Sim-City-like obsession with keeping residential and commercial zones firmly separate and at least a 1km drive away from each other (with only a few notable exceptions like NYC, San Francisco, downtown Vancouver). It's so handy to run downstairs and grab a bottle of mineral water when you need one.
The sandwich meat aisle of the supermarket consisting of dozens of handmade salamis and other sausages hanging from strings. Forget Oscar Mayer — this is the real deal. I'll still pass on the pigs' feet, however.
Lots of music on television. Lots of movies on television. Programming in four different languages on television. A TV news show dedicated to foreign media stories which show what the rest of the world is currently saying about events in Romania (boy, could people in the US use one of these).
People's apartments and homes tend to be really nice and well cared for on the inside. Nice rugs, good use of space, and generally really clean — you can tell they really care about their homes.
The castles, citadels, and fortified churches. You're driving into a little village, and house, house, house . . . BANG . . . 800 year old castle. That's awesome. When I was a kid I thought this only happened in the movies. Even as an adult I felt like casltes in Europe were present, but fairly sparse. Not every second town.
With the exception of some of the aforementioned fashion oddities, people tend to dress pretty nicely. Not expensive, and not necessarily all that formal — you can just tell people give some thought to what their clothes look like when they leave home in the morning.
Miracuolously, with a diet that seems to consist almost entirely of bread, sausage, and cheese, Romanians tend to be pretty thin and healthy looking. Could be because they all die of heart attacks before they're 40, so only the young and fit ones are walking around, but either way, I was pleasantly surprised by this.
Things about Romania I just don't get:
The winter weather is pretty brutal on some days. I'm spoiled with my mild Vancouver winters.
As I've mentioend several times, the money, and people's vocabulary surrounding monetary values, really twists my melon right up. However, the appearance of the money itself is pretty cool. I particularly like the musical 5 New Lei bill.
A minor thing perhaps, but it drives me batty every time — adding Pepsi to red wine. Ugh. There have been a couple of times here I didn't catch someone before they poured Pepsi into my otherwise perfectly acceptable glass of wine. I try to choke it down afterward, because I assume it would be pretty impolite to ask them to please suck the Pepsi back out of my glass. Garrr, it's awful.
All in all, much more good than bad, I think.
Things about Romania I just don't get:
All in all, much more good than bad, I think.