Sociability is Hard Enough For Me

After being mildly scolded about the regularity of my posting I was going to make an effort to post more but alas I have been down with the WORST dose of man flu that anyone has ever endured. Rest assured anyone else would have died. After finding a lack of sympathy anywhere I was forced to get on with it.

A few days ago I managed to become a cherished memory of someone's big day as when coming out of my block's front door I inadvertently walked into someone's wedding video. The whole thing was very strange bordering on the inane. The groom came out of the front door completely in white, jacket, cravat, waistcoat and even shoes. It was truly chavtastic, especially when he climbed into a car that looked like something from the Sopranos. As normal they had gone for a real display but again as normal there was something to drag it down. One problem was that the rest of the family were in the former car of the Communist regime, modern day success story and staple of Romanian roads, the legendary Dacia. As you can see, you would hope for something a little less socialist when driving to see your son seal the deal. Not to let him down they covered them in balloons. It made a world of difference. The other problem was the location. It's fair to say the front of my block isn't Paris. Surrounded on all sides by other flat blocks, lots of graffiti and more than one set of roadworks, you would hope for a better location. They thought long and hard and came up with the only solution, an accordion player. Imagine my surprise at 7 in the morning, stumbling out of my block, late to get to the metro, hazy eyed (you know I don't function before 3pm) to find an accordion player (in peasant garb), a gangster car and a guy wearing nothing but white staring me; are you an angel? Have I died? The look of confusion and panic will be forever enshrined on video.

One of the most noticeable things about living in Romania is that people get married younger. Whereas at home you just assume that a vast majority, if not all, of people in their early twenties in clubs are unmarried, here it's different. I've seen a lot of western Europeans go up to Romanians in clubs only to find out they are married at 22. At home you would think you just crashed and burnt but here you just nod, thats fair enough. Its proved at school where men are massively outnumbered by women (its hard I tell you) and there are girls only a few years older than me who have been married for four or five years. It's not universal but its certainly a much more frequent occurrence.

I've been warned about romance generally, they needn't have bothered but I appreciate the thought. Everyone seems to have a few stories to tell. A few people have had the same problem, that they go on one date and it all seems to go great until they try to talk to them again by which time they have mysteriously lost the ability to talk English. Once is a blow off, twice is coincidence but this has happened to four or five. Sometimes it goes the other way, with people turning up at their work and bombarding them with emails. Sometimes its just seedy, I know a guy whose gone home with one less nipple than when he arrived. I've been advised that Romanian girls are suckers for an English accent and that I should strut around like Hugh Grant, but a man needs his dignity. I've also been told to exploit that I'm "Exotic". I've never been described as exotic, mainly because I'm not, and they wouldn't call me it again if they knew what it was like at home. They should come and visit, we'll go for a pint at the black lion, get offered out by chavs, catch an STD and finish the night off with a doner ... fuck yeah.

Its enough to make you home sick x