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03/12/01 - 09/12/01: Bucharest
Another complete week spent in Bucharest, mainly in and around Milla's flat. Principle events of the week revolved around the lock to the flat and the saga of Tina, the Cocker Spaniel. There's no travel stuff in this week, so feel free to skip ahead.
On Monday we went to Milla's mother's appartment, to visit and walk Tina (Milla's mother has left specific isntructions with her relations that Milla is not allowed to take her). We use the opportunity to nick a spare lock with multiple keys instead, since we're still having no success getting a key cut. Tina is a black and white Cocker Spaniel, very licky, and suffering from a degenerative condition: she only recently recovered from partial paralysis, and is on a number of treatments and medications. Because of her ongoing spinal problems, her gait is lopsided and awkward: for the outside world she has a little green and red tartan jacket. She seems unwell and is apparently not eating - Milena resolves to bring her back to the flat tomorrow. That evening we both spend some time working on the new (old) lock, but the mechanism is bent and the chamber badly needs oiled.
By Tuesday morning, Milena has thought of another key place: after visits by friends (Mihaela and Ella, both taller than me), we go out shopping (late) and stop off at the key place - they don't see any problem and cut us a copy. Back at the flat, of course, the copy doesn't work. Milean talks with her mother on the phone, and they agree that Tina will come to stay with us after all, since her current keepers have no expertise in looking after a sick dog.
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Wednesday sees two successes: extreme measures with a mallet leave us with a working lock (with four keys). Further violent action with a chisel and screwdriver gets it fitted - it's stiff, doesn't quite fit 100%, and requires a variety of esoteric techniques to lock and unlock, but now we can come and go independently. The other success is the arrival of Tina, with whom I thankfully seem to get on okay. She moves into my rucksack-corner but, except for the first day, spends her nights in bed with us. Generally sedentary, she also paces around the flat from time to time - whemn we're both out, she waits at the door for us: she is also intermittently and obviously in some pain. Treatment from a little electric massage machine doesn't seem to overly help.
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At the end of the week, on a very cold Sunday evening, we both go and meet Milena's mother on her eventual return (I get to carry her bag): a little of Milena's nervousness rubs off on me, but I feel it goes fairly well. Back at her appartment, Milla's mother feeds us both on various traditional food products which she's brought back with her. When we leave, Milla's mother and Tina escort us a short distance: after a couple of hundred metres, Tina sits down and refuses to move further without being carried, which is a bad sign. Also, when we get back to the flat Milena tells me that her mother suspects me of being a criminal, axe-murderer, and so on. Ah well.
The only other noteworthy incident of the week was my second encounter with ticket inspectors on the tram. Milena was returning her boots to the cobbler (they're coming apart at the sole, as well as being apparently ugly and too tight), and nipping into church. On the way back , the three pass-wielding officials (plain clothes, two men and a woman) accost us. I stare blankly, as Milena takes the woman aside and there's an incomprehensible exchange: Milla briefly returns to me, telling me to get off at the next stop and meet her back at the flat - she'll try to resolve the situation herself. The inspectors prove smarter than they look, and escort us both off the tram at the next stop. There follows a ten-minute debate, during which Milla claims to be from Timisoara (she puts on an accent), has no money and no papers. I'm her non-Romanian-speaking Serb companion - don't ask. I get into a bizarre word-free conversation with one of them (while Milena works on the other two), in which he expresses sympathy with the plight of the Serbs and condemnation of the American destruction of Europe. Eventually they let us walk free, with friendly shaking of hands and slapping of backs.
More generic observations which have cropped up over the past few days, on all manner of subjects:
- As far as popular music goes, Bucharest (and probably the rest of Romania) is mostly caught in a bizarre timewarp which runs from 1977 to 1983. Classic, eternally popular groups here range from the Sex Pistols to Depeche Mode - the few contemporary figures with cult followings are those who date from that era: George Michael, Sting, etc. Every so often you see a grafitti "Punk's not Dead": I mean, I'm sorry but yes it is, and no amount of shouting, guitar-thrashing Romanians is going to change that. They've managed to embrace the sound, while completely missing the point.
- The trend in the film industry to make closing credits longer and longer, to include anyone who breathed on the set, is neatly bypassed here - they only roll enough of the titles to show the (subtitled) subtitle credit - ie. about three seconds.
- While ranking well behind, say, Denmark, I'm seen three really attractice girls in Bucharest in the past few weeks (well - "attractive" to me), not including Milla. That's quite a lot, and despite the fashion trend for girls to look as artificial and facially-bland as possible.
- With a detached, often quite chilling style, Milena relates stories (sometimes fairly horrific) about the fate of members of her family during the 1989 "revolution" and its aftermath. The fact that she referss to the victims of the mob by pet family names and adds little personal details makes it worse. She can add to these tales with the history of her Serb grandparents in Romania after WWII (persecution, camps, forced relocation). This whole region is really fucked up by ethnic prejudice and divisions.
- In the UK last year, the manufacturers of Jif liquid changed its name to "Cif", to standardise the product-line across all its markets. They ran a ludicrous advertising campaign to alert us to this, in which they claimed that in many places in the world people wouldn't be able to pronounce "Jif". Apart from not personally figuring out whether it should be pronounced Siff or Kiff ("C" is one of the few letters in English which has a question mark over its general pronunciation), there's yet another variant pronunciation in Romania - "Cif" is pronounced Cheef.
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Also in the UK, as cheap imports from the Far East, there are little noise-making toys which sequentially run through a variety of sounds (sirens, wails, hoots and so on): they're mostly toy guns (I have one - it was a present). Here, the same circuits are used in the car alarms fitted to Dacias, so there's a permanent cacophony among the high-rises. The same circuits and range of sounds are also used in car alarms in Bulgaria (though on reflection, it's a distinct possibility that all the ones I heard were from imported Dacias). The first time I heard one, wondering what it was, I toyed with the notion that the drivers of Bulgarian police cars could select the noise their sirens made (like with mobile phone users selecting their ringtones). Indeed, I still think that's a much more appealing notion than the boring reality of car alarms, and hope that in the future at least one police force will adopt such a scheme.
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