De Perros y Limones

Bucharest, baby!

Bucharest, Baby!

Well, we have concluded our tour of European cities starting with the letter B.  Our final one was the Romanian capital to witness the marriage of our friends who live in Sri Lanka, Corina and Oliver – Romanian and British respectively.   And what a trip it was.

  • Oliver looking all cool before the ceremony.

As Brits of a certain age, Sonalee and I have old images of Romania in our heads from the news and current affairs programmes – The plight of Romanian orphans, the revolution of 1989, the demonstrations and counter-demonstrations in the capital city and the monument to that power-mad dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu.  We have, in our lifetime, only known Romania as a communist country that then joined the EU and whose citizens are blamed for  “Taking our jobs” by the right-wing press in the UK.

  • Stag-party central
  • Don Quixote as imagined by a Romanian artist
  • The monument to the heroes of the 1989 revolution
  • One of the many great pieces of art in the national museum
  • Communist era buildings need some serious work

Granted that we only visited the centre of the capital city but let me tell you that those images forget the extremely impressive history of Romania and its legacy.  And, apparently, Romania is more than just Dracula and Transylvania!  Who knew?

Wedding Flowers

Okay so it is one Europe’s Stag-Party capitals and there are the signs of poverty that you would expect to see in any other European capital and some of the communist-era buildings need some urgent work but it is, nevertheless, a really fascinating historical place to spend a weekend.  And, okay, we spent one day of it watching the cricket world cup final, but what else were we supposed to do the day after a wedding with a FREE BAR!?

Sonalee looking gorgeous at the fountains

And everyone speaks English!  Or German.  Or French.  Spanish not so much, so we felt at home there. 

Attending an Orthodox Christian wedding was a first for us, as it was for the groom Oliver, who looked slightly bemused throughout.  That may be normal for all grooms though. 

The Parliament is the heaviest building in the world, apparently,

We had a great time at the wedding and without.  We were also happy in the knowledge that our pets were being looked after by yet another great couple of housesitters, Marty and Nick from New Zealand who were on a Gap Year/Sabbatical.  Unlike us, they were doing the travelling thing and, like many kiwis abroad, they were really going for it with the sheer number of places they were visiting.   They are the same age as us and decided to do this following the death of Marty’s best friend and the realisation that life is too short not  to do these things. 

Our return to home to Spain was a bit weird because, well, we consider Spain our home now.  The familiar sights on the motorways:-  the foreign language signs, the twatty drivers tailgating you, the numerous cafes, the very visible brothels, the dullness of La Mancha morphing into the hills of Andalucia and the ringing of the midnight bells in the village that matched the excited barks of four dogs when we parked up. 

  • Our apartment in Bucharest, The Shining style

It was that realisation that where we were was where we were meant to be.  It was a subtle change but one that has been building up for some time.  We have known such happy times here, such confusing times and times where, quite frankly, we didn’t have a bloody clue as to what we were doing or what we were supposed to do. 

Now, of course, we still have little idea of what we are supposed to be doing but we go out for a long walk amongst the olive trees each morning and we understand that this is what we are here for.  To perambulate (one of my favourite verbs) alongside four ludicrously happy dogs surrounded by locals who just seem very content to see you doing so is, at our time in our lives, a wondrous thing. 

For sure we have problems.  Who doesn’t?  We don’t yet have our car – we’re going through a ball-ache series of hire cars as we negotiate with our insurers.  The house needs a lot more work than a lazy Brit can manage and the UK has just changed the requirements for getting an International Driving Permit which, thanks to Brexit, has screwed us over royally.  Not only that but we have just finished the last jar of piccalilli.  I know, eh?

These are the things we contemplate of an evening as we have seemingly given up cooking in favour of just walking fifty yards up the road to the Pool Bar/Restaurant.  They start serving at 9/9.30 depending upon when Cook can get there.  It’s easy.  It’s nice.  It lacks any sophistication whatsoever.  It’s cheap.  It’s a chance to observe and to be seen. 

We see the families and individuals that gather there nightly.  Some are there for a drink, others for a family meal.  The kids are still hanging about after spending literally all day at the pool – they will be bronze coloured come the end of the summer.   There are groups of teenage boys trying to look cool, young men in their early twenties being brash and cheerful and the old men smiling away with their glass of wine.

We know them all.  Not well at all but we know them.  They know us.  We smile at each other and offer greetings.   They know that we have four dogs, one of whom wanders the village on her own terms.  They know conversations with us are stilted, awkward and very embarrassing for us.  And they couldn’t care less.  They know we love living here because we have let it be known that we do so.  And, for this, we know that we are welcomed here. 

The people here know that we are here for the duration, I think they appreciate it.   I think we have gained respect for managing to mangle the language to a degree that is acceptable.  We have also been very drunk at the various fiestas that have been held here – this is important. 

Needless to say, we still miss Tango so much.  Bindi keeps going out to the patio to wait for him to return from one of his local adventures or she nuzzles Monte to play like her old friend used to do.  Monte isn’t a play cat though and he is also lonely as well, he misses his old sparring partner.  I keep checking the spare bedroom to see if he’s sneaked in there yet again and I have found myself so often wishing that I could  pick him up just one more time to tell him how much I loved him.  Sonalee misses him the most in the mornings;  that was the time that he would sit on her whilst she had the first cup of tea of the day.   

I think we’re always going  to miss him especially on our new adventure to Morocco.   There’s not going to be anyone to be pissed off about being dragged to another country. 

Speaking of new adventures, I’m entering the world of university learning again!  I’ll be doing a Post Graduate Certificate with Leicester Uni and I’m really really nervous about it.  I know I’m a terrible student because of my slapdash application to learning Spanish so this does not fill me with confidence.  It does mean that, the next  time you see me, you can point and shout “Student!” in that derogatory way that we had to get used to in Swansea.  I’m also very aware that one of the requirements of being a student is putting up a poster of Che Guevara and eating Tesco’s basics range of baked beans.  I’ve yet to remind Sonalee about that particular aspect of it.

Four weeks left. 

Hasta Luego

Paul

A year ago, this is what our bed looked like on our first night in Spain

Paul

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