Tigani Lite
I: I still don't know what the US Army was doing here. . . .
She: The US Army? In Alba Iulia?
I: No, just in Romania, near Deva. We drove behind a truck that said "US Army" for a long time on Monday. It was very odd. You must have still been asleep in the car.
She: Probably.
I: Anyway, why do you think they were here?
She: Who says they were actually here? The truck was probably stolen.
* * *
Today was the first day we had a chance to really explore around on foot. Granted, it was like -7C outside and most places we could have otherwise ducked into for even an ounce of warmth were still closed for Christmas, but it was still pretty interesting. Some random observations:
Every dog in Romania is trained to sniff out Westerners and warn the entire country, apparently. As we walked through a more wealthy residential subdivision, we left a trail of barking dogs about 4 blocks long behind us. Several of them appeared to have developed a taste for human flesh, so I was glad to see thick chains and fences were helping to keep the dogs' teeth from my throat.
We found a coffee shop that was open, and sat down for a snack and something to drink. The total was 7.20 lei. I handed the girl a 5 and three 1's. She handed back one of the 1's and asked something in Romanian. I was perplexed. "She asked if you have a 2000?" translated my wife. "2000?!?" At which point I rememebered Romania's crazy currency situation. One "new Lei" is actually equal to 10,000 "old Lei." When they revalued the currency, they collected all the million Lei bills, etc, but rather than reissuing new money for the small stuff, they just kept the <10,000 bills as-is, based on the presumption that the switchover would be cheaper that way, and the number of zeroes is still manageable at that level anyway. Moral of the story, if you want to feel rich, ask a Romanian for change, and you'll get a hand full of 1000 lei notes. At any rate, no, we didn't have any of the old notes, so, somewhat exasperated, the coffee shop girl told us to just keep the change, and be sure to show up with 2000 extra next time.
While in that coffee shop, a little gypsy (tigani) kid wandered in and asked the shop girl if he could sing a carol for them. She told him she didn't want his carol and to get lost. So he trotted over to the second most gullible looking people in the place (us) and asked us if we wanted a carol, which we successfully averted. "Aw what a sweetheart." "What?" I responded, "He was begging for money, sort of." "But compared to getting bumped around, mobbed, robbed, and whined at, this cute little guy was sort of like Tigani Lite. I almost enjoyed being begged at by him."
We wandered by a food stand that makes strudels, sausage rolls, and other meat-cheese-or-fruit-baked-inside-of-bread goods. I wanted to take a photo of the menu, and when I pulled out my camera, the woman started getting really excited. "Is it okay that I'm taking the picture? What's wrong?" "Oh no, it's fine. She's asking us if we're here on a special visit from the international headquarters to take her photo." With that, I almost felt bad telling the truth — somehow I think the poor woman would have been far more happy thinking that somewhere, sometime, there was going to be a Sausage Roll Huts, Int'l, financial report with her picture on the front.
She: The US Army? In Alba Iulia?
I: No, just in Romania, near Deva. We drove behind a truck that said "US Army" for a long time on Monday. It was very odd. You must have still been asleep in the car.
She: Probably.
I: Anyway, why do you think they were here?
She: Who says they were actually here? The truck was probably stolen.
* * *
Today was the first day we had a chance to really explore around on foot. Granted, it was like -7C outside and most places we could have otherwise ducked into for even an ounce of warmth were still closed for Christmas, but it was still pretty interesting. Some random observations: