Right, after some months of waiting time might be right for another part of my Romanian diary. This time it is about why I was woken up with the police coming into my home, about the weather (greets to an »Italian«, who moved from Dacia Felix to America) and on how to spend your spare time in Sibiu, the cultural capital of Europe (2007). Romania is sooooo… simply surprising…First of all, weather is great here. We have every day some 26 to 30 °C, a clear sky and the sun is shining. A less enjoyable part is that in Sibiu the wind is also pretty tough, every day, what sometimes turns out to be a bad combination when combined with the heat (as a result, I got a cold). To me it seems to be one of the only reasons imaginable why Mrs. Alina Stefanescu [1] still stays in USA instead of moving back to Romania (a really well done site, indeed!). However, I would like to use this occasion to thank her for the neat demonstration of how some ((However, in general we have fun here.)) Romanians react if they consider their national pride being hurt [2] because foreigners dare not to continuously praise Romania [3]. Probably the »beautiful landscape and nature« would to be praised. ((Or as Ina pointed out: »If there is nothing to say people tend to praise the nature and the landscape.« Indeed, the incredible beautiful landscapes are to be mentioned here first, followed by some old houses and decaying castles. But also a small shopping mall might turn out to be considered a remarkable touristic feature. Good for me, as I am not a big fan of nature and landscapes.)) And to answer the question Alina Stefanescu put to my colleague Alex Cocieru in another part: Yes, WE blog. Not much, but you may see the result here 🙂
Besides the great weather Sibiu has several events to offer during spring and summer such as an International Jazz Festival, followed by an International Theater Festival and an International Film Festival. I attended them all, also another Heavy Metal Festival the week after 🙂 but however, I was most deeply impressed by an absolutely outstanding and fascinating staging of “Faust” [4] by the local Theater “Radu Stanca”, Sibiu. Modern, avant-garde and simply surprising. I think I have to go there a second time.
As you see on the image on the right, we had the privilege to see In Extremo, furthermore, Stratovarious, Korpiklaani and John Oliva (Savatage) at the metal festival. The stadium was not too crowded, though. However, beer was cheep and good and we (that is me and Mihai [5]) had fun.
However, remains the story with the police. Monday morning I got woken up by my colleague, who told me that the police is in our apartment and wants to talk to me. Two officers, waited for me to get up, showed me a picture of some ugly guy and asked me where he might be. Of course, they were quite nice, but disappointed as they obviously didn’t found who they were looking for. The rest of the dialogue went somehow like this:
Police: So you do not know the guy?
Me: nope.
Police: But doesn’t he use to hang around here?
Me: Nope. Not that I would be aware of.
Police: And from whom did you rent this Apartment?
Me: From family H.
Police (again disappointed): Family H.?
Me: Yep.
Police (somewhat desperate): But didn’t you see the guy here?! It is also written in his identity card that he stays here…
They show me his ID; I could not withhold to grin…
Me: Well, yes, House number X, block number Y, Apartment Number 2, that is pretty fine, but this is STRADA ABC, not STRADA XYZ!
Police (still disbelivingly): How come this is not Strada XYZ?!
Me: Well, it simply is not considered as such by most people.
Police: But we think it still is…
My colleague: And how come we still receive our mail?
Me: and Pizza?!
Police: Ooooh! You receive your mail? Ok, that changes things somehow…
After the world seemed changed to our two officers they left us and I could sleep for another 30 minutes. Well, Mondays often do not start so well. I hope they eventually found the right street or at least read the labeling of the next block they may have entered. Or as Alexandra [6] put it: »I am not even surprised. The Romanian Police is always in action. But not where they are supposed to be.« And I hope that they found the guy. He really did not look nice in that pic. 😀
I will come back to you with more news from Romania another time. Maybe I will tell you about the mountains then. Best greets to all of you 😀