Days 17-18:
(Sorry for the late update. Blogger -- have I mentioned it sucks? -- has had a non-working update function the past couple of days, at least from Romania)
We haven't done much. I've been making a conscious effort to just sort of relax and enjoy hanging out with Io before it's time to go back to the US. Yesterday we went to the Auchan and then off to visit the godparents.
Everything in Romania takes longer than things do in LA. It's interesting and I'm sure has something larger to say about the different lifestyles in both countries, but I'm too lazy to figure out what. But getting to the godparents was about a 45-minute trip that combined a walk, a long bus ride, and then another walk. Once we got there, Order of Business Number One was that Ovi wanted to take me for a motorcycle ride. A friend of his has a bike, and Ovi loves bikes and knows that I love bikes, so we'd been planning this for a while.
So Ovi and I walked over to the friend's place, then had to go up to the friend's apartment to get the battery for the bike. It had no gas, so we walked to a gas station, got gas, and walked back. At this point it's about two hours since I left the house. In LA, if I went to visit a friend, at T +2 hours we would have finished two sets of tennis and be eating lunch by now, or whatever. There are actually advantages and disadvantages to each. My Type A personality tends to automatically prefer the LA lifestyle, but there's something to be said for the slower lifestyle as well. You see more of what's going on around you, and somehow when everything moves slower everything seems, I dunno, less stressed. Although maybe that's more just because I'm on vacation.
Anyway, so Ovi took me to see this bike. It was made by a Russian company called Ural, and Ovi told me the bike was an "improved" version of the BMW boxer design (same as my current bike at home). So we get to the place, and there's a dramatic unveiling:
I felt like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars.
"What a piece of junk!"
But the bike is actually a pretty cool example of old, hard-as-nails bike design. My R1150RT at home is all computers and slick lines and fly-by-wire. The Ural is a stripped-down, severe form of motorcycle: an engine block, two big cylinders, a utilitarian electrical system, and just enough frame to hold it together. It doesn't even have an electric starter. You can look at it and see exactly where each component is and what it does. "The front brake is -- nonexist," Ovi told me. Good to know. I notice the side of the gas tank is not just dented and scraped, but has been patched. Like, an oval of metal has literally been welded into the skin of the tank.
Unfortunately, although my mom will not think so, we couldn't get the bike started. The gas tank was rusted out and the fuel line, which runs right along the outside of the bike where anything in the world could sever it and lead to a catastrophic fire, wasn't getting any gas. So we had to abandon the motorcycle ride (although Ovi assures me the bike will be fixed by the time I'm back here next year).
Today, we've done basically nothing at all. Em and I went for a run, Io made us all delicious lamb stew and mamaliga, and went for a walk. Tomorrow it's off to downtown Bucharest for various errands.
Probably doesn't mean what I think
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