The Butterfly Effect. Of Couches.

Fairly lazy times again the last few days. I think that's going to grow to be a theme in this blog, at least until the baby comes. After receiving the new couch that was the subject of the last update, we embarked on the Great Couch Relocation. The global recession is in full swing here and lots of people are hard up for stuff, so the acquisition of our new couch touched off a ripple effect of hand-me-downs. We hauled our old couch to Gagi's mother's house. Gagi's mom gave her old couch to some friends of Tania's. Io tells me that couches will continue to propagate down the economic space-time continuum until eventually someone's old furniture is broken up for firewood.

We also made several trips to various markets, including another hour-round-trip walking odyssey to the OBI/Metro/Real shopping complex to buy some clothes for Io, as well as some groceries and other junk. I got a little reminder of home from one of the T-shirts for sale:

Oh, California. Home of the People of Windsurf U.S. So true.

I will say, though, that Real is home to one of many Romanian inventions that surpass what we have in America: shopping baskets you can pull along behind you rather than carrying in your hand. How about it, American science? Let's get on that. Other things you could invent: the cool vacuum that has no bags or dust because everything gets deposited into an onboard water tank; the dryer that doesn't need to vent water vapor outside because it all gets captured in a bin; and the washing machine that doesn't need agitators or even much water because it cleans your clothes with jets of air bubbles. I'm not sure how this landlocked* country that doesn't even speak English got so far ahead of us in water technology, but if futurist Kevin Costner and all the global warming scientists are to be believed, dealing with water is going to be a big issue in the future. We cannot allow a water-tank gap!

This week also marked one of my first real forays out into Bucharest on my own. I took advantage of one day this week when everyone else was gone, and headed out for a solo flight. I managed to get around fine and my broken Romanian was enough to conduct several commercial transactions with only a few dozen hitches.

All this (and a pair of gloves not pictured) for under $7. What a country!

Io and I also went out to eat for the first time since my arrival. Up to now, food has all been home-cooked by my soacra frumosa, Tania. But Io and I headed out to "Mr. Pizza," an Italian place near here. As with most Romanian restaurants serving foreign food, it's not exactly the sort of Italian I'm used to getting in California People of Windsurf U.S., but it's reasonably close. I got a pizza that had pepperoni so hot it brought tears to your eyes, but it was pretty decent for all that.

In other Romanian news, my world-champion Chicago Bears managed to advance to the NFC championship. That means we play arch-rivals Green Bay on Sunday. I have GOT TO FIND SOME WAY TO WATCH THE GAME. I can never keep up with which team Brett Favre is playing for anymore (when he isn't too busy sending pictures of his junk to strangers! J/k Brett! Ha ha! Rapist!), but it's always good to hate the Cheeseheads no matter who is playing for them. Go Bears! This is the same weekend, by the way, that super-hippie Tom Brady got his. All in all, these are good times in America. Or, Romania.

*I only do this to irritate the Romanians who read this blog.