You Say You Want A Revolution

A couple days ago was my first time using Romanian public transportation on my own. I went out to pick up Ioana at the hospital where she volunteers/goes to school, which is a couple of walks and a moderately long bus ride from home. I figured I would be fine, though, because I had made the trip once with Io, although that was during daylight and this trip was going to be at night. But I didn't care, because 90% of Romanian buses are these cool modern vehicles that have a big monitor at the front with a real-time GPS map showing where the bus is, the next stop, ETA, cycling through highlighting various streets and points of interest nearby, etc. I mean, what kind of a person gets lost when they have a GPS telling them where to go, right?

Unfortunately, when my bus came it was one of the 10% that still hadn't been upgraded, which left me to navigate my way to the hospital by the stars. Luckily my famous Magellan-like direction sense kicked in, and I was able to make it to the hospital no problem.

Yesterday we went to see Grandpa Paul Negru (Io's mom's father) to see how he's holding up. Dedicated readers of this blog will recall that Grandma Negru had eye surgery recently, necessitating her moving out of the house. The original plan was to move Grandpa with her and have Io and I move into the house to take care of it, but Grandpa refused to leave, so he's there trying to make it on his own, which is not easy for a man approaching 90 who is used to having his wife do the cooking and several of the chores. So Io and I were heading out to check up on him, bring him some food, and make sure the house hadn't burned down around him.

This entailed another Romanian Odyssey. Grandpa lives on the other side of Bucharest, probably 4 or 5 miles away. Getting there takes about 45 on the tram, bus, and subway (and walking). So we went on that little trip, which was good mostly because the route goes past a vendor selling sasssy donuts, which I have been craving ever since I got here (over two weeks ago!!) but have not yet had. I bought the double-sized order but couldn't even get through half of it before I was sugared out. I obviously need to work on building up my sass resistance.

We also stopped on the way to buy some hot pretzels (I am telling you, if you ever get stranded at home alone, you should have Io and I take care of you. Io's mom asked us to bring Grandpa some food, and we showed up with soft pretzels and donuts) and a calendar. The Orthodox Church has this awesome racket going: all their holidays are set by some non-Gregorian calendar or something, so nobody but them knows what days various holidays will fall on from year to year. The only way to find out is to buy a Genuine Church Miracle Calendar (tm) every January from one of their Authorized Retailers.

Seeing Grandpa was great. Io had an exhausting evening of constant translation due to my still-terrible Romanian and grandpa's penchant for telling stories, but a good time was had by all.

Sassy donuts for everyone!

We were confined to just the bedroom because that's the room that has the wood-fired stove/heater in it. Grandpa showed off his large collection of watches and clocks, which I guess are the sorts of things people collected in the mid-1900's. It was a great collection, because he's got a completely indiscriminate outlook on what constitutes a collectible watch. So there were Timex digital calculator-watches in there, but also amazing antique Swiss and Russian pocketwatches that still run flawlessly. I'm certainly no expert but he has what appear to be some amazing pieces in his collection.

He's also a walking treasure-trove of history. Pictured at left is his military service identification from World War 2. When the war first broke out, Romania was a monarchy, and the King remained neutral. Within a year, though, fascists led a coup d'etat and took over the government, joining the war on the side of the Axis. Romania was a huge participant in Hitler's eastern front against the Soviets, and starting in about 1943-44 became a major target of Allied bombing. Although officially in the army, Grandpa was a skilled iron-worker and spent the war working in a factory manufacturing bombs. In 1944 the King returned and deposed the fascists, switching sides and joining the Allies. In 1945 the country underwent yet another revolution, and the King eventually abdicated under pressure in favor of a Communist government (mostly because the Soviets had invaded before the country switched sides).

The Allies put Romania in Russia's sphere of influence as the war ended, leading to decades of totalitarian Communism here, from which the country has never recovered. At right is Grandpa's work permit. Notice that the factory where he worked had its name changed from "Vulcan" to "Mao-Tze-Dun," even though most Romanians wouldn't know China if it came up and punched them in the face. Which, economically at least, it did. Grandpa retired from the factory about 40 years later, right before the democratic revolution that left Romania's government in the state it remains today.

So we had an evening of stories, and then went out and helped Grandpa lock stuff up outside.

He wanted to show me everything he had out there, which was an impressive collection of stuff, but it's hard to pay attention to every tool and chicken when you're walking around in freezing temperatures. He'd show me every little thing, and I'd be like "OK, let's go back by the stove now," but on the way he would grab my arm and pull me over to an electric grinder, which he would turn on to show me it still worked. We have no mutual language, but the message was clear: "This thing still works! If you ever need anything ground or sharpened, you can just come right here and do it!" Right! Thanks! Please, I am freezing to death!

Eventually we had to bid Grandpa goodbye, which I know was hard for him because he's out there all alone. We told him we'd go back this Sunday (and will end up shoveling him out, if the weather forecasts are anything to go by). By the time we got back home we had been out for over eight hours, and I collapsed into bed.