The Power Of Christ Compels You

What an eventful few days it's been. First off, we had Io's exorcism. It turns out that the local priest actually makes exorcism house-calls, so we got to do it right here in the comfort of our own home. He brought over miniature versions of all the stuff he has at the church. It looked like a My First Exorcism Kit.

That bowl looks sort of incongruous. That's because there's apparently no good way to transport holy water from the church, so the priest just blessed some water out of our Brita pitcher.

Fortunately this exorcism does not involve anyone having to rotate their head around backwards or levitate the bed or anything like that. It's mostly just singing and reading out of the Bible and lots of prostating yourself and getting wet. But in a holy way.

Don't even get me started

We also made yet another attempt to get Gabriel's birth certificate. Step 1 is getting our official Romanian marriage certificate, which they told us on the phone was done and ready. But when we went down to pick it up, they were all, "Did we say it was done? We meant not done at all. We have all the stuff here to do it, though, so maybe that's the confusion." We were like, "Well can you just do it for us now?" "Now? Oh no. Certainly not now. Aheh heh! We are much too busy now. Maybe Tuesday." As we walked out, defeated, I could hear them saying "Now" and shaking their heads in wonder.

I hate this country.

Godparents Cati and Ovi came over for a visit, and brought us a Gabriel-carrying sling. This will probably come in handy on our giant trip to Sighisoara.

It was good to see them again. Cati recently had major surgery to remove a gigantic brain tumor, and nobody was sure how it was going to go. Thankfully, she's fully recovered other than some double-vision that can be corrected with new glasses. Whew!

Yesterday our American friends Chris and Liz arrived. People reading this blog may be a little shocked to hear this, but I am a tremendous geek. I know, I know -- I sound so amazingly cool, you would never think. But I am. Chris and Liz are a couple that Ioana and I play computer games with, who we have never met in person. We met in a virtual-world computer game, and became friends in the world of the game, but were never in the same time zone until yesterday. This is a first for me, and it's sort of weird but pretty cool. It helps that Chris and Liz are even nicer in person, which I wouldn't have thought possible. This "real world" may have a few things going for it after all.

We took them on a brief tour of Bucharest (the main walking tour will happen today) and then off to the "village museum," which long-time readers will recall from my trip here last year. It's probably my favorite thing in Bucharest. Chris and Liz really loved it and we all had a great time. Gabe stayed home with grandma.

This is a medieval washing machine. One water stream turns a wheel that spins the wooden basket, and the other stream washes the clothes.

After that it was off to more downtown Bucharest, including the hip night-life area where all the kids were out drinking and smoking and listening to music on Friday night. We eventually caught the subway back home for some traditional Romanian snacks, salami and branza cheese, caviar and green onions and green garlic.

And chicken livers. Yuck!

Today will be a giant tour of downtown, and then tomorrow morning we're off on our train trip. Sir Screamface has been super-colicky this week and I'm not sure how this is all going to go, but keep your fingers crossed for us.

Buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Moment of Zen:

WAUGH! Just kidding. Actual Moment of Zen: