Boy is it hot. It's amazing the change in weather between Sighisoara (which is halfway up the Carpathian Mountains) and here in Bucharest. It went from a bit chilly early spring weather, to dog days of summer, hot and sweltering. Bucharest has a ton of poplar trees, which are all shedding these floating puffball seeds now. They're collecting in drifts on the ground like snow and the air is full of floating puffs. I've never seen anything like it.
Grandma and Grandpa Williams have arrived safely. We've had three days of nearly round-the-clock hanging out, which has been great except that the Colictron 5000 Mk. II has been at Colic Level 11: Maximum Force Mode most of the time. Fortunately my parents are rolling with the punches.
Io and I also took a morning to head down to the U.S. Embassy, where we got Gabe registered and signed up for a passport, Social Security card, and equivalent of a U.S. birth certificate (called a Declaration of Birth Abroad). This went much, much faster than the Romanian version: about two hours from start to finish. Amusingly, the biggest hangup was nothing to do with Gabriel, it was trying to convince the embassy that I am an American citizen.
After looking over my passport, application forms, and other documents, the consular officer wanted to know if I had brought my high school transcripts with me, or last year's tax returns. Sure, I always pack those for vacations. Do I have any documentation to show that I am a citizen of the United States? I'm like, I dunno, how about my fucking passport, jackass? So then he starts asking me questions designed to trick the dumbest faker in the universe, like Where did you grow up? ("Bucharest -- I mean, America! America!") But eventually he decided that I guess I was maybe a citizen after all, although he sure would have felt a lot better about this if he could see my high school transcript. But he signed off on everything, so Gabe's documents should arrive from the National League 56 865H U.S.A. State Dept. in the next couple of weeks.
Tania has been laying out an enormous feast every day, to the point where my parents are about to burst. So far my folks have liked pretty much all of the Romanian food, and even tried great-grandpa's tuica (moonshine). Once.
We haven't been able to do a lot around town, because my dad had to have emergency hernia surgery just a few days before he got on the plane, so he's still recovering. I don't think my folks want to see much other than Gabriel anyway, though.
So it's been a lot of hanging around the bloc with Gabe, hanging around my parents' hotel with Gabe, going out to a restaurant with Gabe, going to Auchan with Gabe. They are already scheduled to take a guided tour of Bucharest on Saturday, so there isn't a lot else for us to do, really.
Our plans for the next few days: more of the same! As my mom likes to say, they came halfway around the world to see the baby, and by God they are going to see the baby.
Moment of Zen:
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