Random nothingness

It’s about time I wrote something, so I’m just going to start typing and see what comes out. I’ll be away from this blog for a good while soon – first I’m off to the UK for a week next week to visit my nephew Ben, and to coincidentally have Christmas drinks and food with various people around the country. At about 1kg per day, I should put on about 7kg.

The presidential election run –off was won – much to everyone’s surprise – by Traian Basescu. I think it was the orange jacket wot won it. That whole Ukrainian thing coming through. Ironic really that given the orange revolution in Ukraine that the whole thing may have been sparked by Yushenko being poisoned with Agent Orange. Is there a fruit based version of the Chinese astrological calendar? If so, it’s clearly year of the orange.

What does Basescu mean for us? I think no-one really knows. People I know are happy that the PSD is gone, but most are suspicious and concerned about Basescu’s lack of experience. The one thing that he has done which everyone knows about is ridding the streets of Bucharest of stray dogs. Other than that his record is a mystery. Now he has to organise a government. As the PSD-PUR alliance has the most seats, it might be tough to do that without their support. And the real fly in the ointment is nightMare party. The UDMR (the Hungarians) threw their hat into the wrong corner and may end up getting screwed. But no-one really knows. Just as long as Vadim Tudor, henchman of Voldemort, doesn’t get a sniff of power, all should be well.

Religion in Romania (he says, shifting the topic for no apparent reason) is something I haven’t covered yet. Romanian Orthodox is the official state religion, and as such there are elaborate monasteries and churches of that church dotting the countryside. The most prominent building in Csikszereda for example is the Orthodox church, despite the fact that its congregation probably numbers in the single digits. The other churches (at least in these parts) are the Catholic and the Reformat. I mentioned this to my brother the other day and he pointed out that “reformat” is something you do to your computer, which though it now seems obvious, was something I hadn’t even noticed before. They’re not some kind of doomsday cult though, waiting patiently for the day that God decides to wipe and repartition the earth’s hard drive, but rather some kind of Lutheran faith from Hungary. I don’t know anything about them really aside from the fact that their graveyards are dead interesting with elaborate totem-pole style monuments carved from wood.

God, I’m really running short of ideas aren’t I? I’ll stop now, for a while, and come back before I leave the country (on Wizz Air, which sounds like I may be pissing in the wind) and fill you in on the other randomly boring thoughts coursing through my brain (and for coursing, read “sluggishly struggling”)