Irony

With much of the far right of (old) Europe convulsed by the threat of the vast number of Romanians (read: gypsies) flooding across the continent, it seems that Romania has given those scummers something to be glad about: "Romania's first gift to the European Union" is apparently Vadim Tudor and his coterie of extremist nationalist wankers, making up the numbers for the European Parliament to have a neo-fascist caucus.

(But what I don't understand is that this is possible because this bloc now has enough MEPs in it to be formed - but Romania has never had any MEP elections - where are these MEPS from? Can anyone help?)

Please the Press in Belgium

Romania’s accession to the EU has thrust the country into the international media spotlight. Well, to be more accurate a few people with metaphorical torches are poking around looking for the latest human interest story / political bombshell / zeitgeist-capturing headline. In so doing, one or two of them have happened upon Csikszereda Musings and have asked for help.

In my role, then, as the Ciuc Depression’s resident media slut, I have been contacted by the following:

• A journalist for a reputable English national newspaper (there are only two reputable English national newspapers, and it wasn’t the Guardian), who had been asked to write a story on the floods of Romanians heading for the UK and the glorious hopefulness of a new life in Hull or Stoke or somewhere. I told her that it was not much of a story, and if there were floods of migrating Romanians they would almost certainly be going to Spain or Italy. She managed to wangle her way out of doing the story, but pointed me in the direction of the story she probably would have written had her editor not relented. (It's pretty good and worth the click). It turned out that a grand total of 4 Romanians flew into Heathrow on January 1st – two of whom were students there and the other two of whom had established work contracts. [Later edit: Apparently this is ambiguous and could be interpreted as me saying that the Times is Britain's other reputable newspaper. As it is owned by Rupert Murdoch, I'd like to refute that right now. OK?]


• I got interviewed on a podcast! It was only very recently that I worked out what a podcast was, and now I’ve been on one. By the time they’ve been yesterday’s news for about 5 years, I might do one myself. By then you’ll all be blogging with video chips wired into your eyeballs so we can all see exactly what you’ve been seeing. Anyway, Mark from Amsterdam interviewed me and you can listen to it on his website here (and so learn what I actually sound like. I realize that this is such a tempting thought that I must ask you to refrain you all from clicking at the same time in case it buggers up his bandwidth or something. I’ll draw up some kind of rota or something so you can all find a quiet time to go on). I daren't actually listen to it myself, since my entire recollection of the interview is Mark asking me a question about what Romanians think, or what the reaction has been in Romania, and me egotistically answering with what I think, like that's more interesting to people.


• Someone from BBC Radio (Cambridgeshire) might be in touch, I’ve been informed. It’s a mate of my brother’s actually, who may have agreed that talking to me live on air was a good idea at some point on New Year’s Eve (the night of the year when we make all our best decisions), and be now trying to avoid making the call. So, we’ll count that as an unlikely occurrence until further notice.


• That’s it actually

In the cold light of day, that’s not exactly the world’s media beating a path to my door, I must confess. Still, if anyone else wants to contact me to pick my brains on the EU, Romania and the relationship between Romania and Britain, take this as a come hither look with a saucy wink.

Things to do in Miercurea Ciuc

It’s an annual tradition on this blog to round up the year with a look at the best things to do in Csikszereda. Well, to be honest, it’s an annual tradition which I started last year, and even then I didn’t know I’d do it again. But as this town is so happening and changes as fast as a chameleon trapped in a lava lamp, I have decided it is worth making this an annual event. (I may have exaggerated a tad). So with no more ado, save to remind you of last year’s winners, here is the official 2006 “Best Of” Miercurea Ciuc awards listing:

Best restaurant (in town): Last year’s winners The Korona and The Park Hotel, are sadly still in with a shout, such is the paucity of fine dining experiences in Csikszereda. The great white hope of the year, Bandido’s, while being a nice enough place, is nothing special foodwise (and their explanation of the difference between a taco and a burrito has to be heard to be believed). I’ve heard the Fenyő’s restaurant is pretty good, but I haven’t been for ages. I’ll instead award this year’s prize (which, in truth, consists of no more than a mention here, which is not much of a “prize” in the traditional sense) to San Gennaro. An Italian restaurant that is actually authentic – owned by an actual real-live Italian, and serving pretty good quality food. No ketchup is served with the pizzas! It’s a tad pricy by local standards, but still a worthy winner.

Best restaurant (within a reasonable drive): Still Lobogo Panzio. Honourable mention to Kalibáskő , which looks much more authentic, and the kind of place in which you should get palinka-d up, but has a worse menu. Both of them are on the road to Udvarhely (Odorheiu Secuiesc).

Best pizza: Unchanged from last year: Renegade Pub and Pizza.

Best bar: I’ve gone off Morpheus, because it’s way too smoky and they only serve crap beer on tap (Carlsberg). This year’s award goes to the place which doesn’t seem to have a name near the market (on Nicolae Balcescu street opposite the BancPost – you know which one I mean). It’s also dead smoky (being in a cellar), but they have a nice garden for those brief Csikszereda summers. The newly opened Insomnia which looks dead out of place in Csikszereda, being all kind of fashionable and trendy and that, was too late to qualify for this year’s awards ceremony. Plus I only went there for the first time on Wednesday to meet up with a couple of my readers (I’ve always wanted to say that – thanks for giving me the opportunity Irina and Dan). Honourable mention to Gambrinus Csarda, for the whole beer garden experience, drinking cheap beer while watching the cauldron of goulash being cooked. You can also see celebrities there.

Best place to hang out and buy food: Still The Market (see last year’s awards for details)

Best place to hang out, see and be seen: Any of the outside tables along Petőfi Utca (in the summer obviously) - Palermo, Bandido's, San Gennaro, etc. It doesn't really matter which one you choose.

Best supermarket: No idea. None of them are really that good – while down the road in Udvarhely they have just opened this ultra-modern large Spar, we’ve had to make do with the much more downmarket Penny Market. No great shakes I’m told. The Profi is the cheapest supermarket in town but it bothers me that they have a bouncer (it’s a supermarket for god’s sake, why do they need a bouncer? To stop customers fighting over the bog roll?). It’s also extremely un-pushchair-friendly. In fact it’s pretty much always chaotically overcrowded. The Madezit is probably the best of a bad lot.

Best Ice Cream: Nagymama has come in and swept aside the old favourite Marien Presso. Mind you, not everyone agrees and Bogi (an ice-cream obsessive) still prefers the latter. She’s wrong though. Some real Italian gelato would be nice mind you. I’m hoping the bloke from San Gennaro reads this, and gets the right idea.

Nicest Building: The Hungarian Consulate. The old run down building at the top end of Petőfi street always looked like it could be nice, and so it proved when it was bought and done up by the Hungarian government for their brand spanking new consulate.

Best nightclub (in the English sense of place to go dancing): I've no idea. There are only three - Flash Dance, Club Ami, and Club 76, and rumour has it that they're firmly aimed at the under 19 crowd. So I have never ventured into any of them, for fear of feeling like a dirty old man. Maybe someone who has been to any of these places could comment.

Next: The eagerly awaited "Best of Romania" awards.

Campaign

I wish to campaign for an end to PDF links on the Internet. Or at least that all PDF links should be clearly marked as such so that you don't have to open them. Adobe Acrobat is such a bloody temperamental programme that seems to freeze up the computer in one of every 4 tries. As you may have guessed I've just lost a long blog post that I was in the middle of when I inadvertently opened a PDF file in another window. I hate it. Stupid bloody programme. Christ I'm furious.

I've discovered that "PDF" stands for "Portable Document Format". That's to distinguish PDF documents from all those other non-portable documents. Like stuff carved into rocks 4000 years ago, then. Another reason to hate it - a stupid "branded" name that essentially means nothing.

Crumbs

On Monday, I learned of another new cultural practice previously unknown to me. That is the practice of Crumbs. To explain I'll have to go back a day further to New Year's Eve...

On New Year's Eve, we went to a party at the house of some friends in a village not far from here. Booze had been bought and lots of food prepared (to say that a pig had died for the gathering would be stretching it, but one did die immediately prior to it and provided the guests with large amounts of food - not so much me, obviously)

Anyway it was an excellent party - the children danced and played all night long, the adults got excessively drunk, and Paula and I got the chance to welcome everyone to the EU (as the only EU citizens at the beginning of the gathering). I don't really remember much afterabout 2.30am until I was woken up at 4.30 to go home - I had crashed around 3 it transpires, next to Paula who zonked out sometime in 2006. I won't bore you with how much and what varieties of alcohol I consumed, but it's safe to say that it was somewhat more than was absolutely necessary.

So anyway, we went home, and re-crashed out. And then of course Paula woke up at about 8. Now when you look at baby-related websites and the like there are these little milestones they have you look out for - baby's first word, baby's first steps, baby's first adorable solid turd, that kind of thing. They never have you look out for "the first time your baby wakes you up on New Year's Day when you've had about 3 hours sleep and you have a stonking hangover". But, new and prospective parents, let me tell you now, it's a milestone you will face.

Being (occasionally) a good husband (and being as how I had had an extra hours sleep at the party itself), I got up to spend the morning with her. Fortunately she was fairly tired herself and so I could mostly get by with holding her in my arms and watching a bit of TV. But much as I love spending every minute I can with Paula, I'm not that keen on spending time alive in any sense when I feel that bad. (It's actually another argument for having children earlier in life - in my early 20s I might have coped. In my early 40s - it was hellish beyond reason).

So, I slogged through the morning, and eventually was joined by the rest of my family, who looked much more lively than I felt, and was informed that today we were going for Morzsa - the aforementioned "crumbs".

Crumbs is this: The next day after a party, in the afternoon, you all go back to the house of the party to have lunch, and basically reminisce about the night before. Lunch, of course, being all the leftovers from the party. That's basically it. In the state I was in it was something like a massively extreme hair-of-the-dog* - not only was I going to be drinking the same stuff that had so damaged my capacity to exist happily, but I was going to have the same food, in the same place with the same company. If nothing else it would either tip me over the edge of vomiting (where I felt I was), or cheer me up no end.

It did the latter, I'm happy to reveal. Or at least, it didn't exactly make me feel full of the joys of 2007, but I did feel significantly better (though no less tired). But that first beer was very slow going.

We didn't leave until 7pm either - and we were the first to go. I think the thing broke up properly around 10. They like their parties here.

(*I have learned that "the hair of the dog that bit you" is exactly the same phrase in Hungarian. Which surprised me quite a lot. It sounds like one of those one-language-specific idioms)

Early spring or late autumn?

It's 8 degrees C as I type this. 8 degrees above zero. In January. In Miercurea Ciuc. It's unfeasible.

I blame the EU. (Romanians will soon learn that one of the advantages of EU membership for the government is that they can blame anything they like on Brussels. The British and French governments are masters at this. And then they wonder why public opinion is euro-skeptical)

The hour approaches

The following have recently (I mean in the last couple of days) appeared in the main square, finally. I wondered if anyone would ever make any kind of reference to the imminent accession, and it seems that now Christmas is out of the way, that people are starting to at least acknowledge that January 1st is just around the corner.


This one's outside the Culture House, nicely symmetrical in its bilingualism.

The next two are directly opposite outside the county council building (known locally as "The White House")


As you can see they show the happy European family welcoming Romania into their midst. At least I assume it's Romania. In fact the "blue" of the flag is so dark as to be effectively black, occasioning me to actually wonder for a while about the logic of giving people the opportunity to be Belgian. I mean they must be blue, but it's really really hard to tell.

The lampposts have all received the following decoration:
That white flag, in case you were wondering is the local one. I think it's the flag of Csikszereda, but it could conceivably be the flag of Haromszek, the old Hungarian county in which Csikszereda was.

And finally a signpost pointing west to our new home (seen from both sides so you can see there's no language bias)

Craciun Fericit

A Year in the Life

One year on... from this post and this post.

Amazing to imagine that anyone could survive for a year with me as a father, let alone anyone so fragile as a baby. But miraculously Paula is thriving. Yesterday she took her first unsupported tentative half-step. I am still achingly proud.

And I have no idea why this set of pictures ends up all the way down there. Bloody HTML. This is probably a better way of viewing them all

Things you learn at school

In England, instead of having a tree at Christmas, they hang a large bunch of mistletoe on the ceiling.

That's what I learned last night at Bogi's class Christmas "show" (them singing songs and reading out facts like the one above).

Still, we got mulled wine when it was done, which is something that we never got when she was at kindergarten - school is obviously much more serious.

The kids also all got large presents, which consisted of boxes full of various toys, soap, and stationery all of which came from places like Sainsburys, Asda, and Superdrug (British shops, basically). When I investigated the source of these parcels it turned out that one of the kids' parents is Baptist and the parcels had come from some kind of international baptist church charity project. I have this image of well-meaning and caring people in the UK somewhere, shopping madly to try and put together a box of treats for children in poor isolated desperate Romania (that soon-to-be EU member). Still, the kids were delighted with them.