2am in Bucuresti

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Maybe coming to Bucharest during the NATO summit wasn't such a good idea. First of all, during my less-than-amazing night train ride from Budapest to Sighişoara, at some point in the night, when everybody in my compartment was asleep, the border police knocked at the door, flung it open, and wanted to see the IDs of everybody. Fair enough, we were crossing the border, but after 10 or so minutes some more control guards came and wanted to check my bag. I had to empty maybe half of it, the guy asked if I had a gun in it, I answered truthfully "No...", then he saw my small medication bag, I said it contained Aspirine, Paracetamol and stuff, he asked "Heroin", me again "No.......". That wasn't the end of the check. He got confused by my little jewelry box, I explained that that's stuff for my ear, and showed him, and miraculously he immediately understood without implying I use the jewelry to build a futuristic device for convenient George Bush-termination. So I could finally go back to sleep, or the thing you do when 4 people try to stretch out as much as possible on 6 seats.
Maybe I should mention who my fellow compartment-sharers were. Two were a French Canadian couple, the guy of which was a French teacher in Bremen, the other one a chick from New Orleans, who wanted to go from Budapest via Turkey to Cairo. Yes, I get to hear the stories of travellers every day, and yes, it kind of gets old. Even more so is going through my little spiel of explaining where I go and why, and who I am and what I do and all that jazz. Luckily, with those guys I was able to hold a semi-decent conversation about literature.

I arrived in Sighişoara at around 9am, waking up maybe one minute before that, seeing the sign, grabbing my shit, and rushing out with some goodbyes for the sleepy portioned friends. So I was to meet my host at his place, which wasn't too hard to find, since it was in the middle of the old town, or the castle area, that is. He wasn't there, so I stopped some random guy on the street and asked him if I could use his mobile. I was allowed to do so, only to find out that Hans, my host, would take another hour to arrive. So I went to a Christian cafe to eat a sandwich and drink an Earl Grey which wasn't an Earl Grey, maybe the lady misinterpreted my pointing at the package. And she spoke German, which kind of surprised me.
When I went back to his place, still no Hans, so I went to an Internet cafe to stay in touch with my digital side. After an hour or so there was still no Hans, and I got increasingly pissed off, so I talked the chick from the Internet cafe into letting me use her mobile, and as it turned out, Hans had just arrived. Alright, that alone meant no good review for you, mate!
So Hans Hedrich was born in Romania, and he is part of the German minority there, the Transsylvanian Saxons, or Siebenbürger Sachsen. It was the first time I met someone from a German minority abroad, so I was kind of interested in talking to him, but apparently he was quite busy, so we just exchanged a couple of sentences. I was told that Sighişoara was actually founded by the Saxons, as Schaessburg. The small town is also the birthplace of a certain Vlad Ţepeş, and his birth house is accessible for tourist. I didn't care so much about it, neither did I about the T-shirts and jewelry boxes and other trinkets with the face of the grim impaler on it.
After a bit of walking around the castle, I realized that there wasn't so much to see, and the market, where almost all they sold was potatoes and corn brooms, couldn't save the day either. I was also not exactly delighted to see that the place I would sleep was the office of Hans' weird NGO, which wants to prevent Sighişoara from falling apart or something, and that there was no running water, no place to sleep except a few armchairs, and that the only 'facilities' were pit latrines. And you do indeed appreciate a hot shower after a ride on the night train.
I tried to make the best out of it, went to a Pizzeria for dinner, and they chucked approximately a tin of corn on my pizza. Corn on pizza is just wrong. So I went back to my office-cum-bedroom, read a bit, and was just about to go to sleep, when Hans rushed in out of nowhere, said he had to do some late work, and then sat on the computer typing away for about one and a half HOURS! I think I was watching him the whole time, hoping he would turn around, see my desperation, and piss off! But he didn't, and I got increasingly aggressive and grumpy, and felt it would be best he left, but he just kept on typing and typing...that's when I decided I should consider giving him a bad reference.

Today started with a nice lil' whizz on the longdrop. I then packed up my shit, and got going, to the Christian cafe again, since they had damn good sandwiches. After I got out and on my way to the railway station, I heard someone call my name. Of course it was Hans, and I could have done without telling him the usual courtesies and goodbyesies, he didn't even deserve them, stupid minority.
The train ride to Bucharest wasn't that interesting, apart from a guy entering my otherwise empty compartment, trying to chat a bit to me. After one or two sentences, he said "Do you wanna go on a nice trip?", to which I replied "Like how?", immediately realizing the idiocy of that question, since he said, as expected, "I can give you some magic mushrooms!". I was just like "No, thanks.", put in my ear plugs, flipped my book open, and ignored him until he got out an hour or so later.

My host Claudiu fetched me from the Gara de Nord in Bucharest. He is an incredibly cross-eyed gay (what else!) art student, 20 years old, and he likes to smoke one after the other. But at least he lives in a decent place with, oh eternal bliss!, a shower. He dragged me to go out with some friends, so we met up with them in front of a big yellow M. I was telling him all the time I needed something to eat, but he just wanted to rush there not to be late. So there we were standing with two girls, waiting for more people, which caused me to say "I'm hungry and I need something to eat now, or I'll get grumpy", which was clear enough for Claudiu. We went to a Romanian version of Subways, which wasn't bad at all. I didn't even mind the hot chips on my Ciabatta. There were also some nice gherkins and giant red peppers on it. I was less delighted to see that I had to eat it on the way back to Macas, where everybody was only waiting for us. Which meant the usual Hi-nice-to-meet-you-I'm-blah-and-from-blahblah... began.
We then ran confusedly through Bucharest, trying to find some bar Claudiu got recommended. Somehow we found it after long ways on wrong buses, and coming in I was greeted with a big 'Hopfen und Malz, Gott erhalt's' on the wall. Fucking hell. In the next room there was a big stage with a band consisting of some old guys sitting there on chairs, doing nothing. After a couple of minutes they started playing a cheesy instrumental version of 'Something Stupid'. They only played three songs, the second one being a Romanian wedding song with lots of Saxophon solos, and the third 'a homage to Johann Strauss', and they played this song everybody knows, the Bonduelle-song, which probably has no other name. I almost fell off the chair when they played the first chords.
The other memorable thing in that bar was that one of the guys on my table looked like Shawn Michaels. When I told him, it turned out nobody knew who that was. Oh well...
Claudiu was incredibly nervous and keen to leave all the time, so as it turned out that the others didn't want to go too soon, he grabbed me, and off we went, leaving everybody including the Romanian Shawn Michaels back. We then walked to the city centre to find another bar, where more of his friends were, apparently all pretty stoned. After 5 or so minutes my busy host wanted to leave to another club, this time, we even had to pay an admission of 5 RON, which is maybe 1,50€. That club was really the worst, it was smoky, the music was bad, the people were bad. I just stood there, not amused, getting increasingly grumpy, with Claudiu's neverending cigarette in my face, until he realized we better go home. On the way he got a call from the guys from the first bar that they wanted to come to the third one, so Claudiu begged me to go back, but I said, you can go back, but bring me to your place first. Thus it happened.

I have no idea if Claudiu will take me around tomorrow, he doesn't seem to be so much into touristy stuff, more so into partying and nightlife. I'm pretty sure I won't join him tomorrow night, and that I should get going to Iaşi the day after tomorrow, and then onwards to Moldova.

Forgot to mention, tomorrow I'm gonna pick up my passport at the German embassy, and fuck am I happy that everything worked out the way I planned. I shall not be too relieved, only after I actually hold it in my hands will I rejoice and thank the almighty Bog that he considered me worthy of his benignity towards a poor little traveller.

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