WELCOME TO MY ROMANIAN HOUSE!!!

I want to first thank everyone for reading my blog. I'm so honoured everytime I get an email telling me you've read it and enjoyed it. I appreciate and love hearing from all of you. It makes me smile to know you are thinking of me. I try to write back but having only bits of time I am slow at writting people back. Please do not be discouraged if I don't email back right away. I do appreciate every message I get!

Welcome to my Romanian home. David and I have always wanted to live in Old North and now we do. Only it's in Roman, Romania. We have a cute old home, made entirely of concrete and painted white. The concrete makes the house very sound proof which is great in one sense and not great in others. Great is you want to watch a late night movie or have a party but not great when you're trying to call everyone for dinner and no one can hear you. That or they ignore you!

It's a lovely place really and we feel very lucky we got it. A small patch of grass to the east of the house and marble driveway leading to marble tile terrace at the back. The thing we most love is the grapevine ceiling above our outdoor eating area. It feels very much like we are in a movie sitting under those grapevines. With the breeze blowing through the leaves, they sway slightly and shift the sunlight that peaks through on your face. It would be such a romantic scene if we were in Italy with a glass of red wine and eating fresh brushetta. Instead I'm running after Ruby who wants so badly to walk will wipe out so quickly and smack her head on the marble tile. VERY unforgiving is that stuff! Instead I am in Romania. Instead I am my childrens entertainment. Life was so easy back in Canada. This time of year and especially in the summer, the big girls would be outside at 10:30 playing with their friends on the circle. I would force them in for breakfast at 12:30 athen they would be out all day again. In the backyard, Ann's backyard, the circle the driveways etc.... I would reel them in again for a quick supper and they would play outside again until dusk. It was non-stop fun for them and it was easy for me. Empty house, loads of free time, I could sit outside and watch the kids play for hours with not a care. Talk to my friends in the hood, plan a party. SIGH! Not so here. The kids aren't aloud to play outside of the gates for safety and even if they were there are no children around to play with. It's all up to me to keep them from beating eachother up out of boredom. I must say that for the most part they play very well together but there are far more arguments now that they have no one else around. I'm a bit afraid of the winter time when they can't even get outside. These 4 walls will very likely be closing in and fast. Can't wait to be back at Christmas. Can't wait.

Anyway, back to the house. Behind the white fence in the backyard are our new neighbours who are loud and constantly going at eachother. They are Rocky the rooster and Holly the hen. Rocky gets going around 4 am every single day and doesn't stop till the sun goes down. I am not joking! He's my alarm but he is also my Romanian guard dog. He tells me when the kids have gone in the backyard by cockle-doodle-dooing slightly crazier than usual. He does the same when David drives in after work. Funny, this is the closest I've ever lived to a downtown (5 minute walk) but it's the first time I've ever lived beside farm animals.

We had some of our ex-pat. friends over last weekend for a Long Island Ice Tea party. We had just spent the whole day with our friend Sachin and his family who are from Banglor, India and here also on contract. We had, all together, prepared an authentic Indian supper under the close supervision of Sachin's wife, which took all afternoon. It was a fantastic meal. I now know how to make a curry from scratch along with the vegetable rice and fresh rotiis. We were comfortably full of food and ready to enjoy some night bevies on the back terrace.

Sachin is the funniest guy I've known for a long time but I think what makes everything he says so hilarious is the thick Indian accent he poses. He has been here over 1.5 years and had picked up a lot of Romanian so sometimes will mix all the languages making it hard to understand him at times.

We were all listening to Rocky next door, who we believe was trying to have a night cap with Holly. Holly wasn't buying what he was selling lets just say. Sachin turns to me and says in a very honest and sweet way,

"How do you like your Romanian coq?"

There was silence for a minute as David and I exchanged quick looks. I could tell we were thinking the same thing. Do we laugh our asses off or do we tell him that in english it is a rooster, not a coq. Then David opened the door,

"And I said, PARDON! Snap I loose it!" in a deep burly voice like the champ.

The laughter charged out of me so hard I was wheezing like a 20 year smoker. Sachin loved that we were amused but it was clear he wasn't entirely sure why.

"Yes, " I said trying to gain composure. "I love my Romanian coq," loosing control of my laughter and loosing my breath.

"She wakes up to Romanian coq every morning," David managed to force out as he wiped tears from his eyes.

"She can't get enough of her Romanian coq," added Dave, another ex-pat who had joined us and was equally amused.

It took us a few minutes to compose ourselves then we let Sachin in on the joke. Like the good sport that he is he laughed along with us.

Mike Lindsey, Joe McDonald and Audrey Wharton would have had a field day with that one. It reminded me of the time a patient came in with a penile/scrotal injury and was triaged by Mike and Joe. The conversation went something like this,

"Your doctor today will be Dr. Ball... The wait will be long and hard but there's no need to get teste! ...this cuff is just going to get a bit firm" and on and on. The funniest part was the patient was giggling more than anyone else! I do miss them and everyone else at work!

Anyway, like I said a few emails ago, it is a 2 bedroom house so all of the girls are in one room. Thank god for white noise machines. So far it seems to be working out okay. The big girls go to bed first then I bath Ruby and give her bottle then put her to bed. Luckily once they are asleep, they are really out so Ruby's midnight wakenings don't bother them much.

Our kitchen is a fair size and easy to get around even if the washer and dryer are in there. It can make for a loud room though at times. Dryer running, washer going, washing dishes at the same time as cooking supper and three girls running around my legs. You get the picture! The oven is small so it's a good thing I'm coming home for Christmas cause I'm not sure how I'd cook a turkey in there. My large cookie trays don't even fit. Have to bake on the Pampered Chef stone.

We have a large dining room which is all white like the rest of the house but this room has a seafoam green border with inset fluorecent lighting. You would have enough light to do the most delicate surgery on my dining room table. Unfortunely it also means you can see every speck of dirt on my white marble floor. Sigh! In the front of our house is our living room which is nice comfortable room with laminate flooring and 2 large windows. This is the place the children play the most when inside and therefore the place that gets the most tossed up. We took the armoir that was in our room in London and put it in here to store (hide) some toys. Keeping busy here in Roman! The girls go to a private kindergarten every morning until 12:30 and then have tutoring from 3:00 - 5:30 pm with our French speaking tutor. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I go to the company gym that no one else uses and meet up with some other ex-pat family members. They are Brittany, (CEO's daughter, 21), Payal (Sachin's wife) and Sacket (Sachin's son ,14). Together we have formed a training group. Brittany is a black belt and trains us in self defense. Payal is a Yoga instructor and trains us in Yoga, body contortion and head standing. So far I have not been able to stand on my head. Bit scared of breaking my neck. Nothing big! Sacket is a Tae Kwon Do genius with springs built into his legs and takes us through his physical training he does in his classes. I fight the urge to vomit during these sessions in particular. We hop like frogs across 2 rooms then creep on all fours (feet and hands) like spiders then run on all fours like monkeys. OH GOD HELP ME! I could barely walk after the first time.
What do I bring to the group you ask? Cause I know your asking Ann! I think I bring an example of what you never want to do to your body. If nothing else, comic relief. It must be some kind of hilarious and ridiculous watching me try to get through some of these kicks and exercises we do. Often I'm too focused on bladder contol to get the moves anywhere close to where they want to be. GO KEGELS! Good thing I have a cheerleading background. I can kick almost as high as they can but every once in a while will let a GO BRONCOS or SACK THAT QUARTERBACK cheer out. They look at me a bit strange. I guess there are no cheerleaders in Cricket are there?! They think I'm crazy....

Missing everyone so much.

Until next time, keep it and have fun ;)

Alison

FINALLY BLACKBERRY DOWNLOADS FROM THE TRIP OVER AND GREECE!

On the plane going over Quebec. Notice nervous mommy!

Ruby seemed very happy and excited of course she had no idea what we had just left behind. I was trying to forget the look on my Mom's face when I walked away from her and I was also praying the children might sleep. Turns out a baby the same age as Ruby got feverish in the middle of the night so the only person that didn't sleep was me as I had the only infant motrin on the plane. ER nurse to the rescue!!
These are pictures in front of the Pantheon in Athens. We were on a 6 hour stop over and on some pretty messed up sleep. It was 4 am for us! The kids did really well though!
I told the girls they will appreciate having this picture when they take their Art history class in High school.

Wouldn't want to fall down these stairs.

Ruby had had it by this time. Even the beautiful view couldn't keep her up!
Grabbing a chocolate crepe for energy to keep us going. We were loosing steam and fast!

AND WE ARE SPENT!

FAVORITE ROMANIAN PAST TIME... STARING!

Says one Romanian to another, "Hey Cornel, I'm not doing anything and you're not doing anything so lets go to the end of the driveway and stare at people going by!"

This is a common past time here in Romania. There is people watching which I am a fan of for sure but then there is staring like the Romanians do. They will be walking down the road, stop in mid stride and stare as you pass by. Surely I don't look that different! For god sake people I'm not that freaky to look at! I would have to guess that in a day I am checked out, and I mean looked at up and down, and not in a sexual way at all, probably 35 -50 times. If not more. We passed an old woman on the road the other day. She was younger than the way she looked I'm sure but just picture a lady bent over from years of carrying her groceries back and forth everyday. Never used sunscreen a day in her life. She walks with far to much clothing on as well as a scarf around her head tied tightly under her chin so she doesn't get a chill. She believes like many Romanians that if you get the slightest breeze in your ears you will be sick for weeks. She wore her husband's jacket which made her cheeks flushed and you could see the dirt collecting in her wrinkles as her skin warmed. This woman stared at us very intensly and Gabrielle took notice. Gabrielle watched as this woman fixed her eyes on me then to the children and the stroller and then back to me. It seemed she had a piece of lemon in her mouth as her face knarled up and her lips curled under her toothless gums.
"Why did that lady look at us like that?" said Gabrielle.
"Well she probably has never seen a stroller like this and we might look a bit different to her so I guess she's just checking us out," I attempted to explain.
"I don't think so," said Gabrielle thoughtfully. "I think she fell on the road and hit her face!" she stated with innocence. I smiled and under my breath chuckled as I thought, she did kind of look like that too.


It is with happiness that I share that I have found a tutor for my "big girls." She is a lovely young, Romanian woman who teaches at one of the local schools and who did her University Education in French. Her name is Andreea and so far she is working out well. She will be teaching the girls their language, social studies and mathematics in French everyday after she finishes teaching at her day job. She sits at the dining room table and I go upstairs with Ruby while she is napping. This way I get a chance to do some computer work ie)blog and maybe clean upstairs. My parents, bless them, had sent me with about 6 boxes of teaching materials so Andreea is happily sifting through all of her possible resources everyday she is here. Here's hoping it works out. Only thing she needs to do now is learn how to crack the whip!


This past weekend we were invited to a picnic by the Deputy Mayor and his wife. She works with David. The picnic was to be at his brothers villa which is under construction but on a beautiful lot of land in the mountains surrounded by fruit trees and a small flowing creek. So we drove in tandem with David's boss and his family (who are like our family here) into the mountains about 40 mintues west. As we drove up to our destination I felt like I had gone back in time 100 years. We had the only cars in sight everyone else had horse drawn carts and cows. There were cows walking down the street with bells around there necks. This one cow I think found it very rude of us to be staring at her and smiling as she looked away and kept walking. She was probably thinking the same thing I do whenever I get stared at. Oh dear, the Romanian is wearing off on me.
We had a bit of a procarious walk up to his villa but once there the area was beautiful. We were met by the very nice Romanian speaking couple who own the land and ended up being the brother of the Deputy Mayor. We were also met by their dog who had hair growing out of his right eyeball. I'm not kidding! I lost my appetite it was such a gross and freaky mutation.
So I have learned now that Romanian dinners and BBQ means eating a lot of meat. We were a small group of adults and they grilled enough meat to feed an Army. Chicken, Beef, Lamb, Sausages and Meech which is not the proper spelling but that is how is sounds. Meech is the mystery meat. Not really sure what is is. It looks like long tubes of ground beef. Or maybe like sausage without the casing. The only starch they eat is fresh white bread. Not ideal for someone who doesn't really like much meat. Oh well, they ended up having fresh picked veggies that were delicious so I busied myself eating those while David ate more meat than he had in one week. It was a musical night!!!

I have learned many lessons so far so I will try to write them as I remember.
1) If you don't want another drink of wine, do not finish your glass. According to Romanians, if your glass is empty it is crying and therefore must be filled again. Very early lesson learned as I stumbled home with Ruby in my arms. David had to bathe her that night.

2) Don't drink water. The fish have sex in water. This is the expression here and possibly the reason there are so many drunks.

3) Do not buy veggies/fruit in bulk. Or bread for that manner. There are no preservatives or steroids or sprays used in the cultivation of such things. In other words they die quick. You will find yourself at the market at least 3 times per week.

4) Don't let your laundry pile up. Washer can't take more than 3 pairs of pants, 1 sweater and some odds and ends. One load takes 2 hours and the dryer takes 2.5 hours!

Will post more as they present themselves. Now I'm off to a Boxing lesson/ work out Britany, the bosses daughter, has nicely offered to provide. Should be interesting. She says she's not happy unless my knuckles bleed. Here's hoping I make her proud!

Alison

I HAVE A NEW LOVE... ROMANIAN WINE!!!

I knew that I would probably be entertaining a lot more in Romania than I normally did in Canada. Now I had many people over for drinks and snacks like Christmas parties, driveway parties and the odd small supper with close friends. Let's face it though, I have never hosted a Christmas dinner, Easter dinner etc that I would need to prepare a lot more stuff for. So when David came home a told me he volunteered me to cook a Canadian BBQ for his big boss and others I was not surprised. The surprise came when he told me 2 days before the events that all of the mangers, directors and chiefs would be attending. He wasn't sure if they would be bringing their families with them. At the very least we were expecting 16 people and many more at the most. I had been thinking all week about a menu and how to make it Canadian, whilst living in this Romanian world. My major struggle was the language. You walk down the sugar ilse and you don't know if your buying powdered, fine, icing, or even brown sugar. They are all in boxes. So together with David, we bought all the groceries we thought we needed and hoped for the best. I would be serving at this BBQ, Romanians, Canadians, Parisian & Luxemburg residents, Czechs and East Indians. The Czech was Davids big boss who had flown in 2 days prior for meetings. How on earth do I please everyone! As they walked in I greated them with drinks of their choice but was shocked with what they had brought for me. Almost every person who attended brought me flowers, chocolates, wine, home made wine, books and even toys for the children as gifts. I ran out of vases and had to cut 1.5L water bottles to host all the flowers! Apparently it is the custom to bring flowers to a dinner party here. How nice is that? Hopefully they would like what I had to give them. My menu was as follows:

Appetizer - Heaping stack of ground beef nachos smoothered in Canadian cheddar cheese. (I know the nacho part isn't terribly Canadian but I couldn't find molasses anywhere to make French Canadian Beans.) We found the cheddar after shopping high and low in many stores and ended up buying the whole block. We served the Nachos with sour cream and Salsa that I had brought over from Canada as David had told me there was no salsa to be found in Roman.
THEY LOVED IT! THEY WERE SHOCKED WITH HOW TASTY IT WAS! We found these tortilla chips at a store about 40 kms away from Roman and they had a bit of a spice to them. Most of them had never had tortilla chips before. So far, so good.

Main Dish - BBQ Steak and Chicken Breast. 26 of them to be exact. I marinated them all day in wine, garlic and Montreal spice. (I obviously had shipped that.) David cooked it to perfection on our Vermont BBQ that we brought over from Canada. The Romanians were gob smacked when they saw the grill. Not many grills around here. A grill here is an open fire built up with bricks and coals. The meat was delicious and a huge hit. I put ketchup on the table as well as HP sauce and Bulls Eye BBQ sauce. (Also sent from Canada) The Parisien took the BBQ sauce to try something different and fell in love. So then everyone else had a go. Not much left now.

Side Dishes - BBQ Potatoes served with sour cream, chives , shredded cheddar and butter. I cut some more potatoes up thin and covered them in Olive Oil, sea salt and pepper and BBQ's them wrapped in tin foil also. They were also a hit.
A huge Mandarin and cashew salad with thin sliced Red onions and a sweet vinegrette. Asian inspired I think but was stumped on a Canadian salad.
Of course, 4 loaves of gorgoeus fresh, french bread that you can but just around the corner. So hard to resist when your walking by and a fresh, still warm loaf only costs $0.38. We ate one loaf on the way to the mountains the other weekends. Sigh!

Dessert - The selling feature and reason that at least 3 of the people came to the BBQ, Canadian Maple Syrup Crepes. I spent all night the night before and the morning of making 36 crepes exactly the same size and thickness. I wrapped strawberries and cold whipped cream in the centre, plopped a dolop of whipped cream on the top, topped (generously) with Maple Syrup and facied up with sifted icing sugar around the plates edge. They were the bomb! One of the Indian ex pats came to the kitchen at one point when I was plating more crepes and asked for a spoon. I thought I hadn't given him a fork and felt embarassed but he sheepishly laughed and said with thick Indian accent, "No, I want only t o scoop up the remaining syrup and then I will lick my plate." I beamed with pride. About 3 minutes later someone came in and asked for 9 spoons. No kidding!

Now did I mention I don't have a dish washer in Romania! YA! I used every single dish in my house. China, crystal, regular dishes and even had to break out some plastic bowls for Nuts. (They love nuts here. I haven't heard of anyone having allergies either which is very interesting.) I'm sure you can imagine the enormous pile of dishes that awaited me. SHIIIIT. So I started, the girls wee being entertained by one of the Admin. Assistances there were there, thank god for her, so I started washing. I left at one point to get something for someone and next thing I new my husbands close friend Sachin was washing my dishes. No matter what I said he wouldn't stop to let me wash. So I started to dry and put things away. Ruby needed a new diaper so when I returned from changing her a lovely girl from Luxemberg was drying. No matter what I did, they wouldn't let me do it. They gave me a glass, filled it with home made red wine and said have a drink. That is when I fell in love. This wine was the smoothest wine I've ever had. I thought immediately of my dear friend Shelly would is toasting me as she reads this. OMG! So good. When I say home made wine I mean they have a small vineyard in their backyard and make the wine in the basement. No WineNot stores here! God bless these 2 angels cause my feet were getting sore. Never showed it though! David broke out the scotch and shooters at the end of the night. One of the Romanian bosses agreed to trying Grand Marnier and fell in love himself. So much so he broke out into song and serenaded us with Romanian welcoming songs for 15 minutes. He was singing so loud, like the famous tenors, his face was actually turnign purple at times. I thought I was going to be doing CPR at one point. His BP must have been 260/140 but he was smiling!

Everyone was gone by 11:00 which was nice and I think I slept the best I had since I had arrived. What an introduction to dinner parties! Hopefully they get smaller from here.

Alison