I find it increasingly difficult to get up the energy to blog. It is a little bit like cooking. I would love to be able to cook and I love reading cookery books. But when it actually comes down to it, I just can't be bothered. So you better appreciate the effort here even if what I have to say is completely boring and totally blah.
So what has been happening lately, let's see. Ah.
I went to Romania Thursday a week ago and returned Sunday last. This was on the occasion of a family friend’s wedding. The reason I was made to go on Thursday already rather than at the last possibly moment sometime Saturday was my mum’s pretext that on Friday we should go and look at some lamps for the manor house my father is still restoring. Grudgingly I agreed even though that meant I had to wait a few days more to go and see Harry Potter! But also I have to say I find flying extremely boring and the three hours it took to get to Bucharest put me in a very bad mood; especially as there is a 2 hour time difference which meant it kind of took 5 hours! My brother and my mother were both there to pick me up and that of course meant still no calming and refreshing fag for me! We stayed at my dad’s house on the outskirts of Bucharest and it took quite a while to shake off my chatty family till I could finally sneak out onto the balcony off my room to enjoy a few restorative lung-fulls. I promptly got a head-rush which as usual I did not enjoy.
The next day brought with it the visit to precisely one (1) lamp shop where my mum showed me what she had previously viewed and decided as ok for the house. I thought they were ok but nothing really that great either. After that we spent the rest of the afternoon at home. So this excursion which took no more than 30 minutes was the reason I had to go Thursday already. Not to mention that we bought nothing since mum didn’t know how many lamps we would need. I ask you! Graah!
By the evening my father had joined us and we, some distant relatives and friends went for dinner in an absolutely wonderful art nouveau restaurant called Casa Doina. It was built before WWI and totally enchanted me. It was really hot in Romania and so all the guests sat in the lovely garden with its fountain and tall old trees. Unfortunately this is the only pic I could find where you see a little bit of the garden at least but there are some more here with details of the Romanian art nouveau style (just click those silver grey buttons above the picture).
The food was all sorts of dishes from traditional Romanian cuisine and I especially enjoyed the Vinete and the Mămăligă which have been favourites since my childhood.
The wedding the next day was held towards the evening on account of the extremely hot weather. Apparently it had been over 50° in the sun the previous week! I would have just died! And the bride nearly still did. It later turned out that in the last week or so before the wedding she had been unable to eat anything, which resulted in her being incapable to stand throughout the ceremony (as is customary in Romanian Orthodox weddings) and nearly fainted a few times. Mercifully this ceremony wasn’t 2 hours long like the one we had to endure for my brother’s wedding! The bride looked very lovely even if my brother insisted that her top looked like lingerie rather than a proper bustier. Anyways, since she had nearly starved to death for 2 weeks and had apparently lost more than a stone because of it, she certainly looked ethereal enough to carry it off. Mehehehe.
The festivities themselves were lots of fun as everyone seems to love to dance there and even knows how to do many folkdances which reminded me of line dancing. Needless to say that I did not dance one single step but made fun of those who did, such as my brother and his now heavily pregnant wife Nina.
Oh yes have I ever mentioned that they are having a baby? It is due end of September and I am so happy and excited for them cause they had been trying for quite some time. It is a girl and they cannot decide on a name. Tradition dictates that they have to choose one from our family tree. And since that is a long one you might think the choices have to be nigh endless. And they are! Especially for parents who really want to punish their child for life! There are for examples such gems as Safta, Smaragda (emerald), Theodosia, Olga and Apanasia! Though they are probably still less harmful than my brother’s secret first choice of the German word for tadpole or froglet… don’t ask!
Anyway back to the wedding. At around 2:30 am when we left, we still hadn’t had the second main course. A friend told us that it is tradition at Romanian weddings to drag out dinner over many many hours so that the cake wouldn’t be cut till 4 am! This I could readily believe as it took an hour for the starter to be served after we all sat down at our tables at around 7. By the time it did come I had eaten several bread rolls of which there was a steady supply and drunk so much diet coke that I felt slightly pregnant myself! 2 ½ hours later however I felt quite capable again to partake of the second starter… It goes without saying that my father who is quite happy and willing to sit motionless from dusk till dawn during a hunt waiting for the biggest boar or stag felt incapable to remain awake and lively after 11:30pm. So he snuck out and went home to sleep. At least his departure signalled the all-clear for me to gallop out of the ballroom and have a few fags now and then. What a relief!
Another source of unending enjoyment besides the dancers was a gentleman at our table whose hair we discussed surreptitiously and in detail again and again. My brother was firmly of the opinion that it, in its intensely jet black glory, was not in fact a rug or a wig. He maintained that some years previously he had caught said gentleman in front of the mirror with his hair down, literally. He recounted with great love for detail that said gentleman was indeed completely bald on top but that he cultivated a circlet of hair that still grew in a horizontal line from ear to ear. This he let grow on one side to shoulder length and then with great care and tenderness combed and teased it over his pate to which he fixed it with an overdose of Elnet or an equally strong product… By this time my mother and I were crying with laughter and I don’t think Mr Pate could have been totally ignorant on what subject… Poor man! But then it's is his own fault! He could have just shaved the remaining hair close to his skull and would have looked 100% better and more dignified! Why do men do this?!
2 days ago, that is Friday, Nick and I finally went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I loved it even though there were some big changes from the book. I guess, considering that it is the longest and most detailed book of the series that really isn’t so surprising. Needless to say that we then went and queued at midnight for the newest and final book to come out! Nick had started reading that infamous photographed copy on the internet 2 days previously and was already up to page 300 something. But I wanted to wait to hold the actual thing in my hands. It was well worth the wait! I thought I would read all night cause it is so very gripping but I admit I fell asleep at around 3:30. I finished it yesterday afternoon and immediately started reading it again. It is so sad that it is now all at an end and that there will be no more instalments of Harry’s wonderful world.
Oh well, I know that some of my readers here do not approve of or like him anyway so let’s leave it at that I guess.
Now I have to go to bed as to be fit for another 2 days of my boss. On Thursday I am off to France to visit my grandmother for a week and then soon on the 12th of August Andrea will come and stay for 2 weeks! I cannot wait. Hopefully I shall blog before then and let you know how it was in France.
Night night.
