Somewhere In The Balkans

The months of June, July, and August were followed by "what to dos..." and "where to gos..." but I, having already put much more than my 2 cents in, developed a perfect strategy for blocking out the repetitive questions, I call it "screw it, just enjoy."


And that is precisely what I was thinking as I spent the days learning to ride carriages and every card game known to man,




going swimming in the river,















attempting to experience a church service (which will never happen again by the way) and exploiting my dad for his awesome driving skills.
















While the nights and small hours of the morning were spent in discos,




at my neighbor's house, at our village's bar or just driving around aimlessly, followed by sneaking in as quietly as a ninja until a much ninja-er frog scared the crap out of me, followed by a very noisy anti-alibi.

The Root Of All In/Decision

So at this point, you may be wondering, how exactly did I get here? What happened? Isn't this counterproductive?
And I have the answers to all of those questions. Except maybe the last one :D

So, come round a sunny Boulder afternoon in May, I walked through the door of our house, expecting to eat dinner, finish my homework at record speeds and surf the net until my eyes turned red, like any other day. But that day, you can imagine, was quite special, because why else would I bore you with these details?

After that rather long process of thinking of my very busy and demanding schedule, I was sat down by my parents who looked like they were trying to hold something in so bad, that their heads might implode.

Greeted by my look of confusion, they got to the point, as they usually do.

"Do you think Boulder's really the place for us?" Blurted my father, who looked like a kid hyped up on Halloween candy.

Panic set in, 'do I like it here?' 'do I want to leave?' 'what are you afraid of?' 'weren't you the one who brought this up a few months ago?' 'where are we going?'
As you can see, it didn't take too many degrees of separation from "what?!?" to "where to!!" As I was always ready for change and something new. Although this shouldn't be confused with a short attention span, I mean, I am writing a pretty long blog pos- ooh! loook! a squirrel!

Where was I? Oh yes, indeed. You can imagine my parents were relieved that I had no problem with it, and it was probably rather confusing that I was jumping for joy. But all in all, a successful day.

The rest of May passed by excruciatingly slowly, even though I tried to pass the time with zombie pranks and trying to convince my friend to streak through the school with me.

As the end of school came about, we packed up our caboose and headed for Canada, where we intended to live. Well as you've probably logically deduced by now, we're a long way from Canada. So what happened in between? A plan to go on a "summer vacation" to the old country.

We're Definitely Not In Boulder Anymore...

Location! Location! Location!
Or dare I say, relocation?
What is this? The 4th time already?

Hello to the very confused people who have been witnesses to my life, I bet you're thinking "not this again..." but yes, indeed, I have a new address, city, country and continent. Where exactly, you may ask? My very own Roma...nia.

It seems that life has led me to believe that you must be in the eye of the storm to stop it from destroying everything in its path. Or as the generations of women in my family before me would so adequately put it "You are a teaspoon, dipping yourself into crap."

Don't they seem optimistic.

In any case, this is me, alerting you, that I'm being very active in my mission of taming the storm.

Stay awesome, readers!

Is Cultural Learnings of Gypsies and Romania for Make Benefit Silly City-State of Amreeka

Romania, it is a stupid, you are not alloweds to give money to strangers! :S










You know, there are a windows behind zee big ice cream where peoples actually dwell.














It was a prosperous printing building, and now, well, now is eye sore.












This is Dacia. Oh noes!












Uh oh! Church in schoolyard? Not to worries, it is abandoned.











Constantin Loga, is king of vodkas?















"Block Of Memories" I think they had an amnesia.














"I sell belly fat." Sexy eh?











Do not fear communists in Romania! Fear teenage drug-addicted, fat selling nazis!

Why Hello!

Recently I've been trying to get my hands on a Romanian - Rrom dictionary and it is proving quite difficult, until, that is, a family friend from Romania sent me to this site Now, everything is great success! I like!

The Culture

As for the gypsy culture itself, their music is beautiful, and their dances fast paced and incredibly fun to dance to. They are a great addition to Romanian culture, and some artists have been trying to integrate them into normal society for years.

Loredana Groza, a famous young pop star in Romania, has performed songs such as "Made In Romania" a song about uniting all of Romania's different social groups and having peace between them.
















Babi Minune, born into a gypsy Satra (caravan), begging on the streets to survive, is now a famous singer, all because one man filmed him singing on his phone and uploaded it to youtube. He could never have imagined that he would become a huge star and would perform with the likes of Denisa, in "Aproape De Inima Ta" (Close To Your Heart) and a place in the show "Inima De Tigan" (Heart Of A Gypsy).


































Trupa Lu Peste, a group of mixed talents has performed such songs as "Romanes Love Story" and "Cati Bani Ai Tigane?", about gypsy romances.




Hara, who have rewritten the age old song "Muro Shavo" meaning "My Son", a story a father tells his son about being careful of the world. The original sung only in gypsy, and the Hara version partially in Romanian.



Copilul De Aur, another young gypsy boy, taken in by the famous Romanian producer, Dan Bursuc, was part of the movie "Poveste De Cartier" or "Story From The Block" about forbidden love, with such hits as "Buzele Tale" (Your Lips) and "Daca Nu Eu Atunci Cine" (If Not I, Then Who?) featuring Laura Vass.




And Dan Bursuc himself:




Each of these artists are an important part of culture, and it is usually frowned upon when non-gypsy celebrities support them. It is more important to people to keep their hatred than to follow in the right path of somebody they look up to.

An even more jarring example, which may sound more familiar, happened during one of Madonna's concerts in Romania, when she stated:
"It has been brought to my attention...that there is a lot of discrimination against Romanies and Gypsies in general in eastern Europe," she said. "It made me feel very sad. We don't believe in discrimination… we believe in freedom and equal rights for everyone."



It was disturbing to hear that after such a righteous statement over such a thing as human rights and discrimination, the crowd began to boo her for supporting the gypsies while very few cheered.

Piranda And Miklos Make Wave In Romania

In June of 2009, my family had decided to visit Romania for the rest of the summer to see our friends and relatives. And although I was happy with reuniting everybody again, on my agenda for the time I had there were numerous social experiments to perform, of course including my cousin, mom, grandma, and aunt as victims of this little plan.

The perfect day came to do this, when my great cousin had invited us to his new apartment to celebrate his moving in. The apartment was in downtown Timisoara, close enough to my grandmother's house to walk there. With this knowledge, several hours before the actual party, my cousin and I had prepared ourselves in full gypsy attire, not missing a brilliant detail; hair braided perfectly so that there would be a gap for my ear, with red ribbon in the braid, a long flowing gypsy skirt, a man's dress shirt, tied at the waist, and long gold coin earrings. As we got ready, we decided that we were in fact the bride and groom of a gypsy wedding, and that I was the daughter of a rich gypsy.





Thus we began our trek to my great cousin's house, my aunt at a distance to take pictures and record the glorious moment, my grandmother looking at us with only a slightly mocking smile, and my mom, tagging along claiming to be our "indentured servant." The beauty of dressing this way on this particular evening was that downtown Timisoara was sure to be teeming with people and their questioning, hateful, or amused expressions.

As we made our way through, no worse for wear of the glares we were getting from "respectable Romanian citizens" who would have absolutely NOTHING, to do with such corrupt behavior such as the gypsy culture, we made it to my great cousin's house, being followed by only one young gypsy beggar, asking us if we could lend a fellow brother some money.