Monday, July 16, 2012

România - 5 Likes and 2 Dislikes


Romania. What is the country like? What is good and what is weird for me? Some of the things I mention here will be a specific comparison with Slovakia/Czech Republic, so keep that in mind while reading this post.

What I like about Romania


Opening hours

There are so many shops with the basic groceries everywhere. And they close at 21:00 the soonest! A fifth of them are non-stops, so if you decide to buy yourself a chocolate in the middle of the night, no problem. The Czech word "Večerka" (a shop open in the evening, some of them only until 19:00) sounds so funny compared to this.

Food

Mămăligă, brânză, ciorbă ardelenească, salată de icre. All delicious pieces of Romanian cuisine. And of course: semințe (roasted, salty sunflower seeds)my addiction, because of which I came to Romania.

Semințe, salată de icre and white Romanian bread

Shaking hands

People really do shake hands here when they meet. Every day. I love it.

Romanians know how to drink

Although the streets of Romanian cities are sometimes full of pieces of paper, cigarette buts and so on, you will not find any single puke on the sidewalk. People do not need to get drunk to unconsciousness to have fun.

Appearance of the restaurants

An example of a restaurant in Constanța
This might be specific only to the seaside, but the restaurants and pubs have beautiful seats in various shapes. They look interesting, each is different. A big contrast to the dull average look of a Czech or a Slovak restaurant.

What I did not get to be fond of in Romania

Fițe

This hardly translatable Romanian word means something like snobbish. Guys with bald heads, big arms and big bellies that try to look like mafia way too hard. Blond girls with 10 cm high heels. And Mamaia, the most famous resort here is for these people no longer a place to have fun, but to show up. They are not a majority, but they are still very visible.

Bread

This will be very Czech/Slovak specific. Actually, compared to the rest of the world, the Romanian bread is not that bad. But there is nothing in the world like freshly baked, heavy loaf of Czech/Slovak dark bread. I found pâine de vatră ("bread from oven") and it comes very close to CS bread, but it's still too light, still too much yeast.



Among other (more liked than disliked) things I have to mention: Girls and guys dress up here. When they go out, they always dress nicely, girls put make-up on. I was suprised, when Izabela, one of my newly acquired friends from the dorms put pretty clothes and make-up even for a late-evening walk on the beach.

I met very stupid people and I met very open and helpful people, just like everywhere else. All in all, I like it here. So far, it seems to me, that Romanians complain less, then people in Slovakia, where complaining is a national sport. They are used to the fact, that they must help themselves if they want to live better and they are willing to work hard for it.


Questions? Put them in the comments!

4 comments:

  1. ahoj adame, pridal jsem si te do RSS ctecky, tesim se na dalsi clanky :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesant sa vezi cum ceilalti gandesc despre tara ta. Despre "complain less" am fost putin surprinsa. Intotdeauna am observat cum toata lumea se plange. Doamne mea profesoara de romana zicea: "Daca ii iei omului dreptul de a se vaita, nu mai poate fi fericit niciodata." :)))

    ReplyDelete
  3. :) Posibil că am avut numai o experiența bună, dar oare se-mi pare că aici oameni nu se plânge atât de mult că în Slovacia.

    ReplyDelete
  4. And something else: Being corrected by Mihai Mureșan, the type of girls I described as „fițe” are, in fact, ”pițipoance” (singular ”pițipoancă”).

    ReplyDelete