A couple days ago, I participated in the ritual of slaughtering a pig for christmas. I was going to let the pictures do the talking but I don’t know to downsize them because they’re apparently too big.

Snowy train tracks, no food or water with us, just watched napoleon dynamite, past Daneş, I think we’re entering Sighişoara, I’ll stop for a smoke and throw the butt out the open doors between wagons, lights out, probably running behind schedule,

I’ve eaten at a few interesting places in Cluj. The Viking restaurant where I ate about the equivalent of half a pig in various forms. Another place where people eat in cells, in an old musky brick basement. And today (or yesterday by the time I post this) I got to eat at a Hungarian restaurant I had met Teo’s film crew at once and had wished to eat there ever since.

It’s not so much for the food. I mean, yes, I did try fruit soup for the first time. Mainly cherry based with pieces of pear and apple and a hint of citrus. And apart from the goulash, most of the stuff we ate could also be considered Romanian. Mind you, Romania has a tendency to adopt foods from surrounding areas just like any other country.

We went for the atmosphere. We step through the wide-open heavy wooden doors from the street onto the carpeted floor, and there in the hallway with the snow blowing in, is a woman standing behind a small reception desk, surrounded by windows, since the same establishment also doubles as a hotel, to the left a flight of stairs going up, and a fake christmas tree stands pretty much smack dab in front of her. A few more steps and automatic glass doors open, it has the feel of some neo-church to it, the glass ceiling, neon signs, a water fountain out of order. We start the queue by grabbing a tray that looks like it was made by Ikea, utensils and a selection of three kinds of bread. A vast array of food in front of us, on the other side of the glass, I wanted to take the time to ask the woman serving us what everything was, there were soups and meats sitting in juices, vegetables floating to the surface, but she just passed her ladle through a couple of them and pointed above our heads where on top of some gold lettering that welcomed us in Hungarian, was a description of everything being served in two languages, one of which I understand so-so. We were only going to get so much helpfulness as more people started lining up and getting their bread. A banister stopped us from letting anybody pass us and we felt stressed to get as much food as we could and pass to the cashier.  “Do you want schnitzel?” the sausage didn’t look that attractive, will that be with polenta or mashed potatoes, quick, grab some pickled vegetables, what about the cakes with great big pieces of cherry in them on dozens of plates above the présentoir, I’ll grab one of these beers, what do you want to drink, quick.

I was already full after the soup.

Your typical x-mas standards played above us, but the Hungarian adaptation, which just sounds like a mouthful of consonants  and umlauts. We even had the pleasure of hearing the Magyar “Santa, baby” originally sung by Marilyn Monroe.

More people flooded in, serious faces, blond hair, mustaches. Speaking their funny language.

I love train travel. I wish there was a pass you could buy, valid for everywhere trains go, in the world! I also wish I could get one for free.

Okay, im talking crazy

I’m gonna try and get some sleep

might have had gastritis or maybe the muscles in my esophagus had a hard time contracting, third day of constant snow, cluj-napoca, capital of transilvania, Natalia moving to London, new coat, nighttime mess, high, possibly constipated

the untouched streets covered in snow were enough for our love, it seems. the mix of kitsch and old stone walls, you eat placenta, i have a crappy chicken shoarma. smoking spices and packing, we’re sleeping at the retro hostel tonight, we’ve been sleeping so badly lately. last night the trip through the carpathians was especially  enchanting, frightening. wonderful foggy, icy windows. pulling ourselves through the snow and the night. a 6 hour trip in 12, arriving as the weak white sun rose. your friends were still packing, shit all over, coffee and cigarettes. i love this city. i wanna go out, sing, dance, karaoke, gawk in awe at the architecture. but you have a headache.

in a few years, we’ll transition from winter to summer, summer to winter, no equinox.   And then, who knows, we might skip a summer. Eventually, one year, your country will be tropical, the next, arctic.

I’m slaughtering a pig on saturday morning. or, I’m holding the hind legs.

So, what, does Valerie have a poster of my girlfriend hanging on her wall?

it’s midnight now, I’ve skyped with lise & john this evening, my brother tried calling and my friend Gijs in A’dam. it’s incredible having a laptop and being able to take pictures, listen to music, look up stuff. at ste-foy elementary i remember when we got a cd-rom. people would line up at the library to look at pictures of dinosaurs on the computerized encyclopedia.

this blog is basically about you, sinbad. or rather, the relationship between you and I. where is simon now? I just wish i got around to type out stuff that was deep and meaningful or of some consequence.

palinka and vodka, wine bottles lying around. ketchup, strawberry banana juice, bloody marys.

i wrote you a poem

you eat cheese

havent slept more than 5 hours a night for the last 6 days, first day of fast, my laptop, restaurant One by U.N.A.T.C., bucuresti, romania, eastern europe, the 90′s, 7 time zones later

Or is it labtop? seems to me it sits on top of my lap, doesnt it? i dont have a lab.      ….i used to have a golden retriever.

your room was clean, we messed it up, pulled up the screen and smoked pall malls out the window, hiding the butts, i was looking for the sun glasses i had bought for 30 bucks at trudeau when i surprised you because i was just too high, i am wearing clothing from around the world i told you as i was looking up at you upside down, my socks are from romania, my pants from bc, my shirt from brazil, my sweater from new-brunswick, my hat from austria, my jacket probably from germany. anyway i thought of looking behind the fridge and instead found the jewelry you thought you had lost forever after we came back from vama veche when we met a year and a half ago.

everything is so familiar yet i havent fallen into the realization that im here yet. laying you down in bed, it felt like no time had passed. when you got back it felt to you like you were just in another part of montreal, little romania. i forgot to bring the squeeky cheese.  on the city bus a woman came to the airport to have supper with her brother who was flying to d.c. from vancouver, we were talking about people who work in new york but commute from london. and what about dubai?

i was half expecting the stray dogs to be running after our plane touching down as if we were a car

i guess thats the difference between otopeni and banasea

the difference between lufthansa and wizzair, 2 1/2 hours of being spoken to by flight attendants in either german or english, being served german bier and either turkey or cheese (cheese, with radish mayo on vollkornbrot) balisto und mineralwasser, smoking gauloises at FRA, and well, a wizzair flight

one of the few times someone was waiting for me at the airport, for half a second i wasnt sure it was really you, just a flashing blur running to hug me, an overdose of sleeplessness and carelessly travelling throughout environments and receiving all of you at once.

we got really hungry, and the waiters were simply ignoring us, took our business across the street to Papillon

its weird to eat vegan in romania.

refusing to bring ciorba back to buc from blejoi (prahova) was like a slap to bunica’s face. “but it’s delicious!”  but our religious convictions are stronger

-we can just have oral sex.

-no, thats sex.

-not according to bill clinton. what about anal? thats how mary was a virgin.

-NO!

-oh, c’mon! what if i tap your bummies like this, is that sex?

-that’s alright.

-YES!! (tap tap tap tap tap)

what I dont understand is how a goth like simona (who just coloured the tips of her hair blue, which must have been a lengthy process, first dying her brown hair black, then bleaching the ends and then dying them blue. she is actually not wearing solely black today) has been fasting since the 15th (” i have my few exceptions.” dumplings, apparently) obviously its not due to her religious convictions. maybe she just likes being vegan 80 days a year. i asked how hard she found it to refrain from sex. no response.

and then theres the whole breaking the fast by eating an entire pig. the way a fast is broken is one of the most important steps of the process. we have a juicer. we’ll do a juice fast. for ten days or so. then ease our way into eating pork. teo doesnt feel like she’ll have enough energy for school and the gym. any tips?

i got a north-america-to-europe plug adaptor thingy. only 5 lei. im happy. its the first time i bring electrical appliances to europe. whats happening to me? laPtop, digital camera, watch, might even get a cell-u-lar tele-phone. thing is, i dont even know what to do on the inter-web except check e-mails and fessebouche. i need something i can waste time on (y’know except porn) “don’t you have a blog?” oh yeah! i think its time for a list:

things

I

miss

about

Romania

…and Teo