On Thursday Miss C had an appointment to get her hair cut. She had been joking with me for days that she was going to cut it short. I tend to find women with short hair not as attractive as those with long hair. I obviously made a request that she didn't cut it short. Her appointment was at midday, and at 12:05 PM, I received a message saying "I cut my hair short". I responded with "Whaaaaaatttt?" and "Noooooooo!!!!!". I was pretty sure she was joking but a part of me was a little concerned. It's not that I wouldn't find her attractive with short hair, she is beautiful and I don't think her hairstyle will change that, but I just like women to have long hair.
About 1:00 PM, I receive a message from Miss C telling me that she is coming over. About 15 minutes later, I receive a text telling me she has arrived so I can go down and let her in the building. I put some shorts on and head out to the lift. I press the button and nothing happens. I press it a few times more and still nothing. Another guy comes out and sees me standing there. He looks at me confused then, presses the button with no result. The guy decides to just take the stairs instead. As he's going down the stairs, he is saying something, which I assume is meant for me, in Romanian. I have no idea what he is saying, so I just ignore him. I get a text, "What, Are you coming from 100th floor?" I write back "I am waiting for lift", then decide "Fuck it, I'll take the stairs".
I descend the staircase and I hear the elevator doors close. I head down 2 floors then I hear the lift starting to come up. "I bet Miss C would've come in when the other guy went out, I should turn around and go back". I went back up and as I reached the top of the stairs to my floor, the lift stopped. There was an old man with a small dog waiting on my floor for the lift. Miss C steps out of the lift as the old man starts saying something. All three of us are looking at each other with worried and confused looks on our faces. Miss C quickly ushers me back into the apartment and asks if he said anything to me. I say "No, he only started saying something when you got out of the lift". She said "I think he was talking to the dog".
"I'm so glad you didn't cut you're hair short, I was a little worried when you sent that message", I told her. She tells me she is disappointed with the haircut. I tell her I like it and she looks good. We sit down and Miss C has to take a pill, she has had some pains recently and gives me one of the 2 beers she brought with her. She has the other one. Miss C has apparently got the username and the password for the broadband connection in the apartment. She sets up the connection with the help of a phone call to someone and then reads my blog. I had told her the night before in a text that I needed to get some food and she had arranged for Mr M to take us shopping.
About 2:30 PM, we leave to meet Mr M downstairs in the carpark and drive to a supermarket named 'Billa'. The layout isn't much different to any 'Woolworths' or 'Coles' supermarket in Australia. They have a delicatessen counter and fruit and vegetable, meat and dairy sections. The only difference, apart from everything being in Romanian, is that they sell alcohol in the supermarket (I love Romania). There were familiar brands such as 'Heinz', 'Dolmio', 'Barilla' 'Lays', 'Pringles' and 'Coca-Cola' (and all it's other soft drink products). Most of the food I saw, you would find in the supermarket in Australia, however, a lot of the brands I had never seen before. They have 'Maggi' 2 minute noodles here but some of the flavours are different to what we have in Australia, I'm interested in trying the ciuperci (mushroom) flavour. I don't know, if this was just a smaller supermarket, but In Australia we seem to have a lot bigger range and variety of food in the Supermarket. We walked around and bought what I wanted then headed to the checkout.
The checkouts operate the same way as in Australia, you take the things from the trolley and put them on the bench with the conveyor belt built into it. They are dragged across a scanner and put on the other side. Similar to 'Aldi' stores in Australia, the cashier doesn't bag it for you. You have to bag it yourself and pay for the bags if you didn't bring any. We got a fair bit of food and alcohol and it cost 320 lei ($100.00 AUD). I looked at the receipt at home later and thought it was interesting to note that a 500 mL can of cuicas costs 2.30 lei (about 80 cents AUD), however a jar of pesto sauce costs 16.70 lei (about $5.00-$6.00 AUD). "Hmmmm" i thought..."I'm not sure that's entirely promoting the right priorities". I know if I was on my last 20 lei, what I would be choosing and it wouldn't be the jar of pesto sauce.
Miss C also pointed out this bottle of alcohol, but wasn't sure whether they would let me take it back into Australia. It is called 'Tuica' and is 45% alcohol volume. I am not sure what it is exactly, but it appears to be some kind of Romanian plum brandy. I bought the bottle anyway and if I can't bring it back into Australia, I will at least have fun drinking it. The bottle has the branding 'Vlad' with an image of Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler), who if you don't already know, was also known as Dracula (Son of the Dragon in the old Romanian language) and inspired Bram Stoker's character of the same name. I won't go into detail about Vlad Tepes here, because I will write more about him when I visit the Transylvania region. I just thought the bottle looked very cool. It cost 70 lei (about $25.00 AUD).
This may be the reason why the crazy looking old lady downstairs walked out without any pants on
After shopping, we went to McDonalds. It was apparently 5 degrees celsius outside but it felt more like minus 5. I don't think I have felt as cold here in Romania, as i did that afternoon. It was after 4:00 PM by this time. We enter the McDonalds and it looked like any McDonalds you would go to in Australia. We ordered some meals and Miss C asked me if i wanted my meal with beer. "Wait... What?...Did you say with beer?" I thought. Yes.... you read that correctly they serve beer in McDonalds in Romania (Did I mention I love this country). I considered for a moment but didn't feel like a beer, so I said "No, I'll just get coke". We took our drinks and sat down at a table that had deep leather seats at it. They were comfortable but much lower than the table and it was awkward to eat.
An employee brought the food over to the table and we ate. I had a Big Mac and it was exactly the same as every Big Mac I had ever eaten as were the fries. Miss C had a wrap of some kind (she opted for the beer), and Mr M had something called the American burger. Next time, I will try this burger as I had not seen it before. Everything else on the menu looked exactly the same as what we have in Australia. For the 3 meals it cost about 57 lei ($17.00-$20.00 AUD).
We made use of the WiFi access in McDonalds and updated our phones. After eating, we dropped Miss C off in town as she had to meet her sister to buy a gift for a relatives birthday the next day. Mr M and I, went back to the apartment after making a stop so he could pay some bills. We brought all the groceries up and Mr M left. I put all the groceries away, cracked a Cuicas and texted with Miss C while I watched football highlights. I started watching the game between Athletico Madrid Vs Real Betis on the TV but didn't see the end a s I fell asleep at about 11:00 PM.
Kevie, Finally got round to looking at your blog. Sounds like you are enjoying it so far.....but did you really need to go half way round the world to drink beer.
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