Tangerine's PoV

“I’ve seen your face a hundred times
Everyday weve been apart
I dont care about the sunshine, yeah
cause mama, mama, Im coming home
Im coming home”

Finally, the day arrived. Tonight we will fly to Romania to spend two weeks with my family. It’s funny when they say “You’ll see, when you live abroad you will spend all of your holidays in your home country with your family”, and you think “Yeah, right. Maybe, but not me.”. And then a few months pass and your only dream is to get to what was your home before and see your family, enjoy of a few days of peace. I guess this is the beginning, and I will eventually get used to it, but for the moment all I want is arrive to Bucharest, see my friends, go to KFC (in Spain KFC is not comparable to the Romanian KFC) then go to Vaslui and see my parents and my brother and spend time with them, talk to them and show Bruno where I was born, where I used to study, and why not? where I used to get drunk, or something.

We will post photos, as now we have a memory card for the new camera (Lumix DMC FZ7) .  Happy Easter to all of you, and to some of you “See you this Sunday”.

Last Sunday we decided that a little bit of social life wouldn’t be bad, so we accepted Estanis’ invitation to go to Valls for a calçotada. I really wanted to know the catalan tradition, as I feel like a total stranger here so I guessed that this would be the perfect ocasion: a big nice calçotada, the most traditional of the catalan traditions in Valls, where this tradition was born (of course, with the permission of the pa amb tomaquet, I will dedicate another entry to this great invetion that could save the humanity).

Going back to out theme: the calçotada. I have encountered a very detailed explanation of what calçots and calçotada mean:

“In the town of Valls, capital of Castellers – the people practice the precarious art of building human towers – and of calçots. Calçots are pretty much re-sprouted onions that are not allowed to die. Catalans hate waste so they shove them back underground until something happens. They sprout and the shoots are then covered in earth to maintain a white, succulent stem which grows into a long, gangly spear something between a leek and a spring onion. And then, after months in the dark, they barbecue them.

The town’s annual Calçotada celebrates the harvest of these sumptuous, char-grilled treats by laying out huge steel barbecues through the streets. Calçots, grubby from the earth are laid in thick bundles across glowing vine embers and charred to black. On removal, they are wrapped in newspaper (to soften the skin and steam the innards) before being downed in much the same way as a baby bird might neck a worm. In another of the town’s plazas, five strong-armed volunteers pounded together a special calçot dipping sauce. “

Courtesy of PilotGuides

We had some trouble with starting the fire but we eventually did, and barbecued the calçots. Some of them were raw and some of them were delicious. Estanis’ mother prepared a special sauce for us. I had tasted the calçots before but I never liked them so much as last Sunday. It was a combination of personal achievement with Estanis’ mother sauce and the fresh air together with the nothingness that surrounded us.

There are some photos that we have taken but only a few as we need to buy a new memory card for the camera. You can see the pics here.

Inspired by Alina’s test I felt more curiosity to know the classic movie I was. The result is quite funny. I know someone that would have reasons to gossip one month or so if she’d see it. It is quite true anyway.

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

    There are things in life that money can’t buy.

Like this one: see this. I never used to see all my family in Romania; maybe every 3 or 4 years: for a wedding or a funeral. They all live in different cities and maybe different countries, so it’s quite hard to meet more often. This is why everytime I go out with Bruno’s family I remember mine and I miss it, but luckily I feel happy and comfortable enough with his so that I hold on a little bit longer until we go to Romania. It’s nice to see that they are the ones that are really sincerely happy for us because we will have a baby, and that they really see the baby in the scan.

It’s interesting to see the shadows in the picture; they talk about how a family is meant to be. They start apart from each other and they eventually come together: each one has his life but we all come together in specific moments. It’s good to see you have someone to care about and someone to count on come what may. And for this I’d like to thank them all for welcoming me and making me part of the family.

Meanwhile, the tummy is getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

A few months ago I went to work and B was surprisingly happy. We went to smoke and he told me that he finally made the big step: he asked C to marry him and… she said “Yes“. I remember him saying “I’m getting married, I’m getting married” and me being very happy for him.

But something was not right. Bruno asked me to marry him quite a few times before and I always thought he was just joking, I actually asked him to stop asking me that because it made me think he was fooling around. None of my friends got married before, just a few neighbours from my grandma’s village. I didn’t have it so close before, so in that moment I saw it possible. What did I do? Well, respond to all the questions that Bruno ever asked with another question: “Would you marry me?“. He said “Yes“, but he was quite concerned about my sudden decision to marry him after so many times he asked me to. He never got to know the real reasons that made me take that decision. I guess he will know it now.

After a few months V decided finally to ask A to marry him. I remember the day he told me about the Sunday with his in-laws: A’s mother crying, V got sooo scared until he finally found out that those were tears of happiness. They will get married this summer. If I don’t get to see you and congratulate you, please forgive me; it will surely be because of my tummy’s size.

Then A told me she was getting married with A(let’s call him A2 in order to make the difference). I knew A for two years or more, and then I knew A2. I remember we went together to see Star Wars 3. Laura fell asleep anyway (DON’T BLAME ME FOR FALLING ASLEEP WITH ICE AGE). I would never expected them to get married so soon, but I admin it made me happy to hear that. What does not make me very happy is the fact that I won’t be able to come to see you. Sorry guys, but next year we can organize the big wedding, a remember session of all the weddings with tons of alcohol.

Finally, C decided to marry M. That is also one thing I could expect, I was actually sure it would happen one day, but I wouldn’t expect it so soon. I’m very happy for you and I hope you will decide to have a baby soon. Let it be a girl please, my son has to marry someone trustable.

Cl surprised me the other day. He finally decided to stop the search and go live with the one that isn’t caught by his aggresive antispam filters. I see him really happy, and I would like this to last. So, “The riiiiing, the riiiing, the riiiing“, I try to whisper. “Hurray, hurray” they all sing. Congrats, or well… for you in Spanish right? Felicidadeeeeeeeeeeeees!!! La luna de miel en Barcelona, eh?

Congratulations to all of you and long live the marriage fever!!!

Si eres pijo pijo pijo pijo y cansado de vivir en tu casita de 400 m2 de Valldoreix esta es tu oportunidad…

Sorry…

On sale: Bran Castle!!!

The Romanian Government decided to sell Dracula’s Castle, the most important tourist attraction from Romania. Anyway, the Government never cared too much about tourism, or at least that is my opinion.

The castle, with 57 rooms and no heating costs around $80 million, but then again: who needs heating when there is still tuica in the world?

According to Telegraph Vlad Tepes is the unique selling point for the castle. A different point of view, interesing article:

Vlad the unique selling point 

“So there are these two muffins baking in an oven. One of them yells, “Wow, it’s hot in here!”

And the other muffin replies: “Holy cow! A talking muffin!”

Did that alleged joke make you laugh? I would guess (and hope) not. But under different circumstances, you would be chuckling softly, maybe giggling, possibly guffawing. I know that’s hard to believe, but trust me. The results are just in on a laboratory test of the muffin joke.”

A very interesting article published in New York Times that demonstrates that laughter is not what we think:

“Occasionally we’re surprised into laughing at something funny, but most laughter has little to do with humor. It’s an instinctual survival tool for social animals, not an intellectual response to wit. It’s not about getting the joke. It’s about getting along.”

Full article here

Can you look for me?

I’ve been blind so far but you can see

My milk white eyes don’t tell me where I go

but you’ll lead me with your warm soft hands

where stars shine in a black silk night blanket.

Can you hear for me?

I’ve been deaf so far, but you can hear

so I’ll follow you where the wind makes songs

playing with the tree’s blossoming leaves.

Don’t worry my dear: I can sing,

I’ll teach to birds our love song

so everyone shall know we are not alone.

SHUT THE FUCK UP

Read more here

Related info:

MacFixIT

How to kill yourself like a man

How was living in Romania 15-20 years ago? What were the movies we saw? The most precious thing was the key from our apartment that allowed us to get in when our parents were still working: it was a gift for us, a sign of liberty but it was also a big responsability (I remember that it appeared often in my dreams that I have lost the key and that my parents got very very upset).

Looking for some Romanian recipes I have found this article: Despre generatia celor cu cheia de gat . It made me remember lots of things from my childhood: how we learned to count in English with funny songs based on the soap opera Dallas that we had to see entirely, as there wasn’t anything else on TV. I remembered that we did not have TV or DVD, we have some cheap projectors that we used to see on the wall slides of the most popular romanian stories (Mama lui Stefan cel Mare, Harap Alb, etc.). I remembered the biscuits I used to eat, actually two days ago I’ve payed for a Eugenia, in a romanian shop here in Barcelona one euro (with this in Romania I can buy 30). I remembered the biscuits Poieni, full of chocolate. And I remember the Brifcor, the romanian grandfather of Fanta.

I also remembered (smiling) that we did not call each other. In that period there were two phone numbers on the same line so if you picked up the phone at the same time with the person that was on the same line with you, you could talk for free. You could also hear conversations if you picked up the phone when the other was talking, but that’s another story. The idea is that the best friends were always on the same line. I remember that my best friend and I used to pick up the phone at 9 o’clock in the morning to talk for two hours or so (we were living in the same building, she was on the first floor and I was living on the third floor, but it was free, so it was fun).

I remember that we only had one slide in town, and it was always so busy that we had to find other solutions: the staircase was the first one that we thought of: the bad part of it is that we used to tear up our trousers very easily and then our parents got upset, of course. Then we had the edge of a bridge but we found the same problem. The only workaround for this was going to the edge of the bridge after school, when all the kids were out and make them wish to go there and tear up their trousers. Two or three days later the edge was so smooth that we did not tear up our trousers again. The staircase is also smooth due to that.

A very nice article for those who lived their childhood during the dictatorship and in the years that followed Ceausescu’s death. I guess we all can identify ourselves with at least one sentence from the article. I don’t know exactly who wrote it, but congratulations, a really nice thing you did.