Rainbow Child

That’s what they kept telling me: “Oh, Ioana, we’re not your typical German family.” I don’t know many German families but I know that Martha’s family is special. I’ve stayed at Maria and Walter‘s place (Martha‘s parents) for about 10 days and I’m not exaggerating when I’m saying that those have been wonderful days! They must have the concept of “hospitality” running through their veins cause I haven’t felt more welcome anywhere! They did everything possible so I could have a great time: they took me out to dinner, they took me on trips (we got as far as Denmark but I’ll write about it in a different post), they bought me white beer even if it’s Bavarian and they encouraged me to believe in a better future for this country (although I don’t think that is possible, it was still nice to see someone actually believing in it).

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1. Mum has a university colleague who has moved to Germany. They kept in touch and 5 years ago she insisted I go and visit them so I was at her place for 2 weeks.

2. Her boy, who is 16,  is staying with us for 2 weeks just because I like his mum and I feel like I owe them something for those 2 weeks I spent at their place. I don’t like him at all and it was just a favour.

3. When we got back home from BM, the house was a mess. He had been using our pans although Eddie had told him to buy his own pan for frying meat. There were oil stains everywhere, unwashed dishes scattered around the kitchen. More than that, his stuff was everywhere – we barely had any place in the fridge to put our own groceries.

4. The moment he came home I told him about the mess he had made. His answer: “I didn’t think that was a mess. To me it looked clean enough”. Not to mention the countless rude retorts. He thinks he owns the place and he acts like I’m the guest.

5. I started cleaning the kitchen and the moment I was finished with the cooker he wanted to fry meat!!!!! For fuck’s sake, I scrubbed and I cleaned and now you want to fuck up my work? Of course, he is a sportsman and he needs to eat heavy stuff… Now all the apartment smells of his fucking fried meat and I don’t even want to see how the cooker looks…

6. Every time I tell him about something bad that he has done, he replies that “I’m only 16″ or “I had no idea about that” or “I’m a boy, I don’t have to know how to cook”. Well, fuck you, I won’t give you private cooking lessons! Speaking of which, his mum told me today that I should teach him how to clean! EXCUSE ME??? Are you bloody insane???? You’re letting your kid move on his own to Bucharest, finishing his high school here and you want me to teach him everyfuckingthing that you haven’t taught him yet??? I’m sorry, I’m no babysitter.

7. This is it! Except friends and family and the occasional couch surfers, I won’t have anyone else stay at my place. Yes, I have a spare room, but I don’t want to be anyone’s maid. Really, it’s absolutely outrageous the way this kid talks to me! And for these two hell of a weeks he is not paying rent and he didn’t bring us anything, not even a bar of chocolate. It’s like “hey, suckers, I’m pissing all over you and you can’t do anything about that”. I would LOVE to just throw his stuff out of the balcony and change the lock. But I can’t, so IN MY OWN HOUSE I will have to put up with his crap until Friday.

Someone really hates me up there…

The days I spent with vio were full of good food, white beer, long walks and even longer talks. We are alike in so many ways and sometimes I felt like I was talking with an older version of myself. And again, I am so amazed that people I’ve met on the Internet are now some of my closest and dearest friends. vio also took me one day to Frankfurt but our main goal was to get to the flea market and go shopping, so, sorry, the only things I remember about the city are the skyscrapers, the sea of people going from one shop to another and the delicious Asian soup I ate

The main goal of those first days in Germany had been reached: I spent some quality time with a dear friend and I was prepared for the touristic part of the trip: Berlin.

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A casual talk with Martha´s mum:

i: “Argh, I can´t believe he doesn´t know how to do that! He´s a man, he should know how to do such practical things! If not, why should you have a man around the house?”
Mm: “Just to have babies.”
i: “And if you don´t want to have babies?”
Mm: “Well…”

I was telling you about me being paranoid and having to plan everything and then sticking to the plans no matter what. Well, it seems that the Universe wanted to teach me a valuable lesson about plans and paranoia and it worked.

First of all, the morning I woke up to go to Cluj and catch my plane was gray, cold and rainy. I had packed only summer clothes from Bucharest and just tossed in a pair of jeans and some cardigans because Martha always told me how chilly it can get in the north of Germany. But what Martha didn´t tell me was that sometimes it´s cold everywhere in bloody Germany! I´ve exchanged temperatures of over 30 degrees Celsius for autumn weather with temperatures that I don´t believe go higher than 18 degrees. So all my skirts and dresses and thin T-shirts are useless here, unless I put them all on me, at the same time.

Getting back to my plane trip, when we arrived at the airport the plane had a delay of 2h. Anyways, I sent my parents back home and waited patiently for them to announce that we were boarding. And I waited, and waited and waited and in the end they told us that we wouldn´t be flying that day but early next morning. I was a bit panicky by then because I don´t know anyone in Cluj but the airline company sent the non-Cluj people to a four star hotel. I can´t say that I was thrilled or anything like that but I wasn´t yelling like a retard demanding that the company should give me a refund or fly in a special plane just for us. On the other hand, I had all the time in the world, I could wait until next morning. Which morning turned into early afternoon. I still have no idea why our plane got cancelled – I´ve heard lots of rumours but nothing official – but, in the end, I made to Dortmund safe and sound.

From there I went to Schwelm, where I stayed at a friend´s of my Mum. That couple was amazing! I´ve never seen a couple their age (mid-forties) being that in love! I was totally impressed Not to mention what nice people they are and how they looked after me. At least I´ve started my trip meeting incredible people. So, while the people part is OK, the traveling one still needs more adjustments. On my first train ride within Germany, I got on the wrong train. I was at the right line, the time was right, a regional train came, I got on and everything seemed to be perfect until it was time to arrive in Köln and we weren´t there yet. Using my very poor German I asked a man if the train was going to Köln. Of course it wasn´t! I almost had a panic attack but the nice man told me to get off at the first station and simply wait there for the right train. And so I did. Thank God, Martha had bought for me some really cool tickets and I can take any train to get my destination. Yes, any train I want, I can change how many I want as long as I get to where I have to in less than 24h. And it costs only 30 euros/trip. Now that´s what I call a bargain!

There I was, in the middle of nowhere, having to wait another hour for my train. What did I do? I started talking with a girl next to me who turned out to not speak a word English! Damn, it was so difficult for me to speak German but I did it. I mumbled and mixed the articles and mispronounced almost everything but in the end she still got the right information: that I´m 23, traveling through Germany, staying at friends, that Romania is still regarded as a poor country but there are lots of rich people etc, etc.  We both got off in Köln and wished each other a nice holiday.

Now I am in Bad Homburg, staying at Vio´s place. I love it here! Yesterday we rode the bicycles along that wonderful wheat filed and into this really quaint city. I´m sure I will take tons of pictures here and have a wonderful time. Vio and I can´t stop talking – there are so many things we want to share with each other. In the end, this trip seems to be about discovering a better way of living (I´m seriously thinking of moving here one day) and having the greatest time with some of the greatest people I know