My triumphant return to Romania

Leaving Austria and arriving in Romania on Monday, Sept 22, has been a true whirlwind: overwhelming, unreal, and frustrating.
My vacation in Austria, a two week period of constant supervision by grandparents, all needs met, coddling and spoiling, days of casual card playing, good food, and fun day trips. I had really no responsibilities at all, no obligations, nothing to do and all day to do it. I was looking forward to starting my project and embarking on this year, but I have to say the day came all too suddenly. I woke up early to catch the train from Linz to Vienna, a dozen random thoughts occurring to me of things I should have looked up earlier, people I should have called, concerns I had, questions about what I would be doing and how I would be doing it. But, I had to catch the train, so no time to dwell on these concerns.
Allow me to discuss briefly the train ride. The ride from Linz to Vienna in the morning is a packed train, dozens of people on business and such. Thankfully my grandfather came with me, or else the hauling of 9 months worth of luggage through the cars of pushy, obnoxious Austrians would have been even more unbearable than it was. When the train arrives at the station, everyone loads on at once, pushing, shoving, and elbowing. No one has ever taught a European how to stand in line in a civilized fashion. In any case, after physically fighting to get on this bloody train, there was the march through the cars, looking for a seat. At most points, people were coming from both directions, briskly shoving by one another, in a really illogical way, because if people were coming form one direction, why were people still going in the other? However, at one point, I got stuck in a doorway, people pusing form behind and from in front of me. I was rather stuck at an impasse, and some typically bitchy Austrian woman told me there were only first class cars further in the other direction. I sighed, and tried to smile and stand out of the way so these obnoxious people who seemed to know where they were going could just get the hell out of my way, but instead, everyone just stood stupidly, and looked at each other like a herd of cattle. UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
The train ride over, we had to catch a bus to the airport, where I was kindly informed by a mincing Viennese that I would have to pay 110 Euros for my overweight luggage (which was not overweight when I had flown in from JFK). How nice! But, an ice cold blond clerk petulantly told me that, no, it was 130 Euros, the Tarom clerk had been incorrect. Vielen dank, freulein!!!
I had to say a sad good bye to Opsi, who has accompanied me twice on my journeys eastward, and made it through the maze of gates and stores and security and passport checks and the AUSTRIAN LINES where my personal space is so thoroughly violated.
The Tarom plane was a true relic. The interior was circa 1970, and while we boarded, I noticed the luggage compartment looked perilously full and there were still 2 carts of luggage not yet loaded. Hm, I hope someone performed a very sophisticated risk/cost calculation in deciding whether to load my big bags in there, too. However, in typical Romanian fashion, they took care of the problem in a very practical, way: filling the lat two empty rows with baggage. Bine!
Against all odds, the plane landed in Cluj, and when we suddenly landed on the tarmac, I was jerked awake and hit squarely with the realization that I was now in Romania. Honestly, I was filled with a sense of apprehension that, as of yet, hadn’t struck me. I got off the plane, walked to the passport control and was asked how long I planned to stay. When I answered “Nine months” she looked at me disbelievingly and asked for some sort of visa. Ehhhh…. But I just told her, no, nothing, I just have the passport. Apparently, that sufficed and I went to collect my monstrous amounts of luggage.
Laden like a pack mule, I rolled out to the arrivals part of the terminal, just a small hall with 2 gates. I was greeted by…. Absolutely no one. I had been told that a university driver would pick me up, but of the few signs waiting, none had my name on it. I thought I would just wait a bit, and made a back up plan. After 15 minutes, the hall had cleared out, I was alone, there were no pay phones whatsoever, I didn’t know the phone number of the woman I had contact with, and I didn’t know the name of the hotel I was supposed to go to. And I had 5743876589 lbs of luggage to drag behind me.
I thought, if something went wrong, I suppose they would ultimately just look for me in the hall, but after 10 more minutes, that seemed less likely. Here I experienced the first of a few instances of aggravation and helplessness. But, things worked out, and as I walked out a driver emerged from a car with a sign with my name on it. I was so relieved I really could have hugged him, but I managed to restrain myself.
During the car ride to the hotel, I chatted a bit with the driver, but was rather disheartened to find that he didn’t seem to understand me all that well. Not that I have grandiose pretentions about my fluency in the language, but I still thought that I could convey simple messages in a clear way.
I arrived at the hotel, which was thankfully extremely new, very nice, and had an English speaking receptionist. She even gave me an Ethernet cable for my laptop- YESSSS… I called Carmen, we made a plan to meet at an apartment building at 7:30 and then I had hours to do…nothing. I sat in my room and turned on the TV, watching a few minutes of the absurdly cheesey Manele music videos and then some of the “Etno” station, which plays only popular folk songs set to bucolic Carpathian scenes with people dressed in native traditional clothing. I ultimately settled on a channel playing Law and Order SVU with Romanian subtitles (ahh, just like at home!). I messed around with my computer and was SO IRRITATED to find that NO google websites worked. This includes Gmail, all google search engines, and Blogspot! I won’t say that I got teary eyed necessarily, but I was definitely disheartened and bit panicky- there was no phone in the room, no public phone downstairs, and no email. I felt a little bit stranded, but was at least quite comfortable in the room, and my Yahoo messenger worked, so I settled in for a few hours.