Tags: Romania, mosquito, language, Cluj, panic attack, PhD
Date: 26 June 2006 14:54:09
I'm in Romania! Having adventures! I can't believe I've been here over a week already -it's gone really quickly, but at the same time, I suppose because I've lived here before and have experienced the culture and way of life and whatnot befoer, I feel like I've been here forever. (NB only 1/4 hour left in internet cafe so no time to check for typos)
I'm currently in Cluj, Transylvania's largest city (about 400,000 inhabitants, of whom about 20% are Hungarian and up to a third of whom are students, as Cluj is one of Romania's four principle university centres). For my first two weeks I'm doing an intensive one-to-one language course at a private language school, I have two teachers (one does grammar and mroe formal discussion with me in the morning and the other does conversation with me in the afternoon). They're both lovely, we're getting on really well, but boy are they working me hard! I'm eing stretched to my limits every day, not only in the 5 hours teaching time each day but also with half a ton of homework every daywhich is a bummer but of course is really good for me. I feel a bit like I've hit what marathon runners refer to as 'the wall' - I'm not convinced my language is ever going to get to the next level of fluency, but if I keep going, pushing myself through this it'll probably come all of a sudden and be less of a slog. A good thing is that both my teachers nad my host family (who are lovely - a Hungarian couple who are going out of their way to speak Romanian when I'm in the flat to maximise my exposure to the language) all say that my spoken language (my weakest link) had improved over hte week.
Despite the intensive language learning it thankfully hasn't been all work. My first full day here I went to a birthday party, and (it has to be said, somewhat surreally), every evening so far the host family has taken me trampolining! Some relatives work at the outdoor trampolines in Cluj's central park, so we get to bounce for free (my protests that I was too old cut no ice, and I must admit I am rather enjoying it now that I've got over the embarrassment factor. There's even photographic and video evidence). I've also had a bit of a wander round the city centre (I'm staying really near to the centre, it's a great location, and only a short walk to school as well). I like Cluj a lot (I'd not been here before) - like many Romanian cities, particularly in Transylvania, there's tons of really interesting architecture thanks to the influeance of various inhabitants - significantly Germans and Hungarians as well as Romanians - nd although it's a bit tatty and worn, it's thoroughly charming.
Yesterday (Sunday) we went to a place called Cojocna which is a spa village with a couple o salt water lakes. The weather was glorious so it was absolutely heaving with people, and I'm afraid I disgraced myself by having a sudden and totally unexpected panic attack where I completely freaked out in the water and had to get out to calm down. My poor hosts were really worried (I was just mortified) and the whole thing was made worse by the fact that I couldn't ask them to just let me be (which is what I wanted) because I didn't want them to think it was their fault, and I was in too much of a state to explain in English never mind Romanian that it was just one of those things and nothing to worry about. But I was so embarrassed, I felt such a twit afterwards! I've had a panic attack before, but they're really rare (the last one i remember was 12 years ago). what I'm worried about is what the family thought about it - with any luck they'll take the diplomatic route and ust not mention it again, but as (understandably, having not had the chance to travel outside Romania and Hungary) they're really curious about life in the west and it's often 20 Questions at home in a way that you just wouldn't get with Brits, so we'll have to see.
I'm also, totally unexpectedly, getting some PhD-useful experience (that wasn't supposed to happen till after I leave the school, but I'm making hte most of the opportunities). Last week one of my teachers asked a friend of hers, who is a doctor, to come to our class so I could ask him stuff (and tomorrow I'm going to see him in his surgery), and then yesterday evening I was able to visit a hospital, as my host family have a new niece who was premature and hasn't been putting on weight so hasn't been discharged yet. It couldn't have been more different from what I'm used to - we wer eonly allowed to look at her through the window, and apparently the role of the nurses is to wash and change the babies. There were no decorations or colour or anything on the walls at all (ironically with one exception - going upstairs to the ward there was one sticker of Tweety Pie, avatar of this very blog). I know I often used to moan about hte local SCBU when I was a health visitor, but this put it in a whole new light.
In other less agreeable news, I can also report that the Romanian mosquitoes have lost none of their appetite for English cuisine, and I have been bitten to smithereens. In a particularly cruel quirk of fate, I have matching bites on each bum cheek. The obviously knew where the juiciest bits were. Sigh.