cacoëthes

What a difference two letters can make

gkb 10. May 2009 - 23:24

It's long been a frustration of mine that I know so little of my family history on my father's side; this was a man who was taciturn under the best of circumstances, and on most occasions was harder to pry open than a mollusc. For the longest time I thought his side of the family hailed from Austria, as they spoke German and on the rare occasions he commented on his "home" he always referred to Austria.

I later learnt that the background was rather more storied. He had actually been born in Yugoslavia, and that the family lived on the border between Yugoslavia and Austria, which explained their speaking German. As this was all happening during Communism and Tito's rule, the family crossed the border into Austria and from there emigrated to America. This also explained why he and his first wife had a child out of wedlock--due to their different ethnic backgrounds, they weren't allowed to marry in Yugoslavia.
For a long time, this was as much as I knew. My father, of course, never spoke about any of this (one of the only comments I recall him ever making with regards to his early life was mentioning how one spring they managed to find time to whitewash the trunks of the fruit trees on the farm, and that come fall the branches were breaking from the weight of the fruit), and after a while I just saw the not knowing as normal. Whereas once I'd been terribly curious about it all, I reached the point where it was just accepted that I knew nothing about one side of my family. I knew that my grandfather was Austrian, my grandmother Yugoslav, my great-aunt had lost her husband in WWII and spent a short time in a concentration camp, and that was it.

When my father died, I remember feeling frustrated that I'd never learnt more about his background and where he came from. The feeling passed, though, in part because of the further souring and eventual termination of my relationship with his children from his first marriage, which made me want to distance myself entirely from that side of the family, and because life just goes on. The only other living memory was my great-aunt, now in her upper eighties, with a memory concomitant to such advanced years.
It wasn't until I arrived in this part of the world, and began realising that a life away from America was within my grasp, that I started gaining interest in my background. I'd recently been discovering a renewed interest in Iceland, and along with it a desire to get to know my family there and to see what it would be like to live someplace where my mother's family had lived since time out of mind. Realising that I could be a train ride away from where my father's family had lived got me thinking more and more about it.
There was still a dearth of factual information, however. The stories I half-remembered from my childhood, filled in with guesses and assumptions, placed them in Slovenija. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense; rural, bordering Austria, with some Hungarian influence (which explained "Steffi bacsi and Leni neni" ... "bacsi" and "neni" being Hungarian terms of affection for older family members). I got so absorbed with this idea that I took a trip to Slovenija, in part because I hoped to research birth records and find out as much as I could about the family, where they lived, why they left. I spent a week travelling there, becoming more and more enamoured with the idea of pursuing citizenship and spending at least some time living there.
Yet there were some things which never quite added up. The town my grandmother was supposed to have been born in was located in what is now Croatia, and before I left for Romania my great-aunt gave me the addresses of some family members still living in Osijek. My misgivings were confirmed when, in yet another conversation with my great-aunt, my mother probed further and discovered that the family actually hailed from Slavonija. Slavonija, the region of Croatia ... not Slovenija, the country.

Disappointing, for several reasons. I fell in love with Slovenija when I was there, in small part because I believed my family had come from there, but mostly because it's an amazing place. Slovenija is also relievingly free of the muddy ethnic issues of the Croatia of the early 90's. And--most significantly for someone who's interested in EU citizenship--a cursory search indicates that not only is it unlikely that I'd be able to claim Croatian citizenship under my set of circumstances, Croatia (unlike Slovenija) also doesn't recognise dual citizenship, which would make it an either/or proposition between Croatia and Iceland. And really, there's no contest there.
So it's been something of a sad day. I suppose if I were to wax philosophical I'd say that it wasn't meant to be, though there is a part of me that itches to add this to the list of the ways my father failed or disappointed me in my life. As much as I might like to, though, I suppose I can't hold his location of birth against him.

Learning to enjoy showering again

gkb 3. May 2009 - 23:15

I have just emerged, heat-flushed and squeaky clean, from the shower. The feeling is just as good as it has always been, so I'm struggling to figure out why it is that, since arriving in Romania, I've become so reluctant to shower.

There are some decent reasons: water usage, pollution from soaps and shampoos, the inevitable drying out of skin, the mounting evidence that one's hair fares better when it's washed twice a week (or less). The time it takes up, and the energy invested in post-shower maintenance (moisturising, blow-drying, clipping of various bits).
Such activities were never much of a deterrence before, though. At the height of my Bikram yoga days I was showering at least once a day, and this includes washing of hair. The only explanation I can come up with is that for various reasons I've drifted away from the habit since being here, and it will probably take some effort to get back into it.

In truth, there was a good reason for delaying bathing when I lived in Sighet: the soba. Having to build a fire, wait an hour, and risk severe burns not only from the searing metal frame of the water tank and it's heating unit, but also from the water itself in the shower--where the result of a stray nudge of the temperature control in a cramped stall was either a searing blast of near-boiling water or a barrage of icicles--often makes one reconsider the necessity of bathing. Much easier to heat a pot of water on the stove and scrub the stinky bits, and put the full-on shower off until tomorrow.
The relative exoticness of shower curtains here may have also been a cause of avoidance. While they're not as uncommon as they used to be, it's still a resounding lack of surprise to walk into a bathroom and see a bare tub with a shower attachment mounted to the wall ... and nothing else. Showering usually means, at best, coating the nearby surfaces with a fine mist of water, the little comets that ricochet off your body, the walls, and get flung out through the act of scrubbing, and at worst, puddles of standing water that make it look as though some miscreants engaged in a super-soaker fight in your bathroom. Even with windows and doors open it can take upwards of 24 hours for the room to dry out, and pity the person who absentmindedly walks in wearing their socks in the interim.
My bathroom is also rather mould-prone, so if the bathroom window isn't opened and the room allowed to dry out completely, the dampness generated from the steam will cause mould to start growing in the grout and around the window frame. Leaving the window open for hours in January can quickly become problematic.

All this serves to make showering seem like much more of a hassle than it did back home. And while I really don't have many excuses anymore--I've got a hot water heater, and bought myself a shower curtain and rod a few months ago; outside temperatures are more than comfortable enough to leave the bathroom window open overnight--I find that the shower avoidance still lingers. Which wasn't so terribly bad in the winter months, but come summer will be a problem. At this point it seems to be more a matter of reconditioning than anything else.

Tragedy!!!

gkb 27. August 2008 - 9:43

Sadly, belatedly, disappointingly, I have just learnt that Iceland (well, perhaps not Iceland, more accurately the Nói Síríus confection company) has gone and discontinued Blár Opal, which I can only describe as BEST. CANDY. EVER. Ironic, but its demise seems to have been caused by its most wonderful feature; namely, that one of the ingredients was phosphorous. That singular, aromatic, impossible to describe flavour and sensation, precisely what made them so wonderful in the first place, is what ultimately got them pulled off the market. Seriously, if it had any ill health effects I would have grown flippers or a second head by now, considering the huge quantities of the things I ate as a child and adolescent.

One might ask why it is that I'm just now discovering the loss of something that I have such affection for, but disappeared from the market some three years ago. All I can say to that is that it's been far too long since I visited Iceland, and not wanting to burden my relatives with regular requests for shipments of foodstuffs that can't be purchased in the States, I've not really had a reason to go poking about after them. Not only that, but I also seem to have viewed them as this permanent institution of Icelandic culture; one of the things that, to me, was inexorably tied up with Icelandic-ness. They were a fixture of my childhood visits there, I grew up associating them with the place, and I find it hard to imagine one without the other.

Apparently I'm not the only one to display dismay, outrage, and betrayal at such a loss; after reading the initial blog entry that referenced their demise in passing, I've found scads of 'net references and conversation bemoaning their loss and demanding their reinstatement (try Googling "blar opal"--blár being Icelandic for 'blue'). All I can do now is fervently hope that the crusade is successful, and despair that I didn't ask my relatives in Grindavík if I could rent out a few square metres of storage space in their house to keep as many cases as could be scavenged at the time of their disappearance.

Marvelling at my own restraint

gkb 24. August 2008 - 19:28

So, despite finding a bookstore here in Budapest that had copies of both Gravity's Rainbow AND The Master and Margarita (in English--though I would love to be able to read Bulgakov in the original Russian, and the idea of trying to read Pynchon translated into Hungarian brings an entire new tier of significance to the phrase "delightfully masochistic"), I forced myself to pass up hugely tempting, yet expensive--5500ft for the pair--books that I can buy easily and cheaply once I return to the States, and would probably have to leave behind when I went home because of shipping and space considerations anyway. Instead I made do with a 600ft copy of "Dubliners" and Penguin's free compendium of single chapters of "The Best Books Ever Written", a display of which the shop had thoughtfully arranged next to the register. And the beat-up copy of Atlas Shrugged I badgered one of the members of the hostel staff into letting me buy from their bookstore after hours. (If Târgu Mureş ever figures out how to deliver my Economist subscription, I'll be drowning in reading material again anyway.)

Would that I had managed to show the same level of restraint during my near-daily visits to Azték Choxolat ...

Târgu Mureş

gkb 2. August 2008 - 21:39

As of yesterday evening, I am a resident of Târgu Mureş.

The run-up to the move was, unsurprisingly, rather beleaguered with confusion and uncertainty. Up until about 10.30 on the eve of my departure I was under the impression that I'd be travelling to Baia Mare by bus to catch the train from there, leaving the bulk of my things behind, and returning for them when normal train service resumed. I'd done a considerable amount of hunting, in the hopes of finding someone who would be able to drive me (as PC reimburses for site change transportation), but everyone I found who had a car was unwilling or unable to drive such a distance, round-trip. I was branching out into second- and third-tiers of association, with people I know asking people they know, asking other people ... and no luck.
Then the bomb was dropped on me by my program manager that, while I could get reimbursed for being driven to my new site by a third party, if I took the train it would come out of my own pocket. Maybe not technically out of my own pocket--our living allowance includes a small stipend for business travel, which is where my train-ticket money was seen to be coming from--but out of the amount of money that I was using for monthly expenses. If I went over it would be reimbursed at the end of the quarter, but for all intents and purposes this was irrelevant. The expenses inherent in moving were already putting pressure on me financially, and if I had to pay my train tickets out-of-pocket I'd be eating cardboard for the rest of the month. I gave away a lot of things before leaving my original site, had to pay the owner of the apartment to do some of the cleaning I was unable to do because of having no running water, paid an exorbitant electrical bill that was the result of months' worth of miscalculations on the part of the company. Upon arrival I'd have to replace things I got rid of as well as pay for things like setting up internet service and the first round of bills. So being informed by my program manager that I was, in essence, being fiducarily punished for not knowing many people with cars was, to put it diplomatically, pretty upsetting.
The discrepancy was pointed out to a few people within the office, though, and I was soon notified that under the circumstances I'd be reimbursed in full, immediately, for the price of my train tickets. That out of the way, I began repacking my stuff so that I could bring the essentials with me on the initial trip, and come back for the rest when I could take a train back into town again. Only to find, at the eleventh hour, that I'd be able to drive after all. Dramatic, and confusing, but ultimately working out well.
The guy who offered to drive me asked for a flat rate that was higher than what I'd get reimbursed for, but for the sake of time and convenience it was worth it to me. I scurried about, taking care of the last few things I needed to do, paid a couple of visits, and then my knight in a shining yellow Mercedes minivan arrived, we loaded up my not-inconsiderable collection of stuff, got on the road, and six or so hours later arrived in Târgu Mureş.

My new apartment is on the fifth floor of a bloc building in the center of town. It's a beautiful old place; the woman who owns it inherited it from her late aunt, and all the furnishings and accoutrements have remained intact. So the place is filled with wood furniture, nice carpets, a huge agglomeration of cookware and glassware, an actual, comfortable bed, and as the pièce de résistance, a huge wall-mounted bookshelf filled with valuable old Hungarian books. The whole place has a very prewar feeling to it; lots of little drawers and details in the furniture, armoires with key-locking doors, a wall of built-in storage cabinets in the hall. It's lovely, and has such a cohesive feel to it that I find myself not wanting to change anything, even things that on their own don't really fit my tastes. Instead of wanting to put my own stamp on the place, which is my usual reaction when I move into a new space, I find myself wanting to tuck away all of my own things and keep the place looking exactly as it did when I arrived. Which, for the most part, I have. I spent most of today nesting--putting things away and arranging them in a neat and logical way. There's an adorable pantry that's now full of the accumulation of food and spices and tea I brought with me, armoires with clothing hung and folded neatly in them, a bathroom with the necessities out for easy access and everything else inhabiting the many drawers. The absolute opposite of my last apartment, where the furniture was uncomfortable and the cabinet doors didn't close and there was no place to put anything away, so no matter how much arranging I did it always had a cluttered feel.

What I've seen of the town so far is also promising. The city centre is beautiful, with a park-cum-boulevard--Piaţa Trandafirilor, or 'Alley of the Roses'--running up the main area, around which is the Primaria, Teatrul National, Palaţul Cultural, a library and symphony hall, as well as the obligatory shops and restaurants. There's some beautiful landscaping and architecture here, as well as an old fortress and several churches. I've been told that there are a few movie theatres, a bowling alley, and a few sport complexes with both indoor and outdoor swimming pools.
All in all, I'm pretty pleased, and looking forward to getting to know the place better and pursuing some projects here. I'll see my school sometime this week, and have already gotten some leads for secondary projects, be it tutoring or adult education or working with the local animal shelter. Here's hoping that my second year in Romania will be more enjoyable and productive than the first.