Right! I've got to get properly into this camping, so, on the bike to find camping 'stuff'. Found a huge supermarket that sold everything from TV's to cheese and bought a little camping stove, a pan, a metal plate and cup, spoons (already have a knife and fork half'inched from a ferry) and some provisions. I did pay special attention to milk as interestingly, the small and only local shop in the village where I'm staying, doesn't have milk or eggs because around here every household is self sufficient, live off the land. Each home has one cow, chickens, and/or geese, turkeys and an enormous veggie patch, who needs a shop. (Also remember the Romanian Revolution in 1989 and the long queues for bread at empty shops, forced many to rely on the land). Klaas tells me there are people around here who have never been to Bucharest, the capital city, never mind out of Romania.
This is it's charm for me, the vast contrasts; the village funeral I witnessed two days ago, members of the church leading the casket carrying horse and cart followed by black clothed mourners; the brand new Audi 4x4 and BMW's that pass me at pace on pot-holed roads; electricity that fails without warning yet a super-fast wireless internet connection (that I'm using right now in the caravan), which allowed me to stream a flicker-free movie yesterday afternoon.
Ah, the church bell's ring, calling locals to prayer, well it is Sunday morning. Lots of those, by the way, churches and shrines everywhere, even though Chauchesku had many of them raised to the ground. This is a good link to the many gypsies here, both very rich and poor (their role in rebuilding Romania post revolution) but I will write about them in another blog once I get pictures of there houses, it's very interesting.
Back to the supermarket and milk, so I'm pretty sure 'lapte' is milk and I want to be sure because the bottle I picked up then turned on its side did nothing to move its contents. "Excuse me Miss" I say to a young girl in what looks like traditional dress but is infact the stores uniform, "Where is the normal milk?", well, I might just have well been speaking Chinese, but we are both smiling at our dilemma and I repeat the word 'milk', put my basket down, hold both my pointed index fingers against my head and yes ... I did, in the middle of this cavernous supermarket, I went "Mooooo!" She giggled and took me straight to the meat counter ... nah, just kidding ... she immediately understood my new visual arts language and took me 5 steps to lapte. (That sounds like it should be a song ... "It was only, 5 steps to Lapte" ),
The checkout girl was jolly and incredibly fast, passing my bar-coded purchases across the lazer eye in a blur of flailing arms as if at a Ministry of Sound rave and when I handed the 'whatever they were' coupons that came with my receipt, to the lady shopper behind me, I thought at one point she was going to kiss me.
Top it off with what was obviously a marriage ceremony that I passed while returning to base camp; a long file of smartly dressed people, two by two, very young bride and groom at the front, accordions and brass with merry tuneful accompaniment in the middle and some banner-carrying gents at the rear, all striding down a busy main street and I assume this is the from-the-church-to-the-reception bit of the event. In any event, as I slowly pass in the opposite direction, I blip a couple of rapid hoots on the bike horn while extending a big thumbs up and get an enormous cheer and waves all down the line of smiling revellers.
What a fun morning and all I did was go to Sainsbury's!
I return to camp, immediately make my first 'home-made' coffee and sit to enjoy when a lady I met earlier in the camp that morning comes over and asks me if I'd like to join them for a game of Rummey-kub that evening?
"Rummy-what?"
"Rummey-kub, like the card game, only with tiles." Struth, I did wonder ...
Mick and Chris (Christine), a couple either side of 70, travel for 3 summer months every year, around Europe, in their motorhome, which, by the way, is the first UK number plate I've seen since Northern Italy.I show up at their nicely fitted and comfortable, wheeled home with a bottle of Dracula's red and we basically exchanged stories and laughed until the wee hours having each won a game of Rub-Me-Up or whatever it's called.
Bloody good evening!
You can see our modern-day nomads in the picture, outside their horse'n'cart and it's wash day. "Blimey Mick, that's a monster pair of Y-Fronts you got hanging up there, me ol'mucker!"
I am now quite excited at the prospect of another home-made coffee ... oh, the little pleasures ... before I tune in to the internet to watch today's MotoGP Round in Italy live ... ta ta x
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