Quote of the day:
Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.
Yesterday we observed my eleven thousandth, one hundredth and eleventh day of being around, so I thought this an appropriate time for some reflection. No, I’m not going to reflect on all 11,111 days, just the last sixty or so. If you check in the footer, what once was the countdown for us coming here to Romania is now a count-up. It currently reads 67 days and change. So far, we haven’t broken any records for stays here, five years ago, we came here for three months in the winter, and eight years ago, I came here for eight months (apparently to find a wife, though nobody told Me that…). One thing I have noticed in the past two months though is that we’ve committed more this time. Maybe it’s the fact that we own our own place and not sharing with others—for the most part. Or perhaps that we’ve left the States behind without any concrete plans to return, but every day feels like we’re more embedded here, culturally, socially, physically…
This past week has been a bit mad: Monday we returned from a visit in Sambateni, visited with Liviu (who ended up staying overnight). Tuesday started with Liviu checking out apartments in the next building over, Lunch with Dan, then Vio talked about Boys and Sex with a bunch of girls. Wednesday we worked all day on Altmannhaus/Wanderlust/Conference stuff, met with a new cabinet-maker (who hopefully won’t take a month to quote us like the last one…) and ended it with a long but refreshing dinner with some renewed friends. Thursday we worked all day again and finished with a late-night coffee and catch-up with Marius at Olivo, which culminated with us leaving the majority of our clothes on the balcony overnight to air out from the cigarette smoke embedded in them from the cafe… Friday, we went to the bank to acquire “Extras de cont” so that we can file our monthly accountant report, payed bills, worked, and had a birthday dinner with Dan at the Marty Caffe at the mall (non-smoking section, Yes!). It snowed heavily on the way back home, but despite a few fishtails and achingly slow speeds, we made it home in one piece. Saturday, we slept in, I made coffee like all of the other mornings, then played in the workshop while Vio went to get beautified and massaged with some of the ladies, the snow melted, we went bowling with a bunch of college people and then to late-night sandwiches at the Irish Pub until midnight. Once home, we stripped on the balcony again so that the apartment didn’t end up smelling like the pub… It snowed again last night and is still snowing heavier and heavier. Maybe I’ll get to try out my new sled today!
Today is a church day, which means that I should take a nap at the apartment before so that I don’t nod off in the sanctuary during the two-hour service. Church here is still something of a sticking point for us, Vio enjoys it, though I expect not as much as the bible studies with the younger people. I sit and try not to let my mind wander too much. My Romanian, though improving, is still not up-to-snuff when it comes to following sermons. That, coupled with the fact that I grew up on forty-five minute sermons instead of almost triple that, means that Sunday evenings here can turn into time dilation in practice.
Regarding Wanderlust, the shipment will be in Constanta on Tuesday (at long last!), and here in Cluj by the end of the week. With luck, we’ll have the grinders in hand by the weekend. No more grinding by hand! Speaking of grinding by hand, the little Porlex mill that we brought with us has been awesome, so awesome, that we’ve decided to offer them as well. So we’ve put in a small order to the distributor in Germany. We’re also branching out to offer things other than coffee grinders, namely custom barista aprons. An acquaintance of mine from the competition has agreed to make Wanderlust some custom aprons as a limited edition offering! So things are moving along, we still have a list of items that we would like to offer as quality coffee paraphernalia, but it’s a start.
I think I’ll make a clothes rack for the balcony. If our social lives keep increasing like this we’ll need it… #thethingsintrovertsdontthinkabout