Romania

I went and visited host brother II in Romania.  He (and lots of other Germans) are in Romania to study medicine.  Germany's system only allows students with near perfect grades to enter medicine; Romania is an EU country which means the license is good for Germany.   Students start off in Romania and transfer back to Germany or decide to go it the whole way (as I understand it).

We arrived late and went to a bar.  It was a pretty cool bar, except that everyone was smoking like chimneys.  It turns out smoking is not banned anywhere in Romania- people liberally exercise their freedom indoors.  We played Kicker (Foosball, which ironically seems to be a derivative of German for actual soccer (Fussball)).

The apartment was a pretty sweet set up and I enjoyed the overall experience of the city.  The city felt very "eastern european" according to the stereotypes I've internalized over the years, which basically means there was lots of cement.

I found this circle staircase somewhat captivating- I can't rightly say why:

The town, Timosoara, is going to be (or may be) the EU city of culture for 20-something-something.  This means she's getting a face lift right now.  Normally, there are a lot of squares full of cafes for coffee and leisure throughout the downtown.  Right now it is pretty torn up, but it is apparent that it would be quite pretty:

A note on the pictures: I broke my phone and the forward facing camera.  That leaves my only option for photos from the rear-facing "selfie" camera- which severely hampered my photojournalism endeavors.  In order to get a picture of something, I had to turn around and put the phone over my head, or turn my wrist funnily and hope for the best.  This procedure left me vulnerable to photo bombs from the bros- who thought my desire to snap photos was quite funny given the camera predicament.

Back to the timeline.

We went to a grocery store for dinner because we had decided to cook almost all of our meals for the weekend instead of eating out.  I noticed and appreciated the bulk frozen food section and the protection for the (apparently) most stolen commodity: expensive cheese.

In my short time in Romania, I really got the sense that the Romanian people know how to enjoy life, relax, and waste away afternoons talking in the sun.  This was wholly supported by the stocking of the grocery store we visited. For example, it sold 2 and 3 liter bottles of beer with sunflower seeds already attached to the bottles! Genius.

On a more serious note, the islamization of Europe is getting out of hand and clearly originating from the eastern front.  Take for instance this conspicuous recruiting center:

Okay, it was a bad joke (it's just an unfortunately named shoe store) but with current events in Germany and abroad, it gave us a laugh to imagine the bad naming luck that the owner has.

More wondering and photo bombing: