romas are just like us: not.

just got to brasov, my mother's hometown. a few brief remarks about the train ride over.
we got to the station at 11 pm last night after having a great hungarian-jewish meal at a place by my house. since it's not glatt kosher, and apparently in the tradition of the assimilated hungarian jewish population of budapest, they slipped some ham into the veal my aussie friend was eating ;)

anyway, we boarded the train...second class (lowest class there). got a "sleeper car" - 6 seats booth style, train started rolling around midnight. the roma (politically correct term for gypsies) family we had spotted on the tracks, we now learned, was seated in the booth right by us. there were 9 of them...some kids, a middle-aged man and some older women. the kids started crying...this would continue for the next hour...then sam came into the booth and told us that the train staff had kicked the roma family out of their booth b/c they had no tickets, and now the older women were walking after these children crying about and hitting them. this went on til 2 am or so, til the train stopped somewhere and forced them off. til then we were being very vigilant of our things b/c it's well known here that roma train thefts are common...

met a funny romanian guy around this time, who told us about his stints working in vienna and budapest, and this one time that he and a friend drunkenly decided to buy plane tickets to amsterdam --- 560 Euro....then they ran out of all there money while there, and hitchhiked back to romania....at one point they were left out on the autobahn (germany)- which was bad b/c it's illegal to hitchhike there, and the autobahn is not pedestrian-friendly...then he got searched for drugs, which were in his shoes by his toes, but they only checked by his heels...

slept pretty well across three seats....woke up in bits, beautiful countryside, quaint little villages...gorgeous mountains. no announcements for stops, but i had a hunch we were coming in to brashov and threw on my shoes about 30 seconds before we got there and had to get our shit together and run out.

going to try to find my mom's house now...through a gate, by a church...and a cemetary.

pictures to be posted when i get back to budapest.

much love,
amie