Nea Fane – Un Biet Român Pripășit în America / A Hapless Romanian Stuck in The US

The Mixed Bag – Everything Was Under Control

Chapter 5 will be a totally mixed bag: from the self-service grocery store in the first village, on the right side of the main street, where you can’t even curse a little bit and you can’t formulate any sort of food strategy because everyone is staring at you and speaking more or less Romanian, all the way to our return to Romania, where the police inspected the car and the caravan with an almost comical level of attention, as if we were transporting refugees or some mysterious contraband. I’m not exactly sure what they might have considered contraband, but, just to be safe, we had consumed everything that could be drunk and left only enough food for a small snack until Bucharest, a snack we had bought from the other grocery store, the one at the exit from Krapets (where the saleswoman was so sour you’d think she had lost her pension in a CARITAS pyramid scheme).

Îmbunătățirile

For a whole year, Mișu had worked on the caravan, all by himself, until he turned it into a second home, one that could, if necessary, survive a war. Knock on wood.

The solar panels (covered in earlier chapters) feed a proper beast of a battery, perfect for those pitch-black, rainy, soul-crushing days and, of course, for our friend Fane, whose elaborate breathing contraption sucks electricity like it’s trying to single-handedly black out an entire district in Bucharest. (Plot twist: after three days of obsessive measuring, we realized the damn thing is actually surprisingly frugal. Almost disappointing.)

The crown jewel, the first pièce de résistance, Mișu’s pride and joy: a miniature dishwasher, with programs worthy of a brand-new Airbus: wash, rinse, dry, sanitize, and, if you ask it nicely, it will even reveal your horoscope. The only thing you have to be extremely careful about is to never, ever run the dryer program when it’s cloudy outside because it devours the big battery with gusto, kind of like the rat that found our turmeric baguette and ate half of it. And recharging on a cloudy day? Forget about it.

The semi-pièce de résistance, but also a source of maximum pride, is the ice maker. In that cold weather, of course, it was the only appliance that didn’t devour a single watt. It stood there expectantly, like a modern bibelot, waiting for its moment of glory… which, obviously, never came.

Apps and Forecasts

Mișu, with three professional weather apps and one navigation app (for the kayak expedition, hehe), and me, with the native iPhone weather app, engaged in a perpetual meteorological war. I would say, “Look, it’s going to rain today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow… every single day!”

Mișu would calmly reply, “Only two days, maximum two, and then sun and wind.”

We tried to convince each other, showing graphs, symbols, percentages, but it seemed each app had its own perceptions, personality, and sense of humor, which it faithfully passed on to its owner.

Every forecast became a kind of duel: I showed imaginary raindrops, Mișu countered with stylized clouds and suns. In the end, the only thing we agreed on was the wind, a wind that blew relentlessly, as if nature wanted to show us who the real boss was. And then, out of absolutely nowhere (well, from some bushes actually), materialized this bizarre character, Mr. Cristi – a smug, all-knowing hermit type – who proceeded to lecture us that camping on the cliff edge was suicidal, that it would rain, the wind would destroy us, and it would probably steal our water too. He was so condescending we nearly gave him a very physical lesson in manners. Luckily, he left in time, grumbling that the wind would get us. He knows because he swims two kilometers every day. In the open sea. In a neoprene suit.

So, between duelling forecasts, half-friendly app battles, and very unfriendly encounters with random prophets of doom, the days rolled on in a beautifully organized chaos, a meteorological sitcom in which the only reliable prediction was that the wind would always blow, and we would forever keep checking our apps and wondering if it would also rain.

Easier said than done, mainly because in the tent we had crammed enough “necessities” to overwhelm an upgraded motel room. The moment we finished packing, it started pouring. Mișu gave himself a silent round of applause: trying to pack that mammoth, soaking-wet tent would have been a Herculean task. It rained all night, and the wind blew so hard that it woke the captain at dawn. He thought the caravan had started rolling away on its own (or that someone had stolen us, caravan and all, handsome men that we are).

The next morning, at first light, we relocated under a huge, sheltering tree canopy at the edge of a small forest, much to the satisfaction of the strange gentleman, who was irritatingly unable to pass up the chance to say, “I told you so!” Whenever the rain took a breather, I slipped out to wander. How else do you think I got all those photos and videos?

Mișu, meanwhile, was constantly fussing around the caravan – it’s a bit needy and has to be cleaned and tidied every day. But unfortunately, also meanwhile, the meteorological prognosis had become even more frightening. Alerts were cascading in nonstop, regardless of the app. The few neighbors about scattered like partridges across Bulgaria looking for safer spots. We moved the caravan again, this time from under the trees to open ground, a good, inspired move, done just in time.

The storm that finally invaded and relentlessly attacked, fractured and tore away untold branches, heartlessly uprooted several trees, and pummelled and riled the sea, turning it into a raging, white-foamed beast.The next day again: wind, wild sea. The photos and videos can’t capture the reality, you had to be there.

I was talking to Irina, showing her what it looked like outside. Zero interest. “It’s not that bad, what’s the problem?”

“Honey, there’s no beach left!”

People, Birds, Waves

Crazy weather. Stormy sea. People and birds in an almost forbidden happiness. The waves crashed against the shore with an ancient, timeless fury. The wind whipped us with salty air, and the seagulls screamed over the white foam like prophets disturbed from their happiness. And yet, in the middle of this turmoil, there we were, wrapped in a strange calm, indifferent to what was happening “back home” (wherever that home was), carried aloft by the wind in a joy that defied the logic of the times we were living in, as if the storm had started especially to show us, for a moment, how beautiful the world can be when nature rebels all around us (and how small and powerless we are in the face of it).

We were almost alone on the entire beach, except for some crazy kite surfers – the only ones who dared and actually enjoyed the raging elements – and the seagulls, the true masters, who seemed to laugh at those trying to copy their flight.

Watching the birds, I experienced a moment of guilty happiness, or maybe happiness is just letting yourself be carried by the wind, living in the moment, losing yourself in the turmoil of the sea and finding there, among people, birds, and waves, a harmony that somehow stays with you forever.

(Something will be next)