Come on already!

It's been 3 weeks since my last post. Honestly i was too lazy to write anything about my past times in Greece, but maybe another time.
In these past 3 weeks i haven't done much. I'm just starting to get eager about my soon departure and to be very honest i can't wait! Screw not getting my hopes up and my expectations high! I can't wait! I wanna go! Now! Come on already!!!
Ok, ok, i will calm down now. As you will notice, it's past 2 a.m. and i am still up. Why you might wonder? No apparent reason. I was reading a few blogs of other Erasmus students that have already departed and you can understand where my sudden impatience came from.
I have a certain personality trait that some may consider to be bad. I tend to leave things till the last moment. Always! All the time. And lately I've been cutting it close. Too close.
Today for example, i had planned to wake up in the morning and arrange the documents necessary for my passport. I don't really need a passport but i figured, since i may be travelling, why limit myself? So i decided to get myself a passport. Actually the decision to get a passport was made long ago, as far as 2005, when Romania wasn't even in the EU yet. But i wasn't even eighteen at the time, and there were a few extra documents and papers to be filled in by my parents at the time stating that they allow me to get a passport. And since i had nowhere to go at that time, and my father was working in another city during the week it just seemed not to be worth the bother. But i was so mind-bent on having a passport in the beginning that i payed the afferent taxes at a bank called CEC.
Today, almost 4 years later, i woke up decided to go ahead and fill everything in and gey my passport. Only things don't usually go as planned in the morning. Because the previous night i had gone out with my friend Beatrice to meet one of her clients from the real-estate agency, i ended up having a drink with Betty, Iuli (another friend who joined us later) and the client, who doesn't like being called that, so for future reference (maybe) i'll just call him Huseyin, which just happens to be his name. We had a lot of fun, i can't really remember why or what we talked about, but it really was fun and a very nice break from my usual routine of doing nothing most of the day. :)

What was i saying? Oh yes. The morning after. I didn't get home too late actually. Twelve o'clock the latest. I was lucky that my brother just happened not to find a parking space in front of the building and decided to call me and see if i needed a lift home. Evidently i did, and so i was very happy to be spared of the looong walk home from the center of Bucharest, the University square.
After arriving home, i started talking to my brother about the upcoming trip to Greece. Did i mention, i will be going there by car, with my brother and a friend of his. They will be driving. I will probably be sleeping. Although i did manage to get my driving license. But i'll talk about that later. It's a rather funny story. It has something to do with my being late and postponing things all the time . But enough about that. So we started talking, and we noticed we didn't know the speed limits for Greece. Evidently we turned on the PC and we googled it. We weren't actually paying much attention in the beginning, i was in my bed, browsing through a guide of Greece, when my brother stumbled upon a very nice article about Greece drivers, and driving in Greece. We laughed so hard it hurt and we couldn't stop. This is the link. Enjoy!
After reading such an explicit and hilarious article about the crazy greek drivers, knowing our fair share of crazy drivers, we googled 'driving in Romania'. What we found kept us up for another hour, laughing our brains out, trying to read not a very long story without stopping every two words to roll on the floor. This gave new meaning to the word LOL. This is the link. And (un)fortunately, everything said is generally true. I have two such articles. Have fun! :) This one and this one

It's just come to my attention that maybe the articles are not so funny if you regard them from the actual point of view of the one who wrote them, someone very disappointed and angry at the romanian drivers. You should know not all drivers are like that, and too read about it as it is written above, while being on the other side of the 'barricade' is really amusing. We had had a few drinks also so maybe our sense of humor was very high that night.

Anyways, after laughing all the sleep out of me, even though it was about 3 a.m. i couldn't go to sleep. I found a website about Romania and Moldova, and i started browsing through it, in hope of finding some more of that unbelievable humor foreigners seem to develop while talking about my fair country. This kind of attitude reminded me of how surprised Michiel and Freddy (2 friends from the Netherlands) were after seeing so many cables simply hanging around on the streets. I always knew the cables were there and that they looked absolutely terrible, but i suppose i simply ignored them for too long to even notice them anymore. But ever since my attention has been brought to them, they are the only thing i see on the streets now! Damn it!

I finally went to sleep a while after that, remembering what i had planned for the next day. An early morning trying to hunt down the people who could help me get my passport. Since 2005 you can imagine that the taxes were raised a little. Not much, the amount is irrelevant, the problem was that i had to go down to the police station and ask whether or not my former receipts were still valid. So i had a bit of running around to do. There is a CEC office very close to where i live, so i was convinced i had plenty of time to get everything done. Unfortunately for me, i woke up at about 2 p.m. , had 'breakfast' and turned on the tv. My brother was actually the one who woke me up, screaming: "hey, what time is it? we were supposed to wake up at 11". And so, 3 hours later than planned we went and had breakfast in the dinning room. We browsed through tv channels not finding anything interesting for a while, we watched the news, and then we switched to the explorer channel where we watched a very disturbing documentary about a child who was killed and it's killer was found but not prosecuted due to lack of evidence.
Before we knew it, it was almost 4 o'clock. My mom came home. Oh, and i was supposed to order my new laptop online today. Which we did in about ten minutes. We turned on the PC, and ordered it. I hope i'll get it soon! :) At about 10 past 4 we were starting to wonder when the CEC agency closes. We concluded it must close at half past four, because that's how we remembered it. Of course we rushed out, my brother turned back to get my cell-phone, just in case the ppl with the laptop call (they didn't) and when we got to the agency, guess what, yes, it was closed. 4.15. we were 7 minutes late.
But that's not the end of the story. We decided to go to the police station and see what se can do there. They told us the receipts were valid, we just had to pay the difference. So here we were, frantically looking for a CEC agency near us. Why the urgency you ask? It takes 7 days for a passport to be issued. And today was the last day this week when i could get it done. Oh, nd the police department dealing with these things closed at 6. Eventually, after calling a friend to check the internet for the address of a close-by open agency (he didn't find it), and running around a bit, we managed to pay the stupid difference ( did i mention it was only 50 bani, almost 15 euro cent). And i managed to get everything done, with 20 minutes to spare. You gotta love this city, when you're in such a hurry you can still find what you need close-by.
After having finished with all this passport stuff, me and my brother decided to go by the clinic (we had some blood and health tests taken about 2 weeks ago, part of a national health program). When we got there, we waited for some time, while the doctor finished with another patient. It was unbelievably boring. When we got to the doctor she told me that i was almost anemic, and i should eat more meat and spinach and fruits. So remind me to do so. :)

It was a busy day, compared to my usual pace, but i enjoyed the rush. I'm envolved in a project for AEGEE and that's also keeping me busy. I have to investigate an area of the city, so i will be talking a lot of long walks. Anyone care to join?
I know this article is very long, and i started ranting at one point, i hope i didn't bore you all away. If anyone is actually reading. :P

What was i saying in the beginning ? Oh, yes! I'm bored, i wanna go to Greece already. I have so many things and plans in my head. But that's another story. :) (oh, if i misspelled anything, let me know, i'm to lazy to double check now, and i'm starting to get sleepy it's 3 a.m. again).