After an intense and mostly bad year in 2024 (about which I spoke enough in my previous entry - https://wander-world.blogspot.com/2024/12/no-you-are-not-welcome-2024.html), I am truly hoping for a much better year ahead! I feel like a sinner who is done doing their penance: nuff is enough, already! May the sunshine come back now. Looking forward to 2025 like you look forward to your first real meal after 40 days of fasting.
There are, of course, no guarantees in life. Only hopes.
Lots of folks I know are making new year’s resolutions or (in a more “modern” fashion), declaring their “word of the year” by which they will live, allegedly. I make no such promises to myself or the world, for the simple reason that I am scared of jinxing anything ... I try to let life at least think it can surprise me and it has not failed me yet.
But one thing I do want to plan better for in the new year and that is I would like to plan for more writing. Last year, everything that happened, all the repeated punches in the gut, one after another, constantly, left me quite drained. This year, no matter what, even from the bottom of the barrel that some huge burden might bury me into, I am at least promising to make a better effort to write about it all. If for nothing else, for me and my memories alone.
As I said many times before - there are great things to learn from travel and lots of character to build. Our latest trip to The Old Country was no exception. I am rambling on some of the more memorable moments.
Traveling on Christmas is not such a breeze anymore. I traveled on the day of Thanksgiving about 15 years back and there was virtually 10% (if that) of the passengers in the airport that you would normally see on a Thursday. Not so much this year on Christmas Day. The airports were packed (and this is a year when Christmas and the first day of Hanukkah fell on the same day), with people in tow with what seemed to be a kindergarten of kids and toddlers. Almost at every corner, you’d see kids outnumber the adults.
We ran into a “new rule” (I feel a little like Bill Maher, for those who know what I am referring to) this year, that requires that you weigh your carry-on and your “personal item” together at check-in and they should not be more than a 12 kilos (26lbs) combined. This is not about weighing the checked luggage that you are sending under the plane, this is the items that you plan to take on the plane with you. If they exceed this weight, you have to check one of them in and send it under the plane. After 26 years of air travel, this was news to me. After checking into it more, we found out that this rule only applies to Air France and that every airline is different. Some airlines have a dimension requirement, but not a weight requirement, some of them have a different weight than 12 kilos, some of them weigh only the carry-on (which should not exceed 8 kilos like in the case of Austrian Airlines). Most of them don’t really enforce any of them. But Air France does. I guess Unions are strong establishments and France is known for them not joking around.
Airports are nasty, nasty businesses, if you asked me, and I am speaking just like a regular person, and not as my usual germophobe self. Google Translate translates the very expressive Romanian word of “spurcăciune” as “defilement” but this does not even begin to scratch the surface of what we really mean by it in Romanian. In Romanian, it means a mix of nastiness, dirt, despicability, thoughtlessness, and just pure grossness all wrapped into one and it defines the human condition of polluting everything it touches. My late English teacher used to say that people “go out into the world, say to have a picnic, and leave behind their spurcăciune just to let the world know they’ve been there”. This is what airports are: just layer upon layer of human spurcăciune times infinite!
The amount of traffic they handle around the clock makes it impossible for any true cleaning to occur. How can anyone ever disinfect all the traces left by boots filled with pee from the bathrooms lying on the chairs? Or the coke spilled on seats, floors, counters, and tables? How can anyone truly undo all the stickiness, the nastiness in the bathrooms? We sat at this bar where all the beer taps were rusted through, visibly, with beer leaking from every one of the taps, even when they were not in use. There is no cleaning and disinfecting that. In Paris, the cleaning lady was using the same squeegee for the sink counters as for the floors. You’re welcome!
I am always either patiently awaiting the kick-off of the next disease after every trip through an airport, or sending special prayers to The Heavens for protecting me from stomach bugs, respiratory bugs, and skin diseases ... I give myself about a week of quarantine after every trip before I declare that I have been spared. I build my immunity system during these trips, I swear it!
The airplane announcements are stand-up comedy bits sometimes. And not just because they intend for them to be this way in some cases, but when a foreign person is trying to convey in English some strict rules, words and meanings get confused. And confusing. Again, on Air France, we hear things like: “You may never smoke, not even in the toilets. Refusal to comply will result in persecution (sic). Using the power plugs is prohibited during take off, landing, announcements or any time requested by the crew.” In other words: you’re screwed either way, so don’t even try. The last bit just about covers the entire experience, don’t you think?!
I have done the trip back home for what feels like a million times. I know people who have immigrated to The States (or Canada) who never go back, or go back every 20 years or so. Not me. Not in my family. We have always been close and dad and the whole family made sure we stayed that way even after I stubbornly turned my back on them (physically) more than 26 years ago. I went to Romania three times last year. It was a hard year for us, so I had to be there for this and that.
Every time, it is a bit of an old experience but I try to always look at it with new eyes, because just like there is no such thing as the same sunset, every experience is different and unique in its own right ... I miss my family when I am away. I miss the people who make sure my head stays the right size all the time. It’s not modern anymore to beat yourself up for things (if it ever were), but this is what being in my family is like: always trying to defend myself, always trying to justify, always trying to remove the guilt. I won’t say it’s welcome or pleasant, but it is what I am used to.
I love everyone back home, and I am a true believer that blood is thicker than water; I would never turn anyone with the same blood as me away; everyone in my family (parents, sister, extended family) has each contributed very much to who I am today. Their love and their unique roles in my life are familiar and are “home” to me. So, at the threshold between years, it was a familiar place to be. A familiar and cozy place to put an end to a wretched year and open the door to new possibilities in the new one.
I have not spent the winter holidays with my family since 1997. I was nervous I might not know how that’s done anymore. But what you have grown up into is not that easily forgotten. The enormous amounts of food, the insane cooking, cleaning, and the full house were all there like the old times I remember.
The TV entertainment for New Years' Eve has changed over the years, and I must say for the worse: I was used to a lot more comedy and nowadays it’s a lot more music that is not all that great (just like in the US). But the all-nighter parties on New Years are still there if you have the stamina for it.
Every trip back is different. Some of them are for obligations and logistics alone. Some are for catching up with friends. Lately, they have been about doctors’ appointments and making sure mom and the house are in safe hands. This trip was about family. About togetherness and about holding each other up during the momentous event of changing the year mark from 2024 to 2025. We welcomed the last year of the first quarter of this century. Momentous indeed, more than usual, I would say.
Romanian holidays put American ones to shame. If you gather all of the American holidays together, you would not come up with the amount of work and cooking you do for the Romanian Christmas and New Years alone. The grocery trips, the days you spent in the kitchen with your mom and aunt screaming recipes across the table while you happily ignore them as you are now grown and have learned a trick or two in your day will all be memorable. We have a 3-day Christmas (not one) and a 3-day New Years celebration. And then we have the Epiphany and St. John the Baptist’s feast, too, at the beginning of January ... When we wish people “Happy Holidays” we ain’t kiddin’. ‘Cause it’s not just one.
My sister received the carollers for Christmas and made the Christmas tree as she came there sooner, we received the well-wishing singers for New Years and we took the tree down before we left. These simple tasks, ancient-old are small reminders that the world is still spinning, despite humanity’s best worst efforts to the contrary.
Wrapped up in the muck and tragedy of every day that the past couple of years handed to us, we might have forgotten the ancient customs that defined who we are. This trip was a nice reminder that these customs are sewn into us like the flesh and blood that makes us - never to be removed. It was a familiarity that our now Westernized selves might have kept dormant for a while. Sure, we do celebrate “Romanian style” to some extent when we are in North America (the beauty of being an immigrant here, for now, is that you do bring with you who you are), but it is not the same as when you are in your home-town and everyone around you celebrates the same way. There, you are no longer a minority. Although the actions and specifics might be the same, the experience, what you feel with your heart, is totally different ...
Food is food everywhere. Drinks are drinks. But the atmosphere of Romanian-ism can only be experienced in the country. A deeper meaning can only be felt with those close to your heart.
My home-town, and I am guessing all the cities in Romania, dresses up its downtown and main promenade area for the holidays. There are holiday lights, holiday decor, a huge tree, amusement park rides set up smack dab in the middle of the town. We have this huge museum called The Palace of Culture and everything in town revolves around that. The special decor is set up all around The Palace. There are outdoor concerts, street vendors, fresh food cooked in every booth, it’s like holidays had spilled into the streets and it’s a huge block party of entertainment where the whole city is invited. We did not have all this growing up. This is new. An import from The West, no doubt. This year was the first year when I experienced all this. It was new to me and a new experience.
I love visiting places I call “home” with the eyes of a world traveler - this way, everything looks new and you are surprised by it all ...
We spent most of our time eating and catching up with family. We spent exactly 4 hours max doing things we wanted to do, like visiting the Holiday Village in Iasi (the downtown “done-up” area), riding the ad-hoc Ferris Wheel that the city throws up downtown, and going to a restaurant for a nice meal. The rest of the vacation, all 10 days of it, were either in an airport, or with family.
We came back exhausted, cold, and feeling older (by a year). The memories we made are all worth it. Another holiday season with our mom and other aging relatives, another holiday with all of us under one roof is in the books ... In some ways, this was all familiar, and in many others, it was all new.
Sure, I wish I could spend 10 days in many other parts of the world that are on my bucket list and that I have no plans to visit yet but which are teasing my heart something awful. But this was good too, and necessary. Not sure if so much for us but for the people who are aging fast, who are part of who we are and who might not be here in one or two or three years. Paris, and Rome, and Antartica can wait, as they are not going anywhere. We hope. For now, we have Iasi 2024-2025 and we’re filled to the brim with its fullness.
Happy New Year, everyone! I really mean it: may it be happier and more giving than any year you’ve all had! Make it a good one!
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