Summary of the past two months. Pt. IV

Hi there,

Yes I have returned from my Grand Tour of Romaina in one piece. Just that one week has provided me with enough material to write an entire book but you will be pleased to know that you will get the edited highlights.

Made it in one piece but I have no idea how. In all we covered nearly 2,000kms by road, from Bucharest to Timisoara (far west of the country), then to Brasov (middle), then to Iasi (far east of the country) then back to Bucharest. Our driver was a lovely bloke but had two main characteristics. He was unable to drive at less than 150kph and saw every vehicle in front of him as a personal challenge to overtake. (We found out half way through the trip that his colleagues nicknamed him Schumaker and it was richly deserved.) As there is no more than 32 metres of dual carriageway and motorway in the country we frequently found ourselves overtaking a line of 6 lorries on a bend in heavy rain and a 3km drop either side of the road, or at least it seemed like that. I do believe I still have parts of the car seat under my fingernails. He did calm down a bit as the journey went on and our pleadings, begging and breaking down crying in front of him did seem to have an effect.

The meetings with the staff in the various locations went well. Basically they were scared still of us as they think we have come to cut their jobs. So they treat us like royalty (only right) and extended their traditional characteristic of hospitality. We ate lunches and dinner that lasted for hours and consumed vast amounts of food (and alcohol if they had had their way.) At the very first dinner in Timisoara, we all met in the office first before going to the restaurant. In walks the Director, looks at me and says, "Jim Bean, Jack Daniels or Chivas". I say Chivas, although I don't like any type of whiskey, and so he brings a bottle to the restaurant which we must drink. Then he is asking if we want wine, beer etc. One lunch in Iasi lasted 4 hours, from 12.30 to 16.30 and then we had a series of meetings at a border post 20kms away. The meal had included wine tasting of 3 white and 3 red wines!

With all that alcohol and staying in hotels dehydration is always a battle and I didn't want to drink the tap water. So in one location I asked at the end of my last meeting (at 8.45pm by the way!) if I could take one of the bottles of water from the table. Out dashed the director and came back with a bag full of bottles of water. Brilliant I thought. As I walked to my hotel I looked in the bag and there was a bottle of Jack Daniels Whiskey as well. So the next day that had to be returned with many thanks and not wishing to offend but as part of this project is about ethics and anti corruption I don't think this sort of thing is a good idea!

So I am back in Bucharest and it is manic again. On Friday (12th) we have the "Kick Off" meeting which is the official launch of the project. Yes I know it has started but getting things in the right order never was my strong point. The British Ambassador cannot make it now, so his deputy is coming. The Head of the EC Delegation is coming. The Vice President of the National Administration of Finance (NAF - mmmm) is coming, he is the equivalent of David Varney's boss, and a host of others including 3 people from the UK, the press and TV people. We have simultaneous translators hired for the day, we will all be wearing headsets to hear what is going on and I am dreading it. Boy are we going to have a celebration on Friday evening when this is over. It is causing us huge headaches.

So I had better get on with it. Thanks again for your e-mails. As I still do not have internet in my apartment I can only e-mail from work, so you will have to put up with these general e-mails for now. But hopefully soon it will be installed. I do have cable TV, CD and DVD players now, so that's good.

Look after yourselves and I'll let you know after the weekend how my debut on Romanian TV went!!!

Andrew.