Summary of the past two months. Pt V

Hi there,

Well, was I on national TV?
Did you see me on CNN?
Was I on SKY news?

The official launch of this project went OK on Friday. We were told about 4 or 5 press people were turning up, but in the end about 20 of them were there and one TV crew. It meant that during the speeches (5 of them in all) you had to remain looking interested or else you might appear on TV yawning, picking your nose or scratching your bum. Because we had simuntaneous translation I had to wear headphones while the Romanians were talking to listen to the translation. Trouble was when switching between English and Romanian it got a bit confusing at times and I found myself listening on the headphones to the Romanian translation. Even the poor translator got confused and at one point was translating the Romanian speaker into Romanian. I was impressed that the Head of the EC Delegation and the Deputy Head of the British Embassy both spoke in Romanian. Lavinia my secretary did say afterwards that their Romanian was quite bad but at least they tried. So far all I can do is say hello, goodbye, thank you, please and count from 1 to 10.

So at least that is over now. We had a celebratory meal in the evening with the 3 people from International Capacity Building in London who had come over for the launch, the expert who is over here at the moment and Lavinia and Diana (the full time interpretor). Went to a traditional Romanian restaurant - this means lots of gypsy violin music and a menu that has more meat on it than Arnold Swartzanegger. This is no place for a vegetarian that's for sure. Although I decided not to have the Bear Ragout or the Bear Paw (this is 450 lei, about 90 pounds!!)

Saturday I was invited to a bar not far from my apartment to watch the FA Cup Final. When I arrived I was astounded to find a place with an enormous Liverpool flag hanging outside it and inside the place was decorated with about 8 different Liverpool banners flags etc. And there just happened to be 40 Liverpool clad fans there watching on a huge screen. Unfortunately I never saw Steven Gerrad's goal in stoppage time - all I saw was beer flying through the air, glasses going in all directions, tables and chairs being scattered as the place went absolutely crazy. Of course everyone was delighted with the final score. I have been told that all the England games will be shown there and all the Romanians said they will be there to support England! This is a strange place.

The weather this weekend has been absolutely gorgeous. Sunshine and 25C (that's the upper 70sF for you Liz!). I think summer has finally arrived here.

So this week I am in class for the first three days. I am running a workshop with the expert over here at the moment identifying training needs for the Customs staff. Another two experts arrive today to start looking at the Human Resource policies they have - initially they are looking at recruitment, retention, performance management and appraisal. So we are getting in to run of things now.

Hope all is going well with you. Take care.

All the best

Andrew.