Apologies, this post is a month late!

(This should have been sent over 3 weeks ago! Sorry for the delay!!)



Hi Everyone,



Do you remember about six weeks ago I mentioned how my linguistic capabilities had developed to such an extent that I could tell someone that:

“I don’t talk to Romanians” rather than saying:

“I don’t speak Romanian”.



Well two days ago someone came up to me and again splattered a load of Romanian at me. Now in my defense I have to say they were one of the more unusual members of Bucuresti society, so that threw me a bit. But I confidently said to him:

“Nu doresc romaneste” which unfortunately meant “I don’t want Romanians”.

You know one day I might actually say in Romanian that I don’t speak Romanian. But after 20 months that is a tall order!



I know I should be talking about work. I know I should be telling you about how the project is progressing and coming to its conclusion. Instead I’m going to talk about parties!



Two weekends ago was been quite a couple of days for me. You may remember from previous e-mails that I know the financial manager at the Hilton Hotel in Bucuresti, Laura Damien. This Friday was the 10th anniversary of the Hilton opening in Romania. It was the first 5 star hotel in the country. Also it occupies an historic building in the centre of Bucuresti.



So Laura rang me asking if I would like to go to the party. It took me approximately 0.0002 of a second to say yes. However the party was a black tie affair. So I bought a wing collar shirt and borrowed a black bow tie and strutted my stuff to the Hilton Party. Loads of ambassadors were there including Robin , the British ambassador who did his best to ignore me but I still managed to corner him and make him to speak to me! The Prime Minister was there, Calin Popescu-Tariceanu, as were many stars of screen and stage in Romania none of whom I had ever seen before or recognized their names. But still it was great fun and of course all the food and drink was free. As with previous such social events (e.g. the Queens Birthday) you must be careful on such occasions not to let the offer of free drink result in you running naked through the crowd shouting “Who wants a traditional British banger” and then promptly throwing up over the Prime Minister’s car. So once again I showed great restraint. In fact when sitting with a group of 5 Romanians one of the waiters asked if we wanted drinks. Everyone ordered theirs and I said:

“Apa plata va rog” (still water please).

The waiter looked at me puzzled and then leant forward and said:
“Sorry I don’t speak English”.

The whole table shouted at him that I had spoken in Romanian but the point was made – even the most straightforward sentence is made unintelligible by me. Why do I bother?!



That event went very well was enjoyable and gave me a free evening of food and drink. The next night was a big Halloween fundraising event for a children’s charity in Romanian. The Hilton had 2 tables booked but, of course, populated with their staff and friends. So Laura said to me that since I had gone to the 10th anniversary party she would invite other people to the Halloween Ball. I said I understood – but hated her!! This Ball is one of the biggest events in Bucuresti. It is held in the People’s Palace (Ceaucescue’s huge building in the centre of the city) and in the biggest room of the Palace. Those of you who have visited the place will know it is the huge ballroom with a glass ceiling. The tickets are 325 euros each!!! Laura said I could buy a ticket if I wanted to (yea of course I would) or I could get a ticket for the after party. This started at 11.30pm and cost 100 lei – about 20 pounds. I said I would try to make the after party but there were two problems. Firstly 20 quid just to get into an after party seemed extortionate and secondly the theme was 1920s. I did not have anything that even suggested that era. But Laura said I could come in normal clothes for the after party.



However at 6.45pm my mobile goes off and it is Laura.

“Andrew, some one has cancelled for tonight so we have a spare place, do you want to come?”

“Well yes of course I’d like to”

“Great” said Laura “We will pick you up in 15 minutes we have to be at the People’s Palace by 7.30pm”.

“But I have nothing suitable to wear. Nothing in the 1920s style at all.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure it will be OK”

“Are you in 1920s stuff” I asked

“Well…..yes…..we are.”

“I can’t turn up in normal clothes”

Then Laura said:

“Tiberiu is going as an angel, so you don’t have to wear 1920s outfits”.

“That may be the case, but I still do not have anything for Halloween” (I was not sure that an angel was exactly a good idea for a Halloween party with a 1920s theme!)

“We have a long white beard and white wig, do you have anything you could wear like a gown so you could go as Merlin or a wizard?”

By a strange co-incidence Tony, the last time he came, had brought my galibea. This is a long Egyptian gown we had bought while on the Nile cruise two years ago. So I said I could use that.



The car screeched to a halt outside my place at 7.00pm. We had to go to the Hilton Hotel to pick up the tickets and I was to change there as well. So Laura parks the car outside the hotel, we all ran into the place. Laura and Corrina run to her office to get the tickets. Tibi and I run to the toilets for me to get changed. I refused to take off my shirt and trousers as I was not risking going naked under my galibea, so the galibea went over the top of everything. The white wig, beard and even eye brows were put on and we re-emerged from the toilets and walked through the Hilton to the car. Why residents of the hotel were stopping and staring I have no idea – haven’t they seen an angel and Merlin at the place before?!



So we arrive at the event. I have never been through the official main entrance to the People’s Palace before (the tourist entrance is on the side of the building). I never thought I would dressed as Merlin!!



As soon as we all walked in I knew this was a huge huge huge mistake. Everybody and I mean EVERYBODY, was in 1920s outfits. There was a 1920s band playing 1920s music. Everything was themed for the 1920s…….except the angel and Merlin. But it became evident that because Tibi was an angel everyone was assuming I was God!! This was just getting better and better.



You know when you just want to quietly slip away. When you have turned up to a fancy dress party and you are the only one in fancy dress. Or for whatever reason you feel that you stand out like a very sore thumb. Well multiply that 100 times and you get the idea how I felt. But because of that very reason of being unusual, we were the centre of attention. Photographers were taking photos, people were staring and I was dying. Also due to my insistence that I wear my normal clothes underneath I was melting. I swear that the core at Chernobyl did not reach the temperature experienced under my galibea. The waiters were bringing around champagne and I grabbed the biggest glass I could see on the tray – only to find that due to my voluminous beard I could not drink, or for that matter eat, at all. Great. This had really been well thought through!



Suddenly there was a bright light in my face and a microphone in front of me. This woman was jabbering away in Romania and then pointed the microphone at me. I am sure my expression conveyed the panic of an overheating embarrassed foreigner who just wanted to wake up and find this had been a terrible nightmare. But I did not wake up. However Laura did tell them that I was English. So she repeated her question in English – and what an incisive, important probing question it was:

“Can you tell us what shampoo you use?”

My answer was equal to the question:

“Why Head and Shoulders of course.”

That seemed to do the trick and she left me alone immediately obviously convinced that a British person who turns up to a 1920s event as God must have something wrong with them. And I tend to agree with the reporter from Antenna 1.



They called us all into dinner, in the main ballroom, and we were led in by the jazz band. I could see another TV crew lurking at the entrance and did my best to slip past them, but my best was not good enough. They stopped Tibi and I and Tibi explained that I was English and he was Romanian so they would have to do the interview in both languages. I hoped this would put them off but no, this reporter from Kanal D spoke English as well. She asked me quite a few questions but to be honest I don’t remember or wish to remember what I said. I know the questions were rather stupid and my answers were even worse. So as soon as possible I pushed through into the dining area to be met with the British ambassador on one side and the Prime Minister Calin Popescu-Tariceanu on the other. They smiled at me in that rather “who on earth are you” embarrassed way and I smiled back, not that they could tell because of the hair all over my face, and headed for the Hilton table. Thankfully Robin never even recognized me in my outfit and I have no intention of telling the ambassador that the idiot wearing the God outfit was me!



The rest of the evening went as painlessly as possible when you are seated at the Hilton table, right at the front of the room by the main stage and so the camera crews are there and you seem to be appearing all the time on the big video screens around the room. The other people on the table kept whispering:

“Andrew, you are on the screen again, don’t do anything embarrassing.” Like being dressed as God at a 1920 Halloween party was not embarrassing enough!!



To give you some idea of the calibre of people there and the amount of money sloshing about, there was an auction after the meal. This auction had quite a few items in it but of particular interest was a handbag donated by Uma Thurman and a necklace donated by Angelina Jolie. I should explain at this point that the charity this fundraising ball was for is called Ovidirom and was set up by Leslee Hawkes, the mother of Ethan Hawkes the actor. She now lives in Romania and set up this charity with the aim of getting every child in Romania into school and staying there until the 10th grade. At the moment nearly 50% drop out before the 10th grade and of the Roma (gypsy) children 90% drop out and only about 40% actually attend school. So all the money went to this charity.



After much bidding the python skin handbag from Uma went for 40,000 euros and Angelina’s necklace went for 50,000 euros. The funny thing was that the handbag went to someone who has just been released from prison after the corruption charges against him were dropped!



Following the auction there was the after party with two main acts on, neither of whom will be familiar to you at all but reasonably well known in Romania. The second act was a lady called Maria Radu. I met Maria for the first time a few months ago. Just as I was leaving one of the Perroni Parties with some friends she was arriving. So they all stopped to chat. As I had no idea who she was and they were all talking in Romanian, I stepped back and waited for them to finish. She kept looking over at me and eventually said something in Romanian to me.

“Oh this is Andrew, he is British” said Marius

Immediately Maria went into extremely good English and said:

“Nice to meet you Andrew. Come forward, don’t be embarrassed I don’t bite!” (This seemed a slightly unusual thing to say).

“Nice to meet you too” I said shaking her hand.

“Do you like Romania?” she asked

“I do. I have been here for nearly 15 months now and I think it is a lovely country”

“Oh you are living here then.”

“Yes, but I am leaving at the end of November”

“Sorry to hear that” she said “but that does mean that you can come to my concert next week. You must come”.

And before I could check what was coming out of my mouth I said:

“Oh do you sing?”

She looked slightly offended and immediately Marius leapt in and explained who Maria Radu was. Now I understood the “I don’t bite comment”. She thought I was awe struck being in the presence of such a mega star when in actual fact, as it became obvious, I had no idea who she was!



Anyway her concert was cancelled. But when she arrived at the Charity Halloween Ball she said she was pleased that at last I would get to hear her sing. I must admit that she was good. Although quite small she has a powerful voice. By the time she came on stage everyone was up and dancing by the stage including me (no, don’t worry I had dispensed with the wig, beard and gown by now and was in jeans and t-shirt). Maria sang “I will survive” and decided to get me to sing with her on the stage for a little bit. So the embarrassment continued right to the end!



Well I think I have gone on long enough now. But I just want to mention that the British Embassy had a Guy Fawkes Party on 5th November here with a big fireworks display. For some reason they decided to hold it at the Bucharest School for the Blind. An unusual location for a visual spectacular!



Hope you are all OK and I’ll be sending a last up date before I leave. Then when back in good old Blighty I will send out the final e-mail containing all the things I could not write while here! That should ensure they will never let me back in the country again!



Take care



Andrew.