Some of you may not be aware that on the very top of Mount Tampa, Braşov has it’s very own Hollywood Sign. Adeverat.

Not only are the tomatoes fresher in Romania, but they are also better looking and far more tasty that what you can find the United States.

It’s just about Paşte now and over at Biserica Sfantul Nicolae, they’ve been out painting the trees to keep off the pests.

I saw a piece of Iasi stencil art over at Red View. A collection of Bucureşti permanent marker graffiti at Andu’s. While Urban Delice pointed me in the direction of the guy who spraypainted Air Force One. [Update: An anonymous radical rightwing Republican realist wants us all to know that the tagging the President’s plane was a hoax. Which makes sense, of course.]

I snapped this shot while a tourist in Cluj in May of 2004. I think it’s hysterical.

A couple weeks ago, I saw this great stencil in Braşov. Anyone want to take credit for it?

Of course, for every genius… there must be an equal and opposite idiot street vandal.

Stop spreading your filth in Poarta Schei, you ignorant loser.

When I first met Christina, the landlady of the apartment I’ve been renting, she seemed like a pure angel. Just full of sunshine and happiness, eager to help with every last little detail and always positive about issues and questions. That lasted a little while.

Now, the apartment has some nice things about it. One thing I absolutely loved was that no one lived above me or below me, just in an adjacent building. This means I could crank music up fairly loud at any given hour and no one got upset by it. That’s gold, to me: I’m an audiophile.

It’s got hardwood floors, leather furniture and a spa bathtub all of which I like very much.

The bedroom closet space is twice of what you see here.

The living room has some decent storage space as well, once again you see about half. Pardon the mess, as you’ll see I’m moving…

I believe Christina still lives in the communist times, in her mind. She imagines herself as something of an elitist and while she parades around like one, I can assure you she is not a wealthy member of the Politburo. She does have a willing servant named Mariana who resembles a small, hardworking dog that executes every command faithfully for a few scraps off the table.

The apartment I rented and moved into was supposed to come with a washing machine. It had one when I did the walkthrough and it had one the day I signed the contract. But on moving day, it was gone. My first reaction was to complain and her first response was to come up with fanciful stories about where the washing machine had disappeared to and why. In the end, she offered to have Mariana wash my clothes.

Some strange woman handling my unmentionables? Not on your life. I declined the offer and opted to keep the laundry duties in-house. That means manual washing, my American friends. Something of which we know little about, even though it’s not unheard of around these parts. Still, it’s an unwelcome chore considering the price of the apartment.

Under the pretense of apology, she offered to have the servant do the clothes and I voluntary declined. Later, I would come to understand that she probably would have tried to charged me for the service!

Another move-in mishap was when I discovered that my stove had been moved out of the kitchen and into an adjoining closet pantry space.

I was flabbergasted. What in the world could she possibly have been thinking? Well, she explained it was “the modern way of doing things” and I literally laughed out loud. Preposterous!

It turns out she was having a new water heater installed and basically didn’t want to pay the installers to pipe gas to both the heater and the stove, so she just ordered the construction guys to physically moved the stove out of the kitchen and into the pantry closet next to the water heater. Ridiculous.

Dear readers, I admit I was a sucker; although I complained most profusely about the bizarre arrangement being completely untenable, she had a quick-tongued counter arguement each time. Eventually after a week of not cooking at home (who can cook in a closet?!), I blinked. Yes, I paid to have them come back, move the stove, spilt the pipe, drill the wall, and reconnect the gas in the kitched because she steadfastly refused to pay.

Her next move during my first week was to have two guys come in and start taking away my refridgerator, unannounced.

I’d had enough and put a stop to it. Oh, sure, she tried to convince me that she would put in another one which was just fine, but this one was brand new and she needed it elsewhere (probably her own place). Nossir, I would have none of it. I put on my mean face, physically blocked progress, and the fridge stayed exactly where it was. It’s damn nice! I wasn’t about to let it go just because she was a bit pushy.

Of course, the aforementioned gas heater was a bust. The water fluctuates between hot and cold on an irregular basis. Mostly, it does faithfully follow your commands, but sometimes you get surprised. I chalked that up to “living in Romania.”

The water heater would break about once a month, like clockwork. It turns out the installers had done something wrong with the condensation collecting portion… or some such thing, but we didn’t find that out until recently. Once, the heater blew the electricity in the kitchen and we had to have an electrician come out. She tried to foist the charges on me, claiming I must have plugged in “something” that blew it, but I fought tooth and nail. This time, I refused to pay. It was her problem.

She stormed out in a rage. That was her mistake, because as soon as I was alone with the electrician, I got him to fix the flickering lights in the bedroom which were caused by visibly faulty wiring… and she ended up paying for that, too. As well she should, you might think.

I was glad when the heater and wiring were fixed, which made the coming winter much more bearable.

But about the communist mentality. As the owner, living next door to me in another section of the adjoining house, she has keys. Not long after I moved in, she decided now and then just to let herself inside for no particular reason (oh, sure, this or that pretense) but you can imagine my disgust. I was outraged and I let her know about it on the second offense. And the third and fourth. As one of those Americans, I tend to value my privacy very deeply and I don’t see why I should suffer some old bat to come in when I’m doing who knows what.

Eventually, she slowed that activity down, but it happened a handful of other times.

What else? She actually opened my mail. Again, must be an American thing, but if the mail has my name on it, you ought not open it. It’s not yours! She gave the excuse that she was concerned about what bills I was running up, in case somehow the debts became hers… which is, of course, ridiculous. Did I mention she was crazy? I had to get in her face about this issue and she did stop. It was exasperating that I should have to even bother, however. My expenses and details and private correspondence are mine and mine alone; period, end of story. No if, ands, or buts.

The last straw was the bathroom toilet. Just when I thought everything was under control.

So, I was gone somewhere on a short trip and returned to find two guys busily working away in the bathroom. After some inquiries, it turns out Christina had sold the adjoining house to someone and would soon be moving upstairs above me. I was about to lose my loud music privileges and have to be a civil neighbor again.

In preparation, these guys had been modifying the upstairs attic into a low-ceiling apartment, of sorts. One of their tasks was to get her a bathroom set up and that meant joining a sewage pipe to my drainage. No problem!

Well, it was a circus of amateurs. These guys were nice fellows but no engineering geniuses. They removed the toilet and began installing a new one. During this process, they cut a hole in the ceiling and put in some new plastic pipes. The result of the new pipes was that the new toilet could no longer be flush (no pun intended) with the wall and now had to stick out half a meter/yard which effectively made the bathroom a little more claustrophobic.

The fun part was they didn’t finish the job that day. No, they left a non-working toilet precariously perched upon some wobble brick stones with leaking pipes and all.

When I approached the landlady Christina about this, she feigned ignorance and pretended to be surprised they had left the restroom in such a condition. Her advice? Use the bathtub until the toilet is fixed.

Really. She said that.

Uh, yeah. So, it was arranged that I could call her at any time I needed to use her bathroom, should the need arise because I wasn’t quite comfortable with the idea of “using the bathtub.” No doubt that inconvenienced the poor thing when she got my call during late hours.

The guys came back, of course, to pour concrete around some of the stones. They were going to form a base and later tile it. But it had to dry for a few days first.

Yeah. So, she got more late calls.

At some point the toilet seemed stable and I was able to resume using it again, thankfully. They came back nearly a week later and removed the toilet so that they could lay down the tiles.

Uh huh. More calls.

Eventually, these clowns finished up by repositioning the toilet on this little platform. It looks ridiculous, takes up way too much space in already tight quarters, and feels really awkward to climb upon (whether standing or sitting) but technically it does work.

By the way, you may notice below that the bathroom has 4 different sets of green tile. Four.

As if all this weren’t enough, she moved in upstairs immediately. Now, when you’re in the bathroom shaving your face, using the toilet, or trying to take a long, hot relaxing bath… her toilet suddenly flushes and down comes the loudest racket you’ve ever heard as though someone had thrown a handful of marbles and small potatoes down that rickety plastic pipe, each object bouncing off the walls like it was a pinball game. The first few times literally startled me.

Just look at that.

That was the straw that broke the camel’s back, folks. I’m moving. Very soon.