Starting out from Braşov seemed like any other hitchhiking trip that we had already taken to several other places. Pack your bags, stand out on the road with a smile and your thumb out, and wait for some kindly soul to slow down long enough to read your handwritten sign.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite so.

For starters, I’d managed to get up late once again and was very slow in getting myself organized for the first leg of a long journey. By the time I’d drank a 2 liter bottle of caffeine and took a couple pit stops, I had managed to toss a few odd things into my backpack.

Now, it was time to find the keys. Oh, and make sure I knew where Monstruleţ was… as I was lucky enough for her to be coming with me on this particular stint.

Once out the door, it was time for the requisite bus hopping in order to make it to the other side of town. From there, you hoof it a few kilometers through the streets, across a park, over a busy bridge, and down the highway a bit to a favorably looking spot where you might catch the eye of passersby.

Travel Tip: If you’re planning to hitchhike in Romania, know the game.

Someone else once described the process of hitchhiking in Romania as something of a full contact sport. I couldn’t agree more. On most edges of town, there’ll be a gathering of anywhere from 3 to 60 pedestrians eagerly waving their arms at motorists or holding signs aloft for truckers.

A pack of wild animals where each one dares the other to stand a little further in the street, just close enough to the speeding traffic that drivers have to swerve out of their lane to get past the herd.

Every so often that demarcation line between machine and humans is redrawn, as if the beasts were pushing against the very starting gate that held them back from chasing the little rabbit around the race track.

Ding! “And they’re off…”

When a hapless driver stops, all hells breaks loose as several people rush the car each one jockeying for a position inside the maşina. Since no one really knows who the automobile was stopping for in the first place, it is a matter of being able to trample the backs of your fellow man in order to get to the passenger door first so you can be the lucky one who gets inside.

Aggression is the order of the day. Push, shove, kick, punch, trip, bite, repeat randomly. Even a picky driver has a hard time yelling back the desperate, thronging masses manhandling one another for the chance to finally get their own trip underway.

It’s easy for the naive straine to feel somehow obligated by old notions about courtesy to give some deference to women and the elderly. However, you need to understand that decades of communism did bring one or two good effects.

One of which is a fair amount of gender parity. Your chauvinistic and paternalistic attempts at chivalry just reveal you to be a weak fool who ain’t from around here.

You better believe you’ve got a learning curve coming. At first you’ll not contest the old women out of courtesy until you realize you’ll never get a ride if you don’t finally compete because they’ll regenerate like a hydra; each time one gets in a car two more replace her.

So when you do make your own mad dash for the car, that’s when you’ll realize you’re simply not much of an athlete for this uniquely Romanian sport.

Your first clue should have been that the short, shrunken, twisted, frail, wrinkled bag of bones carries 200 pounds of food and drink in each of the large sacks she brandishes. No matter. Your misperception will be fully clarified should you dare to challenge the shrieking, clawed harpy in duelling for a ride.

Abandon all hope ye who combat bunica.

Of course, the exception to all the normal confusion is if the driver is alone and male, then the odds are he was understandably stopping for the very attractive, thin girl in the short skirt and half shirt.

But that doesn’t stop the crowd from angling to be chosen, as they won’t necessarily concede the point. The visibly excited driver will just have to shoo them away.

Being more clever and unsportsmanlike, I tend to overshoot the appointed pick up spot.

Frankly, the mob rarely chooses a good spot anyway. Normally, it’s a congested area where some half-drunk guy started waving down cars at 6am, nearly killing himself in the process.

No one would him pick up, of course. But as morning progressed and the others came out looking for a ride, they simply lined up beside him and together starting flagging motorists down until the collective insanity set in.

I go further down the road where I can stand out a distance from all the other raving lunatics who would scare most non-Romanian drivers. Carefully isolated, I present a much more serene image that I like to think does me some good in attracting drivers after they’ve already passed the cacophony.

I’m generally situated at a point specifically chosen to accommodate a driver who might veer out of traffic and need some place to stop in order to pick me up. I hold up a sign which can be read clearly. Instead of waving my arms, I thrust out my thumb to indicate I’m not local.

I attempt to look somewhat presentable, instead of soiled and disheveled. My backpack is placed prominently in front of me, indicating my status as a tourist thus offering the bonus of interesting conversation.

And, what probably counts the most, I try to smile friendly-like rather than show the typical bitter scowl of someone who would just as soon throw rocks at your truck.

This strategy for differentiation is generally proven to be effective marketing as the target result is most often acquired in as little as 5 or, possibly, as many as 20 minutes. Piece of cake.

But today was different.

I believe we stood on the side of the road for a good half hour, watching the nonprovocatively dressed roma prostitute across the street doing her best to look both completely innocent of mischief while still appearing to be available for the keen-eyed, weary roadwarrior in need of a bit of stress relief.

Another young couple, not unlike the two of us, got dropped off from their first ride just in front of us. They walked 10 meters or so further down the road and then started sticking out their thumbs to catch a second ride to wherever they were headed. The competition was on.

It looked like we might win, too, when another half hour had past and a very attractive woman in her late-20s driving a Land Rover Discovery passed by before suddenly hitting the brakes and making a U-turn right on the highway. Oh happy day, if only the wealthy hot chick was turning about for us.

She came back our way and, just barely past us, flipped another huli to point her rig back in the original direction out of Braşov. Just when it seemed some benevolent goddess was smiling down upon us, she promptly parked right between the two couples as if daring us to battle it out in a landrush of yore.

Happily for our adversaries, I hesitated just a moment too long to assess the distance before reaching for my pack. That was all it took for the more aggressive local couple to already be several steps ahead of us and greeting the driver with smiles.

Monstruleţ and I would have to wait. After another half hour passed by with our only luck being truck drivers who made hand signals to indicate they were either local traffic or otherwise unable to pick us up.

At least they acknowledged us in a friendly understanding that we hitchhikers often look to the kindly long-haul driver for a lift and they reciprocate for the chance to swap tales.

A unanimous decision was made to move a bit further down the highway, partly in hopes that perhaps a new spot would be more amenable to motorists pulling over and partly to look more pathetic.

After another half hour had past, the process was repeated until we were quite far down the highway and looking very pathetic indeed. You might guess that’s when the magic happens. And you’d be right.

To our surprise a souped-up beemer sports coupe slid to a stop just beyond our present location. Granted, we didn’t actually believe they were stopping for us, so we just kinda eye-balled them like nosey neighbors trying to see what is going on in someone else’s backyard.

The passenger stepped out and looked at us like we might have some mental challenges. I literally started to salivate. And then he waved us over rapidly as if to say, “Hey, you two idiots better hurry up if you want a ride in this thing.”

Boom! I nearly ran as fast as the time I was chasing the last train out of Keszthely down the tracks as it picked up steam a few summers ago.

Our host popped the trunk, moved something out of the way, and I tossed my gear in. Inside the two-door sled was a tight fit. Plus they had their own crap taking up one of the back seats (a euphemism for the leather bench designed for no one taller than a 7 year old).

Monstruleţ had to sit somewhat sideways in the middle while I squeezed into the right side of the speedster. Both of us rested our chins on our knees as the car kicked up some gravel when the clutch was let out.

We were off. Not much conversation was had because the two young men had some music pumping pretty loud out of the nice stereo system, but we managed to get a few pleasantries out of the way.

The best news is that they were headed all the way to Targu Mureş, which means we wouldn’t need to get out somewhere along the way, like Sighişoara, in order to catch another ride to the first destination in our travels.

The passenger asked if we were in a hurry. Being late and always interested in going faster, I immediately responded, “da da!” anticipating the driver might really put the pedal to the metal.

Instead, they quickly apologized and informed us of their intention to stop for lunch along the way. Politely, they inquired if we still wanted to ride with them after knowing this information.

Let’s do the math here. You waited about two hours to get a ride with a BMW who leaves Braşov traveling north at over a 120 km/hour all the way to Targu Mureş, but stops for 30 minutes to eat en route.

Alternatively, you could get out of the soft leather seats and wait who knows how many more hours for a backfiring, rusted-out Dacia heading to Sighişoara at 60km/hour. Then when it drops you off, you get to wait another hour or two before catching a second ride in a Trabant to Targu Mureş at 25km/hour.

Lunch? Hey, you bet! I like those odds.

Zoom! Down the highway at a good pace, we only had to slow down once to avoid radar from the poliţia rurala. We stopped in the middle of nowhere at some dusty, rickety excuse for a restaurant that look straight out of a ghost town.

But apparently, this is the best ciorba de burta in all of Romania and thus worth stopping for at all costs.

Monstruleţ and I waited outside the eatery while the two guys chowed down on grub inside. It must have been all of 10 minutes. Just long enough for a band of gypsy ladies to pass by and stare at me, then — once safely away — yell back to me about how handsome my face seemed to them.

But, of course.

The two gents popped out of the chuckwagon and decided to switch roles. The previous driver now took the passenger seat and revealed a disastrous cough that would put fear into the hearts of sailors. I knew right then that I’d be deathly ill within 24 hours.

While the grating hacks of his throat caused him to wrack his body in the chair, his gung-ho stud compatriot got the car underway despite fishing around for a change of CDs. He popped in some groovalicious vocal trance that took me back in time when my neighbor was a damn good DJ in Houston.

The repeatedly-coughing passenger was barely clinging to life and trying to sleep. Monstruleţ was falling out of consciousness, most likely as a side effect of mild car sickness.

Meanwhile, the driver and I are bobbing our heads back and forth to the beat, checking out gorgeous scenery we’re flying through, and occasionally exchanging knowing glances in the rearview mirror whenever a new track we both like starts up.

Although I was assuredly contracting a fatal disease from the half-dead person in front of me, I actually had a great time goading the driver into pushing the ultimate driving machine just a little faster and a bit more dangerously through the curvy slaloms of DN13 and dancing to fun memories of a past life before the war on terror.

Each bend of the road brought the slight squeal of tires desperately clinging to blacktop before giving birth to an audible growl from the engine when downshifting as the road straightened out. The unbelted corpse in the passenger seat spilled out of both sides of his chair without ever waking up.

I played the testosterone cheerleader, egging on yet more rally racing through the twisting asphalt snake slithering through the green forests of Romania.

I applauded each jolt of adrenaline as we zigzagged in between other motorists on the two lane highway narrowly avoiding instant death by just a few millimeters here or a fraction of a second there.

I do love sports cars in the hands of a capable driver. Preferably me.

We stopped briefly in Sighişoara, so the driver could use the restroom and calm his apparently agitated girlfriend down with a long series of “bine, draga, bine.”

We stopped again in some roadside village that sold cowboy hats and mexican sombreros, so the driver could get something to drink.

As we drew nearer to Targu Mureş, the passenger came back to life with a fresh round of uncovered germ spewing. I closed my eyes so no one could see me rolling them in exasperation. The driver slowed the car down to the legal speed limit, perhaps familiar with the pattern of police patrols in his judeţ. Monstruleţ woke up.

When the music was turned down just ever so slightly, I took the opportunity to ring my as yet unmentioned contact in Targu Mureş to inform the other party of my imminent arrival. Everything appeared to be wrapping up smoothly.

But the grating cough of the grim reaper wasn’t the only thing palpable in the air. Nossir. A pungent, sulphuric whip cracked over my nostrils to incite respiratory panic. It was becoming obvious that the much lauded ciorba de burta was not setting well with someone.

You’re in the back of a coupe. There’s no window accessible to you. The stench has taken physical form, grabbing you by the nose and slapping your face near the point of tears. You’re a guest during a free ride across a long distance in a short amount of time.

Suck it up. Take the pain.

Holy Christ, my lungs cannot continue to take the burning. Monstruleţ is nearing a gag reflex. Even the driver is now looking around, mostly at me! I ignore him.

He elbows the passenger and suggests with raised eyebrows. The passenger busts out laughing, then coughing, and laughing more, then coughing more. Then the driver starts laughing. They both look into the back through the side mirror and rearview mirror respectively.

Nobody opens a damn window.

After a bit more laughing and coughing, while we civilized folks are patiently riding out the storm, the driver finally powers the window down and right back up letting in just enough air to dilute particles still assaulting the car interior. At least I knew there was some cologne in my backpack for later.

This actually happened twice, although the second offense prompted the driver to sock his friend in the shoulder in between laughs and coughs to indicate that was enough. I dare say. Lordie.

I didn’t think I’d be able to get out of my sardine state very quickly but when that passenger door opened up after arriving in the centru, I leaped out as if I’d been spring-loaded. And Monstruleţ flew out next into the fresh, open air of Targu Mureş.

Without acknowledging their airborne crimes, I shook hands with the driver and avoided touching the bacteria ridden hands of the farting passenger. I thanked them both profusely and they somehow morphed back into polite beings from planet Earth.

All this pain and suffering. Would it be worth it? It was time for another phone call. And a bit of owl spotting…

I woke up from a much-needed nap to a very loud and unusual noise. When I stumbled toward the window, a strong unnatural breeze was blowing. And what to my wondering eyes should appear?

The first helicopter I’ve seen in the entire country. And it was hovering just outside my apartment window! I thought would almost be able to touch it if the rotors didn’t scratch the paint of the building first.

It stayed there another minute or two as I tried a staring contest with the pilot. He won, when I suddenly had the presence of mind to locate my camera. I rushed around barefoot, nearly tripping on a power cord, and partially stubbing a toe.

As I stood near another window juggling my lenses to to capture the moment, he decided to bug out. Sadly, that caused me to immediately switch the lens again, so I barely got off one single shot as he rapidly zipped away.

Down in Texas, we know all about chem trails and black helicopters. So, which one of y’all ratted me out to the SRI for rendition?

There’s been some recent hubbub about how most of the original seven wonders of the world no longer exist (the ongoing search for Atlantis notwithstanding).

Basically, since the majority no longer exist, there seems to be a movement underway to select what are the world’s current seven wonders.

Did you register to vote?

While some autocrats might demand kitty hijabs or vibrating panties be included, the fact remains that we’re all pretending to have a somewhat democraticish deliberation about the matter. Of course, since the Giza pyramids are one of the original seven, we must include them. But you cannot include superdogs. So, then, who else?

I propose the following reasonable choice for the next four slots, which you will no doubt concur with me are entirely obvious.

• Easter Island statues
• Great Wall of China
• Statue of Liberty
• Stonehenge

Yabbit, that’s only five! Settle down, Jim Bob, the next two might have been unjustifiably overlooked by the idiots running the show, but that doesn’t mean we have to be stupid like they are. Not at all. In fact, let’s just go on and declare the final two wonders of the world to the public at large.

• The Internet
• Romania’s Alien Eggs

Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis? Oh, I forgot. You aren’t aware that the alien invasion has already begun. They’ve planted their filthy seed for an extraterrestrial insurrection. They are among us, now.

Heck, anyone who has ever driven across the country on Romanian highways knows that basic fact. No UFO conspiracy needed. There are so many alien eggs that street vendors setup roadside kiosks every several kilometers and sell them for a mere 5 to 7 dollars.

Just look at that glowing skin, all covered in a kind of sweat that makes the soft exterior a bit slippery like a dolphin’s flesh. Or an eel. Did you look close enough to see how it seems slightly transparent too? I dare ya to poke that egg a little. It’ll give way to the pressure of your pinky.

And here you thought I was only joking, didn’t ya? S’okay to admit it. We’re gathered together here around this blog, all of us holding virtual hands in order to support one another in our pursuit of the truth no matter how much it might shake your faith. The aliens are real and in Transylvania right now.

But just because you can pick up your own alien egg from any number of bored farmers‘ wives by the side of the road or at some local grocery stores, don’t assume everything is on the up and up. Oh no. Let’s not be naive, shall we?

What’s important to realize is with Romania’s looming entry into the EU, the populace has very slowly shed it skin of communist cronyism (at least, to outward appearances) and adopted a laissez faire market system where anything goes.

It’s total anarchy out there. If you need proof, you only need cast your eyes as far as the next place with alien eggs for sale. They’ve studied the guerrilla marketing tactics of Americans and understand that if you affix a price tag to most any old thing, there’s always some sucker who’ll think it’s valuable.

Whoa there, hoss. Just hold your horses.

I know you’re excited to buzz right on over to the hinterlands of the Black Sea, but you need to understand these alien eggs aren’t child’s play. Why, they’re downright dangerous. Ask anyone.

Or did you think they tied its’ mouth shut for no reason whatsoever?

The locals always tie shut the alien egg’s mouth to keep it from biting your head off. Personally, I find it to be a curiously welcome practice. I suppose the general idea is that you shouldn’t get attacked by extraterrestrial beings until you’re darn good and ready.

Keep in mind that no one advocates you to do stupid things. For example, I could tell you about the time I saw some nutjob on Westheimer. Riding his Ducati without a helmet. Sitting on the front with his arms behind him to control the handlebars. Popping wheelies at ludicrous speed. And probably loaded on coke.

Oh, yes, but I know you, reader.

You’re not convinced about all that crazy “safety precaution” mumbo jumbo.

As soon as you’ve unleashed the beast, the first thing you’ll notice is its’ breath which smells a bit like a piquant cheese. If the creature opens its’ lips to try biting your fingers off, you may notice that the internal composition also resembles soft cheese.

Anyone might be able to leap to the next logical conclusion that this similarity, this familiarity, is the probable cause for locals to actually tell foreigners the alien egg is made of cheese. The funny part is that tourists believe it.

Oh, but I don’t mean humorous in that context. I believe the rationale behind the acceptance of this fallacy is that no one person has a monopoly on the various historical lessons offered to humanity by Mr. Ulyanov and Onkel Wolf.

Basically, the rumors say this so-called “branza de burduf” is a centuries-old Transylvanian culinary tradition. Today, in villages and towns across the Transylvania region of Romania, local people continue making food the original way, slowly, using the finest milk from sheep who graze exclusively on the heavily-flowered grasses of the green lowlands.

When the sheep are milked, the flavorful liquid is slowly transformed into a solid using a rich, natural source of cheese creating enzymes — the stomachs of lambs slaughtered for food. After a few days, the cheesemaker will tear off a big chunk, add a little salt, and begin kneading it like dough.

Once prepared, it can be stored a few different ways. They say that sometimes the cheese is stored in curled back of pine trees, although I’ve never seen this personally, which slightly alters the taste. Others say it can be stored in thin sheep skin, but I understand this is rare. It seems the most popular method is to store the cheese right back into stomach linings for preservation.

Thus, the lie is complete. Who can argue with all the details of such a fantastic story? So, what happens, you see, is that people actually eat the innards!

One method is to promptly scoop some of the “cheese” out with a small knife and spread it over soft lipie, fold in half and dive into a delicious quesadilla-like creation. You may find yourself repeating this process more than once.

I’ve personally witnessed branza de burduf used in a divisified range of recipes. Scrambled eggs with ceapa, ardei, and alien penetralia. Make an omelette with a mix of cheeses including Transylvanian burduf. A little breakfast sandwich made from toast with branza and eggs over easy, anyone?

No need to stop there. Salatines with alien egg make a great snack. For prinz, your delicious tocaniţa can be further enhanced by adding this special Romanian cheese which not only imbues new flavor but also makes the texture creamy. I’ve put branza de burduf in homemade marinara sauce to give both pizzas and pasta that extra oomph.

The possibilities seem endless.

Especially if you take into account the spread of the cover-up throughout other cultures who then create fusion foods. The Slovaks have bryndza. The Germans created a fake cheese documentary of what was really an alien autopsy. Romanian experts are invited to lecture in Italy, fueling a larger trend of Romanian cuisine. Even the distant island of Japan talks about it.

Just don’t believe the hype about ancient cheeses of Transylvania. It’s not “branza de burduf” you find for sale in Romania. If it looks like an alien egg, feels like an alien eggs, and smells like an alien egg, then I submit to you that it’s high time we acknowledge the presence of UFOs in eastern Europe.

Not only do many stores carry them, but even passers-by whizzing through the lush Romanian landscape will find roadside kiosks planted everywhere and selling innumberable strange objects that look just like alien eggs. I, for one, welcome our cheese-laden overlords and hope they don’t become overly aggressive.

Oh, yeah. One more thing. Branza buna in burduf de caine.

Which is to say never — ever — leave your alien egg unsupervised when Spammy Van Helsing lurks about.

Competition in the marketplace is a requirement economic progress. Perhaps a majority of my readers take that for granted. Nonetheless, it would be safe to say a large number of communist party cronies never learned that lesson when they were centrally planning how to suck blood out of turnips.

It wouldn’t be hard to believe when the SRI backers of Illiescu’s coup d’etat got the payoff of suddenly owning state industries, most of these ill-gotten gains were left on cruise control as the inheritors of largess splayed themselves for various corporate suitors. The different relatives of political allies and fellow criminals surely found nice jobs in various management roles.

The long and short of it is that, with some exceptions to the rule, captaining of the economic machinery remained in the hands of people who not only didn’t know how to compete, but very likely didn’t have the wherewithall to even try. A stagnant culture of the privileged has been ensconced in many Romanian industries and their lack of innovation is testimony.

Over fifteen years later, most “revolutionaries” have long since cashed-in by divesting themselves of majority interest in any number of firms and moved on to find younger wives while foreign investors breathed new life into old entities. Meanwhile, many aspiring Romanians have leapt roughshod onto the back capitalism — that bucking and brawling beast — hanging on a full 8 seconds to profitability.

But not Romtelecom.

Nossir. It seems they’ve had a goodly percentage of upper management who hail from the old school of indulgence. As the formerly state-owned, fixed phone monopoly sat on its’ collective duff with respect to improving service offerings, a number of cable companies scurried about quickly harvesting nuts in the form of broadband internet access and IP telephony services, in addition to the requisite delivery of all those mindnumbing TV shows slapped togther to sell ads.

And let’s not forget Romtelecom’s failure to win any significance in the wireless market. While the old men upstairs did, technically, have CosmoRom cellular on the books, no one seemed to press down the accelerator in any serious way. Connex and Orange simply walked away with the entire marketplace without any noteworthy challenge from Romtelecom. Heck, even the underestimated Zapp outperformed Albastru Mare.

A distant, but increasing threat, to the viability of Romtelecom’s presence in Romania has been rollout of DECT (and, most recently DECT+VoIP) in limited cities which not only undermines equipment and installation revenue but (now) further foments a potential technological leapfrog over the need to have any POTS phone whatsoever.

One might counter that nearly all ex-monopolies of European governments have failed in various markets, so there’s nothing new under the sun. Heck, even AT&T has been losing ground on nearly all fronts for quite some time. And maybe you’d be right.

The wealthy folks who run these institutions seems to get only one thing done well. They all successfully advertise, advertise, advertise. They have professional posters, brochures, television spots, and print ads. Clear, crisp designs that follow a style guide developed by someone with experience.

Not that their marketing efforts actually have a message to communicate. No, most of the time, it seems the telecom giants simply follow in the vague branding footsteps of cola products and prescription medicines. You get weird advertisements full of people who look nothing like you (and, in this case, I mean they don’t even look Romanian, let alone typical Romanian) who are constantly smiling about things you don’t understand.

It’s the latest trend in branding. Happy people who always laugh, look more attractive than you, dress better than you, have more free time than you, and own more expensive things than you. Don’t you see it? It’s everything they want you to want yourself to be. And it doesn’t actually mean a thing. Image over substance.

Starting to sound a bit rantworthy, eh?

Alright, so let’s take a look at what’s been happening lately. I think the old guard commies have been slowly pushed out of their entrenched cubicles of the Romtelecom bureaucracy. See, somewhere around 2002, the national telephone company of Romania was bought by some Greeks.

I imagine the first order of business was to circle the wagons, lop off any limb bleeding like a stuck pig, initiate the purging of deadweight in failed management, and plant the seeds for corporate-wide re-education. For a while, it must have looked a bit like the bumbling three stooges as they dropped the ball a couple of times, but I’d say they’re just now starting to get things right.

Sure, they still have radically overpriced telephones for sale in their little stores which no one but bunica buys. But just take a look at the big turn-around in the wireless market; they’ve literally pulled off a miracle with Cosmote, by erasing the past failures, launching a new brand of the same thing, and creating enough room for them to be taken as a serious player. They’re bareknuckle fighting with better plans and better prices.

And then there’s broadband, the particular service which most interests me.

One year ago, Romtelecom had just launched their very first 2Mbps ADSL service. In fact, it was so new that when I walked into their main office in the centru, the sales reps swore up and down that no such service existed. A guy would actually have to argue with them, pull up their very own website on their own computers to show them, and even go so far as to demand they call supervisors, managers and Bucureşti. Finally, they admitted it.

“Oh, yeah, well, I guess you’re right… looks like we do have a 2Mbps internet.”

That’s how reality on the ground was just a year ago. By American standards, 2Mbps was fairly laughable. Then again, by western European standards, it was entirely laughable. Not only did Romtelecom’s own employees never hear of the service, but they stared at my dumbfounded that I would actually sign a one year contract to pay 100€ per month.

Sure, all Americans drop gold coins out of their pockets, but who would seriously pay 100€ per month for internet access at home? Heh. If it came down to a choice, I’d rather stop eating.

There were other options, of course. For 50€, Romtelecom offered a 1Mbps ADSL service. And I knew that some people were getting some limited cable-based internet access for even less money, although it was only the local loop which was high speed whereas real connections to the internet were tepid.

The thing you need to realize is that information is so last year.

For the upcoming 2007 business year, Romtelecom has undergone a fairly serious mini-revolution with respect to its internet service offerings. In a recent bill sent to me in the mail, Romtelecom included a little brochure about their new prices for broadband service via the ClickNet brand/partnership.

Say, what an exciting time to be alive. That’s pretty impressive to drop the 1Mbps service from the old 50€ price down to only 15€! Enter the mysterious yabbit, because I’m not going to buy such a slow connection. Maybe if we open the brochure and read on a little further, we’ll discover something of a bit more interest.

Aha! Now, we’re talkin’ turkey, folks. Whereas Romtelecom used to charge 100€ for 2Mbps, they’re now offering me even more bandwidth at 2.5Mbps for about a third of the price, only 29€.

Clearly, this is evidence that the cable companies’ heretofore unchallenged dominance of the Romanian internet access market has finally caused enough changes in the management of Romtelecom such that someone is actually doing something about it. Oh yeah, baby, this is the main benefit of the free market system at work. Better products, lower prices.

I’d go so far as to say it’s pretty obvious Romtelecom now has the best offer on the market, just like that. And since the cable companies are eating into the fixed phone business by offering internet+VoIP, now Romtelecom is sensibly offering a compelling bundle as well, in order to compete on par for those customers currently buying bundled services from cable companies.

I have to imagine that in another year or two there is a strong chance that Romtelecom’s offer will yet again improve, as they battle cable companies in tit-for-tat skirmishes just as happens in the United States and other industrialized nations. It’s good for both customers and the businesses themselves in the long-run.

Here’s a first! Romtelecom’s ClickNet finally allows you to conduct your own installations. I remember 10 years ago when DSL companies in America would require some bozo to come out to your place and install some mickeymouse PPPoE software onto your machine (half of which was spyware or adware) or they’d refuse to provide service.

That’s where Romtelecom was last year. I had to wait not only for someone to process my order, provision the line, and then activate the circuit on the local DSLAM, but then two clowns had to come into my place and muck around for nearly an hour. Neither of them had any real computer experience.

They only knew how to tinker with Windows XP, which left them in a sore spot when it came to Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2003 Server. The Macintosh both intrigued and frightened them. Ubuntu and linux were two words they’d never heard of before. In fact, they insisted that “the internet” was only compatible with XP.

Given my strong distaste for XP, that created something of a problem. Of course, in the end, they couldn’t get anything to work at all, so I dabbled around a bit while they watched me solve all the problems in order to bring myself online. Still, they were friendly guys and I was starving for bandwidth, so I thanked them a lot for stopping by.

And then when I moved across town, the whole Romtelecom circus repeated.

Usually the theory is that the customer is an idiot. So, the telecom providers feel the need to send out a few of their entirely too many technicians to the scene of each incident. Eventually, companies learn this hurts profits by increasing installation costs as well as potentially disaffects the customer with undesirable scheduling delays. So, they end up adopting self-installation kits.

The customer orders DSL service, a modem in a box arrives at their door, the user does the 30 seconds of configuration work, and everything happens faster. At worst, a truely lost customer may not read the directions and have to call the company for two minutes of handholding.

I’m generally averse to people touching my computers. I tend to lock them with passwords, too. So, you can imagine that I’m very happy to see self installation kits available in Romania. No longer do I have to let some befuddled “eXPert” with bushy gray eyebrows fumble his way through computer dialogue as I embarrass him by snorting indignantly over his shoulder.

Notice they offer three different kinds of modems, too. I’m not at all sure what reasonably intelligent person would want a USB-connected ADSL modem. It’s entirely too limiting, but I suppose there are ignorant and lazy people. Why would Romtelecom offer lower prices for it? Why, to keep you restricted to only one computer online, of course. Odds are that a single computer won’t eat up as much bandwidth as multiple computers.

On the other end of that spectrum, they offer a 6-port ethernet modem which will route a local network of up to six machines. That’s probably a great idea for small businessess, like a real estate agency, who have a few computers but no tech savvy staff members. It’d be a really silly choice for just about anyone else.

No, thanks. I’ll take the 1-port ethernet modem and then connect it to my own multi-port router with wifi. While having ethernet ports available can come in very handy once in a while, the practical matter is no one really wants winding cables all over their apartment, home, or business. What an unsightly mess. For less than 100 bucks, you can pick up a great wireless router and join those of us living in the present.

So, why would I sign a two or three year contract? I wouldn’t. “Free installation” is not enough of a cost to justify my losing the opportunity to re-assess the best deal next year. It might be that cable companies finally start offering 4-6Mbps for 25 euro as they do in some countries, in which case I’d want to switch.

But I understand the offer. Not all buyers will analyze things the way I have. Instead, they’ll focus only on their immediate out-of-pocket costs and thus lock themselves into an arrangement just to save a couple bucks up front. I can understand Romtelecom’s desire to lock-in as many customers as possible.

Afterall, the cable companies will have to respond in some way during the next year or two. They might wait a while to assess how successful Romtelecom’s new offers are, but they won’t wait forever. Right now, cable no longer offers the best value for your money and anyone not locked into a contract should think about changing.

RDS is popularly considered the worst possible service provider, with renown failures to adequately deliver the bandwidth they promise. They recently opened up a new office just around the corner from my block, which would make paying convenient. (Americans: you cannot pay bills online or even by mail, but must show up in the flesh and fight the crowds in order to clear your account.)

But, all the same, no thanks. RDS currently charges 19,5€ for a 1Mbps connection, whereas you can get time and a half speed for the same price from Romtelecom.

Then you’ve got Astral, the cable provider considered to be good quality. However, they seem to be embarrassed about their prices. They’ve hidden all discussion of price so you cannot know what the cost is. A quick googling finds one website declaring Astral charges 23€ for a pathetic 128kbps dribble.

That couldn’t possibly be right. I remember last year’s discussion about the exciting BPL developments in Romania wherein a number of kindly folks tried to explained to me that Astral was offering 1.5Mbps for 23€. In fact, back then Astral used to actually list their prices online. Maybe not on the English portion of their website, but at least in the romaneşte.

Now? Nothing. I wonder if they’ve been increasing prices for all new customers. That might explain why they would be embarrassed to show prices on their website. Astral was bought by UPC and the parent company UPC has it’s own Romanian website which also hides the prices.

The intrepid link hacker will press onward to exhaust all possibilities, search every possible nook and cranny until the clam is forced open and the pearl revealed. Aşa e, nu? And so it is that we eventually discover an obscure page with prices on it where we find UPC is charging over 27€ for 1.5Mbps which is roughly 50% more than Romtelecom.

It stands to reason this is probably Astral’s price for new customers as well, which would explain their unwillingness to openly display prices. Or, at least, that makes more sense than the only other explanation of UPC charging different prices for the same service just because the brand name was different. On the other hand, a recent survey of cable providers in Romania says that Astral is actually charging 31,5€ for 1.5Mbps service.

Yet things get even more interesting.

Not long after I received that happy litlte brochure with it’s significantly lower prices, I received a separate letter in the mail from Romtelecom again. Instead of being another invoice, this was a simple announcement to let people like me — you know, the suckers who fork out big bucks for the best connectivity available — know Romtelecom is going to be upgrading their premium 100€ service to double the bandwidth at 4Mbps.

Hooo doggy! Somebody catch me while I faint.

I mean, by gosh by golly, that there 4Mbps is dern near the normal speeds much of the outside world receives. It’s liable to make a feller happy as a pig in shit, I tell you whut. Granted, back in the states, I’d be pulling down at least 6Mbps if not 8Mbps. But 4Mbps is nothing to sneeze at either, even if the Romanian upload speeds continue to be a complete and utter crock.

So, what’s a guy to do? Take a very small bump in the speed he’s pretended to get used to, while pocketing a sizeable chunk of change? Or keep burning the wallet at both ends, finally reaching a speed that really begins to feel almost normal? Lemme know, y’all, cuz I’m powerful confused…