Romania hosts Sommet Internationale de la Francophonie

http://www.amb-roumanie.fr/francofonie.html
Romania hosts the XI Sommet Internationale de la Francophonie today.

22 Presidents
11 Prime Ministers
36 External Ministers
2 Vice-Presidents
1 Prince (Albert de Monaco)

Romania will spend ~400,000 EUR to hosts the guests....

Book your trip to Romania online

Found another website today for international but also local tourists to book their trip to Romania. The site is in Romanian/English. Select your language and take a look.

Bill Gates needs romanian workers

Microsoft is preparing to open its first technical support center in Romania. They have like 100 jobs for experts that will work starting with January 2007. Each candidate must have a degree in IT, must be comunicative and spontaneous. It will be the largest technical support center in Eastern Europe. The employment procedure will start in October 2006. The future Microsoft employees will join a training process helped by the Gov and Ministry of Education.

In the first phase the target will be focused on customers from Germany and France, and anotheor request is that the candidates must know german and french language very good.

The payments announced are: 400-500 EUR for unexperienced workers and 600-700 for people with a minimum 2 years experience.

Steaua Bucharest owned Dinamo Kiev in UEFA Champions League

FC Steaua Bucuresti issued a warning to the rest of their Group E opponents by beginning their first UEFA Champions League group-stage campaign in a decade with a hugely impressive victory at FC Dynamo Kyiv.
First-half flourishGoals by Sorin Ghionea, Valentin Badea and Nicolae Dica put the Romanian champions in a commanding position after an electric first half and although Serhiy Rebrov also found the net for Dynamo in the opening period, the Ukrainian side's hopes were finally ended with eleven minutes remaining when Dica galloped clear to crown Steaua's night with a fine finish.
Early goalSteaua had made a sensational start in Kiev, taking the lead as early as the third minute and stunning the NSC Olympiyskiy Stadium into near-silence. Defender Ghionea, one of four players restored to the Steaua lineup after a 1-0 weekend win at FC 2005 Pitesti, ghosted into the box at the far post for an inswinging corner and his firm header set the goals rolling.
Dynamo level Three minutes later, Dynamo midfielder Ayila Yussuf had a shot kicked off the line by Rahamin Saban, although the whistle had already blown for a foul on Steaua goalkeeper Carlos Alberto Fernandes. Dynamo only had to wait until the 16th minute to draw level as Ukrainian international Rebrov scored his 20th UEFA Champions League goal – and his first since March 2000 - by powerfully prodding the ball past Fernandes after latching on to Diogo Rincón's incisive pass. Rebrov came close to adding to his total soon after but his swerving drive was too high to trouble Fernandes.
Steaua strike back Steaua, determined not to be intimidated by their now resurgent hosts, found a higher gear and moved in front again with another header in the 24th minute. Badea was the marksman, stooping to connect with Dica's clever cross following a throw-in which caught Dynamo completely unawares and his diving effort beat Olexandr Shovkovskiy by going in off a post. Provider then turned scorer as Dica registered the fourth goal of an astonishing first half in the 43rd minute, curling in a superb free-kick from 25 metres to give the visitors a two-goal cushion.
Rebrov missDynamo battled hard to get back into the match after the restart and looked their most threatening from set-pieces, as a series of deliveries induced a measure of panic in Steaua's rearguard, most notably when Rebrov volleyed into the side-netting from close range following a corner. Fellow forward Maksim Shatskikh also tested Fernandes with a flicked header but the Portuguese keeper was comfortably equal to the effort.
Dica doubleAs a result of their increased forward thrusts, Dynamo were left totally exposed at the back as they chased the game and Dica made them pay with his second strike late on, sprinting into a seemingly endless amount of space before neatly clipping the ball over the onrushing Shovkovskiy for Steaua's fourth goal which capped a memorable return to the UEFA Champions League group stage.

Took the article from UEFA's website

Go Go Go Steaua Bucharest !

Romanian invalid walked over 5,200 km in a wheel chair across Europe

Vasile Stoica, a romanian from Lugoj city managed to cross Europe in a wheel chair. He did this journey in 2 months and 4 days since he left Bucharest. Stoica has arrived in the Cabo Finisterre, Spain (http://tinyurl.com/edwyb , see the map in the link) also know as "The end of the world in Spain".



His only help in this journey were his hands used to control the wheelchair for 5,200 km ! When he reach his destination he was welcomed by the mayor Jose Manuel Traba Fernandez, prince William von Habsurg and a large number of locals.

"Thanks to everyone who made today more the complete a dream: they offered a wave of hope to the entire community of invalid people in Romania. I hope my expedition will demonstrate the humans capacity to exceed his own limits." he said.

Vasile Stoicas has crossed through: Romania, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France and Spain. His journey wasn't absent of challenges. From canicular weather in Hungary to the forests fire in Spain which made him long his trip with more then 200 km's.

When he started the trip on 7 July his attendant was Calin Popescu Tariceanu (the prime-minister of Romania) riding a bicycle in paralel from mile 0 of Bucharest till he Government headquarters.

Is Romania ready to join UE in 2007 ? I guess not.

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Gang robs eBay car buyer at gunpoint

Not only romanians have diabolic ideeas in ripping people online, see an example from UK below.

A gang which set up a fake eBay car auction robbed the would-be buyer at gunpoint when he met to close the deal, The Daily Mirror reports.
Shahzad Ali Shah, 23, agreed to meet the "seller" in Dagenham after successfully negotiating to buy the Mercedes Benz Kompressor C180. Shah felt "assured" by the vendor's 92.3 per cent approval rating and agreed to pay for the vehicle in cash after he demanded hard currency.

Student Shah, of Crawley, West Sussex, explained: "The man said if I paid in cash he would not offer it to anyone else. He said if I had the cash, the car was available and we could do the deal straight away. I put in an offer for £5,500 and he accepted."
Later the same day, 20 August, brother-in-law Shaharayar Talpur drove Shah and his mother Shahnaz to the meeting point. Shah's mother, a catering assistant, had saved for 15 months to buy her son the car as a university graduation present.
Shah recounted: "While waiting, two youths came towards us as if checking who was in the car. We moved to the main road as something didn't feel right, but when we parked there, the two guys and two others got out of a Vauxhall Corsa behind and approached us.
"An Asian guy told my brother-in-law to open the window and when he refused he pulled a gun from his fleece. He ordered him to open the door and took the keys so we couldn't drive off. He kept saying, 'You're here for the Merc - where's the money?'
"I said we didn't know anything and didn't have any money, but he just walked over and pointed the gun at me. Mum was terrified."
The gang made off with £5,580 plus Shahnaz's purse, phone, and credit cards. She told The Mirror: "I saw them point the gun at him [her son], the man started counting and I was so scared something would happen to him. I'm relieved my son was unhurt but I'm still having flashbacks now. I'm still scared."
During the robbery, one of the perpetrators "accidentally hit a button" on the stolen phone and dialled Shahnaz's daughter Zohar, 14, who was able to listen to the whole ordeal. She in turn called her sister Jabeen in panic, who later recalled: "When Zohar answered all she could hear was Mum screaming and the man shouting at her to give him her money. She was so worried she called me to say, 'Mum's in trouble'. She's still upset now."
Police are investigating the robbery. Shah told The Mirror that they "have told him data protection laws governing eBay and the fact the gang's car reg plates were fake have hampered their hunt".
eBay assured: "We've an excellent relationship with police and always provide information and assistance when requested." ®

9/11 - five years later

I was reading the online edition of New York Times and I found this article about 9/11

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/11/nyregion/nyregionspecial3/11bush.html?
hp&ex=1157947200&en=a7327939fe3dbc66&ei=5094&partner=homepage

It was a very sad day. A few romanians died too that time. Everybody R.I.P.

Who's fault it was ?

Added a new folder in my gallery with a few pictures with mountain scenes

...in order to complete the tourism post that I made earlier

You can view the pictures here -> http://s110.photobucket.com/albums/n93/romaniainpictures/Mountain%20Scenes%20in%20Romania/?start=all

The pictures are from Predeal city. It is located 138 km north of capital Bucharest. Great place to spend a one week journey during the winter season. Enjoy them , more to come. If you need any acommodation info's about these area , email me and I will digg up for you for some fresh reviews and prices.

There are many things to be said here, and they will be completed daily.

Tourism for sex in Romania

You probably don't know but Romania has also a large interest for so named "sex tourism". High prostitution networks activate here, and recently activate online in order to recruit new clients. Many times they use footage to blackmail their customers. I don't know exactly how they manage to bring soooo many abroad customers for sex , I guess they have some kind of recruiters in other countries that get some kind of affiliates there. Anyways it's a very high profitable business among the romanian mob's, and many times they have the full support of authorities by offering them bribe (and why not, sex favours). Oh you didn't know that ? Then join the club and come here for sex, people would love you anyway because you spend cash here and make profit to Romania. I believe that 7 out of 10 people have blackmail troubles when they come for sex. If you feel lucky you might get away easy, but do you feel better when you have sex with a kid under age of 18 which is 7/10 times being held forced to do this job ? Think twice before you do that, otherwise you might be unlucky and get some years into romanian prisons, which are not so hospitaliere.

Who are the customers ? Of course, the same western european citizens who come here to molest homeless kids. Although in some western european countries the prostituion has been legalised, they rather come here to fulfill their pervert sexual wishes with kids which are forced to practice this.

Romania hunted by child molesters !

Romania is very famous among the western european child molesters , especially from Germany, Holland, UK, Austria and others. Almost every month we have a new public case (it might be other cases too but they are not made public because of the European Union...)

I hate those pricks , most of them are over 50 years old and have a very good material situation,they have families in their countries, respectable jobs and they won't bring up any doubt that they are able to do that shit.

I don't know why they choose Romania all the time, I think they have some kind of online forums where they discuss these things otherwise I can't imagine how they arrive here only to molest kids.

They often choose the homeless kids who live in sewage system or in improvised homes.




Kids like the ones presented upper in photos have no fault because they have this life. Most of them come from disordered families where their parents drink all the money they have and send them to beg on crossroads, train and bus stations etc to get them money for drink. If they don't do that are beaten very hard and tortured sometimes by cutting them their hands, legs etc. In this way they impress people even more and get money easy then they were not handicapped. If they have a handicap, the parents benefit of another amounts of money from the Gov't and other humanitarian organizations from all over the world. Those monsters deserve to be jailed for life.

Anyways let's talk about the other monsters category, the child molesters monsters who deserve to be jailed for life without any other rights. They come to Romania and pick the kids random from the train and bus stations, crossroads or simply saw them when they leave their improvised houses in forests etc. Those kids don't have a very bright mind and they fall into this deal with them very easily. They are attracted with some food, money, clothes or any other favours that these pricks do for them, then 90% of the cases are being raped in rented hotel rooms or apartments. Sometimes those idiots come to Romania with special audio-video recording equipments and film them as they are molested. The tapes go over the Internet to be viewed by other sick mind people and so on. It is relative rare when a cases with child molesters are made public because they attract the international press eyes to Romania and the Gov't prefers to cover up these guys. All this shit just to join the European Union and look much cleaner in front of it. Hell with EU too. That's why more and more are coming to Romania to commit this crime because they know they won't be caught so easy.

I have no doubt that I will have to post here more articles in the forthcoming future.

By the way, my personal opinion in this matter is that I believe those humanitarian rights agencies who come to Romania to help those kids are owned or conducted by child molesters too, and sometimes they shut the kids mouth to disclose other cases among them.

Some videos that I found today on YouTube presenting Romania ...

Here are some videos about Romania. Romania simply surprising

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzcuBbztn-0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isSD7bmt-IM

They must have been created by our Ministery of Tourism

Romanians on Internet , beware

Romanians have a great appetite in the last 3-4 years for Internet. Statistics say that the number of Internet users since 2002-2003 till now grow up with 300%. Not bad, the net is pretty cheap around here and has a decent quality, each city with a population over 20,000 citizens has networks inside neighborhoods and share it with everyone for prices starting from 10$ a month for broadband. They love to sit all day long and chat on Yahoo Messenger, chat on mIRC or write posts in forums with misc themes.

Many romanians become famous in Romania because of Internet and computers. Many students who graduated were hired at Microsoft's empire, Google, IBM occasionally NASA too because of their high skills in technology! Although the universities don't benefit of a decent technology to teach their students and practice, they start learning on their own at home surfing the net for info's, you must have ambition otherwise no one can help you out. Of course, the school costs, the hardware costs too and it's pretty hard to handle all, here is the moment when ambition interferes and gets you the power to advance.

The second category of romanians (who disgrace Romania online and International) we the people who have their principal occupation STEALING FROM THE PEOPLE ! Let me tell you about these guys, most of them have no future and are members of disordered families. The rest of the people who participate in this branch often have a decent material situation and do this stealing job just to get easy money and look cooler, they call themselves "carders".

Until 2 or 3 years ago their main occupation was to scam people on auctions (eBay auctions, Yahoo auctions and ... other site who offer that service). I saw a few articles on the net a few years ago posted by people who got scammed online by romanians and they were saying: "Where is Valcea country located?" Wow, Valcea is a relative small city located in Romania, not so rich, where the main job of the teenagers is to steal online. Every teenager there learns how to steal online from their older friends. It seems funny but it's not.

Many times the people who used to scam people online were being helped by other people who worked inside Western Union offices for a bribe, helping them to withdraw money without having the full info of the transfers. That's not unusual here, bribe is everywhere and you can do almost everything you want if you offer someone a bribe. They have large networks in their apartments where their conduct their business. Imagine 10-15 computers in a large apartment where each computer is used to scam people online... that is a big profit for them working in teams. In other larger cities it's a real mafia where other mob's get kids to work for them and get them big profits from scamming.

That auctions scamming business is almost gone in Romania now because nobody falls to it when they are asked to wire money via Western Union, Money Gram or other online money sending service. So the guys were being helped by the law. In 2002 the romanians didn't need a visa to enter for 90 days in each european country (except UK). They moved with their gangs there and continued to scam people. This happens the moment I write now too. Nobody can stop this phenomenon since newbies are on the Internet everyday and they enjoy very much when they found a once in a lifetime offer listed on eBay. They don't read any tips and advices before and the fall into it. That's bad...

Anyways, since ... 2003 till now (and continues) romanians have a new national job in stealing money from Internet. Almost all concentrated to carding business. They started back in 2003 creating fake site copies of US banks and started to send untargeted emails got from Internet with all kind of software to people asking them to complete online their personal info's like credit card number, expiration date, cvv and PIN used in ATM transactions. It's been a total success that time, thousands of cards were coming everyday and the people's accounts were being voided in a few minutes ! You've probably saw tons of news at TV, newspapers and online with tips how to protect yourself from phishers. Using tools bought online from the web to counterfeit the cards they cash out the cards right here in Romania. After a year or so Romania was banned from having ATM transactions with some banks in US. But the people again relocated into western european countries and continued their business. It works now too, from time to time I read in newspapers articles about romanians who got caught in misc european countries for illegal activities regarding credit cards fraud.

Romanians are so called "masters" in ATM fraud too. They designed many atm skimmers (a skimmer is some sort of device mounted on ATM machines in order to copy the magnetic stripe on the back of your card). Helped by a tiny camera mounted above the keypad they can clone your card in a matter of minutes and empty your account. The operate in every european countries, but also in Romania lately. Some of them had the luck to get fraudulent in USA, Australia and in Asia countries. This activity can bring them million dollars a year. It's not something to be proud with, it's a shame for Romania but we can't do almost nothing to stop it. We hope they get caught and ... that's it.

Romanian tourism spots. Huge potential but only few international guests ?

People love to visit Romania because of we have a gorgeous country and because of the low prices we have here (travelers believe that, we don't). Most of the country territory is attractive , from our many mountain resorts to Danube Delta and the Black Sea shore.. You can practice here almost every form of tourism. You can do any winter sports, any sea related sports, fishing and hunting or do anything you want because you have where to chose. The accommodation is pretty cheap compared to other countries if you chose to book a trip with a tour operator, if you come here by your own you might pay a little more. The food is cheap, alcohol is very very cheap (many scandinavian tourists chose visit sea shore very often for the fun here , low prices to alcohol and for the hot chicks). You can choose to stay in a 5* hotel room or get a cheap mountain chalet room for 10$ per day or stay at the locals with all included.

Many tourists leave Romania offering us a good feedback , but not all enjoy their journey here... Well this rule is about everywhere (see Egypt for example where everything looks amazing in brochures but when you arrive there you don't see what you've been promised to see. You can't satisfy everyone, but it happens alot here to meet unsatisfied customers. Most of them are not satisfied because of the services which are not exactly the way as they expected to be. They have a bad taste in their mouth some times from the very first minute they arrive in Romania, starting at customs where they meet our the jerk customs officers. They always must act like jerks, I dont know why, I think they feel much powerfull when they do that. Anways, forget those idiots and meet the unhospitalier hotels staff. Sometimes you have to beg them to change your bed clothes or do a service that they are indebted to do it for free. Offer them a good tip and in return you might receive a very false smile or a funny invidious look.

I almost forgot to mention you about our taxi cab drivers (or should I say rippers?) You don't have to look for them, they will recognize you that you are a tourist and convince you to get in their dirty pirate cabs. If you did the mistake to have a trip with them, don't make any scenes, just pay them and consider that a personal mistake for don't opening your eyes carefully and order a cab by phone. If something goes wrong call the police, get their plate numbers then fill a complaint (which is useless). Oh and before them, you have a high chance to meet a beggar who will try to get some money from you. While they are around you, take a close look on your luggages.

You can get a pre-paid phone SIM card as you arrive here from any store, gas station, airport, train station, etc. It costs around 10$ with with ~6$ available credit. Every pre-paid card has roaming active and you can call you friends or relatives abroad in a matter of minutes using a regular cell phone.

If you need any last minute travel info's email me with any questions and I'll respond to you in a few hours.

Travelling to the Black Sea shore resorts

More pictures from Mamaia can be seen here http://s110.photobucket.com/albums/n93/romaniainpictures/MAMAIA/?start=all

Another short video about Romania seaside can be viewed here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6M5_-e5eJI

The summer season starts from May 1 and lasts till September 15 usually. But it's recommended to arrive here from the beginning of June till 30 August to enjoy a good weather (and beautiful woman's). The main seaside resorts are: Mamaia, Eforie, Costinesti & Neptun.

You can get to Mamaia, the main resort by car (2:30 hours far from Bucharest) or train (around 3 hours by train) or you can chose by plane, but the airport is kinda far from Mamaia and it's not recommended... View Mamaia resort from satellite here.In paralel with Mamaia is a nice lake with where you can find a terrace to have a meal or get a drink, or you can have fun with a ski-jet or practice other sports on the lake.

Mamaia is the one I recommend it to you, it's linked to Constanta city and it is very modern, populated mainly with people under 30's. Many great clubs can be found here (house clubs with great parties every weekend and DJ's all over the world like: Hernan Cattaneo, Fat Boy Slim, John Digweed, Deep Dish, Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk, Shiloh, Armin Van Buuren, Sander Kleidenberg, etc). You can also find on the beach lounges and mini bars to serve a drink or get a meal. Many new are being built currently and the old ones are renovated. Prices to the hotels vary during the season based on the month you arrive and week and the hotel * qualification. Many small stores can be found here too (most of them suck because of the merchandise which is imported mainly from Turkey, but you can find good stores in Constanta). Romanians do not negociate the prices, eventually if you are not carefull enough to read the correct price they raise the price without your knowledge. Be carefull when you pay with a credit card and try to observe if other dispositives beside POS are used to swipe your card ! Same rule when using ATM machines, if anything looks suspicious for you stay away from that ATM. A cool aquapark can be found too. You won't be bored for sure here if you chose to stay for about 10 days. Travellers chose Mamaia for the best romanian chicks that can be found here during the summer time (hint: they can be picked up very easily since each one of them believes that foreigners are full of money and they will marry them or buy them expensive stuff :D) so enjoy your trip to Mamaia, you will return for sure. It's a tiny replica of Ibiza with great clubs to party.


The rest of the seaside resorts like Eforie, Costinesti and Neptun kinda suck because they are less fun and modern. Many red necks there, kinda lame atmosphere. I won't recommend them. Oh, I almost forgot about Vama Veche, it's very popular here for the rockers, bikers and unprejudiced people. It worths to spend a day here and see what I'm talking about. It's around 55 km far from Constanta, a 40 min trip car/train/maxi-taxi. Very very low prices in Vama Veche and ... weird people :) If you feel weird, join them !

I hate the way our country is represented internationally. They don't do anything about that, many people find about Romania by word of mouth or accidentally from the Internet. That is sad. The 2006 summer season was pretty bad since TUI , a very popular tour operator in western europe decided to discontinue his plans with Romania. Almost no scandinavian tourists were here , beside the one who came here individually. TUI has chose to send it's customers to our neighbours in Bulgaria. No comment on that.

A visit to Danube Delta ! You can't miss it for any reason if you visit Romania ...

The Danube Delta is the largest water reservation from Europe ! It covers 2.681 km2. It's an exotic spot with over 1200 species of trees and plants, with the largest ornithic fauna from the continent (more then 300 species including an unique colony of pelicans) and inchtyologic (represented with more then 100 species like Danube hering and sturions offering the precious caviar). See a map from satllite here.

I highly recommend you to see this album here http://s110.photobucket.com/albums/n93/romaniainpictures/DANUBE%20DELTA/ with gorgeous pictures from Danube Delta ! It worths every $ to have a trip here. The acommodation prices are very very very cheap and the food ... the food you can serve here cooked by the locals is awsome ! I hope you visit the photoblog upper and create a first impresion about the Danube Delta from the pictures.

If you plan to have a trip here, just contact a local tour operator from your area to see if they have any available trips to Danube Delta or feel free to email me and I will reply to you as fast as I can help you with some tips: how to arrive here, acommodation & prices and other usefull info.

Some short info about the Danube Delta economy: people earn their money from fishing , recently (4-5 years) many modern guest houses have been built to grow up their revenues and reed operation. Their way of life is unchanged by centuries.

If you want to build a house here you can buy some land here, but it now while is cheap. After we integrate in European Union I think the prices will explode since the terms and conditions for foreigners to buy land here will be less severe then now.

Doing any business in Romania

Decided to do a business in Romania ? Maybe you should reconsider that unless you have enough time to waste it with our bureaucracy. Oh, I almost forgot, you will also need enough money ready to bribe everyone here to get the approvals.

You can also choose the second way: you can hire a good lawyer firm who has international clients. That doesn't mean you just pay the fees and that's all. They may (and they will do it for sure) ask you for extra fees (a.k.a. bribe).

Most people who have business in Romania are all kind of arabs (iranian, iraqi, syrians, lebanese,etc.) They operate especially in shipping & crewing area in Constanta area. Beside their surface business they smuggle in coffee, cereals, cigarettes, sometime high amounts of drugs. They somehow takeover our harbour with their bogus business. You can't open anything new here because of them. Many times they appear at TV or in newspapers with tons of articles about them regarding million dollar tax evasion. But who cares right ? Cops take their share, people don't comment because they have jobs there, Gov't doesn't seem to do anything about it.

Recently those arab guys started a new business in Constanta area. They buy absolutely every land available for sale , no matter it is in city or outside the city (country area) for almost nothing. I wonder what real estate scams prepare ...

Another business fact. Every foreign citizen who owns a firm and is new in Romania will have part of several check-ups from economic police, all kind of inspectors from environment and many many others. You can use the 0 day technology, they will always find a reason to whippe you out for some cash. They always choose cash :)

Another mafia business circle is being operated in our capital, Bucharest. The same arab guys helped by the chinese mafia operate there too. They have some huge deposits operated in city's suburbs in retail business. All kind of replicas bought from China can be found there ! real mafia where no one can get into. Never do business with these people no matter what they promise to you, most them are scammers.

If you want to invest wisely in Romania now, you can invest in real estate, in constructions (there is a very big request for apartments and business office buildings) or in agriculture. Since we integrate into the UE (European Union) from January 1, 2007, several rules will have to be followed ... environment related. Recently romanians love to buy "euro" stuff. Every product that has written on his pack that "euro" word has a huge success on the market. Especially the alimentary ones. If you have the necessary funds to do it, many time and patience to waste start immediately until the western european sharks attack us :)

I think that's all about doing business in Romania. Everything else is owned by romanian mob's (Gov members and their first grade relatives). No bullshit.

Do you have any kind of questions regarding doing any kind of business in Romania ? just email me and I will help you out as much as I can.

The way of life, quality and the costs

I will try to relate you here some personal impression about the romanian way of life, the life quality here and what are the costs. Unlike other countries who extend, I noticed that ex-communist countries have an apart way to grow. Against the fact that we have a chaotic economy system which works on the tag: "Get rich fast as long as you have the power to do it, no matter that you represent the Law system, the Govt, you work as a doctor, a mayor or you are a teacher."


Despite the way that our country is (mis)represented internationally via TV, Internet, Newspapers, Radio or people who relate their stories from visits here, we try to be famous by enrolling in international wars leaded by US and his allies, but as far as I can say, we don't mind that, there are new career opportunities for our soldiers and other advantages as a an appreciation from US & Co.

We have a pretty upside-down way of life. We enjoy copy everything we see on Internet, TV or hear from our friends that it's new or cool. Most of the stuff have US influences, which I don't mind at all (...except McDonald's & KFC maybe). Romanian people earn almost nothing but still they survive. Some of them have a decent life and accept the situation, another large percent lives at the borderline between depth poor and survival , and continue their life in misery, and the very rich people who took advantage of the rest of the population by scamming them as they could better. You can't eradicate them, they are too many at the moment, even if only 4 months keep us away from integrating into European Union at January 1, 2007. I wonder if something will change or other "sharks" will penetrate into the system and take what's left of it.

We can't complain now that we miss something. We have absolutely everything you can want here. Everything. Except the money to but it. Romanians love to shop even if that means to give up a meal just to be cool. The cooler you are, you get more respect from your friends, co-workers, etc. That's a crap. This phenomenon is caused by the absence before 1989 of things like clothing, electronics, ... well , absence of everything. At least 80% of the romanian population didn't knew how a VCR looked like before 1989 , but now they are very familiar with the latest technology from ... BMW, SONY, BOSE, plastic surgery, (just a few examples) etc. ! Even if there are almost 17 years since then, the people still feels the need of new things in their life, so they experience everything is new. It's normal, but this action accelerates a little faster then it should be. New stuff are released everyday in every domain and the people feel the need to shop, they take serious loans from the banks with very high interests and bogus terms & conditions, they grant with their houses, business, lands etc. just to buy useless stuff that they actually don't need.


Maybe you didn't know that the minimum wage Romania is around 130$ per month and the medium wage is around 350-400$ per month. Please see my ... let's say photoblog hosted at photobucket.com. You will probably wonder "He says they are relative poor, but how come I see so many new cars on the streets, so many new buildings and so many stores ?" I wonder myself too sometimes... We complain that the Gov't steals big time from us, but aren't always try to cheat by avoiding paying taxes too ? Everything you go, to get some attention you must offer bribe, I mean in every domain activity you can imagine. Need a doctor in Romania ? There are many good doctors, but you have many chances to die on the surgery table if you don't offer him an "attention". Well every activity in this country is based on bribe. You offer bribe, you get what you need, but you also encourage the phenomenon.


We had the chance to develop ourselves for 17 years now ! But we choose not to. It's wrong said "we" as the citizens. We didn't take the decisions, the old communists take care to integrate in the new "democratic" system, had the chance to get some large amounts of money offered by the international community to Romania in order to grow up it's economy and used them in personal interests. There are barely a few people who had any contacts with law for doing that and STILL the western european countries offer us the change to do it again, and again, and again. Until when ? Until somebody jails those pricks ? Until they die natural and the new teen generation takes the leadership ? Too bad, that's why I think more and more to immigrate and become a slave for another country where everything seems to be ok, even if it isn't. Those people made us hate our country, made us sell everything and forget everything that kept us linked to our homes and families and to immigrate in Australia, NZ, USA and most of the western european countries.


You may not have this feeling by visiting Romania, but you can read on the face of the people this sadness. I will complete this post soon with a photoblog that will show you what you need to know about our way of life.

Location and a bit of history

Finally I decided to open myself a "blog". Don't know for sure what it is , looks like an online diary were I can publish my thoughts about Romania for free. I was thinking to get a domain name and hosting somewhere but this service looks interesting and it's free.

What can I say , Hello and welcome to my blog

Part 1 of the story: The Location and a bit of history

I'm Dan and I want to relate for any visitors that this blog may have some things about Romania, strictly from my point of view. When I'm writing this post it's September 09, 2006. If I would have written this a few years earlier (let's say back in '99) about Romania you would have asked yourself "Where is Romania city located ?" (without any bad thought, but most people who said that were from USA, but not only, I will explain you later if you have time why they said that). We are not a city as you may think , we are actually a country located in south-eastern Europe. Find the Black Sea on the world map and we're next to it. Related now for US visitors: most of US citizens heard of Romania since we were implicated more or less in the wars taken by US and his allied forces with the terrorists. We will talk about some politics later, now let's get back to the location and history chapter.

Romania is divided in 41 counties. Anyways we have an interesting history which can be found on Wikipedia, I won't double post here what is written there.

In Romania you can arrive by plane using any major airline operator (KLM, Alitalia, Tarom, Lufthansa, Malev, Air France, British Airways, Emirates, etc). The largest airport is Henry Coanda Airport (OTP) located in Otopeni, a few kilometeres from Bucharest. Other international airports are Baneasa airport in Bucharest, "Mihail Kogalniceanu airport" located in Constanta county, which is 240 km far from Bucharest, Timisoara airport, etc. Most people come on OTP.
Also you can come by sea or with your car. We have a large road network which is continuous rebuilt (officials say that) but it has a very low road quality mostly. We hope in the next 10 years to have a decent one and at least one or two extra highways. There are 2 current highways now: Bucuresti-Pitesti one (where your car can suffer severe damage, i'm not kidding0 and the recent built (well still under construction for the last 100 km's) is Bucuresti-Constanta. This one links Bucharest to Constanta, it's a "modern highway..." but still doesn't looks like any other european highway, and it took years to build 140 km's of it. Shame on our government for spending the funds to build it for their fun. Road signs are some times very hard to be spotted, take care when driving, many people have accidents for this reason.

You can also get here by train, please see my advices when travelling to Romania post.