La Revedere, Romania!

Our last day in Bucharest has come and nearly ended. B had a very hectic day, involving working in two different archives and having a meeting with a student who has been helping him at one of the libraries in town. By contrast, my day was fairly relaxed, especially for a day before moving. We have been very diligent about packing since this weekend and had little more to do today. Since I had run out of coffee a couple of days ago, I took the opportunity to make one last visit to my local Starbucks. While there, the manager came to say hello to me, as she often does. She is very nice and friendly. I mentioned that this was our last day and she seemed genuinely shocked and a bit sad. She asked me to wait a moment and actually returned with a Starbucks mug on which she had written a farewell message. It was so very sweet and I was touched. After enjoying my coffee and pastry in the comfortable and air-conditioned cafe, I set off to run some last minute errands. The first stop was the post office for some stamps. While this may seem simple, I have always found the post office in Bucharest to be intimidating and overwhelming; I don't feel I know the correct terminology for the situation and our local branch is usually chaotic and busy with several people cutting in "line". However, I plucked up my courage and went to the Romanian post office by myself for the first time. I practiced the word for stamps many times on my way there and actually managed to have a fairly smooth interaction. A good accomplishment on the last day. After the post office, I stopped in a local optical shop to buy a replacement glasses case, as my other one had been a victim of our mold problem. Again, I didn't know the terminology for glasses case, but between some guessing and pointing, I was able to make a purchase pretty easily. Thank goodness. Afterward, I went to the Vodafone (our cell phone provider) store to settle up our bill. When we first signed up for our phones, the representative who helped us said it would actually be cheaper for us to get a year contract with a certain plan than to do pay as you go minutes, which is common here. She recommended that at the end of our time here, we could write a letter stating that we wished our contract to be terminated at the end of the year (so to avoid an early termination fee) and pay our remaining months ahead of time. Since our contract was in B's name, he wrote and signed the letter stating the above intent. After waiting for about 20 minutes, it was my turn to talk with a staff person. I explained what I wanted and provided the letter B had written. Initially, he said that B would have to come in person to cancel the account, but eventually agreed that his signature on the letter was sufficient. After calculating our balance, I got in the line to pay and was finally able to leave. Phew!

After that, I decided to stop at a restaurant for my favorite salad for lunch and then returned home. I was trying to stay cool and catch up on some email. B came home soon after and he was very much in need of a break and rest. After having some water, food, changing into cooler clothes and getting a chance to check email, we headed out to meet some friends for a final dinner at a Thai restaurant. We had a very nice time at dinner and are very glad to have been able to see our friends one last time, especially our friend Diana, who just returned from Berlin this morning. I was afraid we wouldn't be able to see her before our departure and am glad we could. We even found a home for our fan, which we had not even opened and a nice, but little used bottle of gin, I got duty free during my June trip. After dinner, we spent some time weighing and re-arranging our luggage, but should be fine (if just barely so) now. We are both incredibly excited to be coming home and can't wait to be able to see and talk with folks regularly again. -S