Owlspotting

The posts made over the last few days originated in my hometown of Targu Mures (also called Targu-Mures, Tirgu Mures and more recently Tirgu-Mures; the latter is the spelling used by city officials). This Transylvanian town is the place I was born and the city I lived in until I went off to college. My […]

Yes, you’ve heard right. Air conditioning is making steady inroads in Romania, but there are relics of the olden days before we got all Westernized and shit. The sight of an old Dacia brings to mind not only our national obsession with opening the windows to create a breeze, but it also displays our artistry […]

In soccer crazy Europe we say the game is not a matter of life and death–it’s more important than that. The saying doesn’t only apply to the Romanian national team trying to make the World Cup or our pathetic club teams struggling to save face on the European scene–this also applies to 6-on-6 backyard games […]

Over the next few months Owlspotting will run a (hopefully) weekly feature where we’ll answer questions about Romania and Romanians. Sometimes the answers will be provided by me, sometimes by other Romanians, who will be introduced at the appropriate time. Q: Do Romanians drink vodka tonic? A: They try to do, and sometimes they are […]

This was by far my easiest trip ever as I only had to change flights once–in Amsterdam. I’ve only been on NWA/KLM in my trips to and from Romania and they’ve never been a problem. Sometimes they get incredibly attached to their customers as they did last night when they announced they wouldn’t be serving […]

For three months, beginning July 15 this blog will broadcast its subversive message from the motherland Romania. I am returning like Vlad Tepes did for his second reign, ready to examine my fellow Romanians with the cruel passion displayed by kids examining flies under a microscope or ants under a magnifying glass. This blog is […]

Note: This is the third and final essay in a three part series inspired by a book on Romania that I discussed briefly last month. All three essays were published on dbrom.ro, a web site I used to run a few years ago. The first two essays (here and here) are in Romanian, but I […]

In 2004, when my father and brother flew from Romania to visit me in Missouri, they sweated right into the wet hot American summer of gay marriage. One Sunday, we were driving back from a water park and we stopped in Jefferson City to see the capitol. A choir of kids was singing on the […]

*** Acesta este al doilea dintr-o serie de trei eseuri (inspirata de urmatoarea carte). Text publicat original in update-ul tematic “Bucuresti” pe dbrom.ro in 2002. Primul eseu, “Hotul dumneavoastra” il gasiti aici. am baut ultima gura de cola din cana mea rosie cu ferrari. inca imi e sete, dar nu mai am nimic de baut. […]

Sitting down at my computer, I was ready to take my country apart, rip it to shreds. I’ve just finished reading Lucian Boia’s “Romania, tara de frontiera a Europei” (Romania, borderland of Europe) and felt a surge of anger at the teachers that shaped my childhood and at myself. Some context first. I’ve not read […]