I was on high alert when I stepped off the train into Cluj. I walked through the streets with my head on swivel, keeping my eyes open for the Adidas tracksuit mafiosos that I remembered from my first trip to Romania. I hailed a cab and showed him the address to my hostel. I followed our route on Google Maps to make sure he wasn’t going to take me to a dark corner to beat and rob me.
Looking back now, I feel so stupid and can’t believe I was so on edge. I didn’t know much about Romania other than what I experienced during my visit to Constanta in 1998 with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit. I remember it being cheap; very cheap. Pulling out the currency from an ATM was interesting because the exchange rate was crazy, like in the millions. Constanta also had the first McDonald’s I went to, where I ordered a Royal with Cheese and a beer. The whole meal cost me a cool couple million Ron. I remember the police carrying AK-47s, the crazy number of homeless children, and the Adidas tracksuit mafioso guys. I had a lot of fun in Romania in 1998, but I regarded it as a run-down Eastern European country. Now I can confidently say that Cluj is the safest city I have ever been to in all my travels.
“Where you from?”
The question caught me off guard. I didn’t think for a minute the guy was going to speak English. I was still hesitant to give him any information. He gave me an impromptu history lesson about the area that we were in before he dropped me off at the $12-a-night hostel. It was a nice place, the staff spoke English, and took me to my closet-sized room after showing me where the community showers were.
I freshened up and stepped back into the mean streets of Cluj. Costel was still on the border and had arranged for me to meet with a friend of his, an Israeli expat living in Romania. He recommended we meet at Che Guevara’s near the city center. Saf is a cool dude. He had served in the Israeli Defense Force as a tanker. Studied finance at university and then parted ways with his family in Israel because of some family issues. He traveled to find himself, studied Yoga, and danced. He called Cluj the Silicon Valley of Europe, and that’s why he had decided to come to Cluj to open a tech business. I didn’t know it then, but Saf would end up being a very genuine friend to me in Cluj, and someone I still talk to today.
We finished up our drinks, and he refused to let me pay. We parted ways, and I headed back towards the Hostel, with a little liquid confidence to carry me through the night. I slowed down to take in Cluj. Instead of looking into dark corners, I looked up at the architecture and noticed Romanian flags on almost every lamppost. The city was clean, I hadn’t noticed how clean it was on my walk to the center.
As I neared the hostel, I was drawn to the sounds of huge speakers filling a closed space with loud music. I wandered into a local rock bar. I had no idea how to speak Romanian, so I ordered in English, and there was no communication barrier between the bartender and me. I got my beer and walked through the club. It was packed. There was nothing suspicious about it, there were no armed police with AKs, just people singing to American rock like Nirvana and Metallica. They knew every word, and they sang in groups with their arms on each other’s shoulders.
On my second trip up to the bar to order a beer, a guy asked me if I was American. We hit it off, and he invited me to drink with his friends. He told me that the COVID restrictions had been lifted, and it was the first night bars and restaurants could open their doors to the public. So everybody in Cluj was out to celebrate. The people had been craving human contact, there was no animosity to be seen anywhere. Almost every young person I talked with spoke English and was excited to speak English with me. We talked about everything from music to politics.
The question eventually got brought up about what I was doing in Romania. I told them I was there to help my buddy with humanitarian work for Ukrainian refugees at the border. Fuck Putin somebody yelled. The whole bar erupted in Fuck Putin. Some of my new friends expressed concern that if Ukraine fell, Romania would be next. They expressed genuine concern for the refugees. “I see these kids and their moms on T.V. having to flee their homes- It’s fucked.” As if on cue, the song Zombie started to play. We hung our arms over each other’s shoulders as we belted out the lyrics as loud as we could. We started jumping and moving around the room. I opened my eyes to see tears streaming down some of their faces. The song ended, and a spiritual silence filled the bar.
The emotion and compassion I witnessed in that younger generation at the bar made more sense to me later, after hanging out with some Romanians my age. Guys who had grown up in the hard 90s. The guys who had stood with their mothers in breadlines and whose parents had lived in fear under Ceaușescu.
Sitting in the kitchen of one of my Romanian friends in an old building from “communist times,” he told the story about the first time he ever ate an orange. His father, after working all day, came home with one orange, which he split with his wife and his three children. My friend asked his father why he wasn’t having any of the orange. His father told them that he had eaten one at work. Then, after the kids were supposed to be in bed, my friend got up to pee and peered into the kitchen. He saw his dad drinking the orange juice off the plate, scooping up the tiny pieces and the white of the peel that were left over, and eating them.
The other story I was told was similar, but instead of an orange, it was dinner. My friend’s father would get home late from work, and when the family ate, he would tell them he had something to eat at work. Then he would wait until he thought the kids were asleep and eat the crumbs off their plates. Romanians, at least the ones I’ve met and who are in my life, take care of others before they take care of themselves.
A word of advice: when they meet you for the first time, they will ask you to try Suica or Polinka, the national drink of Romania. Be careful because that fire water is strong. The only time I don’t believe a Romanian is when they tell me we are just going to have one drink…
This is the 5th part of an ongoing series. If you missed the first installment, start with A Rolling Stoner Gathers No Moss.
