Posts

Showing posts from April, 2012

What's In A Frog?

This is a story about two brave men: Ion and Gheo (short for Gheorghe, but I thought of sparing the non-native speakers). They are two Romanian peasants living in a remote village, working the land and rearing animals, pretty much copy-pasting their life from one day to another. Until that day, when Ion decided it was the time to go to the livestock market to sell his cow.  And, as he couldn't go alone, he asked his neighbour Gheo, who had nothing worth mentioning to do that day, to come along. The business was bad, however, and at the end of the day they came back home, carrying the poor cow with them, as they could not sell it. And because of this, the conversation between them two was somehow low, even for the peasants expectations. "You know", Ion began the to break the silence, "what if we were, for instance, some Scottish peasants, not Romanians? What would we talk about?"  "That's an admirably good question, indeed. We'd probably

In Bruges

Image
    Iubesc Belgia. E o țară complicată și plină de sensuri pe care doar cei inițiați le pot înțelege. Da' nu o iubesc pentru asta, dimpotrivă.     Cei care s-au dat cu mașina prin Belgia au observat tendința lor pentru lucrurile complicate. In primul rând, semnele de circulație nu pot fi puse ca in restul lumii, pe o tabla bidimensionala si cu indicații clare, inaintea intersecțiilor. Semnele belgiene sunt toate 3D. Nimic dubios pana aici, dacă vrei sa mergi la stânga sau la dreapta. Dacă însă vrei să o iei inainte, semnul e un fel de stânga, cam la 45 grade, suficient să te încurce ireversibil. Evident, acum am GPS, cea mai tare invenție a mașinii de la aerul condiționat încoace. Surpriză, Belgia e singura țară ce a reusit sa mi-l zăpăceasca. Dar astea-s detalii, pana la urmă ajungi unde ți-ai propus.