House Party

As I mentioned in the last post, we've got a full house lately.  11 total.  That is to say, 11 of us that are sleeping here each night.  At some point throughout each day or evening anywhere between 8 to 15 extra people will show up and spend several (or more) hours eating, drinking, talking and generally hanging about the premises.
Dan and Nohora like to party.
No, not the get-drunk-fall-down-and-make-a-fool-of-yourself kind of party.  I mean the talk, laugh, eat, sing, repeat kind of party.  The kind where you remember it all the next morning and the only thing you regret is that you should not have had that 5th piece of cake because the next-day-sugar-overload-nausea is just not worth it.

The boys love the clamor and activity. I lose track of them for hours at a stretch while they play on the top of the hill and I wash the dishes and engage in mental aerobics trying to keep up with the rapid Romanian being shouted/sung/spoken all around me.
No one expects me to wash these mountains of dishes alone.  I do it because I suffer from obsessive/compulsive cleaning disorder and also because it provides me with a much-welcome relief from the rapid-fire conversation. People offer to help but I decline because sometimes I don't want to chit chat, I want nothing but the sound of the water running and the glasses clinking as I set them in the drying rack.

But sometimes people don't take no for an answer.  They don't take nu for an answer either.  And then I'm stuck (oh, stuck is such an ungrateful sounding word).

Which is not to say that it's all awkwardly uncomfortable. No. It's a lot of fun.  And it goes a long way toward improving one's fluency with the language because its absolutely sink or swim.  Because just as all things natural and Italian require conversation in close quarters, so too does any evidence of a lack of understanding as might be manifest by a certain foreigner holding a dish rag.
There is a direct proportion to the number of millimeters of personal space they allot you in conversation and the amount of words you appear to understand during said conversation.  To put it another way: the greater the understanding, the more breathing room.
There's a trick to it, though, you can't just say you understand while your face is caught in a twist of confusion and bafflement.  No tell-tale beads of sweat forming on the upper lip; no hard, dry swallows; your gaze must not flicker as you privately, desperately hope that someone will come and translate for you.  No.  The secret lies in maintaining direct eye contact, keeping the forehead unfurrowed (unless the speaker begins to frown and shake his head in which case you immediately frown along with him).   Your head must nod, not too often, not too seldom, while you try to appear relaxed and engaged even while inside your brain alarms are ringing and you are thinking "oh dear lord, that's six words in a row that I don't know...what is bglrplo? is that the past tense of "to swim" or is that the word for "election"?  is it germane to his conversation?  he seems to be using it often, will he switch subjects before I am found out?"

If that happens (you are found out or you in any way confess to being confused), there will inevitably occur what I have come to think of as "the laying on of the hands."
As we all know, when someone doesn't understand English, the best thing to do is to shout the words because volume is what imparts understanding of the English language.

But its different with the Romanian language.  When someone doesn't understand Romanian, the only remedy is simply to get closer, grab ahold of them around the shoulders and repeat exactly the same words in exactly the same order.
And of course it works because when have you ever seen this sort of thing happen when the listener didn't automatically exclaim (while pulling away and calmly wiping spittle off their cheek) that they now understand perfectly, no, there's no need to say it again because they totally get it and they feel absolutely the same way as the speaker does on the subject at hand.
At this point the speaker beams and looks around as if to say "Behold! My magical powers of knowledge-transfer-via-touch-and-body-fluid-spewing have worked again!"
So for all of you preparing to come visit, you might want to practice the various inflections for the word "Da" (as in "oh really?", "yes, that's awful" and "I agree completely") and check your face in the mirror to make sure you've got your "relaxed and engaged" expression down pat because they will catch you faking if you're not careful.

I'm putting the photos in collage form because by themselves, they are not interesting but I'm hoping that all grouped together will somehow make them so.

Isn't it funny how the best conversations with family take place over a snack in the kitchen at midnight?

And now we're off to Barcelona; Gabi and Anca go back home to Vienna; Dan, Nohora and Nicolas go to Rome and Silviu and Pia get some peace and quiet for the next six days until we all return.