New Orleans

Acme Oyster House.  That's the sole reason we stopped in New Orleans.

Not that it isn't a great city, not that we don't love it.  But we were just there two years ago (not that you can't go to a great place more than once) and we like to try new things as often as possible.

Two years ago when we were driving from Baton Rouge to Lafayette and beyond with Sharon, Kelly and Todd all crammed in our rented minivan, we somehow missed Acme Oyster House.  And Mircea had this bee in his bonnet and has been jonesing to go there ever since.

So, I know it seems like the logical place to hang out for a couple of days or more but since it was pretty fresh in our minds, we made it a brief, rather than a protracted stop.

Happily, the weather was lovely (two years ago it was a freakish 30 degrees F) and perfect for a long evening and early morning stroll.  And then we were on the road again.

I don't mean to disappoint but we had fresh places to get to.

In the meantime, this is a sample of what we saw:

Florida

And so we' begin the last leg of our year-plus adventure.

Won't be needing these any more.

It's strange not to need them but a bit of a relief as well.  One language, one monetary unit (which I have at last remastered) will make things easier for the next 5,000 km, er 3,000 miles (we're not on the metric system any more, so the boys keep telling me).

It was a bittersweet moment as we pulled out of Krissi's driveway.  More bitter than sweet, actually.  The realization that this is the last bit of it.  Hard to believe.

So we're going to make the most of what is left although in typical Ionescu style we have no concrete plans.  The only fundamental fact is that we must transport ourselves (and our crap) from Florida to California.  How long it will take and which route we will follow, well, we'll wing it like we always do.

The best way to ensure that you'll leave important stuff behind is to depart a place in the wee hours of the morning. Especially a place where you've sprawled for eight days.  I really don't want to become the modern day Hansel and Gretel, strewing bits and pieces of ourselves behind us as we cross half the world.  We left enough things in Romania, thank you very much.
So we planned on a late morning departure which meant the first stop had to be relatively close by.

And thus we come to the Florida Panhandle.

You know those places that are such dives that they become awesome?  The motel we stayed in was one such place. (and yes, I am back to using the word awesome once again).

Rather than being a motel, it was a mixture of cottages and apartments, built circa 1972 right on the water's edge and then maintained only to the point of preventing the structures from collapsing into the Gulf.

The flat, sandy areas that passed for a parking lot were filled with trucks from Ontario, Montana and Arkansas. Men with grey-streaked ponytails stood around with beer cans in their hands, talking to one another about fishing and guitars.  To a man, they all admired the boys' hats and stopped and stared as we brought the electric guitar and portable amp in from the van.  "Right on," I heard one say.

A flock of peacocks roamed the grounds and the grizzled men took great pains to try and count them all. I admit it was charming but for the fishermen it transformed this cluster of shacks and palm trees into "the best resort on earth, man."

They comforted me somehow, these burned out dudes.  They reminded me of home, of Santa Cruz, and it made my heart flutter a bit at the thought of being there soon.

We were five miles from Appalaciacola so we took a quick drive across the bridge for a dinner of oysters and other offerings from the sea in which we could over-indulge.
Afterward, since it was so balmy and and since we were so unbearably full, we took a stroll around town and were thoroughly charmed by what we saw.
The Santa Cruz vibe continued in the local coffee shop the next morning where the first sight that greeted us was a photo of Sarah Palin with a beard and mustache painted on, as well as espresso sipping patrons wearing Keens.
A little blip of liberalism amongst the otherwise predominant FoxNews-watching populace.

Apalachicola was an unexpected surprise: hippie Vietnam vets, palm sized oysters, Republican-bashing coffee drinkers.  A little taste of home before we even get there.
Right on.

A soft place to land

Our original plan was to visit New York City twice: once going to, and again upon returning from Europe.
But that was before we'd actually been there.  We decided once was enough.

I'm sorry we had to miss visiting Genea again and the chance to meet Nathan but I trust they'll make their way out to California soon enough.

What we needed was a soft place to land and Krissi's place was just that. Soft.
So soft we nearly went catatonic.  So soft we did nothing but lay on the couch and rediscover television.  (Still the same spokeswoman for Progressive Car Insurance huh?)

Also we spent a lot of time overeating cause that's a hard habit to break apparently.

What I didn't do was take many photos.  My lameness with regard to photographing people has already been established as is my general inability to walk and chew gum at the same time or otherwise behave like a rational, productive adult.  Jet-lag and culture shock, remember?

Here's the sum total of 8 days:

I used the wrong setting while we were at the beach (jet-lag strikes again) so if you want non-blue-tinted photos of Siesta Beach you can go back to March 2011 (or go online and find something taken by a professional).

Given my history of this sort of thing, it should come as no surprise that in the span of a week I got three photos of my sister and her family and two of them were blurred beyond salvaging.  Missing completely are shots of Shelby and Chris.  I'm not sure how that blunder happened except that I thought it was more important to talk and visit so the camera was put away and forgotten for hours on end.  As it should be, right?

Not put aside or forgotten was our promise to get Mircea an electric guitar from James' shop.  On the drive back from the store Luci asked, "Mircea, why are you smiling?"
And Mircea's answer was "I just got an electric guitar, man, why wouldn't I be smiling?"

So thanks James and Rick for helping us out with that bit of glory and being so generous with the four befuddled sloths who were lying on your furniture every night when you came home.

The best thing about the week (beyond the warm sand, the pedicure, the Lazy-Boys) was getting to spend sister time.

That's hard to say good-bye to.  I hate that part.  So I won't elaborate.  I'll think about the good times instead.

Ne intoarcem

I know my last post was a bit of a downer.  But really, I wan't capable of anything upbeat.
I'm still teetering on the edge but trying to pull myself over.

Jet-lag, 30+ hours without sleep, culture shock, the exhaustion of modern day air travel, all of those things will take their toll.  Even without my own emakou.

From the list above, the only thing that took me by surprise was the culture shock.  Honestly, this is the country in which I was born and raised, how could being away for one year out of 40 render me unable to remember how to flush an American toilet?

I don't know but there I was, the first morning at my sister's house, standing and staring stupidly at the top of the tank looking for a button that wasn't there.

My first trip to the grocery store found me equally confused when faced with the task of figuring out how to pay cash for the items I had chosen.  Items I haven't seen in a year such as sliced bread, avocados and maybe even a box of transfats with the Hostess trademark on it.  (Oh yeah, I did it.)

But the money.  Well, it's all green, it's all the same size and the sums are so oddly small: twenty four ninety-nine? What kind of a total is that?  And how do you make that from a hand full of monochromatic paper?  I fumbled about, sweating and looking sheepish for so long that it's no wonder the cashier held up the bills to the light to check for counterfeit cash.

While I bungled and fretted, the bagger asked the quintessential American question: "Did you find everything alright?"

And I replied in surprise: "Oh, you speak English!"

So that I don't appear completely retarded may I now include the fact that I can hear nothing out of my left ear since landing in JFK.  The result of flying with a cold.  That alone can make a person behave somewhat aberrantly, right? Say it's so.

And speaking of air travel; shall we commence with our latest tale of adventure and woe?

Whenever we fly I swear to myself that the next time we take a plane, I will make certain we are streamlined but it just doesn’t seem to happen.  

For this trip we had four laptops and a Wii in our carry on.  Most rational people would understand straight off that in this post 9/11 world, this is a bad idea. We knew it was a bad idea but there wasn’t much we could do except suck it up and accept the fact that we were going to be pulled out of line at every security check.

And between Bucharest and Florida there were three such gauntlets through which we had to pass.

Bucharest doesn't really count since I could probably put a bag of fireworks, a six pack of beer and a gallon of bleach in my purse and get on the plane with it.  Every time I ask the airport employees if they'd like me to remove something suspicious from my luggage they wave a hand laconically and say "Just keep moving".

London is, as you can imagine, a different kettle of fish altogether.  They've seen a fair amount of violence in the past few years so security is a bit less complacent.

However, when I was pulled out of line they were so polite about it that I felt as if I were being invited to tea. Before the security guy began to go through my carry-on, he actually asked permission.  

One by one the items were examined and all was well until he pulled out this:

Will you cringe if I tell you that the first thing that came out of my mouth was:  "That's not mine."

The second thing was: "I'm just transporting that for a friend."

Bravo to the British security official, he didn't over-react in the least.  He merely looked at me with an expression that said "Please ma'am, it's been a long day and if this turns out to be what it looks like, I'm going to be stuck here for hours and I'll end up missing the game and the pot roast my wife has in the oven will be cold by the time I get to eat it." 

So I said, "Um, that is...a bag of...herbs."

He opened the bag, took a sniff, eyed me dubiously, took another sniff and then concluded "These are herbs for cooking."

"Yes." and then he politely indulged my nervous babble as I explained what an excellent cook my friend is and all about the lovely home she has in Vaideeni where she grows said herbs.

He waved me through with a relief he could not disguise.

Last was JFK.

Ah, New York, we meet again.
No courtesy and polite manners here, just eye rolling and sarcasm and unclear, contradicting sets of instructions from the short-tempered TSA employees.  Broken elevators, a $5.00 baggage cart rental fee and $200.00 to transport our bags down to Florida.

Good-bye Europe.

Welcome to America.

Departure

This is harder than I expected.  And I expected it to be hard.

I don't mean the packing and the traveling, although that's a nightmare, no doubt about it.

And I don't mean just saying good-bye to all of the things that I love here: the clippity clop of horses' hooves as the wagons go by in the morning.  The soft, melodious clang of the cow bells as they are brought in from the fields in the evening.  Fresh picked cherries in the summer.

I mean leaving people.  Because it always comes down to the people.

I mean that moment when you are hanging out, Skyping with the half of your family in the States and it strikes you that the next time you all Skype, you will not be in the same room but on the other side of the camera.
On the other side of the world.
The rich tones of the voices in the room with you will be replaced by tinny sounds as their words are transferred across the thousands of miles.
Instead of reaching out to put an arm around their shoulders, you will hold up a hand and place it against the screen and have only the memory of the warmth of their touch.

Remembering the surge of joy when you embraced at the train station upon your arrival.
"A whole year."
"Yes."
The world seemed bright with possibilities.

Now the moment of separation hangs in the air like a malevolent specter.  It's coming, that agonizing point when you must look each other in the eye and say your parting words which will seem weak and ineffectual, unable to express all that is in your heart.  The last, tight squeeze and whispered "good-bye", full of a particular brand of desperate sorrow.
The chimerical notion that people so dear will soon be so far away.
The continent of Europe, the breadth of the Atlantic Ocean and the swath of North America.  All of that will lay between you.
Distanta este mare.

Heart break.  Pure and simple.

Din sufletul meu

"In the future, we will build houses and have occupancy," she says, taking my hands in hers and squeezing them tightly.  "And you and me, we will build our houses next door to each other, okay?"
"Yes," I say, squeezing back.  "Yes." Indeed.

Disclaimer:
Clearly I possess no talent for photographing people.
Perhaps if I had begun my "people album" months and months ago, I would have a few decent options from which to choose.  Unfortunately I waited until the last minute and, after downloading the photos this morning I discovered to my dismay that they were all more or less awful (lots of closed eyes, open mouths, blurred shots...you get the idea).
This is the best of the worst.
So the slim selection represents only half of everyone I wanted to include. They're beautiful people, each and every one.