Why do I love living in Romania?

 

Guest writer Paul Wood reveals 25 reasons why the loves to live in Romania. In no particular order.

 

Romanians. Clearly the people are the main reason for liking any country, though the countryside, the churches and the crumbling inner city of Bucharest come close behind.

 

 

 

 

 

Everything about Romanians seems to be paradoxical. Romanians are very human and see everything in human, not in abstract terms, but when they write about ideas they always start from abstract and sometime cloudy first principles. They are the very warm, the most generous and kind of people, but very cruel. Someone told me when I came here that ‘Romanians have no gratitude and no mercy’ and that is certainly true of many, though by no means all. They are very mystical yet have their feet on the ground and are often very materialistic.

 

They are very romantic but very unromantic. They try very hard to be cynical. They are very suspicious and live in an atmosphere of fear. They have a wonderful sense of humor, rather similar to the English sense of humor: very ironic, very black. Romanians are very much friendlier than the English but much more formal. Respect is terribly important – because power is terribly important. This is the Middle East dreaming that it is France.

Romanians love visiting their countryside – all but a few pretentious ones – love eating Romanian food in restaurants – same caveat – and love hiking and camping, all of which was how it was in England in the 1950s. They tend to be conventional and conformist but my friends are not. You can be eccentric in Romania and bohemian but it takes more courage than in England, where eccentrics are not tolerated but admired.

 

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