La omu' sarac...

... nici boii nu-i trag,
ii pica si pita-n cacat,
si cind fute da de cui.

Above : the Romanian notion of a store. I don't mean a notions store, I mean stored notions, how shall I put this...

And lest you imagine this is in any way singular : it's not. You should see the place I bought power cables from : not only a rat's nest of indescribable depth (presided over by a very engineer-ish fellow), but composed of onesies, and those uncategorized in any systematic manner. The process of buying something consists of naming the wanted item, which (if spoken with enough imperium) impels the fellow to rummage through the piles until he finds something. That's it. He doesn't know what he has there, if there's a fire he couldn't produce the list of what was lost (unless, I guess, you permit him rummage through the ashes). There he had antique handwritten lists of (doubtlessly long disused) part ids, on notebooks yellowed by the passing years...

The alternative, of course, is the chains. Which go about it much simpler : they simply fail to stock. It is my educated guess (on the basis of buying about fifty families yearly "cos zilnic" in the past month, that as much as one third of all items all Romanian supermarkets nominally carry are not actually on the shelf at any arbitrary point in time you wish to check. Go for it.

And then there's also the intermediate, between the faceless corporate 3-ring binger called Carrefour and the batshit insane owner-operated junkpiles with spurious store signs affixed. There's the woman with a roomfull of mattresses she can't deliver thinking she's participating in some kind of economic activity ; there's the perpetual "no!" answer to anything and everything -- including eminently this case where I went one day and bought a power adapter (very nice, transforms all kinds of power plugs into all other kinds). A week later stopped by to get a few more, except the kid at the desk said they don't have such a thing. As I glare at him in disbelief, "I bought one here last week" he pompously explains (in the familiar style of these idle retards), that blood-curdling sort of pretendingly self-assured and supposedly reassuring if idiotic sufficiency that no such thing could have occurred, that he's been working there for over a year and a half and never have they carried such a thing, so unless my week's antiquer than a coupla years... but I lose focus on the disjunctly eyefocused moron, because the item's right fucking there, behind him. So I go around him like I go around the piece of furniture he stands behind, grab it for myself, lay it flat in front of him and inquire why the fuck is he talking nonsense ? At which juncture Dorkster McRomanianson mumbles that he must've not understood something. I pay but do not leave just yet -- not because I don't believe his hollow assurances that the one item's the only one item they have (as I don't believe them one whit, but I also am not about to walk into the fucking warehouse) but because someone else came in, and I wish to see what happens.

What happens is that the someone else sets a part on the counter and asks "do you have this ?" and the dork returns "no!" with all the celerity you'd expect. So the bimbo burts out her world famous cackle and we leave. This. This is the place and the country and the long and the short of it.

Below : more failed femstate.

Above : double steak, about to go into the oven. Ain't it pretty ? I very much recommend the Dutch (or I guess, Roman) oven to any and all. There's nothing quite like it for the little it costs.

Below : the doughmonster's huntin' a rabbit.

Above : ciresica are mere...

Below : admire the slave's leg. This is how womanly legs are supposed to go, ten thousand bruises and marks and scrapes and the grind around the kneesⁱ

Once you're done admiring, start peeling potatoes, I guess...

Above : instant Romania.

Below : aspirational Romania. As you can perhaps tell (for instance, by the anchor that's the red car) these are actually the same place.

Above : "say bimbos, did you hear this place's the cultural capital of something or the other ?"

Below : something specifically for Alf. Sovok day over at Russki Dom, yo!

Above : studying the synnergy of facts and the meanderings of the concrete.

Below : the results of the study above. Karadjordje snitzelna, it's a thingna.ⁱⁱ

Above : little girl desserts.

Below : adult woman desserts.

Above... well... that'd be me.

Below : context -- Belgrade's finest.

Above : omfg, he's a dragon!ⁱⁱⁱ

Below : omfg, she's a slut!^iv

Above : Beograd night life, outside shot. Be careful!

Below : Beograd night life, inside shot, close proximity to yours truly. It doesn't look anything like that if I'm not around, I'm afraid.

The fin.

I hope you've enjoyed my nail.

1. As I'm typing this, I say "come kneel over here". Because I'm too lazy to straighten up and fetch my own water off the little coffee table a foot away. The couch is just too embracing, so let her kneel and serve me, what! And let the entire hotel lobby gaze in disbelief at that truly rarest thing known to "civilised" society, a woman worth her daily bread. "Do you realise there hasn't been a hotel you've not been walking around naked through for a while now ?" [↩]
2. Hanbot's got pork in plum sauce. The plums were smoked pre-saucing. Aaamazing. [↩]
3. The drink's the local equivalent to Romanian pelin (artemisia absinthium decocted port, more or less) -- approximately speaking, socata de sampanie (European elderberry fermented drink). [↩]
4. Team lesbo pisi in the background, all peroxided the same way, all wearing the same style of tights, leather jackets and white running shoes, suddenly were very very busy for some reason.

   Nici pisi nu mai is ce-or fost. [↩]