wizz air to timisoara romania opens up the carpathians

well it is open the ski destinatrion unknown to all wizz air opening up this route gives uk ski enthusiasts a new exciting opportunity to visit one of the worlds most unknown jewels in the ski calendar. if you havnt skied in romania then you dont know what you have missed.. i will write much more soon as we are developing a new tourist route to the western carpathinan moiuntains and holidays for those who cant afford adventure holidays lie the rich and famous..skiing for free almost..we want to attract the holiday market for the needey and deserving under privaledged kids from inner cities in the uk to have the chance to ski like the rich..back soon with a new project to excite you and your youth group..keep us book marked

3 months and im sick of the uk already

well it says it all, cant wait to be back in Romania, in fact anywhere other than the UK if it wasnt for my kids i wouldnt have been back here at all.

The reasons why i left in the first place have all been reconfirmed, its official this place is a dump, full of massive taxes on everything that moves,its not a place to live and work its only a place to work, one day i will leave for good and only come back on holiday to see family etc. I don’t feel at home here, i feel like a foreigner? maybe because my mind has been opened to other ways of life and other cultures. Too many things now annoy me about being here,from working,taxes,accommodation prices,transport costs,bureaucracy,attitudes of people,the restrictions and laws of this country particularly the anti social laws like the smoking ban in public places. this place has gone nuts..it is no longer the england i was brought up in. one time we had a nice country and things were prosperous most people seemed happy,now i dont find the same feeling. every one is bogged down with the stress of life and living. its all about possessions, lifestyle and money. aaahhhh enough ranting, i am a whining brit a habit hard to break.

My fave things to eat for a treat

Marmite on toast preferably with high fat content yellow butter which is a bugger to track down.

Lemon curd on toast or on plain bread

Bovril drink

New or old potato chips with beef gravy

yellow strong cheese with branston pickle

i can knock up a good indian or chinese curry which i like

oohhh if any one knows how to make pitta bread please..but i will search..i want to make some greek style kebabs..meats no problem but i havnt found pittas

sunday roast beef with yorshires

pretty simple stuff there is a ton more and some times i would kill for a cromer crab and a bag of walkers cheese and onion crisps

Update on Romanian Medicine availability

Well i was it seems incorrect about Ibuprofen.. but you do have to buy it from a farmcia chemists..what did surprise me you can buy analgesics from them too over the counter no prescription still i am not arguing relatively cheap to boot 8 ron £1.60 for 30 ibuprofen 400mg and 20 algocalmin metamizol pain killers…cheaper than a prescription in the uk

Not yet found in romania

Not found a person yet that iv’e thought was completely bad ; on the whole Romanians are extremely honest and friendly and yet as with anywhere  in the world there is always a criminal element the main cities are worse than the smaller towns, even in the smaller towns most people are known by the police and other town members and any thing underhand is soon rooted out. in the smaller villages if you plan on any sort of activity legal or not within seconds the whole village knows what you are doing.

not yet seen a door bell in my village, custom is to shout loudly until someone comes to the big gate to see who’s shouting which happens in about a 3 door radius so they all know who’s gone to visit who at any time your movements are then sent by jungle drums or village gossip in this case by a team of well disguised little old ladies wearing all black who all seem to be older than your great-grandmother yet still manage to carry very heavy loads for miles by foot.

Found a lot of very warm generous people with good morals and open houses and time to talk till the cows come home (which in this case they do all by them selves i have seen a herd of cows returning from pasture each peeling off as if in  formation  like the red arrows into their respective houses each house normally has its own cow depends on the village)

Found lots of wonderful things here like the veiws of the mountains the open spaces and clean air (only in the country side) bucharest stinks fumes everywhere and smog its a haze in the summer there.

not found a poundland anywhere or a Lidel thought here are a chain called Plus who are investing here its a bit similar to Lidel 

found designer shops and expensive goods shops everywhere in the big towns such as Timisoara and Bucharest of course, i liken Bucharest to Paris mad drivers and stinks.

Found a Coach load of scousers and mancunians on holiday in transylvania hard to miss as a brit they stuck out like a sore thumb it was the voices that first brought my attention to their presence

Well For those considering a long stay here or visitors that miss the comforts of the uk

english breakfasts thankfully dont yet feature in romanian cusine but it wont be long before you will be able to have fish n chips and a full english breakfast in the ski resort of brasov, luckily i wont have to go there too often

Fast food as we brits know it exists Mc Donalds KFC and Pizza Hut i have found plus a few others but dont recal which ones but in the major towns only Beware all food establishments in romania call themselves fast food its any thing but and a hamburger might not quite turn out to be what you had in mind, normally a bread roll with salad chips and a few slices of shady ham, hot dogs are german style frankfurters and have plastic skinsmustard is sweet and the ketchup is too mostly beware uite sos pizza comes thin normally and romanians dont tend to use a tomatoe sause as a base on the pizza before they put the toppings, which are normally faily decent, only thing is if you like cheese you have to order double double cheese as its come standar with a few grains if any at all, most romaians smother pizza with tomato ketchup or galic sauce or both, beats me why they dont just drink the sauce,and forget ordering the pizza.

Romainan restuarants have had a bit of bad luck they were left with a communist menu for years each restaurant had to have exactly the same menu, a lot has changed now but the mentality i think still exists, it dosnt matter where you go the menus are pretty similar, only in the larger ones will you find a more international cusine list in the provinces its soup,for starters or main, followed by beef chicken or pork, side accompniments are potatoes in varing formats or cabbage salad, pickles normally gerkins or peppers, salad in romania means tomatoes and cucumber, i ve yet to see a lettuce leaf offered, found radishes though.

meat and steaks are normally pretty good and veal is commmon and very tasty too iv’e eaten bear and hare, pate fois grois is common as muck here (goose liver pate) i have also eaten other meats but god knows what they were,they tated ok so i didnt ask. best plan. meat is compulsivly pulverised using a hammer by all  cook wheter its a bit of nice fillet of beef (dirt cheap here) or a manky bit of scrag end pork (more expensive than beef stange but true) all steaks come covered in somthing its hard to explain you want it plain with no egg or snitel covering it so you can see what you are tucking into, i think this cunning disguise was figured out by romanian cooks during the comunist period and still lingers on today to hide the actual meat from view in order it may be eaten. thats if you were lucky enough in those times to be able to buy the meat.

Never try to order Champagne in a romainan restaurant unless you have actuly seen the bottle first before you make the command to pop the cork. its normally perry or cheap fizz they consider it champagne here, the real stuff will cost a bomb if you manage to find it.

here’s a list of things iv’e not yet found and some suggestions for things to bring if you come for any length of time

1. oxo cubes all varieties (knorr stuff exists but its not as good)
2. a can opener and a decent set of cooking knives, most here are cheap chinese imports and are crap that break in a few days
3. gravy granules bisto powder
4. lemon curd
5. marmalade orange and lime varieties
6. decent tea bags lipton sucks although i have found good ones in plus a german aldi type store
7. curry powder and international flavourings spices etc (no need for chilli stuff plenty of spices exist)
8. lea and perins worcester sauce (heinz available here)
9. soy sauce
10. egg noodles
11. branston pickle
12. ENGLISH MUSTARD
13. bacon smoked danish thick sliced (not the thin slices of streaky you find here)
14. cheddar cheese and all other sorts of English cheese (i have found danish blue but not Stilton yet) many danish type cheeses exist
15. a kettle electric cant buy one here for love nor money, coffee machines coming out of your ears
16. brown betty tea pot
17. old holborn rolling tobacco and rizla papers you can buy papers and other tobacco but its hard to find one shop i found 40 miles from me
18. batteries that last are a pain to find so i recommend rechargeable and a charger
19. full fat salted butter

other things that are hard to find or very expensive are things like good branded hygene essentials such as aftershave lotion and stuff like that they have loads but not quite the same brands depends if your fussy about this

greek style kebabs like donner meat and lamb

I forgot to include in the list above Lamb all sorts only get it at easter here one day then its done until next year

mexican food

popadoms and indian food in genral i have heard theres an indian in bucharest

cheap chainsaws petrol they are very expensive here and a sought after commodity most of the people burn wood to save on electric and gas its a shame to see some of the wood they burn like bits of oak and beech makes you want to cry dont burn it i can make something with that but go with the flow

other ethnic origins other than european seem a few chinese and one afro carabian in all the time iv’e been here o and one indian man but he was from london

i know of two or maybe three golf courses one in timisoara one up north near brasov i think and one near bucharest,other than that zip

( i may try to do a driving range here later on)

quality carpenters pencils and hard nails for wood, the nails here are as soft as butter

english electrical cable here you have to compile your own strands from single cable a right pain. if your building a house as a uk person and intend to stay in it buy uk electrical fittings to the romanian stuff is crap you will have to use some romanian sockets for simplicity but the rest i would recommend buying in uk although the romanian stuff is cheap to buy its useless after a few weeks use things like RCDs and the like are ok here so no need for them

uk plastering tools romainians still havnt quite mastered plaster they flick it at the walls in dolops before they try to spread it with a bricklaying trowel glet is romanian plaster and its pretty similar to finsh coat or one coat plaster in uk, iv’e yet to find a bonding coat still the cement rendering is pretty good here they love a lot of cement work

football and pump to reinflate ball (not found yet the pump its for romanian friend who has flat ball)

loads of pumps but no ball adaptor

ENGLISH CIDER never found it found Guinness and brown beer but no cider unusual cos here theres tonnes of apples grown everywhere

self raising flour i think i found some but not sure it doesnt rise in the same way as uk stuff

attora suet for dumplings ( i make just with flour and water and salt but i have the suet from uk)

Not found too many people from the uk in my area yet but theres time