Everybody leaves

An insurance office offered me the opportunity to listen to a conversation between a policeman and a representative of blocks association. The policeman, in civil clothes, and wooden tongue, was inquiring about a long people in the area whose identity cards were expired. A conclusion aroused, there are a lot of young people abroad. England and Italy seem to have the lion share. No wonder my town seems desert sometimes. I remember my mother telling me about her young years, when the main street filled with young people in the evening. They used to meet up and walk from one end to another, looking for fun and love as all young people. I see something similar, at a smaller level, in the summer, when some of the "departed" come to brag with their acquisitions. Of course, only the year-long inhabitants walk on the sidewalks. The others must exhibit their Hummers, Jeeps, convertibles while whistling at the girls and playing music as loud as possible.
The rest of the year, the majority of the population on the streets is middle aged (1/4) and retired (3/4). The clubs are filled every night by high-schoolers and once in a while groups of students and 30-something friends.

New Year's Eve

I decided to end 2012 going to Iasi. The trip was an event by itself. Between conversations (like the one between some IT young professionals who were comparing their job experiences in UK, Italy and Romania) and the show presented behind the windows by local bands with "goats", the train trip went very fast.

 Iasi looked beautiful. I liked the way it was decorated. The centre looked like the stars in the sky had descended towards earth.

 Even town hall was garnished with holiday lights.

 I enjoyed the festivities in the centre, together with the rivers of people which were pouting towards the centre from all the main streets. Although the bands were very interesting, it was impossible for me to stay still for long, my soles were freezing. What can you do, I had to wear the fancy boots on that occasion, instead of some warm ones better suited for those conditions.

 So we started sight seeing around, admiring some familiar sights in a different light. I liked especially the Three Hierarchs Church looked with the cross in front. The picture caught the light above as a Romanian flag, with its three colours (red, yellow, blue).

 At twelve o'clock, were the traditional fireworks. They were as usual there, a great show enjoyed by the thousands of people present there with their champagne ready for toasting for the new year. Then was the party, which made the usual victims. Some fell wherever they were slayed by the alcohol mixture. At a certain point it doesn't matter if you are friend of foe, as long as you are a good pillow.

Chrismas meal and ghost stories

Yesterday  some friends and relatives gathered at my place. Although, everybody was already fed up with food, and they strongly refused everything, while talking and laughing, the few dishes and sweets which were on the table disappeared gradually. What I enjoyed mostly was the invariable point of the discussions related to supernatural events. It astonishes me how long conversations tend to slip somehow towards that point after a while. It's supernatural. I recognised the story heard before about how my mother almost found her death in a snow of a haunted ravine. Having heard it before, doesn't mean that it doesn't give me chills every time I hear it. I blame my imagination. I actually see her on that hill top fighting the deep snow and trying to find her way through the thick fog towards my grandma's house where I was waiting for her. She did that trip some many years ago, when I was around three years old and every transportation was suspended due to the heavily snowing. But she didn't want to give up joining her family and bringing me presents for Christmas and so she risked going over the hills, some 15 kilometers, to the village. She tells us every time that she knew that road very well, but that time the snow had covered every sign of it so she had to guide after other things. At one time she almost lost her way when she heard some geese to her right. Confident that it meant, a village was there, she started going to that direction. She knew that a certain village had to be on the right of the road. While walking she glanced also to the opposite direction and to her surprise she saw a light there. She decided to turn round and go to the light. When she got to the house where the light was, she recognised the woman who came out and realised where she was. She said that the village should have been to her right not her left and was really puzzled why she heard geese in the other direction. There was nothing there. When she managed to get to my grandma's, after being well scolded for her deed, she told the family about her adventures. To her surprise everybody froze when they heard about the geese. Grandma told her that was a life and death moment for her. She told my mum that the direction she had gone first was taking her to a deep ravine which was known for being haunted. It had tricked many people to their death and people avoid going there as much as possible. She named some people from the villages around who had been mysteriously found dead in that ravine. As you can see I know the story very well, testimony to that fact that it impressed me very much.
Another story that impressed me yesterday was one told by a friend. He told us about a conversation he had with a colleague from work some years ago. The friend told him that the previous evening, he and his sister were going home taking a shortcut through a train depot when a  cat attacked them The cat seemed mad jumping on them with its claws out. Startled, they started kicking it with the bags they were carrying. To their surprise, the bags seemed to pass through it, not touching it. My friend expresses his disbelief and that they must have imagined that weird cat. He would have forgotten the story, if the second day, in the same area, something weird hadn't happen to him too. He told us that while walking along a fence, a dog came to him and started barking aggressively at him. Surprised, he stepped back, only to be startled by the sudden movement of a cat which crossed his path. Surprise made him back up a little more, almost being hit by a train which  turned the corner on some nearby rail. He said that the blow knocked him to the ground, but he was happy to be alive. He still doesn't know how come he didn't hear the train approaching.