Update

The Hunt for Red October is still going on, meaning that we're still without a car. The past few days have been needless to say adventurous. First, the '86 borrowed car we have had a flat and after the taking the wheel to the shop we weren't able to find anything - a very mysterious flat tire indeed. Then, a day later, the car wouldn't start. Finally, a mobile mechanic came to the car to try to figure out what is going on but could only find out that there was no diesel coming from the tank to the filter, so that narrowed down the problem but he still could not fix it and had to take tow it to the shop. By towing I mean me driving the car across town to his shop while being pulled behind his Yugo-like car. It is by the grace of God that I didn't smash in the rear of his car in the middle of towing. At one point we were stuck in the middle of an intersection with big busses coming towards us from both sides. At the right time, the cars started moving again and were able to decongest the traffic. After working on the car for a day, the mechanic told us he thinks a plug may have formed inside the diesel line, possibly from dirt in the fuel. Recommendation: open up the diesel line where it connects to the filter, and with a pump blow back any dirt that blocks the diesel artery. Cost: 1.5 million lei ($55).

In the news, there was the case of a 12-year-old boy who committed suicide after being scolded by his grandparents for buying a photo camera with the money he saved from caroling the neighbors. The cost of the camera: 200,000 lei (roughly $7). The boy was so upset over the incident that he went outside in the courtyard and jumped and water well, making rescue extremely difficult and delayed.

Also in the news was the case of a woman who gave birth to twins... a month apart and to everyone's amazement. The issue: the mother has two uteri. The question is whether these boys are actually twins.

Life in the big city is almost back to its original crazy state. Traffic has worsened considerably throughout town and the stores are all open again. The noise level has gone up also quite a bit as well. Talking about traffic, I experienced my first 'take this street and see where it goes' type of getting lost today. After taking a wrong right turn and entering a maze of one-way streets, I ended up inadvertently a few miles away from where I wanted to go to. Fortunately, the direction from which I entered the main street was good and was able to get back on track a few minutes later.

Today we saw two apartments. One was smack in the city center, fact which we didn't like very much because of lack of parking and high noise level. The second apartment was off a very busy road, on the third floor of a tall house. The first floor was taken by a car shop, the second by a beauty salon - whose employees where on a smoking break on the stairwell, and on the third was this two-bedroom-no-kitchen apartment for which the owner was asking - $1100!!!!!! The real estate agents keep telling us that in this price range we'll only find not-so-nice units, but that decent apartments 'start' at $1300. Pinch, pinch - is this a nightmare, or what?!

Say you are in a group of two or three little kids, roaming the streets and very hungry because you haven't eaten anything today. How do you get food? Well, one way is to watch for people walking while eating a sandwich or other goodies, knock it out of their hands, picking it up off the walkway and running away with it. We witnessed this very thing today. The victim, a teenage girl, had a bag of goodies in her hand, when all of a sudden, an 8 or 9-year-old knocked it out of her hand, another picked it up off the floor, including all of the goodies that fell out of the bag and ran away with the food. Everything was a good 2 seconds long, and before anyone could say 'stop' they were far and away.