WELCOME TO ROMANIA!

Hmmmm! So what do I know about Romania? Well there are the obvious things: Dracula! Translyvania! Then there was that gymnast in the 70s that kept scoring perfect marks at the olympics and looked rather smug with herself when she did. The horror of their orphanages. Errrr....they have the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon. Oh! And I remember when I was a kid, they had a ruler who they didn't like very much, so they went and shot him and his wife, which I found quite distressing at the age of nine when I found out, because I then started wondering if people didn't like the Queen, could they just go and shoot her and Prince Phillip?  Which would have be wrong as they looked like grandparents and no one wants their grandparents shooting! Oh! And there are the Cheeky Girls! Actually lets not mention the cheeky girls! 

"Anyway why am I wondering all these things about Romania" you ask? Well it's because Bucharest,  Romania is going to be my home for five months!!!!

I wasn't even meant to be in Romania in the first place. I was meant to be filming in Sri Lanka for the winter months, in the heat and the sun, amongst palm trees; slipping a cocktail by the pool after a hard days work, but as I know all too well things can change very quickly in my job. My job gets axed 3 weeks before Christmas. I find myself jobless at the worst time of year and stressed as I'm seeing a mortgage advisor the next week.  Then the next week like a ray of shining light I'm offered a job In Romania,  be it with a team I have never worked with before, but hey!  It's a job! The money is good and it means I can save for my flat that I so dearly want. On paper this is a good move. The reality feels a little different as I leave the airport at Bucharest and I'm confronted with a mass of snow and the temperature at -21. This is definitely not Sri Lanka! For anyone that knows me well, this is my worst bloody nightmare. I hate the cold with a passion! I normally have the costume truck so hot that my designer says its like a reptile house at the zoo, as he's stripping off his jumper in a hot sweat, and opening windows to let some air in (I would always shut them again as soon as he left)! I'm met at the airport by a big tall, serious looking man. This is Dan and he is to be my driver. We shuffle through the snow with my case to the car. I sit in the car a bit shell shocked trying to take in the surroundings as we drive by. Everywhere is just one big sheet of white. It's just after New Year, so the festive lights are still up. It seems Romanians  like lights. A lot of them! It's kind of like a eastern block Blackpool with all the tacky lights. I guess it's to distract from the fact it's not a very beautiful city. It mainly grey and concrete, vast blocks of buildings left over from the communist era. It does not have the elegance and beauty of Prague and Budapest. I'm dropped off at my hotel, a vast modern five star hotel in the heart of the city. It comes as a relief after the drive from the airport as it had made me think I'd be staying in some soviet style prison. The hotel is just as modern and as fancy as anything in London, but the next night as I sit there in its restaurant, looking out at the snow, I realise this gives me little comfort. I'm actually sat there thinking: "Why the Hell am I here?" I've left all my friends and family, to come to country that is cold and bleak; I don't know a single person here; I only have a suitcase of belongings and I have been dating someone I really like and it's been going well for once, and now, yes now I decide it's a good time to bugger off to the other side of Europe for 5 months! I could quite easily be  doing a job back in London. "Seriously I need my head checking!" I think to myself. There was one over riding factor to all this and the reason why I came here in the first place. The money to buy my flat. I know that I would never be able to save the money I want in such a short amount of time in London. Five months of sacrifice for years of security. Nothing really. "I must remember this" I tell myself and grab a black sharpie marker and pull out my treasured note book that I take on every job with me. I find the front page and scrawl across it the words: "Remember why!" in thick black letters. I tell myself no matter how bad or lonely it gets, you have to remember why you are doing this. I must keep looking at those words so I don't forget. I look out the window. It's dark and it's started snowing again. All I want is to do is down a glass of wine, but as I'm on a detox for a month after the indulgences of Christmas, I down a glass of water instead (how very unlady Warrington)! 

OBSERVATIONS

* Fashion traits that I have observed still in Vogue in Romania are: Leather trousers for men; 1980s dynasty style, big fur coats and Sun in (lots of people have orange hair)! 

* I've never eaten so much bread in my life, that's because strangely enough the bread is good here. I'm still scared I'll wake up though, to find I've turned into a big loaf of bread or something like that.

* Nanna Mouskouri is still big here!

* There are a lot of stray dogs here. I'm not sure if they out number people at times?

* I think Romanian TV has a thing about Mickey Rourke as the first week I'm here there seems to be a Mickey Rourke film on every night, but only his 80's ones when he was still hot before he decided to mess up his face with crap plastic surgery 

* They use horse and cart here for rubbish removal instead of a bin truck. I would like to say it's takes up less of the road and is quicker than the bin trucks back home, but this would be a lie. It also leaves a huge trail of horse crap where ever it goes, which you have to step over a lot!