The Shaorma

Happy 4th of July to everyone. I hope all are enjoying the day off with family and friends...and some good food. It is obviously not even a blip on the daily life radar of Romania...but, we will toast to our beautiful homeland tonight over dinner (have I mentioned it is easy to toast over quality beer that is widely available for less than 1USD/pint here?).

Our sleeping location is stable for the night, and our tummies are full, so.....this blog will be slightly more specific than others....

I shall start with the basis for my full tummy....the shaorma. In Budapest, we had gyros (3 times) that were pretty standard in their contents....cheaper in price than we had previously experienced (around 2.50). Here in Sinaia, Romania, we were greeted with something looking much like a gyro...but boasting a slightly reduced price (2.00) and a left-of-center composition. The shaorma is composed of french fries, chicken meat (cut from a large rotating roast like a gyro), onions, lettuce, red peppers, mayo, ketchup, and mustard deliciously wrapped in a pita-style bread. The result is nothing short of cheap-backpacker culinary heaven. We have now had this for a meal about every day, although sometimes venturing into uncharted territory to cheaper options. For about .90 cents USD you can have a sanwich cascaval, which consists of french fries, a slice of cheese, lettuce, ketchup, and mayo stuffed into a bun. A similar variation replaces the cheese with ham (still around .90 cents USD). The shaorma is a good hearty meal. The sandwich cascaval and similar variations merely assuage hunger for short periods of time (a pre-late dinner snack or possibly a full-enough-stomach-to-fall-asleep treat). Welcome to the world of the shaorma....I won't be surprised to see fries on all my sandwiches by the time this trend spreads rapidly to the US in the next few weeks.....

To wash down our shaorma, we had Pepsi Gold. Is that in the States? I think it is out in coordination with the World Cup?! It was interesting........kinda like a Pepsi-Sprite-Vanilla taste. It was cold....that's numero uno on my drink qualifications....so....good enough for me.

Today was our first up-before-noon day in awhile. Dave couldn't sleep and woke up with a shower and some reading before I welcomed the day. Around 10, we went to a park to bask in the sun. We both finished our books with an afternoon reading session, but we found a classics section (the only thing to be found in english) in a local bookstore. I bought the first of the Last of the Mohicans Series (The Deerslayer)...Dave bought a Charles Dickens book...Old Curiosity Shop.....each were about four dollars. After reading those and switching, we should make it to the end of the trip.

It will be difficult to make this story funny out-of-context....but I will try (mostly because Dave said it couldn't be done). Let's start with the punch-line....a quote.....Cory Vought, "Dude, take the butter off the tank".

Laugh now, because the context is coming. We were outside the D-Day Museum waiting on our taxi...eating bread and butter, when the resting butter got in the way of a tourist taking pictures of the tank. Ha, ha. Even if you just laughed inside....my mission was accomplished : )

It has been a relief (yet slightly depressing) that American music dominates the majority of European airwaves. It is typically hip-hop, but last night we heard Kenny Rogers in our restaurant and Willy Nelson in the market on our way to our pension. Even in some highly ethnic environments.....as authentic a restaurant as one can find....it is not surprising to hear rap or hip-hop.....the Black-Eyed Peas....Shakira.....

In our current location, the two english-language channels are the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet. Who know that "Animal Detectives" could be so interesting? We have watched plenty of documentaries and Steve Irwin in the last few days....the pure quality of which is always tainted by the fact that any english on TV is beautiful to our "I don't know what the heck you are trying to tell me" ears.

Well......the one-hour time limit on my internet is coming to an end. Happy 4th. We plan on a nice dinner tonight, then the football (soccer) game at 10pm our time. Much love.

Josh