Why I got married?
This is me, Sasha, and the mayor of a small Romanian town. He, through the power of himself, declared us “connected”. United. Glued. Forever sticky with each-other. I also wear a “camiseta” – that kind of shirt that you usually wear for special events. It is not mine and I don’t usually wear such things. Sasha is wearing a traditional romanian shirt. :))
After a few months, maybe more than a year actually, of staying in close contact and me realizing more and more that she is serious about not being a Kathy (sorry Kathy, nothing against you m’am, but the world is full of normal people), I asked to her to let me help rebuilding her website to highlight her lifestyle/ideas even better. To make something unique out of what she got there. I helped a few other people/projects in the past with their websites when I considered what they did as interesting. I like doing that. So it was nothing out of ordinary for me to propose that to her. It was really interesting to see Sasha writing about her unique exploration of Earth together with linking to relevant TROM info. Awesome photos, awesome stories. Smart writing. I really liked it. What she did with her blog was medicine done right. It was like when I was little and my mom used to put medicine in my soda drinks. A tasty way of getting healthier. Combine a “cool” lifestyle (that’s more than cool, it is interesting) with in-depth materials about our society, culture, tech, science. Sasha put the medicine out there in this easy-to-swallow-way. And I just wanted to make the “holder” (the cup) of her stuff, a bit more interesting.
Why Sasha was Aaron?
Side note: After swimming in these “activism” waters like TROM, TVP, TZM and the like for a bit, I noticed how many (MANY) people are in for the “making friends” of it. They want a connection. They want relationships. They want a community. Nothing against that, but to me that’s a bit puckey. If you are in search of a community on top of being interested in the project, then great. But if you make it more about the social aspects of it, then I hate you. I struggle like crazy to make these ideas (TROM ideas) easy to grasp and known, and if people join mostly to talk to others and find friends, then it is extremely disappointing for me. I failed. And I saw people that were in search of girlfriends and such, in these groups, more than they were interested in the projects. Girls (vagina-and-boobs-shaped humans) are a rarity in such groups. Thus, when they are present, I saw penis-and-no-boobs-shaped humans hitting on them. Perhaps because people in such groups are quite lonely, they would absolutely love to be in a relationship (feelings, sex, whatever) with another human that shares these “weird” values that very few share. Let’s be honest, finding a girlfriend (if that’s what you want) who is also interested in how this society works, is quite rare. Guys are more interested in such topics (statistically-observed-by-me and-others). So, in a way I get it, but it is uncomfortable to see such situations where people use such interesting projects like TVP, TZM, TROM and the like, to “hook-up” with others. I’m not saying they join for that reason, but that’s what I observed a bunch of times with several people.
Ok. So. I realized that I am quite an abnormal creature. Even compared to the people from such groups. I do not need a community, or a relationship. I am perfectly fine by myself. All of my life I lived alone basically. Relationships? A girlfriend? What are those? How do they smell? I tried them in high school for a bit, then in collage. I realized that they are over-hyped by our culture. Boring. And non-interesting to me. Both the community and relationships. Give me the sexiest girl in the world, make her my slave, but if we don’t share these TROM values then it cannot work. It is a no-brainer really, but something people might be very naive about when they only look at the wrapper of the package, instead of the “package” itself (values). So even in that scenario I’ll end up with a sex slave that might stress me out more than I stress her. In college I fancied about “relationships” a little bit and I remember a girl asking me to please stop poking jokes at her boi Jesus when we are together…..Yeah…..sure….If religion is bullshit, I’ll call that bullshit, like it is. So no thanks. I won’t ever be able to stay close to such normal creatures that are both shallow (know very little about the waters they swim into), and plain simply crazy (full of BS ideas and pseudoscience).
The idea here is that I am so curious about the world (what the fuck is happening) that I don’t give a fuck about anything else. Period. I don’t dream about a girlfriend, friends, a community, a horse, a sex slave, or a new car. If those will emerge somehow then great (no sex slave tho – humans need-be-respected-and-not-harmed), if not then I don’t care. So, with that being said, I was never in pursuit of anything but TROM-related-stuff for the past 10 or so years. I never joined any meetings anywhere (not even online, except let’s say 2 or so), and I never wanted to meet people in “real” life. Not even TROM people. I don’t know, but it was always uncomfortable for me. Just leave me alone. 😀
For the past 2-3 years I was a bit more lose in the sense that a few people said they want to visit me and I was like “eh….ok….will see”. Normally I won’t even reply to such messages. I realized that life is short and I spent more than 10 years alone in my room writing stuff and making videos. Why not try to taste from a different kind of lifestyle? And so Aaron ‘forced’ me to accept his invitation to visit me. 🙂 He came to visit me for 3 days, after we worked together for like 2 years online. He was the first TROM human I met. Then I thought, with him, to organize a TROM meeting in a few months time and invite some close-TROM-friends. So we did. I liked Aaron a lot. Such a great human.
Now, why was Sasha, Aaron?
Because I had no other interest in Sasha more than I had in Aaron or the other TROM people we invited in May. For me they were equally friends. TROM friends. No expectations like “Oh, let’s invite Sasha so maybe we get together and I finally have that girlfriend that I was dreaming all along.”. I had no such “visionary” projections about my future.
In any case, Sasha was one of those that were invited. She was happy. Very. And she came last out of all, arriving 1-2 days later in Spain, after hitchhiking from Russia. Crazy! This is when we all met her:
This is her and her backpack. Can you tell which one is which? Because I offered my help to carry that backpack up 1.448.566 stairs to the house where we would stay, and trust me I felt like carrying Sasha and her entire family all the way. I never in my life had to carry something as heavy as this backpack. This girl must be strong to carry that thing from Russia to Spain. Small but strong.
People came. We had fun for 3 weeks. Almost. I was kinda sick, peeing blood for like half the meeting. I thought that backpack bursted something inside me. In this meantime me and Sasha ended up together. Two planets from different solar systems, coalesced. How that happened? I don’t remember. I think one day I woke up and I was informed that me and Sasha were a “couple”. I was fine with that. It was quick. I was sick. I think I was taken advantage of. IDK. 🙂 – No, I am joking of course, we got really well together and it was unavoidable to coalesce. Gravity.
Before this meet-up several of us discussed about the possibility of moving together after the meeting was over. Only 3 of us (me, Sasha and Aaron) moved together right away. It took us 2 weeks to find an apartment in a town that’s 90% full of empty apartments for like 8 months a year. We were refused because we were not a family, we look too young, or we wouldn’t be able to prove that we have a steady income and such. It was an awful experience. We were lucky to find an apartment through my sister’s bosses that own a rental company.
Anyways, now me, Sasha, and Aaron moved together.
But it was the beginning of an end. Only 1 month after we moved together and the flowers were blooming in our young hearts, Sasha had to leave Spain. Why? Was she sick? A lesbian? Did Aaron and Sasha had a relationship behind my back? Did I start to snore too loud? Mnot. The thing is that in this society you can’t just live on Earth. When you are born here, then you can’t go there that easily, or at all. Imaginary borders are well maintained and supported by pillars of paper. They call them IDs, Passports, VISA (Vehement Inspection of the Soul and Ass), etc.. Sasha was born in one of the Earth’s ‘gardens’ called Russia. Then she hopped into USA. So she had 2 “nationalities”. But I was in Spain (Europe). She, russian-american, Me romanian-european. The truth is we were like oil and water in this society. We could not mix under its rules. The papers won’t allow for that. Sasha wrote a great blog about this Prison Earth we all are inmates of, so I highly suggest you go read that.
Sasha had to leave. USA? UK? No-way? She chose UK. Was closer to Spain and a friend of hers was beyond kind to let her stay there for free in her apartment. Just one month after we signed a 1-year contract for the apartment (rental), Sasha had to leave to UK and stay there for 3 months. The Europe prison says that someone from USA can only stay for 3 months in Europe and then leave Europe for 3 months in order to be able to come back for another 3. 3 is the number of the god europa, a bitch of the sea. UK is part of Europe (but not “properly”) – so Sasha was able to use that as a saving boat. Sasha leaving Spain was not as easy. I thought she was used to going places and sleeping in a tent :D, but the thought of leaving Spain so quickly and maybe having to go to US or somewhere else and work, put a toll on her and I saw her very sad. So sad I really got pissed at this society to the point of wanting to punch the society in the face. She was low on money so it was quite a bad situation. She was also in the middle of writing a book about her life and getting interrupted by these stupidities that our society is so proud of, is soul crushing. I “forced” her to create a fundraiser for her book and a Patreon (link). Fortunately a few kind people donated money. We were both kinda at the edge: financially, emotionally. Anyways, she left. She stayed there for 3 months. She didn’t have to work thanks to the donations she received and this friend of hers that was so nice. It was ok in the end.
The only positive part is that while she was there, we talked on the phone almost every night. I swear VISA made our relationship better. We got to be best friends and in no way we would accept this bullshit paperwork to split us apart in this idiocratic society. If this doesn’t sound like the start of a romantic movie, then I don’t know what. I call it Shrek 5: in the search of the lost queen.
The queen got back after 3 months and we had to quickly think of something to be able to stay together. This is a photo I took after we “recovered” her from the airport in Barcelona.
Now we were in Spain. Sasha could only stay for 3 months there. How can we fix this?
RIDDLE TIME:
We have 2 young (yes!) creatures on planet Earth. They are humans.
1. Sasha. Purple. She is labeled as russian-american.
This bitch can go everywhere around the world you might say. The red and blue is where she actually can go and stay, the rest are places where she can stay somewhere between a month and three months on average. The grey is “bitch you need to ask first and we may refuse you, and if we accept you, you won’t stay for long.”
1. Tio. Blue. He is labeled as romanian.
Places he can go to (source 1)
Even this cunt can travel a lot with the romanian passport. But, except Europe, every other place on that map he can only visit for one to three months on average. The grey area is a no-no. Including USA and Russia, where the human number 1 can reside.
The following is an interactive map I really struggled to put together. Here is Planet Earth. The most gifted rock in the Universe. Purple and Blue want to be together. Live together on this rock. But how? I combined both of the above maps into one to showcase where Purple and Blue could stay together, because the above maps do no justice to the injustice. Those shades of green there may make people think that we could have lived together pretty much everywhere.
So. Let’s make it dark.
Where you see dark grey, those are the areas where we could have stayed (both of us) for a few days to up to 6 months maximum. That within a year, or less period of time. Simply put these dark grey areas are for tourists who go there to visit. On top of this, all of such dark grey places have their own rules (trades you have to respect) – so is not like you simply go there and all is fine. Or it’s not like it is so easy to access these places.
The black areas are areas where at least one of us can’t really go unless they get a VISA. And that’s usually difficult if not impossible to get for humans like us who do not have a job or money.
Blue is where blue can stay, but not purple (except for 3 months every 3 months). And purple is where purple can stay, but not blue (except if he gets a VISA for a period of time – months – which is difficult to get).
Now click on the map, on any tribe, to see where we could have stayed and how. The rules there. The conditions.
To my surprise there is ONE, 1, UNO, place where both of us could stay “forever” and ever and build our kingdom of TROM. That orange island there on top. The great island of Svalbard. It is the only place in the world where anyone can go. From anywhere. No VISA. No restrictions. Almost…What’s the catch?
- Population somewhere over 2 thousand people. Few and in-between.
- Very “wild” and cold. You need a proper jacket and a gun. And I mean it. It is required when you go out to either have a gun and know how to use it, or go with someone who has one and knows how to use it. Why? Polar bears. Fluffy and deadly.
- It is expensive to go there. Flights alone are in the hundreds of euros.
- It is difficult to get there. Likely you have to go through Norway (its mother land), so if you can’t access Norway then you can’t really access this place.
- You can stay there if you can financially support yourself – being part of Norway you can be sure the life there is one of the most expensive in Europe.
- You won’t have access to healthcare or other social systems unless (probably) if you pay for that which is (probably) super expensive.
In all, it is great to see that such a place exist, but in no way this would be an option for us. We would barely have the money to buy a ticket there. But then, unless we hunt polar bears with our bare hands, we could not make it. Here’s a cool video about the place:
Now, there are ways for you to go to most of the world’s tribes and live there. Like having a job there, or invest into a business, buy land or whatever. Meaning, if you have money you are able to go. But even then it is a bit complicated. We don’t have any jobs and are barely making a living so these are no options for us. We looked and looked and looked into ways of staying together on this planet and we could not find any that could work for both of us. Unless we decided to become 100% slaves and try to get a job – tho without a diploma (me) or a proper one (her), even that would have been nearly impossible.
What are our options then? Very few, if any. So, we decided to get “married”. This way the tribes seem to allow us to live in Europe at least. It is so ridiculous that a piece of paper that basically says “these two people are together” can be so important. If this isn’t Idiocracy then….. Needless to say that none of us ever gave a fuck about this marriage ritual. Most people on this Planet seem to be enslaved to this idea, even the most skeptical of them all are pray to it. Which is very weird to me. But if that’s the solution then fuck it. Let’s do the stupid ritual and have that paper that will allow the Purple inmate to live in Europe. Let’s try to see if Blue and Purple can live together.
RIDDLE TIME OVER. LET'S 'HACK' THE SOCIETY.
- A valid “ID” card. Like your face and some letters and numbers that prove you are real and you are owned by this or that tribe. We had those. Passports.
- Another document to prove you were born. Somewhere. We had them. Tho Sasha had to ask her father to send them from Russia…
- A document to prove where I live in Spain and where Sasha lived for the past 2 years (in the bloody world). I have such a document. Sasha does not since she traveled around the world. She didn’t have a “place” to stay for the past 10+ years. Except here and there, rentals or mostly staying at people’s places. But this was an issue. However perhaps we could have lied about it.
- A document to prove that you are not married. I mean….what the fuck. Aren’t “authorities” suppose to know that. Why are they asking you for an ID card and all that when you get married, to then not know if some citizens are married or not. How come I have to prove it? Anyways, this was a paper we needed to take from our tribe’s embassies. Costly and for mine would have taken about 3 months to be “delivered”. Too long. Sasha could only stay for 3 months in Spain and she was already there for a few weeks already (time it took us to go here and there and ask around for what we need).
- Another document to prove that you are ABLE to get married. Ha.ha.Ha.hA.
ha.Lord Jizas. They are serious about this shit. But it is for real. There is such a document. I don’t know what that means but….well…haha. We probably could get this one too, though would have taken a while to get it from our tribes.
The really cunty thing about it was that Sasha needed to have documents for both of her nationalities. In Russian and English. From both tribes. That would have been really difficult and complicated. More than that, we were obliged to translate all of the documents for both of us (of course, since our species can’t even talk one universal language). Despite all that, we tried….but we realized that we can’t do it in a 3 months time-frame. We also noticed that when you submit the marriage papers in spain, you have to be interviewed….Maybe they would ask us what are our favorite colors or foods. I don’t know what these people are up to, but to me this all smells like Hitlerism. The entire situation. We were also in great difficulty regarding the Spanish language and its many dialects, because we struggled to both understand these motherfuckers and talk to them.
On this website you see prices that average somewhere around 3 to 4.000 lei. “lei” means “lions” in Romanian language and it is also the official currency. So, how many lions equals one elephant? Well, 4.000 lions is around 1.000 Euros. Or, like my grandma used to say, almost twice the average salary in Romania. And look at this price range on the same website:
So the prices range from 400 Euros to 1.100 Euros. And people in Romania, despite living in one of the poorest tribes in Europe, keep buying these disposables. A wedding normally costs several thousand euros. But you can make the money back from the “guests”. 200 people paying 100 to 200 euros to come + the “gift” they each HAVE to give you, means that you are making the money back. The “gift” is another Romanian thing. At a wedding everyone is “obliged” to give a gift to the glued-ones. That means money usually. A few hundreds more. Some give them thousands.
Weddings in Romania are a very distasteful business. And they dare to make 2 of these. One is the official one where you sign the gluing paper that recognizes your relationship as “marriage”, and the religious one where they involve the creator of the universe. That’s the main one for which you need all of those preparations.
I am telling you that so you understand how hypnotized Romanians are with this weird and pucky ritual.
Anyways, fuck that. Back to us.
So, knowing how big of a deal this wedding stupidity is in Romania, I really didn’t want to go there. Of course we would not do those primitive and idiotic things, but we will be forced to do the “official” ceremony and since I am from a very small town where everyone’s hobby is to gossip about others, then people will find out that I am getting married and I’d have to put up with their primitiveness. But well, we had no choice. We had to do this, so we booked flights to Romania on the 30st of December. My parents were already in Romania (they migrate from Spain to there every winter since there’s nothing for them to work here in that period of time).
So. We are packing our bags and I am trying not to lose my mind because I feel like going to a shithole hell. I wanted to make a documentary about this ridiculous situation. I filmed some stuff and took some photos here and there, but overall I was very disturbed mentally to be able to focus on such things. Plus, I didn’t want to compromise our situation with this….
the adventure in romania
Bus from our small town in Spain, to a near by one. Wait 1h for another bus. From there to Barcelona. 4.5 hours drive. Traffic jam in Barcelona. The bus was ok. No one wears seatbelts except us and an old british couple that I saw. People think they are invincible in buses. Well, ok. We arrive at the airport and for me these places are one of the most polluted on Earth. Polluted with stupidity and abuse. You feel like a proper inmate there. You are a subordinate. You are scared not do do any “wrong” move or have an “improper” attitude. It is the human version of a livestock factory. Everyone there is so serious and the prices for food and drinks are 5 times higher than in that tribe. It is a rip-off. A scam. A prison. A place where you won’t find any humans. Seems like everyone is a robot. A mindless machine. Here and there you may see a heavily armed robot. As if these places are the battle ground of an invisible war. Not to mention how charlatans these airline companies are. We used WizzAir. This company is so awful that customers made a website called wizzairsucks.com. Buying a plane ticket feels like and endless stream of additional services. Feels like doing your taxes. Feels like a puzzle. Feels like crawling naked through a stream of mouse traps. You want insurance? A car to pick you up from the airport? Priority checking? A better seat? Chewing gum? A massage? A handjob? A subscription to stewardess porn? You name it, these fuckers are not an airline company, they are a service-selling company and you are their customer. That’s all. The “continue” (next) button on their website (while you fill in your information) is always hidden underneath a mountain of such “options” layered with a ton of colorful ads.
Then, they dare to tell us that you HAVE to buy a seat in order to continue. Despite not being mandatory they make it look like so. Just read the bellow message we were faced with:
I think this image says it all. Man, “capitalistic” morons may really enjoy this option-full society we live in. So wonderful. We had to “risk” it and not buy seats at the expense of checking in (whatever-the-fuck-that-means) only 48h before the flight. That was our punishment for getting 2 free seats….for the tickets we just bought. Imagine if bus tickets would be as fucked up as plane tickets. And after they check your face, your documents, face again, documents…be aware not to trigger the metal detector…strip yourself of your belongings and walk a shit ton through a maze of gates, shops, and scared people….you sit in a narrow seat for a few hours being greeted by mildly sexy flight attendants that only want to sell you more shit at 4 times the normal price. No thanks. I sucked your cock so much, I don’t need a salad and a perfume.
Anyways. Airlines are the top most charlatans of them all.
We are on our way. We land in Romania. There my parents wait for us with a relative with a car. It is 3am. 31st of December. The “New Year’s Eve” they call it. Me and Sasha give no fuck. We drive for 4 hours from Bucharest to “my Romanian little town”. The driver wears no seat belt. It is foggy, cold, dark, and the traffic/roads are awful like usually in Romania. The seat belt still makes little sense for the driver. My parents brought sandwiches and some traditional Romanian sweets for me and Sasha. Very nice. Very good. They are good people. I hear them talk about politics, jobs, normal stuff. I listen. I ignore. I want to arrive home. Sasha sleeps. She does that all the time when we travel :D. That’s good. For her :)). I can’t really sleep in a bus, plane, or car. I need to be there to see what’s happening. There bothers me. I can only sleep here, in my own place.
We arrive. Home is nice. Home is our apartment in Romania. My parents invested pretty much most of their money that they make here in Spain into that apartment (not a lot tho). It is a Romanian thing. You work abroad and build your nest home. They did a good job. The apartment is cozy, spacious, nice. Nothing exaggerated. Minimalist I’d say. And cozy as fuck :D. Basically my parents and my sister put money into that apartment. I didn’t really. I never had money for helping with this. I feel a bit bad but it is what it is.
We took a nap. We woke up in the evening. My parents “prepared” everything for this New Year’s Eve. Again, me and Sasha don’t care about such events, but ok…nice for them to do these. We went quickly to my grandma’s house where some relatives live (my grandparents died a few years ago). I saw Mike. He is the “hand” from TROM Documentary :D. When I created TROM he was there. He is my cousin and he was my only friend for many years. He got a bit trapped in this weird trade society for the past years so we didn’t stay in touch that much for these past years. I was happy to see him. We came back home. My parents had presents for us waiting underneath the Christmas tree. Sasha insisted we also buy some gifts (nothing expensive) for them from Spain. We exchanged gifts. It was nice. I was ok with these.
I invited Mike over. It was me, Sasha, Georgi (my sister), Mike, and my parents. We were eating something. Nice food. Nice everything. Then, around 00:00 my parents went into “waiting for the countdown” mode. Tun in to the TV. Open the champagne. I hear my father saying something about having money in the pocket so the New Year “sees” you with that and you will be lucky the entire year – you’ll have more money. All of this kinda smacked me into the face realizing that this is not my world. And I don’t want to be part of this. Till then it was ok, but then I kinda realized that these little moments, repeated many times over my lifetime, made me angry at this society and people in general. These “little” things that to me showcase how people don’t really care about what’s real. They hold onto all kinds of weird beliefs and simply record and stream them forward. Mechanisms for this consuming culture.
A week, no progress. Since slaves (unfortunately for them) work all year, they will get a break for a few days in this period of time. They call them holy-days. Nothing holy about them tho. So, we could not do anything in the first week when the slaves had a break.
the adventure in romania: the journey of papers
First, we go to this “official” place to ask exactly what we need for the marriage. A small room with old furniture. Two women there. Often they were eating. They were moderately nice. They said we need:
- birth certificates for both of us (Sasha has to translate her Russian birth certificate into Romanian)
- passports (Sasha has to translate her American passport into Romanian)
- a medical paper (hm…yes…) – to showcase we are capable of marriage (ha-ha-ha)
- a paper to prove that Sasha is not married
- two declarations from Sasha that say the same thing that she is not married, she is alive, has a vagina, and will respect the Romanian laws
Proving that Sasha is Sasha
We need to go to Bucharest (4 hours away from Horezu – the town I’m from) to the American embassy to get that paper showing that Sasha is Sasha and she is not married. We read online that there is no such paper in the US…so what now? They say they will give us another one, like a declaration from Sasha about all of these. We hope it works. We go to Bucharest and stay there for 1 night in an airbnb so we can go in the morning at the embassy. We take an old bus and we get over-charded. But fuck it.
There, in Bucharest at the US embassy, a “beautiful” building guarded by a big Romanian dude with a big gun. He only let’s Sasha in and tells her to leave everything with me, outside, including her phone. Outside was very cold. I am waiting across the street, freezing. Sasha is inside – she had to raise her right hand and “swear” in front of authorities there that she is over 18 and not married and she agrees to marry with me. The funny thing is that Sasha’s name is Russian (Alexandra Davletshina Rashidovna) but her last “residency” was in Hawaii. So, imagine this, in Romania (an unknown tribe from Europe), a Russian citizen raises her hand in a US embassy and says: “Me, Alexandra Davletshina Rashidovn, from Kamehameha Haleiwa Hawaii, want to get married to this long-named-romanian-citizen.” Hilarious. And Jezus Christ of Nazareth, this world is primitive as fuck. It is scary. She stays there for about 1h, but she manages to get that holy paper.
We go back to Horezu with the paper. One of those women looks over it and says it is not good…we explain that’s the only thing the US can give to us. She “flips” the page of the document and there it is: a paragraph (a short one) basically saying “This declaration/paper is the only thing US can provide bla bla bla…” and that seemed to have done the trick. The woman accepts it as “true”. Magic!
Translating the papers
We talk to this dude in Horezu that has a tiny office in a very shady place. His business is to officially translate documents from ANY language. We should have tried him with a Swahili….My parents dealt with this one eventually, and managed to get the papers translated. Overall they were the ones doing most of the lifting with the paperwork. Huge thanks to them. So they go there, they pay, they translate the papers. They need to be both translated and “legalized”. Like someone has to translate them and someone else needs to put a stamp on them. Both cost. But we have them a few days later.
We don’t have AIDS
Next thing is to go to a private clinic, that ironically is across the street of the big governmental public hospital, to get tested for HIV. It costs less than 10 Euros for both of us. I have no clue what’s the deal with this test, but I am happy Sasha is clean haha. Or is she?
We go to this small room where mostly old people were waiting to either get some results form the tiny private clinic, or ask for tests. And it was a very sad sight. Here in Spain, with this healthcare system that’s free, you are assigned to a “general” doctor where you go to complain: my head hurts, I’m puking violet, I might have another penis, I am pregnant, etc.. This doctor is a “good-and-knowledgeable-friend” that can then advise you, treat you, or send you for tests or to specialists. It works. And you never talk about money because it is free. In that Romanian clinic it was the opposite. A young girl at the counter was advising these old people what blood tests to do based on a brief listening to their complaints in a sea of other people waiting in line, talking to each other. Two rooms there: one at the entrance where people were “ordering” their tests, and one clearly marked with a Jesus icon on top of the door, where the blood and urine were collected. I think that’s all they did, the two fluids of the universe: blood and pee. I remember one old lady saying that she feels pain here and there and everywhere and wants a “full” set of tests. And the young woman at the counter saying “yes, let’s do them “all””. And the old lady had to pay around 100 Euros only for the tests. That could easily be half of her pension. This is not healthcare. This is not science. This is witchcraft and a market. For one, there are no such thing as “all” tests, especially when it comes to blood or urine tests. There are tons of such tests, trying to detect a plethora of things. Never “one”. This is so ridiculous. And second, to charge people so much money for such tests, is inhumane. These are old and sick people, and companies take advantage of them. The Romanian healthcare system is a “free” one as far as I can tell, like in Spain, but since doctors are used to take bribes and overall Romania is a shithole, people prefer to go to the private clinics that may offer a better waiting room and better hopes for the clients. And third, blood and urine or any other tests mean NOTHING unless you have a system that will deal with the results. To fix the problem. “Oh, hi m’am, we did this blood tests and we are pretty sure you have cancer. Now, good luck with that ’cause we don’t deal with the treatment. We only tell you what’s wrong with you.”.
Anyway. We go there. We give them our blood. The results come the next day. Interestingly my father could go there to pick up the results…I mean, these are personal medical results how come they agree for someone else to come pick them up? We take the results (we don’t even know what are the results) and we go to my Romanian family doctor with them. We pay for all of these things. There, an old waiting room. Looks like USSR. Looks awful. Inside the cabinet there she is. The lady. The legend. The woman. The doctor. The She. A female general-practitioner in her 60s (probably), who recently had a stroke, staying in her doctor office listening to Rihanna and smoking. I swear! You don’t get a better Romanian experience than this.
I managed to take that photo. It is unbelievable that a doctor smokes in the office. There were kids in the waiting room….She looked at Sasha and said “Yeah I wanted to see her. She looks good. Congratulations!”. And we left with the medical papers from there. Great job, doc!
Declare again….
So, with the passports and birth certificates (translated), with the paper from the embassy, with the medical papers….all that was not enough. Now, we had to go to a special office where Sasha had to give 2 declarations. That she is she (again), and that she will respect the Romanian laws and she accepts marrying with me….For this they required us to “rent” a translator. A certified one. We go to a nearby town (1h away), in this little office to do the declarations. It takes them around 3 hours to do them because for one they didn’t understand why 2 and not 1, so they had to call the Horezu women and ask them. And second because one of these women’s kids (from that tiny office) was sick and she had to leave from time to time. In this time the translator came. She was young, around our age. Her English was not that great, but whatever. BUT….and I will apologize for saying this because this girl was very nice and calm, but she was a Piñata of bullshit. Piñata are these colorful “things” that people put all kinds of candies inside, and others (usually kids) have to smash them with a bat. IDK why, but whatever. This translator was full of conspiracy theories, horoscopes, after-life theories, nutritional advice, alternative medicine and so forth, that if you were to smack her with a bat, you’ll see the cream of the bullshit falling from inside her. The moment we met, she said she will read our “horoscope” and tell us about ourselves based on our date of birth. She talked non-stop about these fucked up things, about her life, about nothingness. For 2 hours. Me and Sasha felt abused. Raped mentally.
At one point I started to get into conspiracy theories too, thinking that someone plays a prank on me and tests me with this – like maybe they hired an actress to fuck with me (as if I’m that important for anyone to pull this prank on me…). But considering I am a “soldier” of the army of debunking bullshit (see TROM and all I do), having to face this Piñata was perhaps the most painful thing I had to observe since I didn’t want to comment much if at all about her BS because I didn’t want to upset her and maybe have no translator to help us with the paperwork. A compromise nearly impossible for me to accept. But I did….
Anyways it was only 10 Euros for her service, but I felt like losing 10 billion neurons at the same time. We get those 2 declarations, since those were the last we needed.
Passports, birth certificates, medical papers, embassy paper, declarations. Fuckin’ christ. Now that’s it. We go back to the original-office with all of the papers. They look through them. And look….check to see if these 2 humans can be glued officially together or not. See if the papers match the creatures. It is almost like scientists trying to describe the atom, not by looking at it and analyze the thing directly, but by looking at some papers that describe the atom and try deny the existence of the atom or some of its properties since the papers don’t agree with the reality. And that happened to us because they looked at the papers and faced a dilemma: Sasha’s name has 3 names :D. You know the last name and the second name or whatever. Family name, and your name. That weird combination we all have. So her name is A B C. Russia may recognize her family name as A and the B as her last name, where C is what you inherit from your father in terms of name. The US, does it differently, and Romania does it like US perhaps. So, all in all her Russian birth certificate was translated into Romanian as A B and her US passport was translated as A B C. So, those 2 didn’t match. Big-f-deal. But for them it was a big deal and they said they refuse to merge us together. We called the translator that translated the birth certificate and that woman clearly explained that she translated it correctly. So everything was legal. It was simply an issue with how tribes interpret one’s name. Sasha was physically there, and we had the original papers and their translations, but the papers didn’t match so Sasha didn’t exist basically. See? The atom is there, you just have to look at it and describe it. But that’s the opposite of how our society works. Our society looks at papers in order to define the reality.
It was a funny situation (if real, and I think it was real) where in Romania someone was wrongly declared as dead. Now the guy goes to authorities to complain about that, but since it was declared dead already, he was unable to make any complaint about it. I don’t remember what happened to the guy, but it you are declared dead then you are fucked since you basically cannot live in this imagined paper-based society humans built.
Anyways. We had to kinda bribe the translator to translate the birth certificate wrongly in order to match the passport. Another wait, another spending. My mom also had to bribe the women in that office to kind accept this situation as such…
FINALLY.
All of the paperwork was in our possession. We submit that. It is approved. On 31st of January the great merging will occur. I am asked how we want to split the goods, I say “m’am I only have a laptop on my name and she has hers; I think 50’50 is a good deal; we just keep our laptops”. 😀
We are a month in with this bullshit in Romania but at least we are close to be done with it. 31st of January is a week after we submit the papers. We are way more relaxed but the entire thing puts a toll on me (and on Sasha too of course), but I am close to having a mental breakdown.
The clash of values.
From the beginning, since we decided to do this bullshit marriage thing, I was very clear with everyone around me that we correctly label this nonsense as “bullshit”, so we don’t care about anything more than hacking this society in order to stay together. More to that, everyone who knew me (my relatives, family, ‘old friends’) should have known I don’t give a shit about such things. I poke fun at such things all the time actually. Despite all that, people who found out about the “event” (I never told anyone I think, but well…small city, bored people) started to congratulate us. Even my parents took it seriously and at one point I was asked if I need help to buy “rings”. Look, these people seem nice and that’s how they express themselves. They don’t grasp the fact that marriage is not only an invention (imagination), but an abuse. Me and Sasha were abused into this stupidity in order to let us stay together. Live on this planet together. And now we get these “congratulations” from people. Tell me, how can I react to that!? Because I felt a mix of feelings from extremely sad to furious. It is like in China you may only be able to stay together with a partner that has a social credit above 700, and you struggle to get your credit score above that in order to live together, while at the same time protesting about this abusive rule. Yet, your relatives congratulate you for achieving that above 700 social score. How does this sound? Because it is the same with the marriage. Where is the difference? We wouldn’t have done this stupidity ever if we were not without options.
So yeah, seeing how people around us take this seriously was extremely frustrating because I also could not be a jerk and get angry when they congratulated us so I had to fake a sad “thanks” at the corner of my mouth. But I really felt like being trapped in a horror movie where people are not humans, they are robots with whom you cannot talk. With my parents it was a game of “let’s pretend you care and I don’t” that we kinda respected as much as possible until one morning, a few days before the gran’ event, when my mother asks me what I will wear for the event, and I said that I don’t care, these things are stupid and I simply left the conversation. My family got very upset at me for that, but I was simply at the edge of my sanity there. Like…I have to go through all of this bullshit with papers, with delaying my TROM projects, with spending money, with pretending to be part of the mindless norm, and all that, and now you want me to be a clown? Like, “Hey, at that abusive event, what are you gonna wear?”. A few tears and loud voices later inside the family, an unnecessary development, and we agree to please my parents and talk to them about what the clowns are going to wear. Again, my parents are nice people, and without them we would have had great difficulties solving this problem, but their values are not in line with ours. They didn’t fully understand why we are doing this. In any case, we agree to wear some “respectful” clothes to not trigger the zombies when we go there. I was wearing a t-shirt from my sister (it was a male-shirt that she had), and Sasha a “traditional” Romanian “thing” and my sister’s boots and jacket. We are pretty now. Everyone seems ok with us. Let’s play pretend.
THE DAY
A day before “the day” I had to pull myself together and try to control myself because I felt like I want to kill someone. I pushed myself away from society from age 15 or so. Rarely interacting with the normality. And now I get to interact with the most nonsensical of stupidities. I faked it a lot and I felt like I could not handle it anymore. Then, a day before the event I convinced myself that the world is not a tragedy. It is a comedy. These people are hilarious. They are retarded. Idiotic. But hilarious. Like, look at the fuckers….they want us to pretend as if we get “glued” by papers. By swearing. By writing with a pen on a piece of paper. By saying “yes”. Ha.ha.Ha. Let’s just take it as a comedy.
My parents bought cookies and flowers and champagne for the event. We are ready. Since we needed the translator again (the Pinata), she arrived in the morning and my mother dealt with her. They went for a coffee. The event is at 12PM. We get dressed. We need 2 “witnesses”. My parents are the ones for the job since it is only going to be us and my parents, and maybe Georgi (my sister) for the fun of it. We go there. Then, in about 5 minutes after we arrived, I see my mother’s sister coming there with flowers. Dressed-up. I’m dying. Yes, she in her own right is nice towards us, coming there for the event, but like I explained it is like we celebrate an abuse. They don’t get that. But I do. I’m like ok…the world is a comedy….just stay calm for 30 more minutes. That’s all…
We go inside the building and I hear this woman (my mother’s sister) saying that we should wait for the others. THE OTHERS? What the fuck. Apparently more relatives are coming. Including Mike. MIKE! Why? Out of everyone I didn’t expect Mike to come since he should understand this is a bullshit thing. I was having tears of anger inside my face about all of this. No one told us this is is going to happen. What a shit-show. A bunch of relatives arrived, they are 10 times more dressed up than me and Sasha, and of course they bring flowers and congratulate us. I feel like a clown in a prison. I feel humiliated by the society. Is the world a comedy? I’m struggling to laugh.
They are there. It is what it is. Fuck it. Let’s get done with it.
Now the mayor is coming…Jezus Christ…ok….
He comes there and the first thing he asks me is who are the Godfather and Godmather. I’m like….EH? Like…and I look around….I see Mike and Georgi and I signal them to come over. I don’t know what the fuck are Godmothers and Godfathers but that worked.
And it starts. We face the mayor. He faces us. He says that first we need to listen to some music….a “nicely dressed woman” pushes with fashion the play button of a very old music player (big, I think it still uses cassettes). Here’s a recording of that – I blurred it intentionally so you don’t see our sad faces while we are being executed.
We were very amused by that cringey moment. Then the music stops suddenly. And the procedure begins. The mayor reads some stuff from a piece of paper and declares us “husband and wife”. Wow. That’s it. We sign some papers. Everyone stares at us. They open a champagne and bring the cookies. It is a 10 minutes cringey moment (again), of people sipping champagne from plastic disposable glasses, and licking a cookie. At the same time congratulating us and taking some photos with us. We force a smile or two because all is done now so we are at least happy for that.
At one point the mayor asks Sasha what religion she is. My mother, being her, screams from the other side of the room “they are atheist”. A bit of a silence in the room…the mayor is surprised and proceeds by lecturing me that even the great Pascal said: “If there is a God and we pray then that’s good; but if there is a God and we don’t pray…isn’t that risky?”. I was about to punch him in the face with either my fist or an argument. Like…my friend….if there is a God and all he wants is for people to pray to him then that’s a PIMP, not a god. But I didn’t want to cause any problems for anyone. I wanted to get out of there as quick as possible. Look, I was never the one who will shut’up in such moments. I will bark some science there. Fuck the mayor or anyone. I don’t care. But this time I really didn’t want to fuck things up and create a brawl. I sucked society’s dick so far, I can suck it for a few more minutes. The conversation quickly melted away after he also bragged a bit about how great Romania and Romanian people are, and how intelligent and such.
Now we wanted to go home but these people that came there….like…what can I do with them? I felt bad for them. To see them so dressed up and coming there and now, 10 minutes later, send them home. But I didn’t invite anyone…so…For sure it took them more time to get ready than it did for me and Sasha. We went outside and we slowly moved away from them. Me, Sasha, Georgi, Mike and the Pinata went to a bar to eat something. The Pinata had to come to us from an 1h away town, so she was waiting for the bus. I thought let’s give her something to eat first. She was nice, again. But man she was crazy. She even said if she can stay 2 more days at our place now that she came to this city….eh…no. Sorry. But what the fuck….She likes hugging trees, picks up clues from the outside world to guide herself, is looking for her soulmate, can read horoscopes and can heal herself of viruses just through the power of her mind. So, no thanks. She seems to complicated for our taste.
We go home. Me and Sasha are so happy now that everything is over. What we don’t know is that it isn’t.
Next morning my parents throw a “party” for these other people who came to the ceremony and had to go back home in 10 minutes. For our relatives. At my grandma’s house. Just a barbecue to be honest, but still something I won’t ever like to be part of. I didn’t want to be a jerk so I went there with Sasha to say hi. A bunch of relatives there. They, of course, congratulated us even more intensively. One of them, who is also a chemistry teacher, gave us a present. A Jezus icon….
From shitting on these values to being sad and feeling sorry about that.
This entire experience made me super super sad the last days of this entire circus. I perhaps never felt so sad in my life. It was an extreme mix of primitive and crazy values (zombie people) + extreme kindness. I almost felt like crying at the thought of laughing at such a present and the human that gave it to me to see me doing that. Because their intentions are good and kind. I don’t want to shit on this. But at the same time I am annoyed to the extreme by all of these rituals that have nothing to do with reality. To see them celebrate our enslavement to this society. It was very tough for me mentally to get dragged through all of this. I got to feel closely how humans are, unfortunately, not humans. Yet at the same time not wanting to make fun of their values there and then. Just to accept that sadly this is the reality and try not to upset them. Imagine this human who say puts a bit of an effort and kindness and happiness into going out there to buy something for Dani. The human wraps the package nicely and is happy to go give Dani the present. Dani thanks the human. Then when the human is not around Dani opens the package. It is a religious icon. Dani laughs and says how stupid it is. Even throws the thing away. If the human would see this, would be soul crushing. Like a cliff of happiness (buying the present, giving the present), being crushed suddenly by such an attitude. That would suck. And I didn’t want to do that. So I chose not to make too much fun of this ridiculous situation we’ve been put into. At least not that much or there, so that I won’t hurt anyone. At times me and Sasha were laughing in my room about all of these situations we were forced into, and my parents would hear us and thought we laugh at them, especially since they don’t understand english. That made me feel very bad.
RIDDLE TIME OVER. ALMOST
Let’s see. In order for me and Sasha to be allowed to stay together we had to go through a shit ton of papers and offices and eventually get married. Pay money (over 1.000 euros in total), go this place, that place, ask for this and that. Swear in front of authorities. Play by their rules. Translate shit. Wait. Travel. Wait. Travel.
But. Now that the marriage is done, can Sasha live with me in Europe? In Spain? We read on the Europe’s official website the following:
“If you are married or in a registered partnership with an EU citizen that is living, working, studying or looking for a job in an EU country different from the one they come from, EU rules make it easier for you to join them there.” (source) Luckily I “live” in Spain….
So basically we have to go to an Immigration Office or Police Station with a Form (EX-19) that we cannot find. The link there doesn’t work. The links from official Spanish gov websites do not work. We found it with the WayBack Machine….Anyway. That form + a valid passport + my Spanish residency card + proof of the family link. We had all of these documents already. Sasha is allowed to stay in Spain for 3 months in a period of 6 months. She already stayed in Spain for almost 3 months in the last 6 months period of time. From our calculations she could have come back to Spain for 9 more days till her VISA expires. We thought 9 days is enough to submit those papers, since once you submit them they will extend the VISA till they give her a residency card. So we thought in those 9 days when we go back we submit the papers and that’s it. Ok. Done. Booked plane tickets. Happy and relaxed that we go back to Spain.
We managed to take a van from this city to the airport directly. Nice. Ok ride. Great car. We had to wait in front of the police station for it (no bus station for this one). Weird but normal in Romania.
Before leaving Romania let me tell you a few random things about it. Of course based mainly on this small town we lived in.
stray dogs
I complained about this before. But it is worth complain again because it is such a weird sight to see these massive “wolfs” on the streets. It makes going for a walk a challenge because you never know when they’ll simply jump at you. Here are some videos from the little town we lived it (not taken by me):
This is a video I filmed from our balcony. These dogs want to eat cars. You can’t even drive properly. Just wait till the guy gets into the car and drives away.
everyone for themselves
In Spain, everywhere you go, it looks like Spain. The infrastructure. Roads. Buildings. Services. And so on. In Romania is the opposite. Even in that little town you’ll see 10 types of road signs, 20 types of garbage bins, 40 types of sidewalks, unlimited types of street lights, and so forth. Look at this street sign (I haven’t seen such a stupidity – like how are drivers suppose to read this one while they are driving?):
I think there is a business with garbage bins in that city because you either see none or a dozen of them packed in a tiny space. As an example only on this street to you will find “recyclable” bins. And it is a mockery because they are of a very poor quality and no one uses them properly. How can you have such garbage cans to recycle paper when it can rain in those things. Or glass. Or how do you empty them to recycle? I bet no one cares about them. It was just a business. It is so clear when they put a fuck ton on a tiny street. See the video:
Like look how in this very tiny park there are a ton of garbage bins. And don’t tell me they put them in order to keep the place clean because that’s ridiculous.
This is a random park in Spain of similar size. Look at how many garbage bins there are there:
One more. This is a newly built street by this new mayor. He is proud of it. Just a 200 meter street (sidewalk) that’s full of garbage bins every 2 meters or so.
Look at this house. A corner of it eats half of the sidewalk. Hilarious.
They put these cemented things on sidewalks where people would park their cars illegally. Haha. Apparently laws do not work. Now neither cars or people can go on these sidewalks. Brilliant.
You’ll see there 10 really old houses and then 2 palaces. The contrast between the rich and the poor is something you cannot miss. Also, I think 2 out of 5 houses are unfinished in Romania. It is incredible….
We also found a little kid…we were walking home from our “marriage party” when we saw a little kid (2 years old or so) across the street, about to go into the street. Confused. I didn’t think twice, I crossed the street and took the kid. Tried to ask him where the parents are so maybe he can point to somewhere. But no way, he was too confused. I felt so sorry for him. Interestingly he was in front of the police station and across the street from a busy gas station. Employees from the gas station saw the kid for several minutes but did nothing. That’s to show how these people don’t really care or they are simply not willing to interact with any situation that is outside their own shit. We took the kid straight inside the police station. The guys thanked us and tried to figure out what’s up with the kid. We left after a while. We have no idea what happened to the kid. Sorry for the little guy. I really hope his parents didn’t let him on purpose there in front of the police station to abandon him.
people are crazy
Look at this “sacred” place…you tell me sane people are living near by?
Here’s our boi Jesus taking care of criminals soldiers.
the air quality is as good as smoke
Look at this photo. That’s not fog. That’s smoke. People are burning everything they can and the entire town smells like smoke. It is awful. Even opening the window of our 4th floor apartment is a challenge.
the nature is a garbage bin
This is the closest nature to that town. It was a place we used to go when we were kids and despite being a garbage bin back there too, now it is 5 times worse. Dead animals, clothes, plastic, poop. Everything thrown there, amongst the sad trees that are wondering what kind of world this is.
people are lazy
Here in Spain it is normal for us to go for a 10km walk every other day. Using your legs is part of our routine. But in that town in Romania, people take their car to go to a supermarket that’s 500m away from their place. Not only that, these “kings” use home delivery for buying fast-food. They sit almost across the street from the fast food, yet they order food at home. Can’t even go and buy it. It is so funny. Here’s a real photo of them:
the parts we enjoyed
I loved the apartment. As I said it is very cozy. Warm inside. You need no slippers. Soft carpets :). Calm. Relaxed. My room is the smallest but it is fine. It has a window opening to the balcony where we often stayed. The view from the balcony is nice. You can see the sunset and Venus every night. My mother makes the best cookies I’ve ever eaten and my father would go out to buy something any time you need anything. Or simply he would go for you anywhere anytime. Go to this other 1h away town to get us some papers? No worries, he goes, no questions asked. My parents are very good people, and despite us seeing the world through different brains, we still have things in common and I enjoy my relationship with them. Mike and Georgi are really great friends and they were there. I loved when we watched some cool documentaries in the livingroom, all of us. Then discuss about them. Sasha even wrote a poem in the Romanian language and read it for all of us to hear at the New Year’s Eve. Hilarious as fuck and surprising as fuck. We laughed like nuts.
And look, you’ll find beautiful places in Romania for sure. And very kind people and all that. Yes, overall I think it is a not-very-good-to-live-place, and that’s unfortunate for people there. Human beings (call them romanians) are whatever the environment pushes them to be. I complain about them but I understand what makes them like that. And I dream to one day be the president of Romania and transform this shithole into a smart paradise and give it as an example to the world so we can change every tribe out there. And I mean it, I fantasize about such things :D. If there was a chance to change the world through politics, I’d give it a try. I would love to help every romanian. Make the healthcare system the best in the world so everyone has access the the greatest and most human healthcare. Transform the transportation entirely. Take care of the natural places Romania has. And a huge fuck more. Of course, we need to think globally as humans, not as romanians and such.
BACK TO US. BACK TO SPAIN.
We arrive in Spain. Finally. Dima and Mara, great TROM friends, wait for us with their car at the airport. Makes it much easier to get back home. We arrive. We are so happy to be back. Next day we go out. Green, sunny, blue sky, blue sea. Look at us, happily married. :)) (stupid joke)
