Bucharest city tales: Moving again ....and again…

Columnist Eleonore af Schaumburg-Lippe writes in her weekly column about life as an expat in Romania. This week she tells about how she is moving to a new apartment, this being the fourth time since her arrival in Bucharest.

Yes, I am moving again, a new apartment will soon be turned into Casa Daneza (Danish House). And I can’t wait. But most of my friends smile a bit, when I tell that I am moving, and their first reply is: Are you moving again ? Well I have only moved four times meaning packed all my things down and transported them to a new place, but I have lived in eight different places, and considering the relatively short time I have been in Romania, it is a pretty high number. My moving adventures in Romania make quite a story, and it's maybe more funny now than at the time, as five of the moves happened in only one month. When I came to Romania, I had an apartment, and everything was going well. But there were just two problems in the apartment, it was heated via huge gas ovens in each room, and as it took an hour to heat up, it would be extremely cold during winter. I found out that I couldn’t have the heat on during the night, as the upstairs neighbor told me; night time heat = gas explosion - not a good thing. She had a point, so one hour heat in the morning before work and then one hour in the evening before I went to sleep, as I usually get home in the late evening. Result: One day it was minus four outside and minus eight inside, so I decided to stay more outside than home during winter. The other thing was that there was no air-conditioning, so during summer it would get extremely warm inside. I remember wondering if it was possible to make a home office in the bathtub and then fill the tub with cold water, to cool down, but I never tried. Well I kept saying I am integrating, so no complaining, just get used to how things are, so I hadn’t really thought about moving, as I was relatively new to the country and so had no idea how to find another place. But one day while I was at work, I got a phone call from my landlord. "When you get home you have to take care, there is a huge whole in the floor in your bathroom, so when you open the door take care you don’t fall in," she said. I was curious and ran home to see what had happened. I got home and yes, there was a relatively huge hole in my bathroom, where I could look down onto five construction workers on the 2nd floor. They told me that it would take 2 days, no problem, and then everything would be fixed. Apparently they were renovating the apartment downstairs and had found some old plumbing they wanted to fix and had ended up drilling a hole up to my apartment. I then decided to move to a hotel downtown Bucharest for the weekend, and what a great weekend I had there. I recall making the biggest bubbliest bath ever, I put so much bubble bath in the tub that even the walls were covered. After two days I got back to my apartment only to discover that the hole had got even bigger. They had taken the toilet out of the bathroom and placed it in my living room, right next to the dining table, which looked kind of odd. Since I obviously couldn’t use my apartment, I found a cozy pension where I moved in, I didn’t have to clean at all and I had breakfast every morning, great days, I expected to stay there only a few days…but I was wrong. I ended up staying at the pension for two weeks. During the pension stay I visited my apartment daily to see what was going on, but well either nothing happened or it was just dustier and they were doing more repairs, and they ended up sort of sealing my bathroom off. I then talked with one of my friends and explained the situation, and he said I could stay in the apartment with him and his girlfriend. So I stayed there for 3 days. I had not been living home for quite a while, so I decided to look for apartments, as I realized that there must be better options than an apartment with no heat, no aircon, a hole in the bathroom and a toilet in the living room. Then another friend called me, and said I could use his apartment, since he was not living there, so I stayed there for four days and got some peace and quiet to search for an apartment. I remember taking a taxi around this time and when I had to tell the taxi driver where I was going I couldn't remember the address, because I had stayed in so many places during the month. So I asked him to drive me around until I remembered where I lived, which luckily I did, eventually. After some searching, which is a whole story in itself I found the apartment I am currently living in, but I am now moving again. I hadn’t really thought about moving, but wanted some changes in my life, and when a friend showed me an apartment and asked if I could help them renting it out. I decided I wanted to live there, so that is how I ended up getting the new apartment, the timing seemed perfect. I actually like moving, I embrace changes and don’t see them as something negative, of course there are a few days when everything seems a little chaotic, things has to be sorted, packed up etc, but on the other hand new adventures are happening, and new surroundings are always nice. But my moving adventures are hopefully now a chapter I can put behind me, and I must admit I hope this will be the last move for a loooong time. Then again, you never know.