Report from Romania, Part 1:
You're Going Where? Doing What? or
So I Went to Romania and All I Got Was an Intestinal Bug and a Bad Attitude Towards the West

By way of introduction...
A couple of summers ago I went to Romania. Appalling place. Couldn't wait to go back. Did. Want to return again.

Where to begin? The standard of hygiene's beyond awful, the condition of the roads nearly as bad, and it's almost impossible to find a decent cup of coffee. By and large, I found the people to be wonderful. It's a place where for me, the presence of real human beings makes up for the lack of creature comforts.

I put off setting my crazy Romanian adventure down in cold type (or bytes) for a long time, far longer than I would have thought possible in the days following my return, when I burned to communicate what I'd just been through but felt myself at a loss as to how to do justice to it. After getting a bit of distance behind me, I saw that the experience was so intense and complex -- besides my most memorable vacation ever, I'd go as far as to call it a defining interlude in my life -- that even now it's difficult to believe I did all the things that I did. In the end, it was an experience which filtered through my eyes and ears (and bowels) so intensely that I felt the place had become a part of me on an almost cellular level

Even with many years of writing for publication behind me, it was all a question of finding the confidence that I could make coherent sense of those events in a way others could understand. Thinking about it now, the scenes from the journey flash cinematically by in my head, scenes from a movie I was in. An actual movie might even be a better vehicle than my prose to get across what I'm striving to, but what's that I've always heard about staying within one's game? (Though I think it helps the cause to throw in a few carefully chosen photos. This is, after all, the Net.)

The more time I spend in a foreign country, the warier I become of correspondents who parachute into the exotic-location-of-the-week and, after a day or two of strolling through the old town and exchanging manure in bars with college students, proceed to explain its essence to the rest of us "back home." Any culture contains innumerable subtleties that only a native will pick up on; it's the exceptional foreign visitor who perceives more than a tenth of it even after an extended stay. My best advice to journalists and others on a foreign social safari: Keep mouth shut and eyes and ears open. Of course, by its nature this particular trip was a two-way exchange; I'm aware that my participation in Outward Bound affected others who took part, perhaps altering their preconceptions of the USA and Americans. (As much as I shy away from and even resent the role of cultural representative, I realize that sometimes it just can't be helped.)

In the end, though, a writer does what a writer has to do, and here spewed forth are my observations of Romania, that lovely enigmatic glorious disaster. Whether the result is worthwhile I leave for others to judge...

Ljubljana, February 2000

Outward Bound: Summer 1998

It all came together at the last minute.

On July 22, 1998, I went to the Kino Kompas, a small, arty cinema in downtown Ljubljana, to see a movie called SubUrbia , a Richard Linklater film from an Eric Bogosian script. This ascerbic creation was as unflattering a take as possible on the generic, soulless anomie of life in the burbs, amid parking lots and chain stores, and the way unfamiliarity with other cultures breeds misunderstanding, racism and violence. It brought back a lot of unpleasant Metrowest memories from my sojourn in the Mall City, Framingham, Mass. (the gateway to Natick), and I exited the theater as depressed as a proud Scotsman who's just sat through Trainspotting. Was this really my country, my culture? Although the July heat and humidity may have had something to do with it, I found it hard to sleep that night.

Earlier that month I'd turned 39. I didn't feel 39, whatever that was supposed to feel like, and wasn't ready for it.

Two days later, on July 24, I finally received Outward Bound's program catalog in the mail --- I'd sent for it over a month earlier -- and e-mailed my acceptance that same day. I was another aging American kid in Europe, wanting an adventure, wanting to experience the Wild East. Sure, I was already living in Slovenia, and not to rag too much on my adopted land, but I'd long since taken to thinking of it as tame little Slovenia, home away; and my town, Ljubljana, while lovely as ever, seemed more every day like Yugoyuppie Central, host city of central Europe's biggest Western wannabes (or at least, furthest along in their goal of mimicking the Swiss to perfection). I wanted the real Wild East, and for that I'd have to go to the place that starts at the other end of the Hungarian border.

I knew that Outward Bound was geared to kids, for the most part, and the program sounded like a challenge, but hey, I liked hiking and the outdoors as much as anyone, and the price was right, so count me in! Nothing I couldn't handle. A chance to get aerobic exercise out the wazoo. And a crash course in camping. And getting to see Romania from the inside. And a spectacular (if demanding) mountain vacation. All for $280 plus train fare...

On the phone from Long Island, my sister sounded encouraging and recommended that on arrival I should try the "Romanian skirt steak."

Did I think it was my last chance to be a kid in summer camp? To do it all again, only this time, better?

Well, whatever it was, it was about time. The old prescription for dire straits. Remove yourself from everything familiar -- two weeks with Outward Bound in the wilds of central Romania, with Hungarian- speaking youth, ought to do it pretty good -- and find out who you really are, and if you can live with him, her or it.

At some point I paid a visit to the Romanian Embassy in Slovenia, a modest building on a residential side street in southwest Ljubljana. Speaking English with a fortyish, mustachioed official, I asked if there was any special visa I needed, or any recommended inoculations -- first time in Romania and all. "No, no," he said, shaking his head and dismissing my queries outright. "Romania is very nice country, very nice country." Seeming pleased to see an American, he pressed various tourist maps and brochures onto me, shook my hand, wished me well and waved me on my way.

Until the evening before I left I juggled my departure plans with proofreading a 38-page paper for work, and after drinking champagne that night with a friend on the terrace of my flat I stayed up a few more hours, shouldered my new backpack and caught an early train...