If you need information from any Romanian public institution, you’d better put on a lot of patience and have a lot of time to waste! Otherwise, you’d better kill yourself!

It does not really matter that they’re experts – that’s why you call them anyway -, it does not matter that you pay taxes to then pay their salaries, so you deserve some respect, it does not matter that you don’t have time to wait for centuries before they pick up the phone…These are just minor details that only concern you, not them!

Of course the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology doesn’t know anything about importing laptops!!! What else would you expect? Excise duties for computers? How the hell should their legal department have any idea about that??? It’s not like it’s their field!!! But they will be there for the press coverage if some new computer network is given to a school. They don’t really know how it works, but…oh, hell!

And then there’s the Customs Department! God forbid asking them something! Of course you should be some kind of wonder woman and guess that a laptop is actually called an “automatic numeric data processing (digital) machine, portable, not weighing more than 10 kilos that contains at least one central processing unit, a keyboard and a screen”! And of course you should guess you could find this machine in the “Nuclear reactors, boilers, mechanical machines and devices” category! What? Didn’t you know, you little bitch, that a nuclear reactor and a portable computer are practically the same thing? You ignorant little menace! And, not to forget, after showing their intellectual superiority, they’ll hang up on you without telling you the customs fee for the product. So you can search the entire customs taxes index to find the automatic numeric data processing (digital) machine, portable, not weighing more than 10 kilos that contains at least one central processing unit, a keyboard and a screen that is actually tax-free!!!

But that’s all gone! Speaking of a lot nicer things, Swan Lake was the best ballet I have ever seen. And the leading ballerina, Corina Dumitrescu, is really the best they have! And then there was the Easter!!! Lots of food, lots of fun, basically, lots of everything! The big surprise was seeing old friends again – ex-colleagues of high-school suffering – Corina and Alexandra. Alexandra was actually my desk-mate in high-school and I hadn’t seen her since we graduated!

Of course I didn’t do everything I wanted to do, like reading a lot and rollerblading everyday, but it was ok all the same! Yet going to church Saturday night to celebrate Jesus Christ’s resurrection felt pretty strange after reading “The Templar Revelation”…

The hardest thing I had to do in this mini-vacation was – and it was by far – living for 5 days without an Internet connection! Internet cafes were on Easter break as well and my only choice could have been going to my father’s office. But there is this problem: access to, well, almost all the sites, is banned! You cannot even login to Yahoo Mail! So, I was deprived of the technological wonders….

Viorel is back from Malaysia. He’s making fun of me saying that I gained weight. Well, at least I didn’t gain as much as he did! And then he says he’s in love with me. Yeah, right, struck by lightening! I wish men wouldn’t say things like that to me so easily just because of the evergreen “I would say anything to sleep with you once” reason. And I wish I could say it to them so easily for the above mentioned reason! It would be quite fair, don’t you think?