*** Sunday, 23 Feb 2003 ***
I just came back from a weekend in Budapest. The company is not yet "registered" in Romania so I can only spend 90 days in Romania at a time. Last Friday was my 90th day so on Thursday afternoon I was driven to the airport and flew to Budapest. I had arranged to stay in a guest house at about $65/night that was in the old city.

A representation of Socialist solidarity adorns a building along the Danube.

My room was huge with a lot of antique furniture and the owner was very helpful about what to worry about (not much) and where I could go, etc. I even got a key to a drawer where I could lock my valuables.

Budapest is Bucharest done with a lot of money. It is a delight to the eye and is not yet tourist insensitive. Everyone is very polite and I had a great time walking around -- allowing for the fact that the night before I left, a toe on my left foot became inflamed and made waking painful.

I had a great time and will go back.

I stayed in Saturday night just basking in the glow of the night before and the effect of Hungarian beer.

I got up around 8 am and went for a walk hoping to find a place to have breakfast but I was disappointed. Budapest really shuts down on Sundays -- even the tourist areas.

I relaxed until my mini van to the airport arrived at 11 AM. The trip was uneventful and I decided to eat at a Sbarro. While consuming a slice of mediocre pepperoni pizza (the pepperoni kept falling off) I saw Dan, the Serbian IT guy who had helped out the program in the past and was returning for more. He joined me on the flight to Bucharest. We shared a car to the city. The goodness of being home -- even after such a short trip.

*** Thursday, 27 Feb 2003 ***
The office has had a problem since I arrived. Not with me but with its -- non-existent -- business card. We couldn't print business cards because we were not in our new offices and then, when we were, the phone numbers were not final.

The COP got a printed card and he was pleased but everyone else was given a generic card with no personal information and told they could write in their name and title. They were not pleased.

I prepared a template that imitated the "official" color business card but in black and white and with my personal data, showed it to Catalin, the operations manager, and convinced him that if we could get the right business card stock it would be easy to give everyone ten or twenty business cards that looked quite professional. He liked the idea and today the vendor delivered a package of 25 business card stock pages, ten cards to a page).

I took the template that I had thrown together yesterday and refined it to fit the new card size and had business cards for myself in less than 30 minutes. I showed the card to a few people and several immediately asked if they could have some too. I spoke to Ben and he thought it was a great idea. I wrote up quick set of instructions and sent them to Nora who shared them with Kristina and the next thing Marcel was making his own cards and then Robi and Mircea and . . . .

By the close of business, most of the stock was gone but there were a lot of satisfied staff who now could feel proud when they presented their card.

The finely-printed color card awaits a final determination of phone numbers but that will come in its own good Romanian time and in the interim people can have something that reflects professionally on us as an organization.

I got my hair cut short for spring. It felt great; I much prefer my hair short.

*** Friday, 28 Feb 2003 ***
Meet Paul Baran at the tailor's at 8:15 and picked up my two pairs of pants. They seemed to fit me well and I was pleased. I was surprised however that they had only one rear pocket. I have two cheeks back there and I feel the need for two pockets.

Paul had a second fitting of his suit and will get it next week.

The Bucharest Mall is so American you could be in Iowa.

Went to the opening of "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" with Marius (his 17-year old brother was invited but Marius told me that his brother had already seen the movie on a pirated CD).

I left work a little early so that I could drop off my stuff at my apartment and catch the train and bus to the Bucharest Mall. Marius was already there and had bought the tickets (230,000 lei) with the 500,000 note I had given him. I sent him a cell-phone message as I entered and he responded that he was sitting near the theater. We met up and chatted for a while.
We sat and watched the movie with our coats in our laps and I could feel the shaking of Marius' leg as he vibrated it up and down -- just like I like to do.

The movie was fun to watch but a bit over the top at several points. It had "material" not in the book that I thought unnecessary and it omitted, I thought unwisely, some plot elements. Still, I enjoyed seeing it.

I asked him when we were going to Metro (a very large warehouse-style department store) and he agreed to call me when he gets up around noon on Saturday.

He found a taxi for me and even estimated the cost to my apartment and waved me off.

When I got out of the cab a guy called to me and I assumed it was a proposition so I said "No" and he asked me if I wanted his cell number number should I change my mind. I dismissed him with a flip of my arm.

To home and to bed.