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Romania
NomaDBuddha
Scalpel wielder :) Bucharest Veteran
I don't know how to say this , but Palzang told me that it would be a good idea to write something about my own country, Romania (this introduction sounds like a 4th grader's essay introduction 
). As I said in the newmembers' thread, I live in Romania. But the problem is, that i don't know where to start. So, I think that you guys have to vote (history and other things you want to know about my country) the subject the I should begin with.
Ooh, and I was about to forget. Vlad the Impaler a.k.a. Dracula DID NOT live in Transylvania :mad:. But I'll come back on this Dacula dedicated topic later... Soo, start proposing (and also voting) the things you guys wanna hear from me 
.
). As I said in the newmembers' thread, I live in Romania. But the problem is, that i don't know where to start. So, I think that you guys have to vote (history and other things you want to know about my country) the subject the I should begin with.Ooh, and I was about to forget. Vlad the Impaler a.k.a. Dracula DID NOT live in Transylvania :mad:. But I'll come back on this Dacula dedicated topic later
... Soo, start proposing (and also voting) the things you guys wanna hear from me . 0
Comments
Your English is very good. if I spoke Romanian as well as you, I might be entitled to comment....
your manners are nothing to complain about, nor to criticise.
And your bad vocabulary?
Are you kidding?
Things can only improve, huh....?
By the way, is it true that Romanians have a recipe for cooking small children for breakfast?
(I'm kidding.....;)
I know things can improve. At least my English can improve here
And about recipe for small children (our national food-do not think that we take kids and fry them!)...they aren't called like that ! Translating from Romanian to English it would sound like "the little ones" (mititei which is pronounced like meeteetey with the e like in elephant).
If you want the recipe, give me a sign
That's what's known as a 'pun'....!:D
But we don't eat "lil' ones" all the time. I mean we eat this kind of food in the summer when it's hot outside, or when you go camping .
We Romanians are meat-lovers. As I said, there's no meal without meat. But still , we have vegetarian food for the loong fasting periods (89% of Romanians are Orthodox Christians, and fasting in our country is the time when the most fanatical and the people who really believe in God refrain from eating meat for 40 days in each fasting period. And we have like three or four fasting periods 40 days each :eek:)
So how close are the Romanian and Italian languages really?
Unfortunately, there are a lot of thieves in Romania
Well, Italian and Romanian language are very related. They have the basic latin words which makes us understand one another even if we Romanians speak bad Italian. Nowadays, if an Italian tourist comes into Romania, the natives will understand nearly all the wors spoken by that Italian (supposing he doesn't know English
And this rule doesn't apply only to the Italian language. It is applied to all Latin based languages like french, spanish and so on.
Do Romanians get exposure to these languages? For example, do Romanians watch Italian and Spanish TV shows? Do Romanian children commonly study other Romance languages in school?
Yeah, we study some romance languages in the school, but it depends on the school's/high school's profile. I mean, some high school students (I'm a high school student) would learn spanish in their school and other h.s. students would study french. In my school we study French.
About the TV thing... Romanians are soap-opera lovers, you know, the drama, the romance. By soap-opera here I mean the kind of show which resembles "The young and the restless". Now, about the language. Romanians love spanish soap-operas. Or this kind of shows which are filmed in South America.
And about the exposure...I have to say that we can actually learn spanish or portugese(I'm not sure if i spelled it right) only by watching South American soap-operas
(I'm supposed to be shoveling the snow out of the driveway, and I'm procrastinating. Hence the fantasy.)
Obviously, you've been studying English. Are German and Russian also important in Romania?
How many languages do you speak, and how many languages does a typical Romanian college student speak?
Yeah, I guess Brazil has a world-conquest plan at hand :viking:, and telenovelas are one of their many tactics to subjugate the European continent
To answer your questions, Russian language is not basic anymore. Communism died 20 years ago and so did the study of the Russian language. For the German one, there are many children who study it in school (gymnazium in USA and England and nowadays general school in Romania). As I said in the previous post , the school decides which second foreign language should the students learn (the first foreign language is English). As for the German language's importance...i guess it's only for business people (romanian ones) who work in the European Union (Germany, Austria, Switzerland).
The next question...Well i only know English , and a bit of French, and veeeery little Latin (the pure Latin, romanian language is an alterated form of Latin), but I'm trying to find time to study Japanese ( i know some words and some kanji symbols). As for the average college student in my country, I guess English is the only language he would be studying. The other ones like French, German would like an optional.
Now, I guess we ve something in common with the shoveling
Also, a gymnasium in the US is where you go to play basketball.
Palzang
And about the gymnasium stuff, I didn't to say gym. In my country the middle school is called gymnasium. And yes, that's where I learned to play basketball
I think I'll have to find out who are my "false friends" :skeptical.
Palzang
Yes they do, but these ones are the poorest of the poor. They wander with the wagons only in the countryside...
Yeah, there are Hungarians, Serbs, Russians, Turks, Greeks (who came here in the 17th century during the Turkish occupation), Ukrainians, Mongols (those would be the Tatars) , and some Han Chinese
What music is popular in Romania right now?
What do you listen to?
As for myself, hip-hop , pure rap (not gangsta rap) , reggae , sometimes gangsta rap and sometimes pop music.
I don't listen manele because they sound ...very..very bad...it has some sorts of echo in the background , and you can find this kind of echo at a wedding party, at the feast to be more exact ( traditional romanian wedding)
Prepare for a geography lesson.
Now, Romania is not in the meditteranean perimeter. It's in the South East of Central Europe, but the country has some meditteranean climate influnces. Well, Romania has every type of terrain, varrying from high mountains, and low level plains. Practically , my country has both mountains , where you can go skying in the winter, and a very large coastal area at the seaside where you can spend your summer .
About the difference between our country and the meditteranean ones, our country is very hot during the summer, and the winters are very harsh.
Now about the accordeaon players, there's no Romania without them. In fact, the wedding parties would be like a funeral in their absence:D
Ceausescu is remembered both as a badass communist dictator and one of the best presidents who ever ruled our country. And indeed , if Ceausescu didn't live to be a president, I wouldn't have been living in a new block of flats(built in 1989, just before the Revolution...I have lived 16 years in Bucharest, and now I live in the countryside-I'll be 18 in March so...I was born in 1992...)
P.S.:Sorry for the offtopic.
You can become king if you falsify documents, buy some highly regarded lawyers and judges, buy the trust of the natives (meaning that you hire some gypsies from some well known clans here, and start killing....I mean helping people with those gangsters..oh, my mistake...I meant those people who are willing to help...
About children , you can always kidnap orphans and put them to "work".
If you wanna start your own fiefdom, talk to the Hungarian separatists in Transylvania. Maybe they'll help you.
Now, as a post scriptum, I'd like to add that gypsies are very intriguing in terms of hierarchy. They have both emperor and king .
Palzang
Dracula was a Wallachian voyvod, or absolute ruler. He lived in Transylvania for a short period of time. The rest of his life was spent in the Ottoman Empire, when he was held hostage(in his childhood), and that's where he learnt the impaling stuff...a part of his life was spent in Wallachia...and teh rest...he spent his life in prison in Hungary.
Lets begin with the beginning.
He was the son of Vlad II, called "Dracul" (the devil in Romanian) because he won a very expensive shield with a dragon emblem(he became a member of The Order of the Dragon) at a tournament in Germany. Dracula , or Vlad Tepes (Tse-pesh), inherited the title. In his childhood, Vlad had witnessed many raids of the trukish armies, who came here to collect their tribute. Because Vlad II didn't have or didn't want to pay the tribute, Vlad Tepes, and his brother Radu the Handsome were sent as hostages to the Ottoman capital at that time. There , in Turkey, he learnt about the Islamic faith, learnt turkish, learnt how to read , write, but he was given his right to keep his Christian faith. After some time, Vlad Tepes was allowed to coem back home and , with the help of the turks he ruled for a short time in 1448. He then came to the throne again in 1456, where he began to wipe out the boyars, or the feudal lords of that time. After his violent reclaim of the throne, he stopped paying the tribute to the ottomans, and of course, the ottomans raided Wallachia. Tepes defeated them, and, in 1461, the turks decided that they should kill him , and set a trap. He was summoned in a place, where had to meet a Pacha, to discuss some matters related to the borders of the country. Tepes realised the plan, and caught the turkish Commander and his armies, and as usual, he impaled them. The turks wanted to revenge and , Mahomed the IInd the conqueror of Constantinopolis, decided to invade.
Vlad Tepes, after a series of battles decided to infiltrate in the turkish camp(at night), and assasinate the Sultan. He managed to steal turkish clothes, and to infiltrate, but he assasinated the wrong man. He created havok in the camp, and the turks killed each other(till the sunrise).
After this failed attempt, the turks retreated for a while.
In 1462, Vlad Tepes was imprisoned, and spent 12 years in Hungary as a prisoner. He returned in 1474 and ruled for a short period of time. He was asasinated, and his brother Radu the Handsome, who converted to Islam occupied the throne of Wallachia.
Nice story, eh ? I didn't write it in detail because it is hard work, but I'll answer your questions.:D