This entry was quite long in the making, for several reasons: my poor memories, recovering and editing the pictures, and actually writing everything, in between other stuff going on in our lives. Published a bit later than hoped, but not that late, and better than never at all ;)

Last week of March was when all the winter happened as the worst winter weather hit us. Luckily, as soon as April started, the weather also turned into spring. It never snowed again, after that. YAY!

Since the weather warmed up, we were able to go out more and have various adventures. 

The month started off with the Easter celebrations in the Catholic world, but Romania is an Orthodox country so we had Easter on the 8th, 1 week later. 

During the first week of the month we were quite busy, and we couldn't wait for Easter to come so we'd relax a bit. Luckily, in Romania Easter Monday is a bank holiday so everyone stays home to relax and eat.

At 11 pm on Satuday we went to the church to to hear a bit of the mass and to bring home the "Light" - or a lit candle. All Romanians do this for good fortune in the "new year" [from an agricultural point of view]. 

Check out this video for a little insight into how the midnight mass goes. 

The next day, on Sunday Easter we were supposed to go to A's parents' house. And so we did. They moved out of city, but luckily the city bus takes us close to their new place. We had to walk from the bus stop to their house because the usual minibus driver doesn't work during major holidays like Easter. 

A small feast was waiting for us there - see the picture below. That's a cheesecake that replaces the traditional pasca which is a bit different both in looks and in how's made. 

The slices with boiled eggs in the middle are a special meat loaf made only for Easter, called drob. 

You also get to see a bit of the countryside, from A's parents' balcony, in the pic below.

Some time later, A's birthday came. That day we had to go with the older cat to the vet. He wouldn't eat and he would throw up if he did. The vet said it's just a gastritis, and gave him some shots and home treatment. 

Everyone praised Whiskey the cat for his prettiness and for being such a good boy. 

The next day, in the evening we decided to have a bit of fun. Or to try to relax a bit. So we went to see a movie - A Quiet Place. You probably already read my thoughts on the movie, and if not, by following the link you can do so now.

We also had to go search for a specific cat food, that we learned we can find at this rather new mall that opened not too far from us - some 6 tram stop away, and that's close. Check out this post about the public transportation in Bucharest.

There was an interesting place where they would only sell French fries. Of course we had to try them out. And I personally wasn't impressed - only 2 guys taking orders and serving people, so I had to wait some 30 minutes? The taste wasn't impressive either, but the fries were made on the spot which also added to the waiting time. 

And while I did say these were fries, they weren't thin like at McDonalds, but thick type, wedges. I also think they needed to be cooked for longer and maybe at lower temperature? 

In any case, we saw another location downtown, in the Old City Center area which is easier for us to get to. 

One day A asked me for avocado on toast. So I made some. Not much to say there, but it's too small to make a separate entry on it. 

Toast the bread. Cut open the avocado, remove the pit. Slice it up or mash it and spread on the toast. Then serve.

I discovered avocado tastes better with a dash of salt on top. If you think this is weird, wait for my entry on the weird foods I sometimes eat and enjoy. 

After some time, I decided to make some doughnuts. I decided to follow a Romanian recipe for "Little Lies" which I have to tweak. The recipe I had gave me some cookies or biscuits instead of donuts, which is probably why they're called "Little Lies" -in Romanian minciunele.

However, they were pretty sweet and worked well with tea and coffee, and there's that at least. 

I have this cat shaped cookie cutter and I decided to make some of them shaped like cats, because why not? I got the cookie cutter as a freebie from a box of margarine. It was meant to make cute looking sandwiches for your kids, but that's too much work for me. 

Once I find recipe that I like better, I'll share it. Till then, just a sneak peak at my Little Lies.

At some point we went to a cafe for the first time in ages. Or it felt like that to me. I think we had hot chocolate and tea? or something like that, I completely forgot.

Some time after that, I decided to turn some old shirts I had into pillow cases. I like doing things myself the most - this makes me feel accomplished. 

The blog entry will appear in June, [which is awesome because I discovered some pictures I forgot to add] however the idea was born in April and was mostly performed in May. If you read this entry when it's published, the link won't work, but if you read it some time in June, out of curiosity, it will work. You can have a little sneak-peak below.

We also had some work to do, and we still did go out after that. But nothing much happened, except for the adventure we had outside of the city, in search of an outlet. I'll let A talk about it, as it was her idea and i'll just add the pictures in.  

A month ago we decided to go to an outlet store that was suppose to be in an area we haven't visited before. However, we had no idea of how this trip was going to go. We sure didn't expect what was coming ~

First of all, we got in the bus and as we looked on the map, realized it was gonna take at least 22 long stops. 22!! We never really went that far. Beside that, the day was quite hot, it was a rush hour, and the bus was packed with people. So half way there i started feeling nauseous and like i had no air...many of the people in the bus seemed to have no problems as if they were used to it ~

An hour later (no joke) we finally got off the bus. It was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, and even tho we went to other malls that are somehow out of city, this one was different. The entire area didn't seem safe at all, there was a lot of shadiness. We crossed the street and started walking by these what seemed to be abandoned houses and trying to make sure no stray dogs were gonna bite our ass. It wasn't comfortable at all and i felt quite unsafe...after walking a while trying to gather all our courage we ended up crossing a street to get to a railway and in that moment, we started to think what the hell are we doing. The mall didn't see to be in sight, actually there was nothing like a mall in the area at all. That's when we decided to turn around and go back as we didn't want to end up being there at night. 

After more waiting for the bus, it finally arrived and we got in. But, since we were already out, we thought it would be a good idea to go to another mall that was located somewhere halfway through the trip. And so we did.

Well, this mall was a lot better. We got to rest a bit while exploring it. I was looking for some sport shoes and at the very least they had some options. When we got really tired we went outside to a cafe to sit and eat something. We had some fries and a burger that were not impressive. The burger was supposed not to have any onion, but i found a big layered slice of onion in it. At least it looked funny. 

At that point we just wanted to get back home but didn't know how. We started looking at tram schedules to see which one we need to take, and spent some 15 minutes waiting in a stop. Then we realized that might not be the right stop as the tram we were waiting for somehow turned into a different one with another route. Pretty discouraged we went back at the mall and after waiting some more and trying to figure things out, we called a taxi.

Luckily at least that was uneventful. The taxi came fast and took us home, where we finally arrived home, 6 hours after heading out in the first place. This trip gave me some interesting feelings ~

First of all, i thought i knew the city pretty well so i didn't expect getting lost. I also thought its really hard to get lose and especially not be able to locate the transportation i need easily. Then there was the uncomfortable feeling of the area, which i didn't feel very often at all. Bucharest is generally a safe city with no problems, so i wonder where does that come from...
And the tiredness. I feel i'm becoming an old person since I got tired so fast. 

All in all this has been an interesting experience, but not one i am about to repeat anytime soon. The mall managers should definitely do a better job at explaining where its located so that shoppers don't put their hopes up in the first place....or maybe it was just a ghost mall that could never be found, o.o. Now that would be quite a twist....

Hopefully you didn't get too bored, if you managed to get to this point. 

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

Probably the only person at school who was more rich than Kay, was its headmaster, also known as Sapphire. 

Sapphire wasn't a person who you'd see on a daily basis. He was also a teacher, but his classes were only for the most gifted, as he liked to refer to his students. 

Everyone knew just how strict the school's rules were. This didn't stop people from breaking them. What not everyone knew was that Sapphire knew exactly who broke which rule. Of course, the students thought they were getting away with it.

While everyone thought their headmaster looks quite mean and is very strict, the fact that he didn't always punish the broken rules proves he's quite lenient. It was his school and his own way of doing thins, after all. 

The most often broken rules involved fortune telling using coffee grounds, pendulums and anything else that didn't have a deck form. The students were gossiping this was because Sapphire couldn't do this, however the rumor was never confirmed or infirmed.

Summoning demons, spirits or using the Ouija board were also forbidden, mostly because of how dangerous these practices are, but were also quite often performed. 

One of the main reasons for which the students were breaking the school's rules was their curiosity regarding what would happen. They were curious to see if summoning would work, as well as seeing the new punishments the headmaster had up his sleeve. They were rarely disappointed. 

They were really unfortunate if it wasn't the Headmaster coming to punish them as the other teachers were more strict than him, and we already know he wasn't always seen. 

Almost everyone knew that Sapphire had 2 large cats - one was fully white and the other fully black, going by the names of 陰 and 陽 .

His cats were the size of panthers and they looked scary enough for those who didn't expect them to be there. They lived in his office, protecting it. Of course, not just anyone could enter his office at will, but things could and did happen. To have access into his office, people would either need to be called there, or make an appointment with his secretary. 

All visitors would receive a password from her and then follow a secret passage way that was barely lit. Most intruders were those lucky enough to manage to hypnotize the secretary. 

Upon entering, you'd see a large room decorated in the Victorian style. A huge fireplace was always burning, even on the hottest summer days. This was needed because the room was otherwise freezing cold. The only source of light for the office were some candles scattered all over. 

Had there been more light in this space, you'd see dark shades of red, a big white fluffy rug on the floor, in front of the gigantic wooden desk that impressed most visitors. Sapphire likes to sit on a black leather chair that in normal light would clash in style with everything else. 

Nobody knew if the room had any windows, though at least one wall had some really heavy curtains hanging. Sapphire couldn't stand the bright daylight, so this is why he needed all this darkness. The dark hallway leading to his office was meant to adjust the visitors' eyes. 

It was common knowledge that the headmaster had his sleeping quarters above his office. Nobody ever entered that place - or so people thought. To reach this intimate area, Sapphire would climb a hidden and spiraled staircase.

What nobody knew was that Kay finally attending his school made the headmaster very happy. Not just anyone could deal with Kay's abilities. Sapphire was sure he could - or at least give his best at trying.

Footnotes:

The names of the cats are reversed: the white cat is 陰 [Yin] and the black cat is 陽 [Yang]. 

陰 [yin1] = ① [philosophy] negative/passive/female principle in nature ② Surname Bound morpheme ① the moon ② shaded orientation ③ covert; concealed; hidden ④ ⑦ negative ⑧ north side of a hill ⑨ south bank of a river ⑩ reverse side of a stele ⑪in intaglio Stative verb ① overcast ② sinister; treacherous

陽 [yang2]  ① [Chinese philosophy] positive/active/male principle in nature ②the sun ④ in relief ⑤ open; overt ⑥ belonging to this world ⑦ [linguistics] masculine ⑧ south side of a hill ⑨ north bank of a river

Head over to Wikipedia for a better introduction to YIn/Yang.

The candles in the office would never burn out. 

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

Actually, I was torn about posting this recipe. About 2 months ago or so I decided to give up meat from my diet. Or to eat as little of it as possible. I'm by no means a vegan, but I guess a vegetarian? I will occasionally eat meat, especially if it's given to me but I won't go out of my way to buy it. 

I have both ethical and religious reasons for this choice. However, I had the recipe in the making for quite some time now, and I wanted to post some fresh material. Pictures are old as well - 2015 old. 

I must say I love meatballs: fried meat, fat, flavor..? I mean, what's not to like, right? Sadly, I can't even eat minced meat, let alone fried stuff. 

Well, health related issues aside, today I want to tell you how you can prepare meatballs as well. Trust me: it's so easy, but you might have to make your hands dirty. I only dislike the frying process.

INGREDIENTS:

• some 500 grams of minced pork meat. You can use pork and beef, chicken, or almost any type of meat I suppose.
• 1 egg [2 if you have almost 1 kg /2 lbs of meat]
• salt, pepper
• some all purpose flour

METHOD:

Make sure there is no pink left on the inside of the meatball. You can do this by making it more flat - which is what I do, or by splitting one open to check the color change. 

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

On the same bus ride, Kay was also thinking of how he met Anna, the girl next to him. His memories took him further back in time, though. He was maybe 11 or 12 when his caretaker finally took him to this school. He was supposed to start attending it at a much younger age, but he knew that some issues related to money made his caretaker push this back. It wasn’t the lack of money - they had plenty - they just didn’t want to spend as much as it was requested, greedy bastards.

Kay was happy to finally attend this school as it offered him much wanted freedom, though it wasn’t real freedom. He also saw this school also as a time off from his household and everything it meant and came with living there.

The day he was introduced to his future classmates, the only available seat was next to a very pretty girl with blond hair and big brown eyes. 

Kay knew a lot about the school and why he had to attend classes there. It was because no other school would be able to teach him how to use or control his abilities. And he had to control them as his frustrations with his household started to be unbearable, especially for those surrounding him. 

Not all of them had such abilities and he could easily even kill any or all of them, especially those with no skills. The live of the un-skilled wasn't easy either as they always were scared for their life. They also couldn't teach anyone how to control or use their skills. 

Kay's enrollment was delayed. Mostly because they had no idea of just how powerful he was. Just now and then they would get a glimpse of his abilities and how strong he was - but they thought he was just lucky. It mostly happened when they were pushing things too far. 

It was before he turned 10 that Kay found out his powers scare the staff. He would test himself when he was alone, in secret. Indeed tis was a form of training, but with no guidance he couldn't know much or even if he was on the right track.

He noticed that sometimes he could get things he wanted if he kept at it. But of course it wasn't enough. Learning about the school happened by accident -or so he thought- and it took a lot of effort to find out more about it. Hearing that he could improve his skills by attending sorta helped him realize why he wasn't attending: the family would lose their power over him.

This was more than enough to make him do whatever he could to convince his family that he must be enrolled. However, upon enrollment, the school was also told that he's a trouble maker and that this is why he wasn't brought here sooner. The school was supposed to supervise him at all times.

The headmaster of the school ensured Kay's guardians they'll keep a close eye on him, just as instructed. However this was partially a lie due to the many rules the school had and not enough staff to enforce them. 

It didn't take Kay too long to see that many rules were constantly broken with no repercussions. The most important of them however, were followed to the T. Breaking those could mean getting expelled, even for the most talented or the most rich. 

Kay arrived at the school, his future home for a while, on a Friday evening. This gave him plenty of time to learn more about the school until Monday morning when he had his first class. 

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

If you want to learn more Chinese characters, go to archchinese.com. They own the copyrights for the image.

Recently I started watching videos on finances and minimalism. I'm not good with money and I'm not a minimalist either ... well, not really. I guess, I decided to start learning about the mistakes I could be faced later on, or how to fix the ones I already made [and I'm too embarrassed to talk about].

However, I realized that in a way I can be described with both epithets depending on the situation. Now, I decided to share with whoever reads this blog, some possibly new [and some definitely old ways] in which you can spend less money.  

"hacking" my clothes

Some of you might remember my post in which I shared how I added a pocket to my sweatpants that didn't have one. 

How does it save money? I didn't have to go buy another pair with pockets [not that I would have found something I liked] and I didn't pay someone else to do it for me. Of course, for this you have to know how to sew [by hand or with the machine]. 

To do this, you'd have to sacrifice some time. For this project I wasted a bit more time than I was supposed to, because of extra steps that proved not needed.

I have a similar project going on for a bag. Hopefully I can post it soon enough.

old stuff to rags

If you were to calculate how much you spend in a year for certain cleaning supplies - mop replacement, kitchen sponge, dust cloth, whatever else you use, how much do you estimate that would add up to?

Honestly, I didn't calculate myself because I'd have to keep track of how often I need to replace them. But my wallet is a bit happier I didn't have to buy kitchen sponges anymore - for like a year. 

Instead I use old kitchen towels that I cut into smaller pieces. Most my kitchen towels used to be bath towels that got too worn to still use as such. Yes they were that old. 

By doing this not only do I produce less waste and pollution, but I also save a bit of money. Why are kitchen towels so expensive? 

How about the clothes I mentioned, you say? Depending on the fabric type, I cut those into the shape and size I think I need, and use the rags to clean windows and their sills, doors and their frames, dust the few horizontal surfaces I have, or the tiles in the kitchen and bathroom. Cleaning the toilet with those rags is a good idea because once that's done, I can throw away the rag feeling less guilty about pollution. 

I have to mention that as long as I don't clean the toilet with said rags, I can wash them in the laundry machine, and re-use them until they can no longer be used. 

Some towels make an even better mop than the one I have, so why not taking advantage of that? Not to mention that once the dishes are done, I can rinse off the piece of towel I used, and hung it to dry - it's more hygienic than a sponge in this regard.

Tshirts, sweat pants and matching sweat-shirts are the best candidates here. I find this a really good idea for when cleaning due to moving. 

This is especially do-able for those who don't have a charity or some other place where to go donate or sell old clothes. Let's just say, towels are not a thing to make others use.

by cooking

Cooking can save you some money as oftentimes the ingredients are cheaper or add up to 1 meal at a restaurant, depending on what you order. Let's not forget that usually cooking means you get several servings of the food you make, and if you really like what you make, that's always cheaper and better. 

What I cook is usually sweets, soups, and stews. I can't really find the stuff I prepare at home in the store. Even if I did, the taste is not the same, and may have ingredients I want to steer away from (garlic, onions, preservatives, food coloring) from a health related perspective.

If you want to prepare a meal that is not really specific to the country you live in, the ingredients can cost quite a lot. You might actually save money if you went to have a serving of an "exotic" dish at a specialized restaurant. You'll also realize whether that food is really worth trying to make at home or not. 

eating directly from the pot

"Whaat? that's gross, weird!" - it's what you may be thinking. 

And you're right when you cook for a whole family and not just yourself. It's also not really gross if you just warm the food on the stove, in a small enough pot to hold 1 serving of whatever you eat. 

How does it save money? indirectly: you have only 1 container to wash, not 2. You save water and dish washer because you use less of both. Of course, this works only if you do the dishes by hand. If you use a dish washing machine, you might actually want to use a separate plate to eat in. 

I have to say that these machines are not very common in Romania yet, though they can be found in stores. Younger families are more likely to own them, than older generations. They are more likely to be found in newer or renovated apartments. We don't own one.

Each household is different, of course, and what works for me might not work for you. 

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

Moving to another country is not what many people expect it to be. Sadly. 

It can't happen overnight - unless you're very rich, or maybe don't care about going into a big debt. To avoid this, you could sell everything you own of value - but what if you don't own anything at all? This is perhaps one of the first things to keep in mind especially if you're older and a school exchange program can't be applied to you.

You should choose a country where a language you know is spoken. In case you'll be interested in getting a job, having a diploma, degree, certification, or experience, will help greatly. Any of these attributes will help you secure decent employment. You do have other ways of generating income, and as a woman you could even get married to a rich man from that country - a practice frowned upon.

But I'm nobody to talk about those topics. As you know, we plan on moving to France, and it's not an easy process. We want to learn more about the life there, but there aren't many people writing or making videos about it. Following Youtube France ... I only get suggestions for comedy channels with pranks, or challenges. Not helpful at all, but we still try.

We're also trying slowly improving our grasp on French. We luckily learned some in school, but it's been so long ago. We do know that the quality of life in France is far better than over here, so why shouldn't we want to move there? After all you don't want to move to a country where you don't have access to running water or electricity, do you? You also want to have enough money from your paycheck to be able to have some fun as well.

The political atmosphere of the country is important. While I'm sure there are some people who would like to live in North Korea, they will never outnumber those who want to live in USA, Sweden, France, the UK, Japan, or any other country where people are free to say and do whatever as long as they don't hurt others. Not many people want to live in a very corrupt country either - Romania is one of the most corrupt ones out there.

Some countries have a more accepting attitude towards foreigners than others. This is why Canada is a place where foreigners are very welcomes, but countries like Japan, China, Switzerland are very enclosed and rejecting towards them. Sure there are reasons, however it is quite difficult for many people going to those last countries to feel at home, welcomed and accepted.

It is well known that some products or services you might need or like, are not available in other countries. For instance, Europeans going to USA won't be able to eat or even buy Kinder eggs, or that internet is heavily censored in China and that many sites are blocked over there. We're going to France, so I'll be missing some foods that I'm pretty sure I won't find there, unless I can find Romanian shops there. What's more, some stuff will shock you - maybe the so many vending machines in Japan qualify ...? Or that all the shops are closed on Sunday in France, Germany, and Switzerland - or this is what I heard.

Your safety is important, especially if you're a woman. You will want to know just how safe it is to walk down the street at night, or even in the daylight. Bucharest is rather safe, plus you definitely don't risk getting randomly shot because we don't own guns. We don't need them. Having thieves breaking into your home is relatively rare, as far as I know, especially since most buildings now have an intercom system, sometimes even a guard downstairs, and cameras.

What do you do if you have pets, like we do? You of course have the option to re-home them, but if you're like us, you probably think the pets are part of the family and can't imagine anyone else taking better care of them. Plu you'll be missing them a LOT. We decided to take 2 of them with us [we have 3], and to return for the 3rd one at some point when we become more stable with the money. But the pets need passports, vaccines, microchips, and I forgot what other documentation. What's more, is that we need money for all these vet visits and paperwork.

Then, we'll need more money for plane tickets, food while we're there till we find employment, and so on. Not to mention the time we need to invest in all of this. Just the pets' stuff might take up to 2 months. I always thought I can just pack my bags and be out the door, but I never really put much thinking into all these aspects that can be scary at times. Remember you can't succeed with fear in mind: you have to be somewhat brave.

I may have been a dreamer, and still am. There is nothing wrong with that as long as I'm aware of the effort needed to make my dreams come true, and being willing to do the work. And A and me ARE preparing to turn those dreams into reality.

In conclusion, if you too wish to move to another country, get as informed as possible about your destination to ease the process, and then start doing the work for it. Don't forget that sometimes it just takes more time than expected. Good luck!

©2013 – present. Charly Cross. All rights reserved.

Hello World!

French toast is (or at least used to be) quite the popular dessert over here. I remember I watched a video last year in which the creator made them, so I suddenly started craving some. 

As you can see, I made this dessert last year in September, but I never got around to post the recipe. I think it's time to share this with the world. (and then go out to buy some milk to make another batch, haha)

Follow the pictures for ingredients and instructions ;)

You can now serve, hot or cold. You can serve with jam, syrup, honey depending on how sweet you want your dessert.

As you can see from my pictures, you can use any shape of bread, but it's best if it's white. 

I used real milk with a low fat content. While I think it's ok to replace it with soy or other type of milk, I haven't tried it. 

I recommend this as breakfast or as a quick afternoon snack, if you're at home. 1 serving shouldn't exceed 2 slices, and here I had maybe 8 slices of bread (but not all were shown).