So, what’s next? Speed cameras for pedestrians? 😛
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Speed Limit
March 6th, 2011Spices
February 21st, 2011Yesterday evening we decided to go and eat out. Because we have received some fliers which offered a 10% discount in a fairly new Indian restaurant in Cluj, we decided to try it out. The restaurant is called Indigo and I have read several articles about it of how good it is. Well, this was I guess a good reason to go and check it out.
The restaurant is located on one of the most well known streets of Cluj for students: the Piezisa street (I am not going to give further details, go check the website out). The first striking thing when you enter is the massive usage of purple (I guess I know where the name comes from). I think purple is a color perfectly matching India and the Indian culture (I have no idea why I think that, it just feels purple).
So: after sitting down to a nice and clean table, we looked at the menu. No surprise there: spices, spices, spices and then some strange names about which we did not know what they were. Well, the obvious decision in such impossible cases is to go for the house specialty (or ask the waiter, we did not do that). In this case the house specialty is the Indigo Platter which is basically a platter of spicy meat with spicy meat for two persons. For me it had a bit too much pepper, I could not feel the rest of the spices. But then again, I am not really a pepper person: I like spicy stuff, except pepper 🙂 . The best thing however, and this was a huge surprise, is the prompt serving of the meal. I think we did not wait 10 minutes and it was ready.
Getting our food out that fast meant that in approximately 30 minutes after sitting down, we have already finished with it. Well, I guess this is a good way to make people order desert: you just have to eat something else, otherwise it feels like fast food 😛 . So we ordered some Gulab Jamun, which again continuing the line of strong tastes was a very, very sweet dessert. Now that one I liked :).
Another thing which was cool in a way, was the hospitality that the entire personnel had. The waitresses managed to always have a genuine smile, and while we were leaving every waiter said goodbye smiling. This really boosted my already positive attitude towards the restaurant: I will definitely visit again.
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For The Kid In You
February 18th, 2011One of the great passions of children these days are dinosaurs. Well, the eyes of the kid inside of me started to shine very, very brightly when I saw an ad that there is an expo of full-size dinosaur models here in Cluj. There was not much publicity about the event, I also stumbled upon it accidentally.
The exhibit is open between the 20th of January and the 27th of February: so two more weekends for anyone interested. The ticket is not exactly a cheap one for the Romanian salaries
– 30 RON – Adults
– 15 RON – Children
– 25 RON – Students
– 70 RON – Family (Parents+children)
– Free photographing
Nonetheless we thought we’d have a look to see what is going on, so last Sunday we visited the exhibition.
I also checked their website and I can see that this was actually a portion of the entire collection. The website is in German so if you know a little, you can understand. All in all it seems that this Austrian company has invested in moving exhibitions which are both entertaining and educational.
I must say I was quite impressed: the models were realistic (of course you could tell they were plastic, but still), there was enough information next to them and they were arranged skillfully. The most interesting parts of the exhibit were of course the larger dinos: T-Rex, Albertasaurus or even a Diplodocus (30m) live sized model was present. Another great feature was the Velociraptor model, which is quite up-to-date to the latest discoveries: it was covered with feathers (big scary chicken 😛 ).
One of the added values was a free (well, actually included in the ticket price, I guess) cinema about dinosaurs. Although the movie was completely in English and there weren’t even any subtitles, there were a few children and parents watching it. Inside the improvised cinema, there was also a small sandbox for children to play the archeologists: they could play there ‘excavating’ bones of prehistoric creatures.
All in all a great few hours (for me I think it was less) to spend with your children. For them it is fun, for parents it is informative (although I could see the joy also in the eyes of some of the parents 🙂 ). Here are some pictures I have taken. Enjoy.
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A Big Leap
February 4th, 2011Last year me and two colleagues of mine have decided to do a trip which is a little bit out of the ordinary: a West Coast to East Coast road-trip in the U.S. 🙂 . Well, our plans started to develop and develop right to the point when we have started to take our first steps to get there: get a passport and then apply for a visa.
The passport part was fairly easy: my new biometric passport was ready in a few weeks and I was really surprised of the promptness and speed of the authorities this time. But this was the first and easiest step of all, the biggest was the one that followed: apply for a U.S. travel Visa.
So how does one apply for a U.S. Travel Visa nowadays in Romania? Just follow these steps:
– Step1: Pay 141$ at BT for the interview
– Step2: Pay $11 at a BT for a scheduling-code
– Step3: DS-160 application form (upload a photo also)
– Step4: Print the confirmation page and put it into a folder
– Step5: Arrange a meeting (scheduling-code+application ID)
– Step6: Make another photo, different from the one used for the application
– Step7: Add any other helpful document (e.g. proof from your company that you work there, previous visa etc.)
– Step8: Go with the folder and passport to the U.S. Embassy
The exact information can be found here.
So far simple, right? Well, after following these steps, on February the 2nd at 9:15 me and my friend (the third person had to abandon 🙁 ) arrived promptly to the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest. I was actually “happily disappointed” by the changes they made since my last visit 5 years ago (J1 Visa for 3 months). Now there are lockers for your bags and for your phones which are kept secure while you are inside the building. There is also a reception where you can hand in the most important documents (DS-160 confirmation page and passport) so you don’t have to carry it in. It seems they really have developed over the past 5 years, something I cannot say about Bucharest: unfortunately now it looked much worse than before (I honestly cannot even compare it to Cluj).
After two halls in which I had to wait to be called into the next one and after a fingerprint session (even though I had them taken 5 years ago) I finally arrived to the agent. This was the moment of truth: could I apply for a U.S. Travel Visa without an invitation, without a contact person or without even any proof of having any real-estate which assures that I will get back? The answer is: YES, the words “Your Visa has been approved” never sounded more reassuring: getting to the U.S. is not a big thing anymore. I can travel there anywhere for the next 10 years 😀 .
In my case having had previously a visa helped, but my friend has never had one and yet he received the visa even so. A few things they liked: we have both traveled a lot in Europe already, we had stable jobs back home and we spoke English fluently (although the agents spoke also quite understandable Romanian <= respect 😉 )
The next day we already bought the airplane tickets: on Expedia our purchase has been confirmed. This means that the big step has been made: we are off. If nothing goes wrong, I might just have quite a few things to blog about 🙂 .
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Small issues
January 16th, 2011Driven by my hidden geek instinct which is always fascinated by gadgets, I have decided to upgrade my telephone to something more than just a mobile phone. I decided to give a bunch of money to vodafone in exchange for a Samsung Galaxy S. The whole transition from a Nokia 6234 to this device was kind of like when I first decided to buy myself a mobile phone (a Nokia 3310 back then).
Yes, the phone part is nice, it works. The camera: better than the old one (and with HD video it beats any of my digital cameras I have had or currently have). The real transition for me is: the GPS and mobile internet. The GPS is great. By default it uses google maps to locate your position, it is quite accurate and it even responds to rotating the camera well. The mobile internet part is also great, because of a combination of two things:
– it always switches to a nearby Wi-Fi (instead of 3G/HSUPA)
– there is FREE Wi-Fi access in almost any public area in Cluj
(Yes, this is the same with any other smart-phone but for me this is a new way of life, so don’t even think of spoiling the joy 😛 ).
My initial joy was quite frankly blown to pieces by the sad news that for some reason it did not want to use my home router (Linksys WRT54GL) to access the internet. It connected to it, I could even reach the settings on the router, but still no internet connection. I even registered to a forum (which by the way seems nice) to find some answers to my problems. The good part was that there were no problems with other routers, but mine (but why? 🙁 ). So I tried every setting one by one on the router: everything was ok, no blocking, no filtering, I even removed all protection from it, it still did not budge. I said to myself: I WILL NOT GO TO SLEEP UNTIL THIS WORKS (bad idea): I stood awake until 3:30 AM.
But why did I stay awake that much? Well… I DID manage to fix the issue 😀 : there is a very friendly button (well, now it is) in the router settings, that I completely ignored the entire day: Reset to factory default. I did the reset, re-built my wireless network and voila it worked like a charm . So the official verdict: great phone, great router, stupid user 😛 .
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