I was listening to manele (as I am wont to do hehe) this morning while cleaning the house and heard this “word” aoleu and it made me laugh as I’ve heard my neighbors use it a million times. It’s an interjection, which means it’s something people suddenly exclaim and is never “conjugated” or modified in any way (grammatically). There are about a million variants of … Continue reading Slang Word of the Day: Aoleu!
In case you ever want to be a well-known blogger with millions of adoring fans, heed my advice – never, ever discuss music. Unless of course you’re writing a music blog. Otherwise the songs you like will almost always be ones your readers dislike and all of their favorite songs are anathema to you. Oh, and whatever you do, do not discuss manele! Strict interzis! … Continue reading Vreau Barbate Silicoane
Despite the Facebook, despite the Twitter, despite the literally thousands of wonderful and amazing Romanians who visit this site, talk about this site or link to this site, a tremendous number of visitors are drawn to this blog by searching for two things – “gypsy” and “Romania”. I’ve written about this (seemingly) hundreds of times, from their slang to their music to the Chocolate Chip … Continue reading Poor Widdle Racist Romania *sniff*
If you spend just a couple of weeks in any kind of urban environment in Romania you’re going to find that certain songs will get hammered into your consciousness whether you like it or not. What am I talking about? Scanning the Romanian FM radio band, you will find the vast majority of (musical) stations to be extremely similar, based on just a few formulas: … Continue reading The Persistence of Music in Romania
Doing all that writing about manele reminded me of something that happened a few years ago in my verrah own personal life. Now that enough time has passed, I can tell it to you now if you promise not to tell anyone ;) I never look down at anyone because I’ve made just about every mistake a person can make in Romania and the following … Continue reading Adventures in Maneleland
All Things Romania 