Update

I hope everyone who is reading this post is having a nice holiday season. I see people in Galati going home to their parents, and that's my plan as well. Although my faith has dropped to the ground level recently, holiday season still has the special atmosphere that I enjoy. Besides, who doesn't like giving/getting presents?

Despite the holiday season, my last few days have been a little hectic, for nothing. Let me explain why.

If you are an American citizen, you can enter and live in Romania without a visa for 90 days within 6 months. If you are staying for over 90 days for whatever reason, you need to obtain a overstay permit from the Immigration Office in order to avoid penalty. If you overstay without a permit, then prior to exiting the country you need to obtain an exit permit in order to leave the country. (Information taken from the Romanian Embassy in the US)

I actually knew about this all this time. I have made many attempts to resolve this issue with help from my host LC, but the local officials here (Immigration Office, Police Department, etc) never made a clear explanation of what I REALLY have to do legally. Obviously, they didn't know the law, so they did what they always do: deter the responsibility to someone else. And all I heard them saying all this time was, "if you are an American, you don't need a visa to stay in Romania, and when you leave the country, you'll be subjected to some penalty for overstay."

I didn't want to risk being without a permit and unable to leave the country upon my day of departure, so this week I finally decided to go to the immigration office in Bucharest to clear things out, hoping that they'd have a better idea of what's going on. With an extensive help from Marina, I managed to figure out my next step, after going around a few places in Bucharest. However, the problem had to be solved back in Galati. Good, now I'm back on the starting line.

Yesterday, Mihai called the immigration office and the border control to finally figure out exactly what I'll have to go through at the airport when I leave. Well, it turns out that I won't need a permit, but I'll be subjected to a fine, up to 400 EUR. GREAT. My last month's salary, GONE. But I can live with THAT. What I can't live with however is the TIME wasted in order to reach this conclusion.

I wanted to visit a city called Cluj-Napoca this week. I have not visited the city yet, and I heard it's a very nice place, so I wanted it to be my last trip in Romania. So far, I have been to the following places in Romania:

Galati (duh)
Danube Delta
Piatra-Neamt
Iasi
Durau
Amara
Constanta (Mamaia, Mangalia, Neptun)
Brasov
Sibiu
Bucharest

It would have been nice if Cluj could be on this list. And I really wanted to see Andrea there from my faci family before I leave the country. But I guess life is tough, and I never seem to learn that lesson despite everything I've gone through in the last 23 years.

But I am grateful and happy about one thing: I had friends to go through all this with me. Looking back, there was NOTHING that I could do because of language barrier, I was just a passport holder and everyone else did the job for me. Mihai the VPICX, Roxana my trainee buddy, they had to go through a lot frustration dealing with the local officials. And Marina, she transported me around Bucharest and talked to the officials for me, even though she had to be late at work for helping me. Thank you so much guys, you are the best!

And now I'm sitting in my apartment, eating mici and "getting ready to leave." I'm experiencing a mixed feeling right now, because I'm happy that I'm going back home, but sad that I'm leaving Romania. Ying-yang. We need to start uniting the world so that traveling around does not have to be so complicated and expensive.