of gypsies and car titles

here's a picture from my travels to romania last summer. taken during a short visit to a gypsy camp outside csikszereda, i remember being mesmerized by their eyes. they allowed me to take point blank portraits, without any pretentious "cheezing". i recently posted my favorites from that trip on flickr. (to see more of my photos, you can see them here.)

and speaking of gypsies, here's a good story from the past week.

so i bought a car from this guy, the title is NOT in order, he leaves for california and then the tags expire and i cannot get new tags without a title in my name. simply put, i am at the mercy of this guy returning and going with me to the dmv to straighten everything out. but i can't get in touch with him, and nobody knows when he will return. i end up riding my bike a lot. this goes on for three weeks.

then i get this call. he's back. we agree to meet at the dmv the next day. i am ecstatic.

so after crossing wires about where we are meeting, i tell him he needs to fill out a title application. (this is where i discovered three problems fairly quickly.) first, he cannot read or write, so i fill it out for him. second, he has no middle name. ok, that's not that big of a deal. but third, he doesn't know his driver's liscense number, because he lost it in california. at this point, i wonder out loud if this is going to fly or not.

so while i'm getting a number, he goes to get his wife who is already at a window. basically, he cuts the line. he talks to the dmv worker and next thing you know, she's helping our case. apparently, she has pity on me, or him, or both and takes care of everything.

this is when i met his wife for the first time, and she takes a liking to me. they were talking to each other very rapidly, while i wrote the check. when i asked, his wife explained the origins of their language. as i suspected, they are speaking romany, the gypsy language. most of the gypsies i met spoke hungarian, so i wasn't completely sure. but we talk about romania, and their family, and it was all very sweet.

anyway, with all the titles taken care of, they split saying "God bless you" and that was my interesting story for the day.

i got the car i/m'd, tagged, and legal. my laptop got a new keyboard for free. and we're getting a new lock for our mailbox. so i'd say that it was a pretty good week.