Reminiscences 11

Short Change

Ben exited the ‘Universitate’ ‘metrou’ station vie a biggish escalator and then some stairs that led to a dingy underground shopping area. Not the most attractive place to come to get your goodies. He quickly left here via some more stairs, which required careful negotiation as if he was on a mountain hike due to their somewhat dilapidated state. There was one last obstacle in some extraordinarily tangled electrical wiring, which hang just shy of the exit to the ‘metrou’ station, but most people passed by nonchalantly, obviously thinking that it was sufficiently far away that barring a hurricane-force wind, it was unlikely to collapse on unsuspecting pedestrians. Thus finally, he came out into the concrete jungle that was Bucharest.

Despite his many months of longing to be here, it actually wasn’t in the end anything much to write home about. The underground passageway that he had come out of had four exits, each one leading to a different corner of a mighty intersection between two roads. To the left, there was a big road leading off into the distance, but before him was another lesser road, but all the same pretty busy. To the right, across the road, he could see the University building. A little further down the road on his side, there some other impressive looking buildings were lined up. He spent the best part of the next hour or so wandering aimlessly up and down this road and then around the university building, soaking in the atmosphere of the place.

It had a strange feel to it. In some ways Latin, but with a noticeable hint of Slavic. The language being spoken on the streets was almost unintelligible, except for a few words, however, it sounded distinctly like some of Ben’s Polish acquaintances with lots of ‘shs’ and the like going on. Its written form, plastered on many advertisements all around, also belied a certain Latiness and was certainly slightly more understandable than the spoken form, but nevertheless still included many strange looking words.

Many of the buildings looked like they were about a hundred years old or more, although even here in the architecture there was a strange mix, as there were a number of Soviet-style constructions slotted along the architectural landscape. The streets were reasonably clean and bustling with people and traffic. This all created a lively atmosphere and Ben could see why some would warm to such a place.

Gradually, he became tired of his reconnaissance mission and started to feel hungry. In his circling around, Ben had been aware of a few eating options, but he was drawn to one in the underground shopping area by the ‘Univeristate’ station. Not the prettiest or most appealing of locations, but it was fittingly studenty in appearance and so probably suited his budget and appetite and was also conveniently located on the way back to the underground station. Thus, he headed there.

He arrived to see that its name was ‘Everest’ and so he began to hope that it was a mountain among fast-food restaurants, but after entering and surveying their menu listed on the wall behind the serving counter and the real-life representations on display, he realised that it wasn’t so towering as far as culinary delights were concerned.

He decided to play it safe, and among the various things on offer, many of which he wasn’t sure what they were, he spied what looked like spaghetti bolognese. This was undoubtedly one of his favourite dishes, so he easily convinced himself to try a Romanian fast food version.

Using a handy bit of sign language he managed to order a nice plate of the spaghetti with a slightly anaemic looking, but nevertheless pleasantly smelling, bolognese sauce. In this plac,e they obviously weren’t used to Romanian spoken with an English accent (if even what Ben was endeavouring to speak could be considered Romanian!), so at the till the lady showed Ben how much he needed to pay, 12 RON, by emphatically pointing at the display on the till. He wasn’t yet fully familiar with the money so after embarrassingly rummaging around a while in his wallet looking for the right amount, he just got out two 10 RON notes and thrust them at her as she waited impatiently. In return, she took some coins out of the till thrust them back at him and he turned to look for a seat and get away as quickly as possible from this ‘I’m a foreigner who doesn’t know exactly what’s going on’ situation.

There were plenty of empty tables, so he quickly saw a spot to camp down on and started to move towards it. As he was going, he began to reflect on what just happened. Something didn’t feel right. Ben was no maths genius, but all the same, he knew a bit, and could at least work out in his head that 20 minus 12 was 8. In other words, he should have received 8 RON change, however, the lady had given him just a few coins. He knew that the notes were RON, starting from 1 up, but what were the coins? Was it possible that they were RON too?

He sat himself down at his chosen table and got out the change to analyse it. It was a series of not so shinny coins. All of them had ‘Bani’ written on them, in various different denominations. During his studies of Romania before actually coming here, Ben hadn’t given much thought to the currency, which was probably a mistake. However, it was clear that ‘Bani’ were to RON, what pennies are to pounds. Mulling things over, gradually the feeling started to grow in Ben that he had been short changed! He was starting to regret his lack of Romanian financial knowledge, although in any economy it couldn’t be the case that a few bani coins were the equivalent to 8 RON. Suddenly it struck him that, assuming there were 100 bani to the RON, he would need 800 bani to make 8 RON, but he added up what was in his hand and it only came to 73 bani, some 727 bani short of what it should be, unless of course there was somehow 10 bani to the RON.

Being a placid sort of fellow, at first, Ben thought he would let it go. Who knows, maybe there were indeed 10 bani to the RON and he would only exacerbate his image of being a ‘foreigner who doesn’t really know what’s going on’ by complaining. On the other hand, maybe the lady had just made an honest mistake? It seemed though to be an unlikely error and Ben’s Englishness started coming to the fore. The English hadn’t got where they had got in this world by being short changed had they? Thus, eventually overcome by his sense of national duty and not wanting to loose out on his RON, Ben decided to return to the lady on the till and clarify the situation.

He rose hesitantly, but determinedly and made the brief walk back towards the till. He clutched the coins in one hand to show them to the lady and in the other hand, he held the receipt. He wasn’t quite sure how he was going to address the problem from a linguistic point of view, but he felt like he would just give it his best shot. His fears of a communicational showdown were quickly resolved though because, as the lady on the till saw him approaching, without a word she popped the till open, took out 8 RON and thrust it towards him. Wow, thought Ben to himself, she catches on quickly, although then scepticism began to grow in him. How did she know what he wanted and exactly how much money to give him? This was either extraordinary anticipation or a confession of guilt. In any case, Ben wasn’t the sort to make a big fuss and so he returned to his seat, full of pride at his great victory.

Image by RitaE from Pixabay