Q6: "What is the most surprising thing about Romania?"

Someone (anyone want to claim this?) asked, "What is the most surprising thing about Romania?"

It's hard to pick out just one most surprising thing about Romania. Here are a few early candidates:

- Some Iasi residents burn their trash at night. This was one of the most maddening aspects of life in Senegal, partly because of the smell (saccharine-toxic, with hints of campfire and molten plastic) and partly because of the blatant carcinogenesis. In rural Senegal, trash-burning made some sense, since there was no public garbage pick-up outside of the big cities. But Iasi is Romania's second-largest city, and there are public trash cans and dumpsters on every block.

- Stray dogs nap, swagger, and prowl along every street. People in Iasi seem fairly fond of them, although I hear that some towns (like Cluj) have euthanized (or maybe shot) all their dogs. The mutts -- somewhere between labrador, wolf, and Rin Tin Tin -- aren't terribly menacing but still pretty annoying. (On Friday, one trailed us for a full block because he smelled our bagel chips, and in some neighborhoods they bark and growl all night.)

- Except at supermarkets and other big stores, you rarely get coin change back. So if 3 tomatoes cost 2.60 RON (2 lei & 60 bani) and you pay with three one-lei bills, you don't get the 40 bani back. Fortunately, a lot of items cost X.00 or X.50 RON.

I'll keep you posted about additional surprises as they pop up in the coming weeks.

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