Recently new versions of two programs of mine, centericq and groan were released. The former adds support for MSN protocol, and the latter now works correctly with Cyrillic letters in quick look-up mode. BTW, it would be nice to get some in text format to convert them into one which groan understands. Since now only four dictionaries are available (english-russian, russian-english, english-romanian and romanian-english), any other are welcome very much.

I think dear readers noticed that the previous week-end wasn't good for my writings. Well, I didn't write even a line. This thing happened because the author was exploring Romanian places. The company was very good. My colleague from Moldovia had guests from Chisinau, so when I phoned him to ask if he was willing to go somewhere to have some beer, he asked me to be in a chinese restaurant "at Cau's" in an hour. In several minutes my teacher of Romanian, Gustav, phoned to ask about my beer plans, and I pointed him to the same place.

I should mention, the restaurant was quite a unnoticable place, a small building with a chinese flashlight near the entrance. But inside it was nice, with good interior and tasty food. More, it's quite a famous place among foreigners here in Iasi. Last time I was there, at the table nearby several guys were sitting speaking in half Russian and half Hebrew, it quite a typical for Middle East manner, in quite a loud voice. This time there were two exotic girls, whose origin we couldn't determine. Well, among decorations there was an aquarium, various dinging and shiny things handing inside, Chinese music, about which I though whole the CD contained only one song, and a Russian girl named Ira. The waiter told us about the latter, though he didn't show her to us. This made us try to guess how she should had looked like. The final variant made up a girl named Natasha (Ira wasn't good enough), dressed in a wadded jacket, with felt boots barefooted, with a balalaika and a bear. Additionally, he should had been drunk and have nothing under the jacket. Fantasies of such a nice kind we had eating Chinese meal and washed it down with beer. Must also mention, beer was Romanian.

Finally everything Confucious sent us had been eaten. To look for further amusements we went to the Mall. There was an extremely intresting club named "Viper" which had bar, bowling, billiards and table football. This time we played bowling. Everyone of us except Gustav were seeing this kind of game for the first time, while Gustav having been a casino inspector back in past in Costa Rica, could play very well. So he won all the rounds. Also, he was the same. Being a big fan of Russian curse words, he put "Huistavo" as his nickname in the players registration screen. Anyway, I liked bowling a lot. It was a very intresting game. The waitress who knew us from previous visits this time was surprised when I tried to speak Romanian with her. Then, the most intresting thing happened. She demonstrated knowledge of some Russian, represented with two words - "pivo" (beer) and "dyevushka" (girl). It made me thing those words were well known everywhere Russian solder had been to.

That was Sunday on the week-end before last. On Sunday, we did the same, but in a little bit "light" variant. That time Gustav couldn't come, so we were bowling with Boris, my colleague and his guest from Chisinau, Mikhail. I sad Gustav couldn't come not in vain, because it let me win both of the rounds we played.

So, I conclude the following. There ARE good places in Romania, so I recommend not to think a lot about "what is Romania and what's happening there", but just come and see with your own eyes. Myself, I'll try to let you understand this country better with articles, the first of which is supposed to be ready soon. Bye.