20-VII-1968.
We can't find the tents' spikes. They are too deep in the sand. Mamaia was chosen to be the resort just because it sounds so like Miami. Exept there was no sand beaches - the soil is fertile to within few meters of the water, and the Black sea doesn't really sound so salty anyway, what with Danube and the russian rivers pouring so much sweet water every day. Five meters from the water we see tall corn growing.
So the builders of Mamaia came to the bright idea to bring sand from Danube. Trucks and trucks of it. And they didn't stop at the beach, the swat is some good 100m wide, so the camp was on it. We had sand in everything. Everything. Except the regula, because we didn't even dare take it out of the car.
So we found a place to move. Some local told us we can camp in the park, near the bowling. "The bowling" was the turist fun centre, with bowling lanes (electric, no caddy required to line your pins), pinball machines, fuzzball (at which I became somewhat proficient those days, having practiced a lot in camps in Budapest and Warszawa), and something called vibromasaj (which I confused with the Masai tribe, from the title of one of the movies, but then realized that j is pronounced as zh in romanian). The building's name was „Bowling“ (yes, in english), and we used its toilets, so when anyone would go for a leak, would say „I'm off to bowl“.
Somewhere by that tree behind mom were a couple of guys from Italy, for a few days, in their tiny Fiat 500, which is the predecessor of the fića, with the just 500 cc engine. And the fuselage was proportionally smaller than fića's 750, to the general amazement on how could four persons possibly fit into it. But there it was, having made the at least 1000 km trip. The cherry on top was the wind-up key, as if on a toy but at least 60 cm large, mounted on the rear hood, where the engine was. Which wasn't exactly aerodynamic, but then I seriously doubt that this ever rode faster than 70. Haven't seen this for the next 40 years, and then suddenly it happened everywhere.
The shot is a perfect example of the developer not reaching evenly. The dark area around mom is where the emulsion stayed dry longer than the rest. We got smart later and simply soaked the film in water first, to soften the emulsion and then it would contact the developer uniformly.
After a couple of days, we were surrounded by tents. There were some italian students with a Fiat 500, with a spring loading key attached in the rear, on the engine hood. I've seen a replica of that forty years later in Virginia, on a Smart car. A couple from Bucurreşti raised their tent next to us, some university folks - professors or scientists, whatever. They, likewise, drove a škodilak, and obviously didn't fare better than camping in a park. Of course, none of us speak romanian, so we made do with what english I spoke, I was the dežurni translator. Mom would pitch in from time to time with a sentence or two, specially to tell everyone I had a girlfriend, which I immediately refuted with „she left me“.
We had an ugly accident one of these days (probably the last day before we moved into the park). The wind was blowing from the sea each morning, then it would reverse direction around lunchtime. It was strong enough to blow any inflated thing away, and if you lied on a floating mattress, and fell off it (the water used to get choppy at times), if you didn't hold to it, it could just fly away. Any time it would get on a crest of a wave, the wind would take it up, flip it a few times and land it back in the water at least a dozen meters away from the coast.
So it happened that Aranka lost hers. She did sound a bit capricious and prone to mood swings, but this is when I understood why. Janči made a big fuss of the loss, wanted to send her home, called her incredible names and made scene after scene, not relenting in his anger. Eventually, my dad stepped in and said it was my fault and offered our spare mattress as a refund. Janči took it without a word, and that was it. The bitter taste remained, though, and we never again traveled with them.
Curiously enough, Ilona didn't intervene much. She tried, but she knew when it would just make things worse, so she retreated.
Mentions: 06-XII-2009., Aranka Gnajs, dežurni, fića, Ilona Gnajs, Janči Gnajs, regula, škodilak, in serbian
29-V-2018 - 15-I-2026