Tomorrow is mom’s birthday. Of course I won’t be there to celebrate her. I won’t be able to celebrate dad’s and my sister’s birthday either. However for the New Year I secretly bought gifts for them before coming here. I put the gifts in my room in a closet. On December 31st, I’ll call dad and tell him where the gifts are. It’s surely gonna cheer them up.
The window of the dorm has a pleasant scenery of the highway. Accross the highway there’s a river, a large bridge, and the rest is all green. It’s a perfect picture of freedom. Just near the entrance of the military, there’s a digital sign which shows the temperature of outside. The sign instantly took me back to Zalau-Romania. It’s so different in here, every memory comes back to your brain, all your five senses, so easily. It’s like a blind person sharpening his other senses. For a few minutes I felt like I was actually there. Let me tell you a little bit about Zalau. It’s a town in Romania where I stayed for a while to be with my girlfriend.
I had stayed in a modest but decent hotel room, where there’s a cable network in rooms and two beds even if you pay for one. I had spent most of my time in that room, waiting for my girlfriend to leave work. In front of the hotel there’s a big square. In the middle of the square there’s a similar sign which shows the time and temperature. So sometimes I’d get bored, take my old walkman and take a walk past that square. I’d then pass by churches and old small houses. The weather was ussually cloudy and since it often rained, there would be a soft coolness and the dense smell of fresh rain. Every building would have a Romanian flag in front of its window.
There was also a park with an amphitheater. So wherever there was a concert or similar organisation (like “Zalau Days” at the beginning of August), this park or the square would be the place to do it. The names of the shops (like “American Fastfood”) would show the country was no longer under the shadow of communism. The faces of people were quite different than the Turks. They all had this calm facial expressions, probably because nobody is trying to get on them and ride their asses. Unlike Turkish people where we always look aggressive and aware. The Romanian girls ussually had a sad and innocent look that would make you wanna love them. The town was so small, the buses had only one route, so you wouldn’t have to read where it’s going when you get on a bus.
Of course it’s harder now to visualise all this while I’m writing here on the training field, sitting under the sun and watching commandos and short-term soldiers playing basketball. Gotta put this notebook back in the locker.
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