Like every little girl, I dreamed of vacationing in Eastern Europe.

It wasn’t just the glamour—I wanted to go to Romania to see where my parents grew up. But the reality of the trip didn’t hit me until I found myself aboard the good ship Delta, noshing on the absurd amount of snacks that my obscenely over-prepared mother had brought.

I imagined the trip as having two purposes: to finally see my parents’ hometowns and to be so appalled at the terrible conditions that I’d thank my lucky American stars for my nice suburban existence.

We certainly accomplished the first. Within a few days, we hit all the Fleischer family landmarks, snapping photographs in front of bewildered Romanians who were probably wondering why the loud foreigners were so fascinated with every little bridge and house.

I thought the second mission would be easy: there's nothing I like more than some good modern technology and it bode poorly that my mother had insisted on bringing our own toilet paper.

So I was pretty surprised when I found myself enjoying Romania. My mom's elementary school, which I had figured would be a one-room schoolhouse, had—then and now—a woodworking shop. The only woodworking I did in elementary school was sharpening my Lisa Frank pencils with plastic sharpeners. The food was delicious and there really are few places where one can unabashedly eat meat three times a day.

I knew that my parents, as Jews and citizens under the Communist government, had a difficult time in Romania, and I knew I couldn’t compare their childhood to my trip. Yet I couldn’t help enjoying myself. Perhaps I had underestimated Romania.

But the Romania that I saw was completely different from the Romania my parents saw. They saw a land full of poverty—they saw the Romania I had figured I’d see.

There were, for example, the Onigas. They were a kindly old couple who housed us for a few days, always delighted with my butchered Romanian routine. My biggest problem was that they fed us too much. I found out later that Dr. Oniga, an 82-year-old man, had to sell his 35-year old car to buy firewood to heat his house.

Or there was our driver. I saw him only within the confines of our air-conditioned van and our conversations consisted mostly of the phrases “thank you” and “air, please?” My parents informed me afterwards that he barely saw his family and took this job as a last resort to support his family.

The language barrier, one that my parents did not face, certainly contributed to our different experiences in Romania. Most of my conversations probably sounded like this:

Me: Well day!
Romanian: You speak Romanian?
Me: A small. How is being you?
Romanian: Good, and you? How are you enjoying Romania?
Me: Well. Thank him. Having pretty day!

This was my cue to doze off into reveries of goulash and chocolate pastries.

But the language difference was only one factor in my blindness to the country’s problems. The real reason I misunderstood everything was that I visited Romania as a privileged outsider. Everything seemed nice from my hotel room, from the superficial pleasantries. I took a sterilized and artificial trip—a trip best captured by Brasov, a tiny city filled with outdoor restaurants, sparkling lights and strangely, an upcoming Michael Bolton concert. Atop the scenic dark hills loomed a sign that said “Brasov” in the same white lettering as the “Hollywood” sign in California. It was Romania formatted to fit my American screen.

I kept this mentality throughout the whole trip, even when I was actually surrounded by poverty. I only saw what I wanted to see, satisfying my inner carnivore while ignoring the fact that the person serving the food was wearing tattered clothing. And I wish I could say that this was exclusive to my vacation, but this was something much bigger than Romania. It’s something reflexive, something I do when I listen to my iPod as a homeless person asks for money on the subway.

I left Romania with many things: thanks to my camera-wielding paparazzi of a sister, 958 pictures. Thanks to the good people of Romania, about ten extra pounds. And thanks to that Eastern European sun, absolutely no change in skin pigmentation.

I also left some things behind: I left behind that toilet paper, thanks to some solid indoor plumbing. I left behind a handful of frightening porcelain gifts, artfully decorating my hotel room with taunting monkeys and glassy-eyed dolphins. I left behind the delusion that everything and everyone around me is as pleasant as it might appear, or as I want it to appear.


Jessica L. Fleischer ’10 is a Fifteen Minutes editor in Eliot House.