You know you're in Romania when...

1. Each driver thinks they are the One and Only; best driver on Earth, a character from NFS and Vin Diesel altogether.
2. They will honk at you either for being a woman, a pedestrian or for daring to apply the correct rules while in roundabouts, on the very principle: "if you don't have balls, you simply shouldn't be allowed to drive and roundabouts have no rules other than only the strongest survive."
3. There are 15 degrees at the beginning of March.
4. You pay 25 euros for a 2 courses meal for 2 people and you think it's expensive. Because you know that if you had lived here, that 25 euros would have meant more than one tenth of your salary.
5. The simple state of being a pedestrian implies serious risks at every step you take. Every time you are planning to cross the street, you need to make sure your will is up to date, you have confessed to a priest recently, you don't hold any grudges against anyone and you have eaten a consistent portion of your favorite dish; crossing the street in Romania is pretty much just like playing Russian roulete and don't make the mistake to trick yourself into believing they need to be careful because their life must be ruined as well if they kill you; chances are they are so wealthy they won't even spend a single day in jail.
6. You become so insecure while crossing the street and you start acting like a headless chicken that even for the nicest of drivers (like myself) it becomes close to impossible not to hit you. Let me tell you what a Romanian pedestrian does: they wait. Wait. As in not showing any intention to cross whatsoever. Only when you get 2 meters in front of them, they have a sudden change of heart and they basically jump in front of the car. It reminds me of myself when I go to the seaside: I like swimming, but getting into the water is something I literally dread. So, I spend like 15 minuts just standing, with the water barely touching my knees, when, all of a sudden, I start running and throw myself into water. Exactly the same thing - except one is suicide only if you have a really weak heart or if the water is freezing cold.
7. You wait more than one hour for them to bring you the food only to end up eating raw chicken. Chicken sashimi, sounds delicious, yuuuumiiiiiii, it is a real thing in some countries, did you know that? Not in Romania, though.
8. The views are absolutely breathtaking. 9. The absolutely breathtaking views are shadowed by trash. Trash everywhere, let's not respect whatsoever the wonderful land we are so lucky to live on and then complain about everything bad that's going around.
10. We don't recycle anything - YOLO, right?
(I am joking though, we don't recycle not as a personal choice, but because we don't have recycling centers.)
11. Organic food is a worldwide conspiracy designed to steal away even more money from you. This is what the guy with a PhD will tell you - those with lower education will probably think the term "organic" has something to do with ... orgasm?!?
12. Every once in a while, you find such an awesome pub, restaurant or coffee shop that your faith in this country is restored.
13. Wherever you are, there will always be a gypsy who will try to sell everything to you, from flowers to expensive parfumes.
14. Children in second grade are being taught what children from the rest of Europe learn only in sixth grade. Because struggling to memorize so many difficult things all your childhood will definitely not enhace their frustration later in life when they will have to work underpaid jobs, nor will it contribute to their decision to leave the country.
15. We compete for everything - everything I do, I see it as a competition and if you also come from a country where you have to fight for your place in society, you will know what I mean. If you get a 9, it has no value if there were people who got a 10. Once our Chemistry teacher got mad at us and gave us an impossible test - all of us failed, but I was happy I got a 4, while the others got a 3  - there was a competition I won, wasn't it?
16. You know you're in Romania when your heart is most at ease; when you drive by the faces and houses you grew up with; when, despite you stopped thinking in Romanian, you still feel this is the sweetest language on Earth. (some people think I write in English because I am just like those snobs living abroad who forgot their language in only 2 years, I write in English not because I forgot the language - I still know its sweet, difficult as fuck grammar better than morons who never left - I do it because I have come to think in English, the voices in my head speak English now.) 
  You know you're in Romania when you hear children laughing and you almost can picture a future for them - a future in which they won't be forced to start thinking in foreign languages.