President Basescu May Park His Car Free Of Charge in San Francisco

If President Traian Basescu would live in San Francisco, he would be a happy man: he got the right to park his car free of charge as a recipient of the Honorary Citizen status, which has been bestowed upon him on the occasion of his recent visit there.
That’s a lot of savings to one’s bank account, since one hour of parking costs 20 dollars in San Francisco.
"We want that too!" cried the Romanians who met Basescu at the Romanian House in San Francisco, referring at the privilege to have free parking.

Basescu felt at ease at all times during his visit on the U.S. West Coast. At Stanford University he addressed one of his favorite topics: the security and economics of the Black Sea region.
The Romanian students applied for the vacant seats at the Romanian presidency and Basescu visited the Hoover Institute, which holds Romanian documents in its archives, including the exchange of letters between King Carol II and Zizi Lambrino, his first wife.
Basescu exclaimed: "He, he, he. Look at that: the Co-tro-ceni Pa-lace. Looove leeetters of Carol the II-nd to Zizi Lambrino..."
After that Basescu gave another of his famous roaring laughs when seeing electoral campaign posters of leaders of Romania who took office after the demise of communism, including one of his own posters, of the last presidential election.

Basescu must have felt elated, though, when seeing the reception Romanians gave him at the Romanian House in San Francisco: they hugged him and kissed him, to the distress of Secret Service members, unaccustomed to Basescu’s way of approaching the crowds.
They really had a desperate look on their faces when Basescu grabbed an elderly man from the 300-strong crowd and started to kiss him on his cheeks: he was a former sailor serving under Basescu’s command, when Basescu was a captain of Mineral Ordaz ship.
"You could measure the difference of treatment the American administration gave you and sformer Romanian president Iont Iliescu, said the man: Iliescu had only one car provided to him, while you have a whole motorcade."
The Romanian community, which last year voted for Basescu, was well aware of developments back in Romania. "Why did they shut the door in front of Mrs. Musca sMona, former minister of culturet?" asked one man. "I saw it on television…"
"Maybe because I was not there," answered Basescu laughing.

Basescu constantly struck the pose of the defender of the Constitution, saying that he is not a president of the ruling coalition but of all Romanians, and that he would criticize the Executive as long as the latter would fail to do its job.
"Early elections!" called one admirer.
"Exactly my point!" said Basescu.

He, however, found words of praise for the previous Romanian administration too, showing that Romania is in its fifth year of constant GDP growth, at rates higher than 5%.
Basescu also admitted that following the parliamentary elections at the end of 2004 a ruling coalition was formed around the Social Democrat Party, but that he upset that with striking the balance in favor of the current ruling coalition, of the National Liberal and Democrat parties.