Blog of Romania

Last weekend I had the opportunity to join my friends from the Bucharest Muntenia tourism club in an escapade in the Iezer Papusa massif. We left on Friday evening and came back on Sunday afternoon. We went by bus and we stayed at the Voina cabin - which is more like a hotel than a cabin.

On Saturday, at 5 a.m., everyone who wanted to hike on the trail we had decided on (Vacarea summit - Vacarea sheepfold - Atheneum Cross monument - Rosu peak - Iezer peak) woke up, to leave in about an hour on the trail marked with a red line, hiking on Vacarea summit in a drizzle which later turned to snow. The trail starts on a hill and crosses a gravel road several times. Not long after we began climbing, at about 1100 m altitude, it started snowing with large flakes and the snow settled on the trees and the recently-rained on dried leaves.

After about 40 minutes of hiking through the wood, my physical condition didn’t allow me to continue, so I had to go back to the cabin. The others continued on, aiming to get the Atheneum Cross and Iezer peak, but they had to turn back too, because of the weather.
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Just like my mum cooks better than your mum, I can’t be objective concerning my country.

While standing in line in the Vienna airport I was deep in thought while looking at a young Buddhist monk wearing a traditional garment, accompanied by a very beautiful woman. The dream state was broken by the charming approach of a group of noisy women. They were restless, flurried and pleasant, and when they started to ask questions in broken English I burst into laughter.

I like colorful people and, since I met most of them in Romania, I like it here.

I like cultures that overrate themselves and, since Romania is the most familiar to me, I like it here.
Any culture establishes itself as a center, a pole of interest for a certain community. Thus, any worthwhile display is inflated to glorious size and not justified in an objective manner. We have a good movie, we squeeze it as much as possible and it was successful all over the place and it’s a rebirth of Romanian cinama and etc. When we use the exceptions to fuel our desire that they become the rule, you can recognize a culture that overrates itself. It’s just a phase (sometimes to be blamed), but it pushes things forward.

I like blazing, confident and beautiful women, and since most of them are Romanian, I like it here.

I like the noise, the bustle, the turmoil and, since you can find them all here, I like Romania.
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When I left for Craiova on Saturday morning, my only thought was: “God, I want to kill the person who decided we’d take the 6 a.m. train.” I am not a morning person, and after waking up after 9 for a couple of years, being up at 5 is not my idea of fun.

I had only been to Craiova once, years ago, for a few hours. Things I remembered:
- the University was white and pretty
- the park was large and beautiful
- the locals could not give street directions.
I was to be proven correct on all three.

So, on Saturday morning, along with a sizeable section of the team at Bookblog, I got on a (remarkably new and clean) train. A couple of hours later, we got off in the middle of the Apocalypse, apparently: some sort of construction work was going on and the train station was surrounded by metal sheet.

We had 2 hours until another member was arriving, so we figured we’d just go to the hotel, leave our stuff and come back for her. We had a map and the city wasn’t large, what’s the worse that could happen?
(That question never has a happy answer.)
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I arrived in Timisoara at 06:45, Friday morning. The train ride was tiring and long and I couldn’t sleep much, but I read and thought about stuff *same old story, same old thoughts, same old shit* and by the time the train entered the station, I was completely wasted :)

I met M. in the station and we went to the campus. It was an interesting experience staying there for 2 days, but now I’m 100% sure I couldn’t have lived in a campus, I couldn’t have shared a small room with another person, I couldn’t have got used to the idea of common showers/toilets. The room wasn’t bad and the bathroom was more than OK, but I don’t know… yes, there are a lot students there, it’s the perfect place to make friends and get to know all kinds of people, but honestly, I prefer my big, empty room :)

After we slept for, I don’t know, 1-1.5 hours, M. showed me around town. What can I say… Timisoara is absolutely BEAUTIFUL. I’d been there only once before, when I was little, so I didn’t remember much of it. And then there were all these people telling me how nice the city is, how civilised, how Occidental. And it’s not that I didn’t believe them, but I had my Bucharest and it was enough for me.

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Costel Busuioc, the recent flag carrier of the country which we live in, has won the contest “Hijos de Babel”. Basically, it’s the story of a Romanian who went to work in Spain, a “strawberry picker” who got into the contest because his hosts liked his voice. And yet, it’s not exactly like that. The story is more than that, it’s the story of a sad Romania, a hypocritical Romania that wants to have as much as possible without doing anything.

The Romanian Costel Busuioc is a simple man. A country man who left his home to win some money. He became a national hero overnight. Everyone is in a hurry to praise him, to praise the country he’s from. But no one is saying that Romania has no merit in what Costel Busuioc has become.
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We have the following piece of news in Evenimentul Zilei [The Event of the Day]: Chain accidents and dozens of crashed cars on the highways (here, in Romanian). Obviously, the geographical placement of Romania, a plot from the weather, the bad state of the highway etc. are at fault. I want to see somwhere, written down black on white, that the fault belongs to the Romanian race drivers. I want them put against a wall and see their heads banged against the asphalt until they learn that winter really isn’t like summer and that summer is not like a Formula 1 circuit and that size of the brain is in inverse proportion to the weight of the foot.

I am sick of hearing that no one, nowehere, never is guilty of anything. Only the government, the weather, the traitorous Westerners, the people who left to work abroad, the suckers who stayed and work here, all the saints in the calendar and whatever you want to add to the list. As long as it’s something absolutely generic. No one never is guilty, only the “bad guys”.

Being a poor boy living on the fringe of this pseudo-metropolis, I don’t know much. But I have driven in my life and every time I ran into a patch of fog, slowing down to admire it (what other reason could I have?), I was overtaken by all sorts of brave people driving at baffling speed. These are the idiots who cause accidents. Usually… But it’s not their fault… Poor them…

This time we were lucky. No one was harmed… But next time one of us might be the unlucky fellow to end up under a set of merciless wheels because of some cretins. And no one can make them civilized: not the law, not the police, not the government not the Holy Ghost. Maybe just the whip.

Original post: here (RO).
Dan is a 27 year-old from Bucharest who lives to read, write, take phots and discover the new and the old.

* Photos by Tibi Lupea.

At first, I was fascinated by Bucharest.

I was fascinated by the sea of people flooding the streets, swallowing you up and making you feel small and unsignificant, making you lose yourself and your goal. I was fascinated by the indifference hanging over each passer-by, the distance and the arrogance you were regarded with on the subway, or the reserved and superior smiles when hearing the Moldavian accent. I was fascinated by the imposing buildings, with bulky architecture, dominating you with their massive presence. I was fascinated by the crazy traffic, blending with the stinging smell of burnt gasoline and the piercing sound of the excessively-used horns. I was fascinated by the fast life pulsing in the vein of the City and the sensation lasted for several years. It was normal. I was a child on the verge on adolescence, freshly arrived from a countryside town with small ideals and stunted dreams.

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Clear skies, sunny but cold weather and, like the song goes, blue sea. Deserted beach, frozen sand, waves breaking lazily along the shore. A dog runs away, scared by the ice cold water. This is how Vama Veche looked like on February 2nd. You almost couldn’t recognize the beach. Too few algae, almost no trash - Romanians aren’t suckers, of course they didn’t clean up the trash they left on New Year’s -, no open pubs.

The image of a deserted Vama Veche is weird. On one hand, it looks like one of the weekday summer mornings when the village doesn’t turn into a neigborhood of Bucharest. On the other hand, it looks like a picture torn out of a western, with a small town deserted because of the bandits, wind blowing along its streets, where the dogs left behind when the owners ran away rule the territory.

We got there on February 1st, in the evening. We stayed at Casa Nicoleta, the one before the last on the right, on the road across from the one going towards the sea. No one would be so silly to stay in a tent in the middle of winter.

Dogs, rulers of the wilderness

At 8.30 in the evening, we got restless: let’s see the sea! Our host had told us to be careful because there were a lot of dogs running loose. We agreed with him and did what we wanted, anyway. We met two packs, rocks flew, one dog ran away whimpering and another one followed it, scared.

Going to the beach was the most difficult, as when we came back we only saw one dog following us, a hundred or so meters behind. However, we weren’t spared the long barking of every dog in town and the haunted Wild West town look of the surroundings.

While in summer everything is lit up from all the bars, in winter the only light comes from the dim bulbs on the poles. When you get near Ovidiu’s only a quarter of a light can reach you, and when you set foot on the last piece of beach before the sea, it’s already dark.

Only the stars shed some light. Billions. You will never see something like this in Bucharest. In the capital, the sky is covered in smog. Here, the sky is as clear as the sea.

Our customer, our master

The Romanian who said that it’s better to build a carriage in winter and a sleigh in summer wasn’t wrong. To paraphrase him, I’d say that Vama Veche locals make money in summer and sources for the money for the coming summer, in winter .

On Satuday, our second day in Vama Veche, the first thing we saw on the way to the beach were the workers. They were building and hammering away. Vama Veche is literally being raised. New buildings are growing. A Mercedes is parked in front of Dambovita, where they’re building something. The village on the Bulgarian border seem to belong to investers now, not to the locals.

On the road parallel to the beach, where Club A is in summer, another building has appeared. A sort of motel which, I can bet, will be ready by the beginning of June. Let’s build! Let’s not leave one free inch of land! people seem to be thinking.

Silence

The sky is of a rare blue. No cloud in sight. Almost all my photos turn out too white. There’s no wind. The sea is surreal blue, I’ve never seen it so clear and calm. A corner of heaven at 12 degrees Celsius. No one to bother you, all your problems left behind, in the day to day world of concrete and dust, only silence.

On the beach, a handful of runaways from the city have stretched out a couple of chairs and built a fire. We are not the only ones who ran away from the stress of the city. Further away, towards Proplaca, a couple of kids came by car and have started on a bottle of liquor. In front of them, three guys are throwing sticks in the sea. One of them asks for a cigarette. I give him three. Further on, a couple is lifting their blanket off the sand. They’ve finished their picnic and are heading for the car.

Vama Veche is probably one of the few oasis of silence you can run to. Kill the stress, the week’s annoyances - although “the month’s” would be more correct -, get away from the worries. If it were possible, I would’ve stayed there for a least a week. As things stood, we came back to the same grey Bucharest, the same worries, same problems and same stress.

Other photos:

Original post: here. (RO)
Alex is a 23-year old journalist and has been living in Bucharest for two years.

I first met Sibiu a few years ago, when Klaus Johannis wasn’t yet mayor of this beautiful corner of Romania. It was like many other cities in Romania, a bit dusty and a bit sad. Of course, the road that goes along the bank of the Cibin isn’t much better now either. But, after the city was European Cultural Capital last year alongside Luxemburg, something clearly changed.

And, looking from the outside, as a simple tourist, I think that if this German ran for mayor again, I would vote for him hands down. I can’t forget that last summer we stopped in a medieval restaurant, somewhere near the Bridge of the Liars, and we ate very well for normal prices. And I can’t forget how the head waitress, seeing us so wet from the rain, looked for accomodation for us for 30 minutes. She didn’t find any, but the gesture impressed us! Not to mention that three months later we ate again in this lovely pub. Well, you won’t believe it, but the people remembered us, the moment we stepped in they greeted us with “Welcome back!” Great, I really liked it!

I have to tell you that the pedestrian walkway in the historical center is beautifull paved with cobblestone. It looks very much like the historical centers of the european capitals. With the appropriate water drain and with superbly integrated lights. You can also look at the Interactive map of the tourist sights and a List of tourist sights.

Out of those, I only got to see these:
- The defensive system, but only from the road, because it was very late and we had a lot of place to visit. But even rushed like this, those walls are impressive
- The Town Council tower, and I couldn’t go inside this either to see the marvel of Sibiu from the top, but I can say that I passed under the two arches.
- The Goldsmiths’ Stairs Tower - passing under this arch you feel like in one of those movie about the Europe between the world wars. It has something that smells like history, freshly toasted in the “oven of time”
- The Liars’ Bridge doesn’t have anything special about the way it’s built, but it’s full of charm because of its meaning and the way Sibiu dwellers think of it
- in the Luxemburg House, seeing it then and now, I remembered the historical center of Amsterdam I visited and the photos my father took in Kiev. God, when will we be able to look at Bucharest like this? Probably never, this is the curse of capitals - they are like honey pots, bees come to them, but also shit flies.
- being the blogosphere artist I am, I couldn’t not visit the Fine Arts house!

This is pretty much what I saw. But the first chance I get, I won’t miss the Brukenthal Palace, the Astra Folk Civilization Museum and the Steam-engine Museum!

Original post: here.

[Read part 1: Sighisoara]

Although the distance between Sighisoara and Sibiu is only around 100 km, there is no direct train between the two. I was a bit wary of taking the Personal (the worst type of train around here) and changing trains once on the way, but we couldn’t find any bus at a reasonable hour. We got at the train station in time… and we waited for 10 minutes for the train to appear. Now, I don’t mind waiting a bit, but we only had 15 minutes to make the connection.

Despite my worries, the train was pretty empty, it wasn’t dirty, and a couple of nice people helped us get off at the right stop - where the first thing we saw was the next train. Perfect timing.

In Sibiu, I was very proud to see I still knew the way to Piata Mare (Large Square), so we managed to find our hostel (situated in Piata Mica - Small Square) very easily. It was my first time in a hostel and I didn’t know what to expect. It was awesome. The staff was friendly, our roommates (two girls and one guy, all Romanian) were nice, and the other room was filled with foreigners apparently having a lot of fun. I was tempted to extend my stay for an extra day just to get to talk to all the people, but we had previous plans so we couldn’t.

The first night in Sibiu was very mellow - we just ate and came back to the hostel, where we just played cards and rummy until we went to sleep.

We woke up to snow in air and on the ground. We were almost the first people up, so we got peace and quiet (and no que to shower). We got into tourist mode again and started off.

First stop: the Evangelical Church and its tower. I’d visited the place a year before and I was eager to see it again. You climb a looot of stairs… then you get to the church bells… then you climb a looot more stairs.

We stopped to study the bells closer and Lerri was wondering what happens if you’re under them when they ring. So, of course, the second she finished saying that, the bells rung. We shrieked like little girls. That was one hell of a coincidence.

The view from the top is amazing, so I’ll let the pictures speak. The only downside of the snow was that we couldn’t see the beautiful colorful tiles on the church roof (which you can see in this picture I took in summer 2006).

Next up, we had a bit of fun in the snow (butt sledging rocks… until you hit the bottom of the slope), looked at the old walls of the city plus towers (impressive) and visited the Museum of Natural History (small, but nice). We hadn’t had enough stairs-climbing for a day, so we went up another tower - the Town Council tower this time. The inside is not the interesting, but from the top you get a great view of the center of Sibiu.

And that was it. A trek through a couple of bookstores in the search of the elusive map of the Saxon fortresses (which we managed to find in the end), a visit to a Belgian chocolaterie with a chocolate fountain the thought of which makes me drool (also seen in this entry) and an unplanned round of fun at the tackiest wedding ever (we didn’t take pictures, but the bride’s dress looked exactly like a wedding cake; I hope she didn’t see us laugh our asses off when she came out of the church). Afterwards, on the train and home… Tired but happy. And ready for the next trip.

Jen takes care of BlogofRomania and wants to travel as much as possible. Feel free to invite her to visit.
Post written for BlogofRomania.