Thank God That's Over

I finished "The Golden Notebook" yesterday. I feel like a ten-million-pound weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I understand why it's an important book, especially for its era -- the anger that I mentioned in yesterday's post was probably illuminating to people who were clueless that smart women could be so frustrated with their lot in society. (And that they could be such multi-dimensional, political and sexual beings.)

But you know what? Doris Lessing needed an editor. Really. That thing was just painful to read.

I had a crazy busy day yesterday, but it was great. I got a lot of work done, took the dog for a couple of long walks, and finished lots of little errands. Now I feel like I'm on top of things. I'm going to try to get out today and take some photos of the amazing blooming trees in the neighborhood -- there's so much color out there, every leaf and flower seems saturated. Ah, Spring!

(Photo: Tottenham Court Road, London, last week.)

Back Home Again

And suddenly, here I am, back in our living room with the dog rolling around on the carpet and my coffee beside me, in my Starbucks "Tampa" mug. It seems like I never left, and yet it seems like we've been gone for weeks.

Olga is none the worse for wear. She came back yesterday evening from her holiday in the country, happy but gray and stinky. I guess that's to be expected after keeping close quarters with multitudes of other dogs. We promptly bathed her, and thank goodness Dave was here to make it a two-man operation. Now every time I look at her, clean and white and well-fed, I think how much easier her life is than the lives of all those Bucharest street dogs.

Our flight back was uneventful. Early yesterday morning we collected Dave's eight kids at the school and hopped a bus for the airport, herded everyone through security and passport control and lounged around a bit with time to spare. I switch into Chaperone Mode whenever I'm around students, obsessively counting to make sure everyone is there. Dave, having chaperoned countless groups over the years, seems much less uptight about it than I am. And I can never get used to being called "Mr. Reed." I think, who is Mr. Reed?

I used my time on the plane to hack my way through a chunk of "The Golden Notebook." I am in the home stretch. So far, I am not greatly illumined. It's a much angrier book than I expected, and the characters communicate and behave in ways that seem unnecessarily harsh and frankly unbelievable. Every man in the book is a pig. Every single one. Except the gay characters, whom the author happily disparages for being "not real men."

I asked one of the teachers at the Bucharest school what the gay scene is like in Romania. He told me it's very underground, like the U.S. in the 1960s. From what I could tell there are no gay bars, and though I saw several sex shops, I didn't see any that advertised gay content. (I didn't go in and peruse the shelves, but usually they'll tack a little sign outside that says they've got it.) I suppose some of that social conservatism stems from the years under communism and the Orthodox church, but it struck me as very unusual for Europe -- and markedly different from Prague, for example.

(Photo: A sidewalk cafe in Bucharest, describing my attitude exactly.)

Atheneum, Palace and Arch

Yesterday I went on an outing with all the kids and teachers who are here for the international music program that Dave and his eight students are attending. While I've been tromping around Bucharest the last couple of days, they've been pretty much confined in a school working on rehearsals. So it was a welcome break for them to get outside and see some of the city.

We loaded a couple of buses and went to visit the Romanian Atheneum (above), Bucharest's historic performing arts hall. It's an incredibly ornate structure built in 1888 by a French architect, and one of the buildings that helps give Bucharest a Parisian air.

The ceiling in the performance hall was mind-blowing.

We also went to see the Palace of Parliament, the colossal folly I pictured near the end of my post on Friday. Nicolae Ceausescu, Romania's longtime Communist dictator, razed about 9,000 buildings -- historic churches, homes, you name it -- in order to build this behemoth of a building in the 1980s, as well as the surrounding avenues and other structures.

Maybe because of that history, it seems like a rather bleak building. The halls are vast and not at all to any human scale, with gold leaf, carved wood, marble inlaid floors and other features. In an old building like the Atheneum, ornamentation seems authentic and beautiful, but in a 20-year-old white elephant it's a bit much. (Apparently the Romanians, after overthrowing Ceausescu in 1989, had a referendum to decide whether to finish the palace, and because it was already so close to completion they saw it through.) The building also seems dark, and our tour guide turned lights on and off wherever we went. I can't imagine what the power bill would otherwise be for those 4,000-plus chandeliers.

The view from the palace was impressive, but very Communist. Again, no sense of human scale at all. Apparently Ceausescu was inspired by visiting Pyongyang, in North Korea. He may be the only person to ever find Pyongyang appealing enough to warrant imitation.

After this excursion I split from the group. (Because I'm here on my own dime I'm not obligated to rehearse!) Back in the shadow of the Atheneum, I had a blissfully quiet lunch at a funky little restaurant with zebra-striped chairs, and then walked north through town to the Arcul de Triumf, Romania's answer to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The walk involved a long stroll along the leafy Avenue Kiseleff, which is lined with parks, embassies and expensive villas.

As I understand it, the arch commemorates military victories that led to a unified Romania, as well as the nation's role in World War I. It was originally built in 1878 of wood, which must have been something to see, but was rebuilt in marble in the early 1930s.

Here's some of the history I've been learning: Romania is a relatively new nation, having been formed in the 1800s from the principalities of Moldavia, Wallachia and (later) Transylvania. But of course people have been here for thousands of years, through various feudal governments and empires. The Romans under Trajan conquered the region shortly after 100 A.D. and governed it briefly as an outpost of the empire known as Dacia. Modern Romanians trace their roots to those Romans and the conquered Dacians and other tribes. Our tour guide told us that today, of all the Romance languages, Romanian most closely resembles the original Latin. Who knew?!

Last night, the students performed the concert that concludes their international band gathering. I took a cab out to the international school to see the show, and spent a lot of my time photographing it at the request of the organizers. I don't usually shoot events so I didn't know what the heck I was doing, but I think I came away with some pretty good photos.

This morning we're returning to London. Olga awaits!

The Bucharest Conga

Another day on the hoof yesterday. It was quite an adventure, too. I didn't get lost, exactly -- I knew where I needed to go -- but in this crazy city of diagonal streets and traffic circles, I had some trouble finally getting there!

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I went out about 8 a.m. and wandered south through the city, and then north again, photographing my usual mix of street art, people and storefronts. My eventual goal was Cismigiu Gardens, a sort of Central Park in Bucharest.

The gardens are a shady oasis, particularly on a hot day like yesterday. Romanians apparently do not share the American obsession with lawns -- while quite beautiful, the grassy expanses of the park were permitted to get shaggy and run to dandelions, rather than being strictly manicured. Which I liked.

There's a big lake in the center of the park, and it was producing the most unearthly noises. I thought they were being made by birds, but then I realized they were coming from the water. And then I saw the culprits.

Yes, I am such a city boy that I can no longer recognize the sound of a frog. Depressing, really. There were tons of them, and about a bazillion tadpoles, which was uplifting and encouraging. A healthy new generation!

On an outdoor terrace in the park I had an inexpensive lunch of poached eggs and polenta, which is a common Romanian staple. (It's basically grits. I had a good ol' Southern meal!)

Then I walked over to the river to see the Opera House and Casa Radio, a gigantic ruin of a building that was built under the Communists but apparently never occupied. And then I headed back to my hotel, except...

I hit construction. As in, road construction. Which fouled up even my pedestrian instincts. Pretty soon I was far north of where I wanted to be, and only an hour or so of zig-zagging beneath a hot sun brought me back to the hotel. Whew!

Last night we went to a wild restaurant with live music. A jazz quintet, in fact, playing standards like "Stardust" and "Caravan," at least at the beginning. Pretty soon it turned into a sort of Romanian Lawrence Welk show, with various guest singers and folk dancers, and the table of Romanians behind us got really into it, dancing in the aisles. Pretty soon we were all in a conga line around the room. I loved that place.

By the way, sorry for not keeping up with everyone else's blogs. I have very little computer time here, since I'm using Dave's laptop and he has a lot of pesky actual work to do. I'll catch up with you all after I get back home tomorrow.

Views of Bucharest

Today's post will be mostly pictorial, because if you're like me before I got here, Bucharest is probably a bit of a mystery to you. Here's what it looks like.

Lots of little Orthodox churches are tucked amid the tightly packed buildings in the older parts of the city. Sometimes they have small outdoor altars where visitors can light a candle, as in the top photo.

There are quite a few stray dogs wandering around. My guidebook says this is the result of Communist-era policies decades ago that forced people to move into large apartment blocks. Unable to keep their pets, they turned the dogs out onto the streets. I've seen tags in the ears of some dogs, so apparently there is some kind of tracking or veterinary care program for them.

There's a crazy amount of graffiti and street art to keep me busy with the camera!

A street view in the older, cobblestoned part of town. I love how elegant old buildings appear around every corner, tucked amid the newer ones.

Here's the River Dambovita, which runs through town. It was channelized years ago, and even flows underground for some distance.

And finally, here's the Palace of Parliament, built in the waning days of the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu, just before he was overthrown in the revolution that ended communism in 1989. It's said to be the second-largest government building in the world after -- you guessed it -- the Pentagon. Apparently large portions of it aren't even in use. It's quite imposing, though.

I walked and walked yesterday, with more of the same today. I am in my element and having a ball. Reading my guidebook I realize how little I know about the history of this part of the world -- Magyars, Dacians, Thracians, Wallachians, it's all a vague jumble to me. It's great to be able to sit in a cafe, drink a Timisoreana beer, and learn about it all in the midst of modern-day Romania.

Lots more wandering is on the agenda today!

In Bucha, Getting Some Rest

I couldn't help but steal Nancy's joke, from yesterday's reader comments, for my post title. (Thanks, Nancy!) I really am lying in bed in my hotel room at the moment, wrestling with both hotel Wi-Fi and Dave's peculiar computer. Which has about a zillion documents on the desktop. I don't know how he finds anything.

I haven't had a chance to do much exploring. We flew in yesterday afternoon -- me, Dave and eight of his students. We got the kids placed with their host families and made our way to our hotel, which is, oddly enough, a huge high-rise Howard Johnson's, and actually quite swank. I surely never thought I would be staying in a luxurious HoJo's in Romania. That seems unexpected on so many levels.

Last night we went to dinner at a local restaurant called La Mama with all the band directors who have students in this gathering. I chose goulash, and could not have been happier.



My impression of Bucharest so far: A jumble of glassy new buildings with dilapidated, characterless Communist-era ones, as well as lots of elegant pre-Communist structures with French-style ornamentation. Bucharest has been called the "Paris of the East," and it does have a very French feel, with boulevards criss-crossing each other at busy traffic circles. There's even an Arc de Triomphe-style triumphal arch.

The cars look pretty much the same as elsewhere in Europe, with numerous Dacias and Skodas thrown in. There's lots of graffiti and street art to keep me busy. And as you can see, there are big ol' advertisements everywhere. Capitalism thrives!

Taking Wing

We're off to Bucharest this morning. Olga has been deposited with the dog-sitters -- they claim she's one of their favorite customers, but as Dave pointed out they probably say that to the owner of every dog. She tried to follow me, with desperate eyes, as I handed over her leash and backed out the door. It was sad.

I do plan to blog from Romania, though again, I don't know what the technology gods have in store. I'll do my darndest.

"The Golden Notebook" is improving. It seems very dated in its approach to psychology and the social circumstances of women, but at least it's becoming more readable -- which gives me something to do on the plane!

(Photo: Tottenham Court Road, London)