The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts

The evenings in Bucharest are becoming lighter and warmer so I thought it would take a walk around Herastrau park before heading off to watch Romania vs Serbia (Romanian Police + Serb football fans. I'll leave to imagine what happened next). I've been to the park before but didn't realise how weird it was.

The first thing to point out is that this park is massive. I had in mind a quick jaunt in mind not the epic two hour trek it became. The main park entrance is by the Arc de Triomphe. Now, I know what you are thinking, and you're right. Those thieving French bastards! Is there nothing sacred to those people? Sure Romania's version was built after the one in Paris, but that is merely detail. It was built in 1876, originally out of wood so there was time for the troops of newly independent nation to march under, it rebuilt in stone in the thirties. As I walked past the Arc into the park there were dancing native Americans, but more on them later.

Parks in Romania are unusual anyway. The main reason is that you are not allowed on the grass at all. Going to the park and not being allowed to walk on the grass is like going to the cinema and not seeing a film. It also leads to Bucharest kids virtually never playing on grass. There is also more roller-bladers than you can shake a stick at. There are also plenty of couples so into each other that I feel like I've slept with them, bom-chika-wa-wa. Thats probably why I like the parks so much.

When you go in you find yourselves in some wooded gardens. Among the trees there are busts of famous historical figures. Now sure, very few of these figures are Romanian, they borrowed some. Shakespeare, Carl Jung, Victor Hugo and even surprisingly based on the recent past Karl Marx are all honoured. Now, thats cheating.

Once you emerge yourself in what effectively is a shrine to the EU. Theres fifteen heads in a circle of the guys who formed the EU. By the look of them they're the sort of guys who if you don't come to the party, they'll come get ya'. In the middle there was a proud EU flag. We should defiantly get one at home, right in the middle of Hyde Park. Fuck it, demolish Buckingham Palace to make room for it, we'll get Polish workers to build it. Lets do it to just piss the Daily Mail off.

Once you come out of that area you come to the parks main attraction, Lake Herastrau. The lake is massive, there are boats and lots of little bars and restaurants around the edge. There is however one peculiar thing about it, theres no water. Now I don't know whether this is a temporary situation or whether its permanent, but its weird. There should be a kilometers worth of water instead the dogs are sleeping there.

Once starting to head around the lake you walk past the Chinese embassy. At the minute there are about 300 immigrant workers camping out in a make shift village outside. They were brought over to build things, the projects canceled but they don't have the money to go home and no one else including the Chinese embassy is being much help. It's really tragic.

From there you carry on, for a long way, passing sixty year old men pulling out stunts on roller blades and you have to cross the lake. When you go up the stairs to get on the bridge you are in for a surprise as when you get to the top you find out its a railway bridge. There are couples mounting each other, teenagers smoking and looking shifty and kids playing on the tracks, not the embankment or the stones on the side the actual track. Lots of people were taking photos. it was one of the busiest areas of the park. Resisting the temptation to re-enact the scene from Stand By Me I pushed on down the stairs where you end up under the bridge. Guys are fishing in a tiny stream of water, but theres no fish, so it could have been a long day for them.

From there you pass by a recreation of a rural 18th century village, walk through a mini golf course and walk through a strange area full of these (video below). Like something from Alice and Wonderland. There were another troupe of dancing native Americans, a different one and also different to the Unirii ones, so that means Bucharest has at least three groups, which city can rival that? Maybe somewhere in the Dakotas, but again details!

This is probably my last week as I think I will be home again a week today, let me know if you are around. much love x

The House That Jack Built

I was lucky enough to be visited by these two no good street punks. It was absolutely lovely. They arrived late on friday, we went for a few drinks where Sophie was hit with some American sport trivia. Saturday was spent wandering around the city, Sophie snapping pictures of everything, including film posters and the nearest that she, or any of us, are ever going to get to Queen Aretha. We took in the city, fortunately the weather was good so it looked relatively cheery. We trekked for hours. I was acting like one of those Asian mountain shurpers (sp?) imparting knowledge that I was 70% sure was correct. Truth and things I made up/guilliably believed have melded in my mind and taken on a life all its own. We savoured the delights of a Romanian kebab, the Scharma, which is just a food stuff of complete and utter genius. Kebabs at home are dead to me.

A little known fact about me is that every now and again I like to dabble my toes into the murky world of association rules football. However, I can assure you Sophie and Kelvins trip to see the mighty Dinamo was entirely voluntarily. It was a little bit of a local derby, as Dinamo were playing Otopeni, which is a small town just outside Bucharest. This however proved to far away as there were about 30 Otopeni fans, you could smell the fear as Romanian football fannery does involve a healthy degree of violence. We were in the more casual seats due to that very reason, where people eat a HUGE amount of sunflower seats. They split the shells and it sounds like you're surrounded by lots and lots of type writers. The shells are then spat onto the floor and some poor bastard has to come and sweep them all up. Despite Dinamo being on their way to the league title (HA! Addy) and Otopeni being just outside the relegation zone it was 0-0. Dinamo had a goalkeeper that demanded attention regardless of what was happening on the pitch and there were a few pretty horrific tackles so it was far from a disappointment.

I had to work on monday, booooo, so Kelvin and Sophie were allowed to run free like children on some sort of fizzy drink. We now know that that museums are all closed on a monday so they struggled onto Carol I park, the park will come in a later post. They seemed to have fun and certainly more than I was having banging my head against a desk. After a lovely meal they had to leave and I was left broken and alone. I had a great time, it was great to see them and I hope they enjoyed their time here. Soon I am hoping to become the visitor so all of you should be aware of a potential uninvited and throughly unwanted visit. Brace yourself x

Credit Crunched

When I was taken into a meeting room earlier today I thought I was in trouble. I haven't been using the newfangled computer database, not filling in paper work and of course I've not been teaching English very well. However, alas, Ana told me that a few of the bigger contracts aren't to be renewed. As the only employee for which they have to pay rent I am an obvious expense to be saved. It was totally out of the blue and I was pretty disappointed but I have spent the afternoon putting everything into perspective. Though disappointing it was always a short term job and at 21 its hardly like I have anything serious riding on it; I just get to go home and milk any sympathy thats on offer for as long as possible. Without wishing to sound like a martyr, I am glad its me rather than Romanian teachers who have been there for longer, it would seem unfair if it wasn't me.

So my Romanian will never get past shoddy at best, I won't get to ruin my students' days with end of unit tests and the women at Safeway will never smile at me. I'm back at the end of April, and hopefully will be arranging trips to various provincial towns to see everyone. After that, I don't know what I am going to do.

The blog will continue mainly because I enjoy writing it and with six weeks left theres still plenty of shit to talk in that time.


see you soon lovers x

Here's Looking at You Kid

As you all know I am a small and petty, petty man. I have been forced to demonstrate this streak of my personality all week by repeating stories I have been told by smug united or liverpool fans in a silly voice. Something like champions league, schmapions league. I also made sure no one was allowed to forget Charlton's glorious 2000-2001 division one winning season. So I thought I would dedicate this post to cheap, childish laughs. Living in a foreign country you see things you prefer, things you don't and some things which are just funny.

This is my favourite sign in the whole world. That's no empty prize either, it has triumphed over many fine rivals. Its a little bit a cult hero among foreigners too, it has a personality all of it own. Just what is it trying to say? THERE WILL BE ABSOLUTELY NO STAIRS! To add confusion its right next to a set of stairs. What would happen if you did walk on them? The mind boggles.

This is just bad arse, enough said.

If you drove that incredible piece of automotive history you would want it to be clean, but who to trust with it? You don't want to take it to any old car wash where any punk could damage it. No, you need the best car wash there is. Then you see this advert for one on the side of a van, a car wash fit for the Lord Jesus Christ himself! Tesco can keep Neil Morrissey, this a real celebrity endorsement.


This was enough to send me to fits of girly giggling for about 3 days. The fact that its butter makes it so much better!

These are stuck on the doors of banks. Some even feel the need to add knives as well. Maybe I should be worried that banks need to specify not to bring guns into the bank, especially when carrying a gun is illegal anyway. Really what is the point?

Would-be-Robber 1: Let's go!
Would-be-Robber 2: Shit! We can't.
Would-be-Robber 1: Why?!?
Would-be-Robber 2: Haven't you read the sign?
Would-be-Robber 1: Oh.... I didn't see that.
Would-be-Robber 2: What are we going to do?
Would-be Robber 1: We can't rob the place without our guns.
Would-be-Robber 2: We could take them anyway.
Would-be-Robber 1: Now now, rules are rules.
Would-be-Robber 2: You're right, mochachino?

Thats some real hard, gritty script writing for you there.

I hope you enjoyed some cheap laughs there. I know I did, but then I'm childish, but I am male so it's to be expected. I did have an eye opening experience last night, I got hit on by a guy, we really are sleazy bastards. On that bomb shell I'll bid you all good night x

ok one last thing, on the subject of never growing up, a song for the day:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQMVHhxTtLc
dedicated to Ms Weeks and her cool gig going ways

Meet the Locals

I hope all is well with you as life in Bucharest has grinded on. Its been a pretty quiet week and thus not much to write. Enjoyed one of those Egyptian Hookha pipes, which was eye opening and a night out. Otherwise its just been teaching and planning interspersed with getting excited about Sophie and Kelvins upcoming visit. So I thought I would take this chance to introduce you to some colourful Romanian characters. Starting with some fantastic facial hair.

This rather swarthy looking gentleman is Vlad Tepes, or to you and me, Vlad the Impaler. Cuddly. He was the King of Wallachia, which is a part of Romania, and is renowned for his guerrilla wars against the Ottomans. As you may have guessed he liked to impale people. Apparently the method is to insert a blunt stake into the arse very slowly until it came out of the mouth, it took hours if not days to die. The Turks once turned up on the battlefield to see 20,000 Turks impaled on ready made stakes. He is quoted as saying "I have killed men and women, old and young, 23,844 (very precise) Turks and Bulgarians without counting those whom we burned alive in their homes". Despite all this, in rural areas he is still seen as a hero defender of the realm. Bram Stoker used Vlad and his castle at Brasov as the inspiration for Dracula. I think the problem stems from his brother, Radu the Handsome, his brothers title was always going to give him an inferiority complex.

In modern times they have settled for this man, Traian Basescu. A former sea captain who has, as far anyone knows, never impaled anyone. He ran on a platform of being anti-Communist despite being a former member of the party himself. He is the only President to have been suspended and has a history of making less than diplomatic remarks. After snatching a recorder from a reporter he forgot to turn it off and was recorded in his car calling the reporter a "stinking gypsy". He also called a doctor who operated on him "the only competent Armenian I have ever met". He has also been caught drink driving. Despite all this and maybe even because of it, he remains a popular figure.


Believe it or not Marius Lacatus used to be a bit of a rogue with the ladies. He was also dubbed "the Beast", I wonder what happened between then and now? He is a former footballer and is worshiped by Steaua fans. He is currently their coach. In his playing days, he was a part of the 1986 European Cup winning Steaua side, he used to enjoy flouting how much bigger he was than the Communist regime. Most famously by growing his hair shortly after a ban on long hair, knowing the regime could do nothing to stop him, such was his popularity. Steaua has a strange political role. Their chairman is Gigi Becali, the Romanian Richard Branson, just imagine Richard Branson was the head of a neo-fascist political party listed as extremist in the EU and in America. He once also commissioned a portrait of himself as Jesus.

Nicolae Ceausescu was the former Communist ruler of Romania. Originally liked in the West as he was prepared to confront the USSR, it all went down hill when he turned out to be a murdering tyrant. Destroying Romania through huge international debt which saw mass food and energy shortages. His demise came when he went out to make a speech, when it became clear the crowd was going to lynch him he jumped into a helicopter and to safety. Or so he thought, the helicopter landed in a small village, they held a trial on TV and executed him. He is a hated figure and barely ever mentioned, but he is the elephant in the corner, his influence still lurks. For example, Bucharest is his project, his destruction of huge parts of Bucharest to try and force them into the Communist flat blocks, is responsible for the strange appearance of the city with all its different architecture on the same street.

There are many famous Romanians who deserve a lot more writing than I can do at this time of night. Try this on for size. Theres Mihai Eminescu, the great Romantic poet, a fine list of composers and inventors. Inventions we can thank Romania for include the fountain pen, the ejector seat, and all sorts of planes. A Romanian brothel owner named "the lady in red" put John Dillinger in jail and how much safer do you feel knowing you can walk the streets knowing John Dillinger isn't going to come around the corner? The Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci was the first women to score all perfect 10s. There is Tennis legend Ilie Nastase (who claims to have slept with over 2,500 women, but hey whose counting?), and of course how much worse would football have been without Hagi, Petrescu, Mutu, Popescu and Dumiterscu? Thats a pretty impressive haul by anyones standards. How do you like them apples Moldova?

Noapte Buna x

Late Addition: Humble apologies, how could I possibly forget the Cheeky Girls? Lembit Opik might try and beat me up.

Martisor!

On the 1st March, Romanians celebrate the ending of winter and look forward to the regeneration of Spring. To mark the occasion men give these little beauties, known as Martisors, to women. Traditionally women wear them around their necks or on their chest but today its more usual to wear a daintier version around the wrist. It is supposed to bring good luck and beauty for the coming year. The symbolism of the red and white varies depending on who you talk to. It can be red for spring and white for winter, or red for passion for the woman and white for her purity. The grey disk is meant to be a coin but its now more common to have a small charm, like a heart, sun/moon or a little man. In the countryside, where it originated, it is tied to the first tree they see in blossom.

The origins of the custom are a mystery and there are many stories. What is clear is that it is very old indeed. The Dacians (the people who lived in Romania before the Romans diced them up) had a virtually identical practice but with a white (life) and black (death) colour scheme. The red and white appears in the Roman times as a mark of respect to Mars. The specific stories range from the very dull to damn exciting. The dull one is that a poor doll maker made the first Martisor from the last of his materials and word spread throughout the land, as if it were some great invention, and thus we have it today. Its a bit boring but compared to the other legends it has one advantage, it could have been possible.

The first legend is of the old agrarian deity, an evil step mother named Dochia, who sent out her young step daughter to look for strawberries. The daughter met a man on the road (some legends say the man was God) and he gave her some strawberries which she took home to Dochia. Dochia saw the fruit and thought the weather had changed so she took of her nine (nine?!) coats, took her sheep and went to the mountains where she promptly froze to death. Amateur. The martisor is worn to mark the true change of the weather.

The second is my personal favourite. In the old days the sun was able to take the form of a human, and as you would if you were the sun in human form with some time to kill, the sun would then go and dance with Romanian peasant folk. Much mirth was had by all. One day a dragon (yes a dragon) discovered what the sun was upto in his free time and followed the sun to earth. As the dragon followed the sun to earth, that must mean the dragon was not on earth so it's an alien dragon! For some reason the dragon had beef with the sun and its dancing ways so took the sun prisoner in a castle. Boo dragon! Everyone was devastated but to scared to face the dragon until a brave young man entered the castle. He fought the dragon, the fight lasted for many days, but he was victorious and despite his many wounds he freed the sun. The young man was seriously hurt, he had just fought a dragon, he bleed onto the snow (seeing where its going) and when his last drop was spilled he died, happy in his noble life. Where he lay the flower known as snowdrop sprouted so everyone knew spring was near, so the martisor is a symbol of passion and remembrance of the young man. If you really want to honour him, someone should have stopped him bleeding to death in the snow, but there you go. If thats not true, I don't want to know what truth is.

As a foreigner traditions like this are interesting, different traditions are one the best things about being abroad, but it can also cause a few headaches. Is it appropriate for me to take part? Or is it expected? Which women do you give it to? A few people said every girl you know, but most said just to special ones, but how special? I like my Romanian teacher and I'm grateful for her efforts, but is that special enough? Or is it for family and girlfriends? How much of a romantic gesture is it? If I gave one to a girl with a boyfriend or husband should I expect a punch in the face? Some say give it to friends, but then you risk offending someone you don't give it too. One girl said she found the whole thing a little patronizing, so even by trying to be nice I can upset people. It's a minefield!

So ladies of the blog I offer the Martisor above to you, its not real, but the feeling is, and you're still one Martisor up on last year.

love love love x