The wonderful Peasant Village with some photos of the Peasant Museum
More photos of the Peasant Village
Ceauşescu's Folly; House of the People, Romanian Parliament
The highlights of my trip have always been the people that I meet, rather than the places I see. I visited Ioan (pronounced "ee- WAN") at his clothing shop on Str. Lipscani. Lipscani is the central street in the old town district, lined with restaurants, shops and drinking establishments. I met his two employees and proceed to buy a couple of scarves. The his mother, dad and another relative came in. B oth his mom and dad are both handsome and sharp minded. They were were warm and friendly. The woman's clothing shop had a steady stream of customers. When things died down a bit, Ioan suwent suggested we go out for a beer. We went to the Brothel, a formal brother with riskee menus and apparently really used to be a brothel.
The next day I took a full day trek to both the Peasant Museum and the Peasant Village. Both are outstanding sights and I hope to devote more time to them in another blog. As I was walking through the Peasant Museum, it struck me that I had not eaten in 24 hours. From then on all I could think about was food. The neighborhood, upper end and green, devoid of eating establishments. The houses were embassies and former embassies, some past their prime but most absolutely in mint condition with manicured gardens. I moved close to the fence of house I found interesting. "Whoof, whoof, whoof..." Fortunately the guide dog was on the other side- and I got a good shot (camera) at him.
A little farther north is Piata Aviatorilor, Charles de Gaulle Circle and the other Arc de Triumph. Just at the corner a little Italian restaurant sat, Quartro Stagioni. It appeared to be taken over by a large wedding party. Nevertheless the hostess urged me in and gave me a seat. First I needed an obligatory two cups of espresso. Also I needed just enough food to assuage my hunger antepasto: marinated mixed seafood salad with a glass of white wine. Also I ordered a lovely traditional desert- (the name escapes me) whipped sweet egg whites with a light carmel sauce. The screaming little boys running around and chasing each other kept the place quite lively.
I will move on to the next day, early evening. I stopped by the clothing shop and Ioan wasn't there but his employee said she would be glad to call him, for he was out having a drink with some friends. O'Hara's she thought. I found it and and had a very friendly reception from Ioan, his girlfriend, Alexandra and Polly, another friend. They were all nice enough to speak English. The young women had just come back from a hiking trip, were very tired but also celebrating the end of their school year. They were all a bit, geekish- like me. I forget what Alexandra studies but she has a great interest in languages. She knows many things about word origins in many languages and was a natural teacher when it came to teaching me to pronounce a little Romanian correctly.
Polly studied programing. And although Ioan is going to graduates school in Linz, Austria, majoring in art- he has decided to specialize in designing adaptive technology for the handicapped. We were talking about computer things and I said that in my little town was one of the chief publishers of technology instructional books, O'Reilly and Associates. "O'Reilly?" Ioan says. And he laughs. He opens the bag on his lap and pulls out an O'Reilly book- Interactivity. "I had so much trouble getting this book." He says. "That's what you should do, help distribute O'Reilly in Romania. I know so many people who use these books. They are the best." I showed him the name of my town, Sebastopol, on the inside and told him I would look into it.
It was my last night in Bucharest. It was a sweet ending with some very nice people whom I felt that we somehow clicked. I suggested dinner, but Ioan, Polly and Alexandra were all tired. So we strolled off to our respective domiciles- mine very temporary.
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