The Dallas of Romania

a couple of weekends ago (i've been composing this in my head ever since) i visited the Dallas of Romania, Ploiesti. Mention Dallas here, and everyone thinks of the TV show (am told it was one of the few programs they had during communism - like 10 minutes a nite). there is actually a mansion not too far from Bucharest which has been built in the likeness of the one from the tv show. since i never watched the show, i have no desire to go there or even understand the allure - my mom was more into Dynasty.

now when I was there, there was not one with the name Ewingnescu to be found. but i think the relationship is that that Ploiesti has been pumping and refining oil since the mid 1800's.

its a pretty town (the old part) and home of the world famous (in Romania) clock museum. i got two friends to go with me. funnily enough, one used to live in Ploiesti and had never heard of the museum. We also went to a biannual exhibit of printmaking with artists from all over the world. i
it was pretty good, though it isnt an art form that i know much about. it was a pretty cool day spent laughing and hanging out with fun people and just walking and enjoying the town. enjoy the pics below



in the park near the town center, the tables were crowed with men playing chess and backgammon. in some areas, where so many people, it was like a sporting event



















Famous church in ploiesti (okay romania is like a land of churches) this one was dedicated to some saint and the heroes of something or another - but not the revolution
























inside the world famous clock museum. it was actually pretty cool with lots of clocks from different time periods. some had nifty mechanical bits that created scenes as the time changed. we had to take this picture as the museum makes us pay about $2 per picture taken inside if there are no people in it. there went our chance to make money selling pics of clocks!


















Wallachia (this region of romania corresponding to Vlad's old principality) is famous (okay i know!) for the metal roofs. there's been lots of renovation recently on the old buildings, which can totally blind you on a sunny day

Siniai, Romania

(an old one) **just realized that i have misplaced loads of pics/memory card. will fix when i find**

yep been there a few times and eons later am writing about it.

my not so good memory remembers this --> the city was founded back in the day (not back back in the day, but like maybe a few centuries ago. i can't recall exactly) some famous person (don't remember who) went to the holy land and came back full of the holy spirit (thats how they described it . . . i lie) and decided to found a monastery on a mountain in Romania. and they named it after Mount Sinai and the town of Sinaia grew around it. today, its a ski resort and unbelievably picturesque. The monastery is lovely except the first time i went there last winter, someone didnt like me and i fell and busted bottom in the courtyard (ground was a bit icy).



















Above is the new church, below the old one. there were earthquakes and increased numbers or something which necessitated a new one being built



















Kelly in the monastery compound














door from the old church. although the doctor says my eyes are healthy, i still cannot take a non-wonky picture



















then in the late 1800's, romania decided to unite the 3 principalities and they wanted a king. they didnt like the contenders at home and invited some austrian dude (nice work if you can get it) to come and be their king. his name was Karl and he became Carol the I (see i remember somethings) who built this totally cute germanesque castle. fairytale on the outside and decorated to the hilt (point of nausea) on the inside. true craftsmanship that is just piled on.

his heir's wife totally hated his overdone castle and refused to live in it. so next door to Peles castle is a beautiful house - Pelisior. Its all Art Nouveau and lovely. queen Marie did a fantastic job decorating it. sadly no pics inside.

a bit disappointing but ultimately nice day @Snagov

(A New One)

today, i was all fired up. i was gonna visit the grave of that totally awesome dude - Dracula aka Vlad the Impaler and a totally pretty monastery. Snagov Monastery is set on an island in the middle of a lake. It was a gorgeous and sunny winter day - feeling like spring really. i made my lunch for the picnic and set out to try and find my way to this place. eileen and i took a maxi-taxi (cross between a bus and a taxi) to the place and walked the rest of the distance to the complex that has access. being me, i forgot a few things.

1. didn't realize that the only way to the monastery was by boat. thought maybe there was a bridge or something

2. didn't realize that the lake would be frozen over.

sadly, didn't get to visit with dracula, but hey there's always spring. however, the day was so beautiful. we hung out on the dock and enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather. enjoy the pics.


below is the view of a maxi taxi ride.















Eileen and I at the lake. i was too scared to go out on the ice. the past couple of days have been warm. my luck, i would have fallen through the ice.















self-explanatory




















i was adopted by one of the stray dogs that live in the complex and surrounding woods.















Snagov is only 25 miles (40K) outside of Bucharest. Though they have recently banned horse and carts, theyre still around

Bucharest, Romania (pt 2)

ah. . . more of bucharest. before wwII and all the bombing, bucharest used to be known as little paris (i really hate when cities get named after other cities as if they dont have their own identity) because of the nod to classical architecture and stuff. have to admit that it did look nice from the photos i've seen.

which brings us to blvd Unirii and piata Unirii (you can pretty much find one in EVERY romanian town. i wonder whether they were named during communism or after the revolution). Ceausescu really really wanted bucharest to be on par with the other great european cities to do this he and his crazy wife went on many building projects (see previous post prt 1). one of which was blvd unirii. so they tore down what was there and built up some new stuff. due to his megalomania (to be fair he did seem really proud of what romania had to offer) he wanted to be BETTER than paris so the made unirii blvd longer and wider than

Champs-Elysee and it has lots of fountains.

during this summer some nutter artist from austria convinced the mayor of bucharest to let him add dye to the fountains. on an exceedingly warm summer day there was an magazine shoot taking place. enjoy the documentation of the day.

Bucharest, Romania (pt 1)

Bucharest is a bit surprising for a european capital city (i know i should have written about it sometime in the past year). When i got here i was all like "um. . . where's the capital part?" there are no skyscrapers and very very very few modern steel and glass buildings. but hey romania has pretty much been on the edge of every empire it was part of. there are loads and loads of small churches and communist block apts. Bucharest didnt fare so well in WWII and then there were earthquakes, and then there was crazy crazy Ceausescu so much of the previous grandeur was lost. much of it is very ugly but there are pockets of loveliness. so we went around and saw some stuff.

Here is the parliament of the people. Ceausescu destroyed 18% of the city at the time to build the second largest building in the world (after the pentagon). Romania has a slightly smaller population (22 mil) than the u.s. so i guess i can see why he needed something so big. actually he was executed before the building was completed so they dont know what he actually intended to do with it. since the end of communism the gov't been working to fix it but apparently it takes much longer to build monuments without the blatant theft and labor that communism allowed. but you have this amazing view of Unirii (unity) blvd. we took a tour and after over one hour, we were told we had seen 2% of the building. Inside was all marble and carvings and pretty awesome craftsmanship. and all the materials are native to romania. we saw a chandelier that weighs 5 tons and had 3 million (!!!) light bulbs. i think it may suck to be a maintenance man there. today its used for conferences and stuff (my school had our international day there).

we went to this balcony near the top facing a plaza and i had dreams of dictatorships and addressing an adoring crowd (or forced to be adoring due to the threat of being shot down). apparently both michael jackson (understandable cause hes crazy) and bill clinton visited bucharest, stood on my balcony, and addressed the crowds as budapest. again bucharest is like the red-headed stepchild of europe.

Targoviste, Romania

This is the former princely court where such greats like Vlad Tepes (Dracula) ruled. its basically a ruin now and we were the only ones there when we went.

we took a maxi-taxi to get there (cross b/t bus and taxi) and had no idea where we were when arrived. i started talking to a girl on the bus asking for directions. she was really sweet (recently completed here university degree) and offered us a ride. we walked to where she was meeting her father and off we were!! sadly Kelly broke their car. it was working fine for an old communist car from the 80s (there was also a lot of bread in the back) but it stopped in the road. the dad tried to get it started but no dice. so we wound up helping to push it across a few lanes of traffic to a side street. the heart was in the right place and i feel really sorry for them that kelly's mojo did not agree with that of their car.

we had some pastries then walked on - now that we knew where things were. we saw an old monastery that htey were making repairs to and went in but no one spoke to us. i think in may have been because we were wearing no sleeved shirts.

mid travel update

currently sitting in an internet cafe in Moldova. we spent a ew days traveling around and visiting postcard perfect places in romania and then endured a ginourmously long bus journey to moldova - it was supposed to be shorter but am thinking the drivers took the scenic route. some of the roads were like driveways. the countryside of both romania and moldova is incredibly rural. people still have outhouses and such but its full of both cultivated and uncultivated gentle rolling hills. you look out the window and see the yellow heads of sunflower seeds dotting the landscape or the grape vines. i saw one of the most beautiful sunrises ever as i watched the sun rise over the hills, diffused through the clouds. it looked like the the clouds were touching the hills with the sun, in all its glory, rising and burning through it. as anti-mush as i am, my heart sung - its indescribable

today i went on a wine tour. gotta say it was the first time in my life i was drunk before noon (well having not begun the night before). had some kick-ass wine though.

Mogosoara

yeah. . . well i've not been busy so no excuse. we had a four day weekend cause its labor day (i totally love national holidays) so i did pretty much nothing but relax cause i've been at work for two weeks since the last vacation and . . . well one can always use a holiday. but today i got off my buttocks and went on a wee trip outside bucharest to visit Mogosoara palace. Its not quite a palace but a venetian style house built a few centuries ago by a prince. it over looks a pond and has lovely gardens and a surrounding forest. my friend jennifer and i hung out, walked, talked, and enjoyed the pretty scenery and weather. the palace passed through the hands of the prince's family but was later given to (stolen by) the state and turned into a museum. it was a little bare inside as Ceausescu as some point decided that the stuff inside would better serve the people as his own personal possessions and he took it all. aside from the whole dying by firing squad thing, I have decided that its good to be a dictator so am looking for a country - a small one would do - of my very own. also there was a statue of lenin and a communist governor of bucharest. after the revolution they tore the statues from where they were standing and dumped them on waste ground behind the palace so its now known as 'the grave of 'lenin'' kind cool so jennifer and i enjoyed it.

on riding the tram home i was reduced to childhood again. we saw this little old lady and tried to give her our seats. she patted our cheeks and i think told us how nice girls we were. jennifer's romanian is way way way better than mine so she spoke to her but it and she was sooo cute. ah lovely day, but sadly the monstrous head of work looms over my tomorrow.