Week Fourteen

Another week, another year: yes, 'tis the season to get older (fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la). Incomprehensibly, most of Bucharest (except my Milla) seems more preoccupied with Christmas than with my birthday. There are more of the strange goat-drummers in the streets (and at the market), and Tiny Tims roam the tram network, playing accordions and/or singing carols - they presumably have some sort of compassionate immunity from the ticket inspectors (or else they carry sharp knives). The local carols, like much of the regional pop music, have a distinctly Turkish/Arabic (rather than Germanic tradition) feel and sound to them. A significant proportion of the population is wearing red Santa hats, with little white pompoms on the tip: from time to time you encounter a swarm, and it's like being at a Noddy convention (I imagine). Another seasonal feature is the firecrackers: they've been going off all around the streets since November - kids either light them and throw them, or light them and run away. Last year there were apparently incidents where lit firecrackers were dropped in people's pockets or in old ladies' shopping bags, leading to a serious of horrible accidents and death(!). On a sadder note (as it were), this week there are no more 1,000 lei banknotes: the smallest denomination note in Europe (that I've seen) has been withdrawn as legal tender. The smallest note here is now the blue 2,000 lei note - with inflation running at 25%-30%, of course, it'll be worth the same in three years. Incidentally, I probably haven't mentioned that banknotes here are plastic-coated which keeps them wonderfully crisp and new for ages. It also means that they can do cool things like cut holes in the middle of the notes. It possibly also means that the notes are safe to accidentally put through the washing machine. The 500,000 and 2,000 notes seem to be all plastic; the ubiquitous 10,000 notes are about 75% plastic; and they seem to be just starting to issue plastic 100,000s: 5,000 and 50,000 notes are still 100% paper.

The week starts on Monday (they do that here): there are things which need done and checked out uptown. Both the passport office and the vaccination centre are to the west/north-west of Piata Universitatii, within easy striking distance of Cismigiu park, the oldest in Bucharest and only one in the centre (to the north of the park is an area of nice, old buildings). Originally twice its current size (the downside of being in the centre), its current layout was designed by a Frencha architect/landscape gardener, and consequently has a very French feel. In addition to a circle of literary statues (I get a précis of Romanian literature), bandstand, boating lake and little island of restaurants/bars, Milena also shows me a good place to hang out and take drugs. I use the opportunity to have a piss in the clean, white snow: ah, the cultural iconography of it all . . . While we're out and about during daylight hours - so unusual for us - we take a detour via the Patriarchal Cathedral: Milena's seen my photo and doesn't believe it's the same building - equally, I don't recognise it from a picture on the cover of the Yellow Pages. There's a distinct possibility that I went to the wrong place. Thankfully, for the sake of my pride, it turns out that I was right after all, but my photo's from the boring side.
Also on Monday, I fork out the £4 necessary to buy a one-month public transport (except Metro) ticket - now I have immunity: also, if we're out separately, then Milla can probably use it (it has my name on it, but hey - no inspector is going to know if "Moray" is a male or female name). We come back by Unirea shopping centre (at Piata Unirii) where we check out kit for Milena (rucksacks, boots, etc.) and I finally find a couple of padded envelopes.

Tuesday's a quiet day, in comparison with Monday - I get one package mailed home. That evening we head out into the night to the nearby National Park (Parcul National) for a mammoth 2-hour snowball fight. The park also houses the National Stadium (Stadionul National), a lake (iced over, though we didn't walk across it), and an ice-rink (we look in and briefly consider taking lessons).
At last, somewhat inevitably, Wednesday comes and with it presents of chocolate and alcohol (how did she know?): the alcohol is in the form of Palinka, a plum spirit. All things considered, not a bad birthday - I don't know how most people spend their 35th birthday, but I figure being in Bucharest, with a rucksack, en route to Africa, and shacking up with a local Romanian girl has got to be up there with the best. However, it's possibly I'm making it sound more romantic than it is - I also spent 3 hours handwashing my clothes. We wrapped up the day with takeaway pizza.
Thursday was a shopping day - earlier in the week Milena visited her Uncle Liviu, who gave her a significant wad of cash towards the family Christmas. We hit Bucur Obor market, and soon are buying kilos of cheese, and meat, and olives, and so on. As usual, the market smells mainly of burning wood (from the braziers) and cordite (from the firecrackers), rather than of animal or fruit/veg. produce. The continual sound of firecrackers going off makes the place sound like Chicago in the 20s - it would be the perfect place for a murder, since no-one bats an eyelid at the sound: 'Did you hear anything unusual, madam?', 'No, officer.' We also encounter the bear-drummer and his troupe - like the goat-drummer, but from a different area and using a slightly different rhythm. Both the goat and the bear manage to soundlike the soundtrack to a Kusturica film. Milena manages to pick up everything she needs, except for two Christmas trees (she plans one for us, from Uncle Liviu's money): a little optimistically, I feel, she hopes to pick up two trees for 150,000 lei - the starting price for one tree seems to be in the region of 275,000. Her optimism seems largely to derive from the fact that she picked one up last year for 100,000. She later admits that she only got that price by some pretty hard bargaining and by going out late on the 23rd.
At the flat, because of the amount of stuff which needs kept, Milena plugs in her fridge - to date, the fridge's primary role had been to store coat hangars: food requiring cold temperatures was simply left on the balcony. That evening, I nip into an internet place near the flat, as I have done every evenining this week: there are some signs of life from the website service of tiscali (formerly lineone). The support fora are packed with irate and complaining users' comments, and I discover that older "unused" (ie. not recently updated) areas have simply been shut down (eg. all my background graphics). There are no signs of any maintenance tools other than ftp, which is useless for most internet cafés I've encountered. Super.

Friday, and another daylight trip into the outside world - we've booked a tour of Cotroceni Palace (you apaprently have to book it, rather than simply turning up). We book a tour at 14.00, but end up simply turning up at 14.30. Cotroceni is out to the west, south of Gara de Nord station, over the road (and up a hill) from the Botanical Garden (which we elect not to visit: it's late December, after all). Trams and buses don't stop nearly as frequently as in the UK: nowhere is too many stops from anywhere else (eg. the twenty minute walk to Bucur Obor is only three stops on the tram). So the trip most of the way across the city didn't take that long (just over half-an-hour), but it was just our start time that let us down (actually our getting up time). Thankfully, it seems that the appointment system isn't as rigid as it might be, and we're told to take a seat - there's a Romanian woman waiting, with a little English-accented boy. It also seems that the pricing isn't as rigid as it might be: despite both us and the Romanian woman being told on the phone that it cost 30,000 for nationals and 60,000 for foreigners (with English-speaking guide), they now want 60,000 from everyone. Their competence also fails to extend to their own currency, and we get a 100,000 note in our change instead of a 5,000: the net result is that Milla and I got in for 25,000, so we're not complaining.
For the first time in Romania, our bags go through an X-Ray machine and we walk through magic doors - my knife and Milena's razor and spray are confiscated until the end of the tour. This level of security is presuambly because Cotroceni Palace is still largely used as the President's Residence (Pres's Des Res) - only part of it is open as a (restored) museum. Originally a monastery (the last part to go was the church - the lower foundations were left on display in the courtyard), it was rebuilt largely for Queen Marie at the end of the 1800s. A major earthquake in 1977 led to extensive restoration (the top floor was pretty much wiped out) and, like Pelisor, Ceaucescu had it done up as a totally over-the-top hotel/private residence - one of the suites, in white, was specifically prepared for a visit (not made) by H.M. Queeg. Architecturally the opposite of Pelisor (Cotroceni is regular and more square, rather than jumbled rustic gothic), it shows many of the same features inside. There are private and public rooms for the King and Queen, an artist's studio for Queen Marie (here an open, wide-windowed room with internal balcony), and upstairs visitors' rooms are each in a specific style/colour scheme. At Cotroceni, it's a little more artificial because of the restoration after the earthquake - the furniture and fittings were largely taken from elsewhere in the royal collection. Worth particular note is the King's library, a woodpanelled, two-levelled (with semi-concealed staircase) study: packed with books (and a desk) in much the fashion of my library at home (except that his furniture is much more upmarket than mine was).
Our guide (whom Milla and the Romanian woman fell out with) rushes us through, but the tour still takes an hour and a half, including a brief look at posters advertising some of the exhibitions which have been held here. Two of the pictures on the posters feature Queen Marie - there's one of herin a self-designed Art Nouveau outfit, trying to look like a (bulky) Mucha girl; and there's one of her in the chapel (she was addicted to religious iconography and her bedroom in Cotroceni has an en-suite chapel, in the style of a wooden Norwegian long church), surrounded by a chaotic jumble of artistic and religious bric-a-brac. She seemed to have adopted Art Nouveau as her own style, while missing the minimalist spacial aspects. These two photos finally swayed my earlier opinion of Queen Marie as pretty stylish, and moved her into the talented-but-mad category.
On the way back, we stop in at the large Church of St. Elefterie (nope - I hadn't heard of her either), visible from some distance away. There are two priests on duty, each with a queue of would-be confessing believers and, oddly, there are seats in the apses (Orthodox churches are, as a rule, standing only - they have high-backed chairs round the sides sometimes). There seem to be some pretty impressive murals/frescoes, but they're hard to make out in the December half-darkness.
By the time we get back to the flat it's well dark, but a couple of hours later we head back out to Bucur Obor in the hope that there are still people selling Christmas trees - no need to worry, there are tons. We pick our way through heaps of trees, grabbing and examining likely looking specimens - on balanace there are some okay ones at 250,000-300,000 lei and some scraggy dwarfs at 125,000. After an hour of searching, we eventually find someone susceptible to Milena's haggling techniques and end up with an okay 7-foot tree for 150,000: that'll be fine for Milena's mother, and this year we'll make do with mistletoe.
Back at the flat we put the tree (Rodolfo) on the balcony to melt (it's still partially covered in ice), and spend the rest of the night watching TV: it's the 12th anniversary of the 1989 revolution. As we watch the various footage of the demonstrations (Milla's in there somewhere, in black denims and privelege-enabled western gear), and the arrest, execution, burial, etc. of the Ceaucescus, Milena keeps up a tireless tirade against the television.

Saturday, the 22nd, is mostly taken up by a visit to Milena's mother to deliver (and install) the tree and the various other provisions. We have something to eat and then start working on the tree, but are distracted when a plastic bottle of traditional chopped vegetables explodes in the kitchen. Milla is furious - this is apparently the third time in three years, despite her repeated warnings about the use of airtight bottles for storing things that ferment. The cleanup operation takes a couple of hours of scrubbing and washing the ceiling, wall, fittings, pot-plants, and so on. We stop for freshly-baked traditional cookies, finally decorate the tree (with tinsel, balls, eventually-working lights, and a silver topping), and then head off well after midnight.
On Sunday, to round off the week, I finally give up on tiscali (they're now talking about early next year for restoring service) and start a multi-day rebuild of my entire website: I'll use Yahoo instead - after all, they've managed my email quite successfully for the last four years . . . hopefully, by the end of next week, everything'll be back to normal.