Jan '05 - Jan '07
Two weeks ago there was a good weekend for this funny little country: the kidnapped journalists got free, a romanian movie won at cannes and we got the 3rd place at Eurovision (european singing contest, abba launched themselves through it, though I'm not sure who is watching it today! It's mostly music that nobody really listens to). In the mean time we found out that the kidnapping was set up by a arabian bussinessman living in romania (he was suspected of fraud and several other delicts, and was hoping to be the saviour of the 3).
Back at home after 3 weeks of togetherness with 30 students, talking at least 5 languages. I'm not sure which language I should talk now, but the worst thing is that every time I read something in english, I ”˜hear' that french accent in my head!
Another ”˜french' thing that was not very easy to get used to, is the french keyboard: for ”˜.' You have to press shift ”˜.' , some letters are in a different place ( a and q are switched and this caused a lot of stupid words) but the worst: for a number you have to press shift and the number !!!!!! (which sucks on a lap top and makes cad impossible!).
All in all it was fun, the last week (which also was the best one) passed very rapidly, as we were trying to work and to have a party at the same time.
In the next days I will try to synthesise the main things that happened.
In the first weekend I went with 6 of the students to Bucharest, I showed them the city (actually my brother did, as he lives there) and we got to the ”˜casa poporului' ”˜people's house'. I'm not going to bore you with the same information again!
One of the good things is that an area of this huge building is now the national contemporary art museum I dislike it (!), the interior is not interesting at all, the height of the rooms way too small for ”˜contemporary art' (not even 4m tall, in most areas) but (...) it's the only contemporary art museum in the country. So, despite the fact that the project sucks, people appreciate it for existing.the nice thing is that at the upper level there is a terrace with a nice view and a coffe shop.
the museum of contemporary art
inside
Besides other exhibitions we got to see socialist realism, which is grotesque and funny at the same time (funny, if you take it out of the context).
the ceausescu couple
The same Saturday there was night of open museums (=museums are open all night) and we went to a party at the same museum : djs, movies, beers, very very nice atmosphere. From what my brother tells me they are organizing almost every weekend different kind of ”˜parties', happenings. At least things start to move! 
views from the terrace. they want to built the 'people's orthodox cathedral' in this place, but that is just another long story.
Bucharest is the biggest city (we still have a centralized national administration) but also the most dirty and crowded one. It makes you always feel so tired: people, cars, noise, bad smell, visual information 'bombs', all senses are under attack. Anyway, you can hardly escape the eye/mind pollution, you search for real facades , not the ones hidden under some ”˜buy me now'add. They are working on the rehabilitation of the old town center, but its not very easy, mostly because of the process of giving the properties back to their legal owners ( during comunism there was no private property, everything belonged to the ”˜people', so gypsies or poor people got to live in very nice architecture monuments, today they have no money to put them in a good shape, owners demand them back, ilegal sellings, and tones of bureaucracy). but then again, this is a common thing for all over the country.
2 Comments
Bravo, Oana. Well done, as always, thank you.
How many languages do you speak, by the way?
thanks.
i speak (besides romanian) german and english. but as the others had some problem with english, they often said some phrases in french, spanish , italian (according to their home country). very many words are similar either to romanian or to english or german. so there were actually very few discussions in just one language.
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