Bucharest Night Life, Tourist Style

Ok, so after all the carrying on about not being a regular tourist in Bucharest, I had tonight and dinner with friends marked down as the real tourist night out in ... you guessed it ... the popular Lipscani district (also known as 'Old Town').

Here's a panorama I took in Piata Unirii, with the changing light conditions from cars headlights revealing the photographic stitching...

It was just here that I took my favourite photograph in Bucharest, and right up there with one of my favourite photos of all time. My impromptu title for this is 'Christmas wish', and picture the scene: this street dog sitting alone on the pavement as crowds of people flowed behind him, transfixed by the sight of sausages hanging from the street-side butcher (all kinds of symbolism you could read into it).

Lipscani 'proper' is a bit strange in that you just turn off a main road and enter the area without much fanfare. In fact, if you weren't looking for it, I'm pretty sure you could drive past the area all week without even knowing that it's there. As the 'Old Town' name implies, it's the old heart of Bucharest, replete with the oldest of various kinds of buildings, and undergoing some pretty heavy restoration (in the nick of time).

Here's one of those old buildings, a bank ...

... and another old bank, CEC Bank, apparently the only bank during Romania's Communist times ...

The most interesting however is this area (at the foot of the first bank above), which is apparently a recently discovered section of the oldest part of Bucharest, lying under all the newer developments, which is currently being explored like a modern-day version of inner-city archaeology. Pretty amazing to consider that Bucharest is growing so quickly that it's forgetting and then rediscovering parts of itself!

The whole point of the evening, however, was a rendezvous at a restaurant which is apparently popular with tourists. I'm not so sure - it seemed pretty popular with Romanians as well, and the atmosphere is brilliant. Its name is Caru' cu Bere (apparently 'Chariots With Beer'), and is a great place for traditional Romanian cooking at decent prices (a main meal is around 30 lei - good considering that a McDonalds meal is 20 lei!). Its main drawcard is its history, however, and original architecture:

Every so often the restaurant also trots out some dancers like these, for a burst of energy (Top Tip: f you can try to reserve a table in front of the dance floor because you can't see anything from some parts of the balcony seating):

And something pretty different for me is a guy dressed like a clown who comes around to the table and offers you kit to dress up with for cheesy 'post on your blog' photos like these (something I didn't know is that a tip is expected for this - luckily my Romanian friend picked up the tab for that):

Just because I cannot really end this post on a photo of me wearing a feather boa and a real live bird on my head, here's another impressive building for you...

Good night, world. 00:17, and it's been another good day in Bucharest. Tomorrow ... night train to Cluj, baby (trying a sleeper coach sharing with two other people in my cubicle - here's to hoping they're friendly)!

Another Great Reason To Modernise Romania

Is this Romania, or a part of Romania?

Just recently I posted about damaging stereotypes about Romania in the global consciousness, and tonight I happened to stumble across this (well-intentioned but horribly misdirected) gem of a website offering ten reasons for American missionaries moving to Romania.

I don't know where to start without coming across as horribly bitter, but I do find it amazingly convenient that 'God' has stirred these people to conduct their ministry in a country which has beautiful trees and the sea (the writer is open about their 'selfish' motivations).

That anecdotal research has revealed only 2 100 believers in Romania is interesting, but I guess that's the age old battle of the religions: do Christians recognise Catholics as being religious? I'm sure the Vatican would be interested to hear, as well, that the 'church' is weak in Europe these days.

It might interest these missionaries to know that I accompanied my wife to a Saturday service at a nearby church, which she attended purely to light a candle in memory of her deceased mother (and my grandfather), and give poor people who attended the service packs of food and a traditional cake. The fact that the church was packed to the rafters on a Saturday (never mind the Sunday) should allay some fears about Romania's religious well-being, but I guess as long as some young girls in Romania wear miniskirts (although not presently with the -1 degree temperatures) some American missionaries will never be happy.

Ultimately I don't want this post to be a tirade against the very form of Christianity which pushed me comprehensively out of 'organised religion', but rather a further wake-up call to Romanians in Romania.

As long as one missionary is so clearly misinformed about 'life on the ground' in Romania, and shares a photograph of a quaint hamlet in the mountains as a representation of Romania, you can bet that there are millions of other people equally or even further misinformed.

So what is Romania? A dark village in need of saving from evil - but still better for a family missionary trip than Africa and all them starving kids - or a place where real people called Romanians live, dream and strive for a better future?

I think that question needs answering enough times on a global level until people start paying attention. America has Hollywood to do its propaganda for it, and the UK has the royal family ... Dracula was never going to be a great tourism ambassador: dead vampires don't speak.

Bucharest: The City Of Contrasts

In most big cities, you'll have a noticeable distinction between various suburbs - types of architecture, affluence, age of buildings etc. In Bucharest, you notice huge differences depending where on a specific block you are.

Here's a perfect example. I started off by walking down this beautiful street ...

... and then spotted this fascinating old building ...

... and then turned the corner into a new street and saw this ultra-modern building ...

... and then admired this famous landmark ...

... before laughing at this great example of Bucharest 'parking' ... (people really are this desperate)

... and then ending up at the most spectacular landmark of them all ... (no, I haven't detoured to Paris - see Romanian flag on top?)

... which has some really amazing details if you look more closely ...

... and there you have it, another day in Bucharest.

(Ok, my 'real' day actually consisted of another fascinating meeting with a Romanian journalist, and saw me lugging 3m long heavy floor skirting boards onto a bus between Bricostore and my wife's apartment, but this is the touristy side.)

Challenging Romania's Stereotypes

You know, it's funny how quickly one's mind re-adjusts to new environments, turning them into 'home'. Because I'm living in Bucharest in my wife's apartment and actually doing 'work' with a research project, my mind hasn't oriented into a 'holiday' mode but rather a 'real life' mode. So much so, that I remarked to my wife that I feel like a Romanian with a job to go to in South Africa, not the other way around.

Because I care about my Romanian wife and feel like the above, I actually really care about how Romania is represented in the global media. In my discussions with Romanians for my research project I keep on trying to question their perceptions of Romania internationally, but nobody seems to really recognise that there is a problem (or at the very least be too concerned by it).

The perfect case in point came when I logged into www.news24.com to catch up with South African news, and the lead photograph on the website (which is generally a global news photo) featured Romania! This is an extremely rare occurrence ... I've remarked before that when it comes to Romania, the country never features in the South African public consciousness (you'll never find a book on the country in the travel section in even the biggest book stores  trust me, I've looked).

Ok, so what was the news that was so big that something from Romania was selected as the lead photo on a South African news site (admittedly on a Sunday - always slow for news)? Was it Ponta's handshake with Obama? Was it some new Romanian technological breakthrough? Was it Dracula?

None of the above. Here's the screencap I took just now:

Does that bother you? It seriously bothers me. After only a casual week spent photographing interesting things in Bucharest alone (and being very honest to not try and sugar coat the reality) I've shared dozens of photographs which are a fairer reflection of Romania than this one.

Sure, there's a strong argument to say 'This is just a single photo, and isn't intended to summarise the whole country. Scenes like this are common in certain parts of Romania."

My objection, however, is that when people receive very little information on any subject, the natural tendency is to extrapolate from the information in hand to draw vast inferences on unrelated matters. My question, then, is this: for people viewing that photograph who don't know much if anything about Romania, what sort of inferences might be drawn?

After all, the caption assures us that this is a 'vividly-coloured house in Bucharest'! I've only seen houses like that in Bucharest in the village museum, but maybe I'm wrong? However, the majority of people here definitely stay in ageing apartment blocks, so right from the outset the photograph was never a good base to extrapolate from.

Then you have the fact that this is not necessarily a happy or affluent kid, photographed with no friends or parents, at a moment of solitude and wrapped up against the cold weather. Finally, the kid has been performing 'traditional songs and dances' during a two-day festival (we're not informed what the festival is celebrating).

I don't know about you, but I hate 'news' photos like these, and here the AP was behind it. It's not a Romanian media brand, but rather a photo taken locally and then sent out to the global newswires and somehow selected by a news editor in South Africa to feature on the news website for no reason apart from it is something different ... those poor kids in Romania, right?

*shakes head* Maybe someday somebody will get it and do something about it. UKIP and the like might have less ammunition to protest Romania's entry into the EU and Schengen zone if there are better, more modern perceptions of the country in the global consciousness.

Do you know the reason this really stings? The exact same thing happens to South Africa. I know the only impact we've made on the global consciousness has to do with Nelson Mandela, the Big 5 wild animals and Table Mountain in Cape Town. As a country we've got a lot more to share and contribute than that, but for whatever reason news editors continually select images and stories which reinforce perceptions rather than those which challenge them.

What's even scarier for me is that journalists *on the ground* tend to pump out cliched news stories which reinforce these stereotypes because they think that is what they should do, and that is what will sell.

So are they right? If Vadim Ghirda from the AP had photographed a Romanian software developer coding a breakthrough computer program instead, would that photo have been selected by that faceless South African news editor?

Maybe not. But in the worst case, then, Romania's image to all those people viewing that photograph wouldn't be connected to a poor little girl walking past a peasant house. And in the best case, a stereotype would have been questioned, and journalists in the future will know that there's an appetite for more modern fare.

As journalists, we need to ask ourselves these questions and become critical media producers. As citizens, we need to judge the political and economic impact that our countries' global perceptions have on our personal life chances.

There's always hoping.

Reflections on 365 days

When I started this blog almost exactly a year ago, I wouldn't have thought that a year later I'd be writing a post perched on a bed in Bucharest.

It's been a long journey, filled with hopefully more depth and meaning that I would ever have been able to squeeze into a Facebook wall or Twitter feed. If you've followed even part of this journey with me then you deserve a loyal readership medal!

This blog hasn't really been about me, so I've deliberately left myself out of it. For the most part the central theme has been Romania and how it is viewed by an outsider, and recently it's been able to take the turn of being viewed from the inside.

To celebrate this post and longer jounrey, however, let me share something a little more personal with you.

Here's me, posed in front of my house in Bucharest*

* Ok, I lied, this isn't my house. This is the infamous Palace of the People. My house is a bit bigger.

Here's another view of 'not my house' (have you noticed that I love panoramas?):

If you don't know anything about this place, Wikipedia has the scoop

I can't share anything about myself on this blog without also sharing the ultimate Bucharest 'selfie' with my wife:

Finally, apropos of my recent post commenting on photographing Bucharest's public transport, why not add in the only other photograph I took nearby as well:

Look ma, a Romanian bus (ok, it's actually a Mercedes-Benz)! Nauseating thanks to uber-rolling suspension and harsh acceleration and braking ... i.e. typical Bucharest driving

So there you have it. If you're in Romania in December, now you know who to look out for - come say hi! If you're in Cape Town, I have an exciting announcement to make real soon ... stay tuned.

Romania: Day Who's Counting Anymore?

If you've just landed here, welcome and scroll down a bit ... the touristy stuff is there. Here's a few random thoughts I can share, because it's one of the few joys of having a blog.

Travelling internationally isn't all fun and games, let me tell you. For me, it's particularly difficult because I'm not wrapped up in some little tourist cocoon, being bused between iconic locations with a tour guide to cluck around after me.

I'm not staying in a hotel in Bucharest. I'm staying in an apartment block like everybody else lives in here. I don't have a car: I rely fully on public transport, like most of Romania does. I'm not eating at restaurants: I'm grabbing pastries from the patisseries that everybody else uses. I don't understand the language, but I can make a few informed guesses and for the rest just slip through it, lost in my own world of English thoughts.

Most of all, I'm not going to touristy places, despite what this blog up to now might imply: I'm standing in queues with the rest of 'regular' Romanians while my wife tries to deal with some administration related to her apartment and registering our marriage in South Africa here. I'm pressed into the sides of trams during rush hour by a throng of Romanians. I'm being hustled along on the pavements by impatient Romanians on their way to or from work. Oh, and I'm married to a Romanian woman, if not at home back in her home country (she's pretty distressed by a lot of Bucharest's decay), then at least comfortable with the language and routes.

It's an interesting way to discover a country, trust me. It opens your eyes to the country as it is, not as the tourism department would like you to think it is. From that perspective, it's exactly what I wanted, but it's also scary because it's so raw. It's a lot to process, and it's not easy.

I still keep rewinding to last week (only last week????), sitting cramped and tired in my plane's seat, en route to Bucharest. It's an amazing mental shift, going from 'Gee, I'm looking forward to Romania', to the touch-down of the plane's wheels on Romanian soil, and the realisation that 'I AM in Romania'.

Listening to myself now, it sounds like I'm a novice. I've travelled internationally before (to the UK), and flown countless times in South Africa, so I can only pencil my total sense of unsettlement down to the language difference here. It's a very primal thing: it's like my animal brain is constantly analysing all the sounds and messages and trying to make sense of it, and for the most part coming up with nothing but confusion.

You'd think you could ignore it, but Bucharest is a modern city. There is the constant flood of messages and input you'll get anywhere else ... and almost all of it's in Romanian. There are only two channels out of over 30 on TV which are English as they are imported from the US (National Geographic and the History Channel, fyi), and even THOSE are overlaid by Romanian sub-titles (my brain is used to lazily reading English sub-titles instead of listening closely to dialogue, so this is jarring).

[UPDATE (17/12/2013): Ok ok, after re-tuning the old TV I've managed to discover a few additional English-language imports on Romanian cable: Discovery Channel, CNN (News in English, yay!), MTV etc. It's still not the same, however, never mind the Romanian sub-titles - Romanian news is still in Romanian, as is all the other local programming.]

Spongebob Squarepants is there, but with Romanian voice-overs. ALL TV news channels are in Romanian (no CNN or BBC, sorry for you). All the rules and instructions on signs in public spaces are in Romanian (the guide on how to use the prepaid system for the public transport system is exclusively in Romanian - terribly useful for tourists, I'm sure). I wouldn't even be able to order a McDonalds meal if my wife wasn't around to tell me that in Romania you can actually choose wedges instead of just fries.

Fortunately for me the reason I'm in Romania is to produce an English-language research project, speaking to some Romanian journalists in English (which they've proven capable at), but given all of the above it feels wrong. I actually feel embarrassed speaking English here, because as a journalist I am used to making people comfortable and now by definition I'm asking people to speak in something other than their first language.

Talk about a wake-up call. It's a preview of what all immigrants go through, but from the other side of the fence. I feel alternately angry, depressed or just plain homesick (I'd never have expected that). Upon reflection I don't think I'd look to move to Romania unless I was in an English-speaking role with English-speaking friends surrounding me, and then I ask myself what's the point?

The funniest thing is walking down the street behind a Romanian kid speaking fluently to his mother, and feeling ridiculously jealous of the kid. Here's this kid, so much more skillful in Romanian than I am, and I'd give anything to just experience Romania like that for a bit.

I'm not an idiot, don't get me wrong. Speaking Romanian won't make some of the rude people here any friendlier. It won't take the graffiti off the walls. It won't make the drivers happier to stop for pedestrians on the roads. It won't remove the informal sellers peddling their wares on the trams and pavements with their insistent calls.

My challenge then is experiencing the real Romania as Romanians experience it, but with an additional inescapable burden of language I cannot just buy myself out from under. Again, it's not easy. It's not comfortable. It's painfully real.

Welcome to Romania.

Romania: Day 7

Ok, I'll be honest, I'm getting lazy with the blog! Here then is just a bunch of photos taken during my recent journeys in Bucharest, which add some valuable aspects to this story.

Have I remarked before that clothing is really well priced in Romania (at least non-brand imported clothing)? I bought a massive winter jacket for only 70 lei, which is something you couldn't dream of doing in South Africa. By contrast, the price for a regular Kentucky Fried Chicken meal is more expensive ... maybe it has something to do with the free choice of sauce (I recommend the garlic) that you can get, which is something we don't get in SA.

With that, the photos...

The Firemen's Tower ... now disused, apparently used to spot fires in Bucharest

I just have to add a note here, pointing out that the state of Bucharest's grafitti vandalism is really deplorable. You're hard-pressed to find a building without the lower level completely taken over by it, or by shreds of old posters. It really ruins the old architecture, but it looks like most people have given up washing it off!

Impressive sculpture outside the National Theatre

Vibrant scenes like this really pop out of Bucharest's bleak colour palette

Bucharest's doves are braver than the stray dogs when it comes to begging for food.