bucharest

I arrived in Bucharest early Saturday morning on October 27th.

I take a cheap city bus from the airport and make my way to the hostel in less than a hour. I am staying at Podstel Umbrella because it is cheap (roughly 120 swedish krona a night, or about 17 dollars Canadian) and the reviews are good.

I drop off my stuff and wandering, soon find the “Dr. George Severeanu” Museum a few blocks away from the hostel.

The entrance isn’t much, though I no longer remember the cost.

The museum consists of various old coins and some small sculptures and knick-knacks from various parts of the world. The highlight, in my opinion, is a mummy’s hand, but it is found in the entrance and you could easily see it without having to pay the entrance fee. Likewise, if you do pay to get in, there is a photo fee but the attendant often leaves you alone in the room and you’re more than likely to get the opportunity to snap a photo of something without having to pay for it as I did.

I stay in the museum for roughly and hour (it’s only three rooms) and look into the various drawers, contemplating wether or not collectors of this sort will continue to exist in the future.

I have a halloumi ‘burger’ at Crocant a few blocks away which consists of fried halloumi, a single bun covered in hummus and a mixed green salad with a delicious dressing. Inside the restaurant the music is upbeat and the decor clean and contemporary. I entered as they were closing so I had to take the food to go but I don’t mind as it forces me continue exploring the city.

There are old, luxurious buildings in various states of upkeep everywhere.

It is a warm 20 odd degrees and the sun sets slowly making everything look otherworldly.

I am aware that things will close quickly as the working day comes to an end and so I look for a used or cheap bookstore and find a few, Antic ExLibris being the highlight.

It consists of what seems to be clear-out copies of various new books. There is a good variety of ‘vintage’ series novels and I pick up Sebald’s Rings of Saturn for 7.5lei/15 sek/3 cdn.

Outside the store there’s what appears to be a massive migration of birds. The noise is loud. I fumble with my camera trying to bump the iso to 1600. It’s dark but not that dark and I may be able to get a good sense of the bird’s movements in the twilight sky. I’m deeply unsatisfied with the final result.

 

I continue to wander and find the Cărturești Carusel which consists of a glass roofed alleyway peopled with various hookah/water pipe bars. Though locals seem to frequent the area, it seems predominantly aimed towards tourists.

I have dinner at Caru’ cu Bere and chose what looked most appealing from their limited vegetarian menu. It consists of marinated mushroom and palenta/polenta (boiled cornmeal) with 1000ml of beer. The interior is beautiful and the restaurant has been actively serving food since 1879.  Caru’ cu Bere translates to The beer Wagon and it was once well known for it’s fresh from the barrel beer and its surprising habit of giving returning customers their own personal glass.

 

I go back to the hostel earlier than expected and find it very quiet and nearly abandoned.

I question whether or not it was a good idea to book here. It’s never a good sign when a hostel is this quiet at 10 pm, I exit wander a little longer and go to bed.

Day 2.

I wake up early and get a chilled cappuccino a nearby grocery store accompanied by two cheap pastries. This tends to be my go to when I travel as it’s an easy way to taste local pastries and the bottled cappuccino usually contains twice as much caffeine as a normal coffee.

I start to walk and eat and realize, rather quickly, that Bucharest is foremost a city of beautiful light and unpleasant smells. Odd whiffs of piss and rotten food pervade my sense of smell as I make my way to the park.

Walking, I decide it might be good to know a little more about the city. It turns out Bucharest, at least according to wikipedia, has a 0.914 in its HDI. The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators, which are used to rank countries into four tiers of human development1. I am informed this is very high and I am surprised, though I am unsure why. I look up and sense that shops are opening everywhere, repurposing old buildings into chic new coffee shops and it starts to make a little more sense.

I enter Parcul Cișmigiu and start to understand why some people call Bucharest ‘Le Petit Paris’.

There’s a wonderful sculpture park in Parcul Cișmigiu and the multiple small ponds and ageing bridges allow for the perfect wake-up call for a slow Sunday morning.

 

There’s a wonderful castle on the edge of the park called Kretzulescu Palace. It’s beautiful and guarded, rather severely, by a large dog. Nearby I find an abandoned car. It stays there the entire week.

I wander away the morning enlightened by the city’s many old buildings and seemingly large variety of architectural styles, only I find out later that while these buildings are a testament to human ingenuity and they also bear witness to copious amounts of suffering.

I walk towards the National Museum of Art of Romania and it’s beauty is slightly tainted as I am unsure how\when it was built and under what conditions.

 

The entrance fee isn’t much, but it is the only thing that will cost more in Romania than in Sweden throughout the trip.

Entering the museum, I make a conscious decision to take it slow. Before starting the trip I’d told myself I consciously try to take my time throughout the week as it’d been hectic at school and taking it slow could do me good. As a result,  I spend much longer than usual gazing at the medieval section in the museum trying to understand the motivation behind religious art.

Was it guilt, passion, a desire to connect with a deity of some sort?

Where the monks self taught, or placed under the tutelage of another?

There’s a particular piece where the paint on Jesus’s has chipped away and the cracked wood look like muscle.

It is a small detail but it haunts me as I move through the museum.

It must be frustrating to have something random improve upon your work and craft.

The cracks in the wood don’t look planned, if anything the cuts and inlay suggest a quick patch job and yet…

It makes me think of Barthes’s ‘punctum’ (denoting the wounding, personally touching detail which establishes a direct relationship with the object or person within it).

I wonder if the sculptor would be as touched as I am by this uncontrolled/unplanned development.

I am surprised by how well organized and mounted the work in the museum is and enjoy the room dedicated to Brancusi, who, it turns out, is a Romanian native who fled the country.

It also turns out that Romania, the country as a whole, actually owns very few pieces by the sculptor.

The room is dedicated to these few sculptures and overall it is quaint overview of his early work. However, the joy I feel at viewing these few pieces is quickly tainted by a condescending old man who is loudly talking down to his girlfriend/assistant.

It’s hard to embrace the room as the old man drags his monopod across the museum floor. He has an expensive camera, some version of the Sony Alpha series and he lets everyone know he’s using it as its loud shutter echoes through the sparsely populated museum.

I exit the museum and try to use the same ticket to enter the other wing. I’m denied and decide it’s too nice a day out to spend it entirely indoors, if there’s time I’ll visit the Rembrandt’s later on (I won’t find the time).

I look up good coffee shops and start making my way there.

I stumble upon a popup gallery showing ‘communist’ era advertisements.

The place is packed and no english is heard. It’s interesting and contained in a single room. I feel good.

I exit and finally make it to the Origo coffee shop and it’s packed. I decide I’ll revisit the space when it’s a little quieter. I’m happy that I stopped by however as there’s a residential space right beside it with clothing line and an odd line of rocks/bricks reminiscent of Carl Andre’s work.

I look at the map and suddenly realize that I am relatively near The Palace of the Parliament and slowly meander my way there.

It is a god-awful, beautiful building. One of the many beautiful monstrosities, ever present and uniquely experienced by oblivious travellers in Bucharest

It is ‘the second largest administrative building in the world after The Pentagon’ 2 and I am told and entire village, roughly 60 000 people, were displaced to make room for the country’s Dictator’s misguided dream. This fact and the many that follow taint my view of the city and it’s various architectural marvels.

For the rest of the trip I walk around the city with the weight of this knowledge and I feel odd knowing that most of the pedestrians moving through Bucharest’s many streets and canals are unaware that these massive, communist chic buildings, these buildings that tower and contort their field of vision, are, I am told, an awful reminder of the force shown by the leader of the Socialist Republic of Romania.

I walk back and forth in front of the building and then look at my phone for food.

I discover there’s a supposedly a nice Mexican restaurant nearby.

I have a local beer and 3 veggie tacos. The place isn’t too busy but it feels louder as Americans discuss which place they should visit next and the pros and cons of each of restaurant’s happy hour specials.

I am reading Teju Cole’s Strange and Known Things. It’s a collection of essays and they live up to my high expectations. I loved the previous novel I’d read from him called Every Day Is For The Thief and as I read I draw comparisons to Berger and Sontag. He sees art and embraces it with passion. He notices social problems and fearlessly critiques them. It gives much to ponder on in a city ripe with a bloody history.

I walk back to the hostel and find out someone working for the same company I am is staying there. We go out for drinks and end up at a local karaoke bar. Locals seem to be celebrating a birthday, they also seem to have done before because every song is a knockout. The bar was suppose to be a quick stop for cheap beers but we spend the rest of the night there. I was suppose to leave early because I am going to Bran on the 7:45 train in the morning. By the time we make it back it is nearly 4 am. It’s going to be a rough morning.

The next day: Sinaia