September 29, 2008: More Touring

Dear Friend,

Today was somewhat relaxing. I did some work on the blog in the A.R.T. Fusion office, sent out some emails, and caught up with my friends in Lupeni. It was planned that I should go check out the art museum today. When Luisa and I arrived, though, we discovered it was closed. Apparently museums in general are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays in Romania, so I’ll have to wait. The building used to be a palace. Across the street from the museum is a really tall statue. It’s a spire that looks somewhat similar to the Washington Memorial except for the large, brown, potato looking thing it’s stabbing. Apparently the spire represents Democracy and the potato represents Communism. There are also connotations to Vlad the Impaler (Dracula) whose infamous way of killing his enemies was to impale them on pikes in such a way that they suffered to death. So, there’s all kinds of patriotism happening here. The statue has been the subject of much controversy for some time.

Luisa took me instead to a coffee shop/bookstore. The menu in the coffee shop specialized in a number of different teas. Much to Luisa's surprise (and my continual dismay) she discovered I didn’t like tea. We had conversations about school and future plans. Luisa is studying to become a doctor at the medical school here in Bucureşti. She had applied to a couple of schools in the States, including Princeton, but none of the scholarship or loan opportunities worked out. If she had managed to make it to the States she would’ve studied microbiology, or something related to that. I explained how I thought my being Romania was a God-given opportunity and how I'm now trying to take full advantage of it. Part of that is learning the language, which Luisa found rather curious. She found it interesting that I (or anyone) would go through the lengths of learning another language as a way of serving the people who speak that language. I explained that doing so was a way of trying to give back to the people who have already given you so much.

We spent the rest of the time browsing the bookstore. Most of what I saw on the first level were books in Romanian, though many of the books were familiar. I remember seeing books by Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Philip K. Dick, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Leo Tolstoy. The second level had books in English, some of which were as expensive as forty-six lei even though they were paperback. I was happy to find, though, that most of the classics were priced at around nine lei. I highly doubt I'll buy any books here (I bought quite a few in London) but it was still a relief to find the really good stuff wasn't monetarily inaccessible. I really like bookstores, especially ones that are kind of hole-in-the-wall places. That’s what this one was.

Not much else happened. We returned to the flat and everything was shutdown for the night. I spoke with Vali about seeing Romeo and Juliet tomorrow night. I had seen quite a few posters for it in my tours of the city and thought it would be a great opportunity for me to see a play in Romania I was already familiar with. The poster looked cool, too, and though you should never judge a play by its poster I still wanted to see it. Vali has some theatre passes, knows some people, stuff like that, and I was hoping he'd also be interested in seeing it. Hopefully we can make it.

Blessings.
Kailen