Timisoara, Romania

I've been too busy to write about this place lately, mostly since I always end up going there randomly. In March I went there twice.

The first time I had plenty of time to get through security and remembered everything. A large group of Hasidim Jews joined me on the journey, at least 50 or more of them. While I sat there, watching movies of varying degrees of pass ability (The Invention of Lying was Ho-Hum, Where the Wild Things Are made me choke up in tears, and The Informant bored me and somewhat brought me down) the pilot advised the passengers to pray in their seats. Landing in Timisoara, I realized that the rain I left behind in New York followed me. Going halfway across the world couldn't save me from the gray dreariness.

Romania's main city has nothing on this one. For one thing, much of the architecture looks beautiful, maintained, clean, with very little to indicate that it had gone through the same Communist period that befell Bucharest. My guide advised me that the city had been built on a swamp long ago and the architecture was from the Hapsburg Empire. So much so that people called it "Little Vienna". A low rise city, it literally couldn't be torn down. Due to being built on a swamp, those gross communist blocks could not be replicated en mass like they were in Bucharest. Soil conditions generally did not permit buildings taller than 10 stories (without great expense of course). Thus, the architecture was saved by its environment.

Rain poured through every hole. I managed to get through to the center, where I saw the main square. The square looked beautiful, and reminded me somewhat of Krakow in Poland. You could see small wooden stands that sold various flowers and other not very necessary items. Absinthe is available there, like it is here. However, it is more fun to buy it in some seedy liquor store there. Over here, our liquor stores don't have that weird vibe, just one of depression and sin.

Snow showed up the next morning as I explored the country side. Even this looked better than Bucharest, though not as pretty as the central city. Random fields of pollution lay about, and I got to see a cart lead by a horse with car tires. Thankfully I did not take a full picture of the rider, since that sort of thing would be disrespectful. All these colors came about, that normally are off limits in our strictly regimented color scheme society. Glorious shades of orange, olives, pinks, turquoise and other unspeakable joys. Finally the sun came out and I went home, running through airports to make my necessary connections.

When I left to Timisoara the second time the weather was beautiful. I made the flight on the skin of my teeth, running around like some chicken with its head cut off. Barely made it before the boarding call. Didn't even get to read my book, Mason & Dixon, which has been floating around in my mind for so long.

No one interesting boarded the flight with me. Everyone seemed to be pretty content in their various worlds, and left me to my devices. Movies reappeared and I re-watched the actually good movie An Education with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and the surprisingly intense movie Pope Joan, which had some wonderful fighting scenes. I attempted to watch New Moon, but just couldn't get through more than 2 minutes. Dreadful, dreadful movie probably used to torture inmates somewhere (please, just smash my toes with a hammer again! What's the point of this movies, the acting is terrible!)

Got there and the sun shone brightly on everything. This time everyone stood outside. I was given the worst yogurt I've ever had in my entire life and the worst traffic I've experienced in a while. Separate, neither would mean much. Together they made my life hell and I walked through the city with a gross feeling in my stomach. Dinner helped with that, as did the unreasonable amount of sparkling water. THX 1138 played on the TCM movie channel, as did the movie Dracula. I thought to myself "Why would a country promote this blood sucking jerk? Wouldn't they want to show a deeper, less well-known part of their culture, like the movie "Youth without Youth"? But nah, I guess foreigners were expecting vampires. Oh well.

Friday felt fantastic. I walked through a gross rat infested pollution park to get to a major roundabout. Walking through the grass, I noticed a part of someone's lower jawbone lying on the grass. Yes, please do not mess around here please, it seemed to say. Immediately upon seeing this, I changed the direction I was walking it.

Instead I found a beautiful, very low rise part of the city, mostly residential. Good thing that skull fragment showed me the way. And the sunlight helped illuminate everything. Finally I even found some decent sweets for once, which eluded me on my first visit.

The trip home consisted of me passing out and taking way too many trains.