Housing Update/Trip to Budapest

I tried to upload some pictures of Cismigiu Park, but Blogger was giving me a lot of trouble, so I guess those will have to wait. In the mean time, I wanted to give you an update on my housing situation. After a week or so of frustration, I've found an apartment (I seem to recall writing something like this before...). It is in another old apartment bloc, but this one is remodeled, and the interior is very nice. It is a spacious two bedroom apartment, which I will share with Jonathan, who is from France and is working for a construction company here in Bucharest. I'm looking forward to getting settled in (again) and to having reliable internet access.

However, I won't be moving in for another week, because the apartment isn't available until June 3rd. This actually works out great, though, because my boyfriend, Adam is coming to visit this week, and we're planning on spending a week traveling. As things stand now, we'll be spending three days in Budapest, Hungary followed by two days in Krakow, Poland. We'll be returning just in time to move into my new apartment. I'll be taking a lot of pictures during our travels, but I'm not sure what my internet situation will be, so I may not be able to post much until after I get back from Krakow. So wish me Drum Bun (the Romanian equivalent of Bon Voyage), and try not to miss me too much!

My Research

One of the reasons for my trip was to conduct research for my masters thesis on Romanian communism. I'll be writing my thesis over the course of the next year back in Indiana, but it will require sources that I can only get my hands on in Romania. Therefore, when I haven't been trying to find a place to live or solve banking problems, I've been doing research. I've spent a few days in the Arhivele Nationale ale Romaniei (National Archives) and today I went to the Biblioteca Nationala a Romaniei (National Library). For a history nerd like me, it is really exciting to see these documents first hand. On Wednesday, I read the minutes from a meeting in which the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party made a momentous decision in 1966. Right across from the Archives is Cismigiu Park, Bucharest's most famous park. Here is a picture of the Archives building from the park:



And here:

Is the signature of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

Good Bye Lenin!

For those of you who have not seen the film Good Bye Lenin!, I highly recommend it. As someone who has always had lingering sympathies for communist reformers (the ones like Imre Nagy in Hungary who wanted to create a more democratic socialist system), the way the main character seeks to combine the best aspects of pre- and post- 1989 Germany tugs at my heartstrings. Not to ruin the story for all of you, but it revolves around a young man in East Germany whose mother was in a coma during the fall of the Berlin Wall and all of the events surrounding it. She wakes up after a year or so of changes in the German Democratic Republic, and the doctors tell her son that any major shocks could be very dangerous for her. In order to keep the shock of the fall of communism from harming his mother, he tries to keep her in the dark, hiding the changes that have taken place and fabricating news stories for his bedridden mother.

The reason I'm telling you about all of this is two-fold. First, I want to encourage you to see an excellent film. And second, it's a round about way of introducing some photos. As Good By Lenin reveals, a lot of things changed in Eastern Europe after the fall of communism. However, there are still places (a lot of them, really) where you can find the aesthetics of communism. If you are feeling "ostolgic" as they say in Germany, look no further than an un-remodeled apartment in Bucharest. Many of the apartments in the blocs that line Bucharest's streets retain their original finishings, making them lived-in relics of the communist past. Some apartments in the blocs have been remodeled and are very nice by Western standards. Before I left the apartment that I was staying in last week, I took some pictures to share with you. Obviously many of the consumer goods that are now available were not around under communism, so I'm not sure how much has changed about this apartment, but I feel confident that a lot of the fixtures remain the same. So here they are:



Bucataria- The kitchen


Balconul- The balcony


Baia- The bathroom



Sufrageria-The dining room, where I was staying, on the pullout couch in the picture.

The Paris of the East

I've been told that Bucharest is called "The Paris of the East," and I never quite understood why anyone would call it that. Much of the city is made up of ugly concrete apartment buildings and equally unattractive edifices. During the communist period, dictator Nicolae Ceausescu destroyed entire neighborhoods full of beautiful old homes and churches in order to remake the city as he wanted it. As a result, Bucharest is home to the Palace of the People (now called the Palace of the Parliament), which is the second largest building in the world, and Bulavardul Unirii, the central street of Bucharest, which is exactly one meter wider than the Champs-Elysees in Paris. But on the other hand, it is lacking much of the grandeur and beauty that led people to compare it to Paris. One of my new friends here, Radu, used to be a tour guide for German tourists, and he was kind enough to show me some of the sights of the "Old City," a beautiful neighborhood of buildings from the 19th and early 20th century. It survived the communist period, even if some of the buildings are a bit out of repair. Looking at these beautiful streets, I can start to see why someone would call Bucharest the Paris of the East.




This is the CEC Bank building. It was originally the national bank of Romania, which was founded after the Kingdom of Romania gained its independence from the Ottoman Empire. The first people to make deposits at this bank were the King and Queen of Romania. They wanted to inspire confidence in the national bank, so they both opened accounts there.


Here is the Romanian History Museum. I'm looking forward to seeing the inside of it!




Strada Lipscani, the Street of the Lipscans, is so called because in the 19th century it was home to many stores run by merchants from Leipzig, Germany.




Valea Regilor, The Valley of the Kings, is a small walking-street full of restaurants and cafes serving Mediteranian and Near Eastern food. The street is covered will a stained glass roof, which ends in a beautiful dome:

Housing Update

There's good news and there's bad news here in Bucharest. Which would you like to hear first? I guess I'll start with the bad news, so that I can end this post on a good note.

My living situation here has gone south rather quickly. As I mentioned in my last post, I've been having a lot of trouble getting access to my bank account. Unfortunately this meant that I did not have enough money to pay both my first month's rent and my security deposit upfront. My roommate/landlady, Magda, was very understanding at first, and she told me that I could pay her when I had the money. However, by the next day she had changed her mind, and she was suddenly worried that I was trying to rip her off. Naturally, her suspicion of me does not make for a very cozy living situation, and I have decided to move out. I'm not looking forward to apartment hunting again, but I think it will be for the best.

Before I decided to move out, I took some pictures from the balcony and the kitchen window. It has been beautiful and sunny since I arrived, which makes for nice pictures. Here they are:





Now for the good news. After calling around a bit and worrying about where I'm going to stay while I look for a new place, I got in touch with Nicole, the summer intern in the economics section of the U.S. Embassy. Nicole is also a masters student at Indiana University's Russian and East European Institute, although I hadn't met her because she has been living in Romania for a year on a Fulbright Fellowship. I called Nicole, and she said that I can stay with her while I look for somewhere to live. It was a great relief to talk to someone who can relate to what I'm going through. I'm so thankful for Nicole, and everyone else who has helped me or been friendly to me over the past few days! I'll keep you updated on my second attempt at finding an apartment.

An Adventure

As those of you who have talked to me since I arrived in Bucharest already know, it's been a rough couple of days. I've had a lot of trouble with money (it took all day, five banks, and waiting in countless lines to get my travelers' checks cashed, and my debit/ATM card won't work in Romania), and I've been feeling very isolated and lonely. It's not an easy thing to be alone so far from home. When I've traveled before, I've always been with someone I knew. Whether it was family, friends, or just some people on the same study abroad program, there were always people around that I knew and could talk with in English. This trip is a bit different. I'm here alone. I didn't (and mostly still don't) know anyone in the city. Nothing that terrible has happened; my passport hasn't been stolen, I haven't been arrested for no reason by corrupt police officers, or anything horrble like that. But just the same, it hasn't been easy.

However, things are slowly improving. I think I've figured out the money situation. I've found an apartment with a somewhat comfortable bed, a good location, and a nice roommate. My Romanian is improving by leaps and bounds. And today is the first day that I haven't woken up, realized where I was, and wanted to cry. In fact, I haven't cried at all today. It might seem like a small thing, but it's a sign that things are getting better. One of the reasons for this improvement was a change in my thinking about the situation. I started to reflect on the fact that this is an adventure. And yes, adventures are supposed to be fun and exciting, but if I've learned anything from reading Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and watching Star Wars, it's that adventures aren't always fun, and they often aren't easy. There are a lot of times during adventures when things just flat out suck, times when you want to give up and go home. And when you're watching a movie or reading a book, you get to share in the suspense and excitement, but you don't have to experience the difficulties. So I started to think of this as an adventure. Not just the exciting parts, but a real adventure, hard parts and all. That's been helping me to feel better about being lonely, about wanting to go home, and all of that. It's sort of like facing down Voldemort, or blowing up the Death Star, or trudging through Mordor, only much more mundane.

I'm sorry if that was a bit of a downer. It really isn't supposed to be. Because the point is that I'm feeling better. I'm feeling more settled, and I met one of my Romanian "pen pals" last night, and he showed me around the city a bit. I'm looking forward to meeting more people and making friends here. I'm finding out that Bucharest is actually kind of a cool place, if you know where to look. But more on that (with pictures!) later. I just tried to upload some pictures that I took this morning, but unfortunately I'm still working from an "internet cafe" (which is full of teenage and pre-teen boys playing video games. One of them keeps showing off his English by saying charming things like "Oh, my f***ing God!"), and for some reason, this computer won't let me upload photos. More to come soon! Miss you!

Bucharest Day 3

Sorry for the long wait, but just so you know, I made it here safely. I arrived in Bucharest at about 3:30pm local time on Tuesday afternoon. I'm blogging from an internet "cafe" where they charge by the minute for the use of their computers, so I'll have to make this quick. Here are a few things that I wanted to share:

The Hostel
Ok, so the hostel that I stayed in was less than ideal. If you're coming to Bucharest, I do not reccomend the Funky Chicken Hostel. Now, I haven't seen the movie "Hostel," but I know the gist of it from previews and so on. I can assure you that this hostel was nothing like the one in the film. The most dangerous things about this hostel were the terribly uncomfortable mattresses, the faint mildew smell, and last but not least, my hair dryer. I attempted to plug in my hairdryer this morning, using the apropriate (or so I thought)voltage converter, and as soon as I tried to turn it on, the plug sparked, and the power went out to the entire floor of the hostel. It took a while for the proprietress to figure out how to work the fuse box, but eventually the lights came back on, and she came to tell me "It was something in the house. I had only to push a button."

My New Apartment
Thankfully, I get to check out of said hostel today because I have found an apartment. I'm moving in at about 3 this afternoon. I'm really looking forward to moving in and unpack some of my things. I'm renting a room from a Romanian woman named Magda. The apartment is small but clean, and it has a balony. I'm living in what is technically the dining room and sleeping on a day bed/futon-like thing. The apartment is on the seventh floor of a Ceausescu-Era apartment bloc, and it is about 100 meters from a metro station. The area that it's in is a pretty residential area in central Bucharest. I'll post pictures soon, and we'll see if you agree with me about the prettiness of the neighborhood. It may be that you have to love Eastern Europe to appreciate its understated charm. Oh, and one more thing, Magda doesn't speak English. This will make things slightly difficult, but I think that in the long run it will be great. It will be great practice for me, like a live-in Romanian tutor.

Dor
Before I go, I thought I'd leave you with a little Romanian lesson. The first word I'm going to share with you has no direct translation in English. The word is 'dor.'
It is a noun, and the best way to translate it is "an intense longing for home, one's country, or one's people." I wanted to share this word with you today, because that's how I feel this morning. Dor. I think I finally understand what it means. It hurts, almost physically, to be so far from everyone I care about. I miss you all! Mi-e dor de va.

By this time tomorrow...

...I'll be somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. My flight leaves tomorrow at 6pm, and I arrive in Bucharest at about 3pm on Tuesday. I'm pretty much ready to go. I just need to get my bags organized tomorrow morning and buy some outlet converters, then I'll be set. I'll be sure to update once I get settled in and get an internet connection!

Welcome Back!

As you may have heard, I'm going back to Romania this summer to do research for my MA thesis and (hopefully) work in the political section of the U.S. Embassy. At the request of some of my family and friends, I'm going to be keeping a blog of my travels again. All of the posts from my 2006 trip are still here if you care to read them, but I've changed the title of the blog. In 2006 it was called 'Romania Si Asa Mai Departe,' which means 'Romania and so on.' The new incarnation of the blog is entitled 'Vara Mea in Bucuresti,' meaning 'My Summer in Bucharest.'

To get things started, I'll fill you in on the logistics and purpose of this trip. I leave for Bucharest on Monday, May 12 from JFK airport in New York. After a layover in Madrid, I will arrive in Bucharest in the late afternoon of May 13. Once there, I'll spend a few days looking for a place to live and finding the archives and libraries that I'll need to visit for my thesis. After I get settled in, I'll spend the first month researching, sitting in on a class at the National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, and traveling around Hungary and Romania with Adam, who will be visiting for three weeks. By the second week of June, I hope to start my internship at the U.S. Embassy, where I'll work for ten weeks before returning to the U.S. on August 19.

Right now, my departure is just over a week away, and I'm simultaneously excited and nervous. The reasons for my excitement should be pretty obvious. I've been wanting to get back to Romania ever since I left two years ago; I'm looking forward to seeing more of the country and improving my language skills; and it'll be an adventure. The nervousness is probably pretty easy to explain, too. I don't know where I'm going to live once I get there; I have to pack enough clothes and other essentials for three months (I'm sure to forget something!); and I still haven't heard about my security clearance for my state department internship. I'll explain more about that in future posts. In the meantime, wish me luck with my packing and apartment hunting!