Thomas Bowar Photography

In my last post I talked about being in Romania, but neglected to mention why I was there. I work for a large radio equipment manufacturer and I was in Romania to teach a class on one of our products to a customer.

One thing that was obvious in Bucharest was that they have not kept control over the use of billboards (or worse: huge banners). In every large intersection, there are gigantic banners hanging on the sides of building facing the plaza, and often billboards and even giant screen televisions, advertising many different products. It is quite an eyesore to someone like me who would rather see the architecture. But this is a country in the process of learning how to have a free market economy.

The American capitalism influence is heavy here. Many of the products are American, and in fact some of the advertising is in English.

There is quite a mix of cultures here. While I’m sure that outside of the big cities it is still pretty pure Romanian, in the city it is a mix of English, German, Romanian, and probably other languages I’m not familiar with.

Here’s a funny sign I saw while walking down the street (so close to the equivalent American sign):

It is nice to see (and hear) that Romanians still cherish Christmas customs. Everywhere I went, I heard "Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!". Not like the politically correct Happy Holidays I hear so much in the US now.

There were a wide range of decorations all around, much of it very simple, like a string of lights snaking around the front of a building, or hung in a tree. In the hotel (Howard Johnson’s, an American chain), I heard American Christmas carols all week.

On Thursday, when I had some time to walk around the city, I came upon a museum that I think they call the Museum of Villages. They happened to have an exhibit of Romanian photojournalist’s work, so I went right in. What perfect timing! It was a great glimpse into the country and recent history.

Outside the museum they were setting up for a Christmas program that would happen that night. Every year they have choirs of children singing Christmas songs and (I think) dancing.

A last note about my walkabout: While walking back to the hotel, I decided to stop at McDonalds, both to have a little connection to America and to see how they do a McDonalds in Romania.

Other than the name change on the sandwich, I didn’t notice any difference from the McDonalds down the street from home or office in Minnesota. But it was so busy that there was almost nowhere to sit inside (note the people willing to sit outside in the cold December air - about freezing, 0 C, 32 F). So when I found a table, another man asked if he could sit at my table a couple of minutes later. I decided that rather than sit there awkwardly not looking at each other and not talking for the next 10 minutes, I should ask him if he spoke English. To my delight he did, so for the rest of my meal (and a few minutes more) we talked about Romania, the recent history, the revolution of 1989, the changes since then.

He asked where in the US I lived, I asked what he did for a living (manager at a concrete plant). He said he did not like the city, that it was very different from the smaller villages of Romania. He said they are losing much of the old culture and traditions in the city.

All in all, I found the Romanian people to be a little shy, but very nice. Several times when I wanted to buy something but the clerk didn’t speak English, someone would step up and translate for me. At one point I dropped my cell phone, and a man immediately picked it up and followed me a few steps to give it back to me.

I’ll be going back in January to do a second product training class, with a stop in the UK on the way back for another class. That should yield some more interesting pictures, and hopefully even more interesting conversations.

One last picture, shot in the terminal in Munich on my way to Bucharest.

It’s been awhile, but I have some interesting things to post.

I’ll start with this: I’m in Romania. My first trip to Europe, or anywhere overseas for that matter, has brought me to a country with a fascinating history.

In the years following World War II, Romania was under communist control as was much of eastern Europe. In the last 25 years of that control up until 1989, the country was run a one of the most despicable dictators of the post war era, Nicolae Ceauşescu. As I walked the streets of Bucharest this morning, I saw memorials to the revolution in December of 1989 that overthrew this dictator.

Afterwards I realized that this week is exactly the 18th anniversary of the revolution. It began in a western city called Timişoara and spread to Bucharest, the capital. Within a few days, the dictator and his wife were arrested, tried and convicted. They were executed on Christmas Day.

As I walked along one of the main streets in Bucharest, the first thing I saw were many street vendors selling Christmas presents.

The buildings here are mostly old architecture, much of it from the Communist era. Grey, dull, but there are changes in the works. Romania has had a rapidly improving economy since 2000. There is a lot of new construction, and since Romania joined the European Union on the first of the year 2007, there expectations of even more improvement. One of the drivers of the cars that took me to work at the office here told me that people had hoped that there would be better wages with the country joining the EU, but there has been nothing so far. But he still expects that things will eventually change.

The view from my hotel room (with reflections from curtains):

And from the street:

More architecture and view from the streets:

One problem that Bucharest has to contend with is the traffic. I have seen bad traffic in Mexico City, and I imagine many other large cities have it too, but the drivers in Bucharest are both out of control and amazing. In the large intersections, it’s as if there are no traffic laws. Drivers go any which way (keeping an approximation of staying to the right) to get where they want to go. Because the traffic is basically stopped most of the time, at the large intersections where they have a round area in the middle with some kind of statue or memorial with several streets coming in from different directions, the drivers will try to cut straight across several lanes of traffic, weaving in between the stopped cars to get to the other side, so they can go in from one street and out another street on the other side of the plaza.

Most of these intersections or plazas are controlled by traffic police, but even they seem almost helpless to control so much bad driving. I once saw a whole flow of traffic that made a right turn at a stopped intersection, so that they could all go half a block and then make a U turn to merge into the traffic going the other direction, rather than wait to make a left turn.

The amazing part is that even with all the cars doing a pseudo push and shove through the intersections, every car struggling for a better position by a few inches, I never saw an accident. Not even a scratch. Many times the car I was riding in was only inches from the cars next to us, but no one actually touched. My driver would sometimes whiz past cars a foot on either side of us at 20 miles per hour without slowing down. I guess you get used to it.

Typical daytime traffic, it gets much worse during evening rush hour:

Although the office where I was working was away from downtown, the traffic was horrendous going back to downtown at night compared to going to the office in the morning. This has to be due to the number of people who live in apartments downtown. One morning it took 15 minutes to get there; that evening it took and hour and a half to get back to the hotel. Most of the time we were sitting still in the car.

I have to get on a plane in a few hours to go home, so I will post more when I get home.