Everyone is out of the house for various reasons, so I went for a walk around Titan, Ioana's neighborhood in Bucharest. Winter is in full swing. Many people walk in the road, because the sidewalks aren't cleared as a general matter. They're well-packed from walking, though, so I don't have any real problem with them.
It's the middle of the school day, but it seems like all the kids are at home. Maybe schools are closed because of the snow. In this bloc, a bunch of kids were down in the yard throwing snowballs. Other children opened up the windows of their apartments and were trying to get the kids below to throw snow up through the windows. Eventually parents began to show up and ruined the whole thing.
[Correction: Io tells me this building is actually a school. So that explains that. And makes it super-funny how the kids were throwing snow up through the windows and then the teachers showed up.]
More kids in the snow. Are there no orphanages?
Just down the street from Io's bloc is this building. The blocs were all built during Communist times and are pretty grim on the outside and ruthlessly functional minimalist construction on the inside (although every one I've seen has been nicely decorated). This building, though, is a post-revolution capitalist-era building. Io says the condos inside are supposed to be very luxurious, for those who can afford them.
Interestingly, the very next block is basically a Romanian slum. I can't remember anywhere in America where I've seen this sort of juxtaposition. We definitely have both sorts of houses, but not as next-door neighbors. As I was walking back up the road right after taking this photo, a couple of Roma (gypsy) children were coming the other way, back from the market. One of them stopped dead in the middle of the road, pulled down his pants, and took a giant piss into the street. At first I thought, Wow, who would pay exorbitant rent to live in a place where people piss in the road right in front of your building? But then I thought about New York City, and about the super-expensive condos they've started installing in downtown LA, and I guess we do the same thing.
The market was in full swing. I stopped in for a merdenele pastry from the new bakery that opened since the last time I was here. They have better merdenele than the old place. And still only 40 cents. What a country! The guy in the picture was here to do some major grocery shopping, with a sled tied to his bicycle to haul stuff home.
Eventually I headed home. Nice walk! I've definitely gotten comfortable maneuvering around this part of Bucharest, buying occasional things, etc. And I've mastered getting back home.
Much of Bucharest, including Titan, is an absolute maze. The business districts are dominated by multiple copies of the same businesses (Western Union, Maxbet casinos, Raiffeisen Bank, identical-looking pharmacies, etc). Probably LA looks the same way to someone who's not used to it, all strip malls and Starbucks, but for me it can be really disorienting to try and figure out which street I'm on. The residential areas are even worse, because they are just street after street of literally identical blocs.
That is a satellite photo of Titan, with Tania's place in the middle (for a clearer view, you can see a larger version at this blog's associated Picasa site. All the photos from this blog can be viewed in larger, hi-res versions there). In the upper left you can see the market. All the blocs are identical. Imagine yourself dropped in the middle of that maze and trying to find one particular building door. The first time I did it I thought I would be OK because I memorized that we live in Bloc 19. What I didn't realize, though, is that the entire building is called Bloc 19, and you also need to know the number of your entrance door (in our case, 6). Otherwise, it's like knowing that you live in the 11000 block of Acama Street in Los Angeles. That's better than nothing, but doesn't really get you where you're going.
But, like I said, it's all coming together now.
Bonus picture of baby belly:
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