Saturday, September 28, Bucharest

After a nice buffet breakfast we set out walking. (We didn't do a hop-on hop-off tour here because part of the Road Scholar program is a city tour on the day after we finish at the orphanage.). Covered a huge part of the city and found it much as we'd been warned.  It's crumbling down. There are many once beautiful buildings, once beautiful parks, and once beautiful avenues, but most everything is falling apart and untended. There are occasional signs of work being done, but they are few and small scale.  And there are many buildings from the last half of the twentieth century that were ugly when they were new and are also as decrepit as those 100 years older.

Piata Romana, a major juncture of boulevards.  Tiles suggest an intent to repave but they look like they've been sitting there awhile.

The fresh yellow paint is an English publishing house. Above that is what the rest of the building looks like

Piata Unirii, another major hub in need of TLC

Charlie said I should take pictures of some of the better stuff.  This was taken through a wrought iron fence. I don't know what the building is, but even this "good" one needs the grounds tidied and the construction area cleaned up!

On the other hand, we haven't seen as many homeless as in Hungary (or San Diego), nor have we seen the Romish street scammers.  People are not as stylishly dressed as in Hungary, but many have cell phones, and many speak English.

We often travel with a shopping "mission" though I noticed we had no requests from friends and family for anything from this part of the world.  Anyway, Charlie has been searching for a hat, so we've been popping in and out of all kinds of places from Ferragamos to souvenir shops.  Finally, success!  We went into a multistory department store that looked like a bunch of concession shops all jumbled together.  We went upstairs and down, through many men's departments until he found what he was looking for, but it was too big.  The saleswoman took us into a back hall to what turned out to be the alterations department. The seamstress sewed a felt band under the existing hatband (no charge) and C.was a happy camper.

Our alterations lady with Charlie's hat

Came back to our hotel for a nap before our concert tonight.  At least one of us was successful.  I gave up and started this.  This month has been the big biennial George Enescu festival. He was a favorite son, a composer, and tonight we will hear the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Later

Who knew?  We really enjoyed the performance.  It drew on folk themes in a minor key, so parts were almost klezmer-like.  The second piece was Mahler, never one of my favorites, but this was quite melodic, and like a movie sound track.  I guess for all of my cultural aspirations, I really like the low brow stuff.  Let's call this music accessible.

Two choruses and an operatic soloist for just one section of one movement.  And seven percussionists!  This Mahler was a 100 minute production.

And so to bed.

22,068 steps (9.4 miles)