Hi Everyone,
Around seven o'clock on Thursday evening while watching television I suddenly realised that night had fallen. The slight problem involved the fact that at that time of the evening it should still be light, still sunny even. But the darkness was thick and all enveloping.
Then came that familiar distant rumble of thunder with the huge drops of rain following shortly after. An early summer storm is not usual at all, but we had little idea what was on the way. For the next three hours almost constant lightening lit up the sky. The thunder never stopped rolling, just peaks and troughs in the noise level but never quiet. If ever the phrase, the Heavens opened, meant something it was during those three hours. And finally the wind grew and grew until it sounded like the roof was coming off. Never have I seen such a storm.
By the end of the evening one person was dead, over 250 trees had fallen blocking many streets and roads and parts of the city had no electricity. For a time all the TV stations went down and the mobile network also crashed. And it was not just Bucharest that experienced this - Ploiesti had a huge hail storm, Timisoara was lashed by heavy rain and winds and Craiova was left with fallen trees. And in the countryside a field containing 200 sheep was hit by lightening killing all the sheep.
The weekend before we had gone to the "muddy volcanoes". These are unique in Europe. Small volcanoes of mud bubble up continuously about 200kms north east of Bucharest. The result is an eeire lunar landscape of cracked mud mounds and the occasional belch from a liquid mud mini volcano. Surprisingly the mud is quite cold - I thought it would be super heated from below like lava or water in geysers.
The following weekend was followed by a holiday Monday (June 1st). So we took the opportunity to get away from Bucharest again and went to Sibiu in Transylvania. In 2007 Sibiu was European Capital of Culture and it is a lovely place with beautiful old buildings, a great picturesque square and a relaxed atmosphere. The fact that it was beautifully hot weather also enhanced the place. Sibiu is in the mountains where the air is fresher and cooler than Bucharest. But that weekend it was still 32c (nearly 90F). Those of you who have been to hot climates will know that you are always warned to keep hydrated and not consume too much alcohol. Unfortunately no-one seems to have informed Tiberiu's relatives who we stayed with. We came down for breakfast to find a bucket of tuica waiting for me. Tuica is a strong clear alcoholic drink made from plums. Tibi does not drink alcohol at all so they only stopped trying to get him to have some after one hour of constant pressure. But they saw that glimmer of weakness in my eye and that was it. Tibi's uncle kicked the chair from under me, pinned me to the floor with his knee and his wife got the tube down my throat, fitted the funnel and emptied the bucket. I think I gained consciousness about 3 days later. Tibi's uncle makes his own tuica.....and wine.....so the second I could focus they poured a two litre coca cola bottle of red wine down my throat.
Actually it is not as bad as it sounds having your stomach pumped.
On the way back from Sibiu we reached the only complete motorway in Romania (from Pitesti to Bucharest). Just 2 minutes on that motorway there was a huge bang and the car began to shake wildly. Tibi did a great job keeping control of it and getting over to the hard shoulder. One of the rear tyres had literally exploded, there was an enormous hole in the side of it. Thankfully we were safe and eventually returned to Bucharest just a few hours later than planned.
For those of you in the UK I hope you cope with the heatwave they are forecasting this week.
Take care. All the best,
Andrew xx
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Eurovision, parties and Royalty
Hi Everyone,
Where else could I live except in a country that is fanatical about Eurovision? Romania just loves it. In the UK the semi finals are shown on BBC3. Here they are on their main national station TVR1 live both evenings. They way they choose their entry song takes up a month of Saturday evenings. This country is serious about Eurovision.
And at the same time they are incredibly naive about it. They were astounded when I predicted, correctly of course, that Romania would give the Republic of Moldova 12 points and Moldova would give Romania 12 points. At the Eurovision party I went to in a friends house there was wailing, sack cloth and ashes, tears and curses being called down on countries that failed to give Romania any points. That meant a lot of countries are now cursed. In fact most of them! The Romanians were convinced that they stood a good chance of winning. Unfortuantely the only allies they had in their view were the inhabitants of the local deaf, blind and dumb institute. After a long evening they were disgusted that the great musical nation of Romania was 19th. And they would have been a lot lower if Moldova had not voted.
That evening was a hectic one. Earlier we went to the Athenaeum (a truely spectacular orante and beautiful concert hall) for a concert entitled Spring Flavours by the George Eminescu orchestra. This lovely two hour concert of various well known pieces was due to start at 6.30pm. Finishing at 8.30 was perfect to get to the start of Eurovision party at 9.00. However this is Romania. So the audience were allowed into the hall at 6.25pm, an indication that promptness and good timekeeping is not a Romanian virtue. And so we waited in our seats. Beautiful concert hall......really nice......oh look there's someone we know.......have a chat with them.....sit down again......mmm, lovely concert hall......oh there's so and so.....have a chat with them.....sit down once more.......concert hall is still very pretty.......WHEN WILL IT START??????? 50 minutes later was the answer! Being British, this sort of slap dash, whenever approach drives me up the wall.
In the end the concert finished at 9.40pm. So we had to do a Michael Schumacher across the city to arrive just in time for the start of Eurovision. But just before that, at the end of the concert there was the inevitable encore. The conductor came out to lead one more piece when one of the ladies in the orchestra walked to the front of the stage. She started speaking and we thought she was either introducing the last musical piece or paying tribute to the conductor. She said:
"I want to warn you all. This is a very dangerous time for Romania. We are all going to die. Everybody in Romania will die...."
The conductor just stood there smiling. But the first violinist interrupted her:
"We have heard this before from you" she said
"And you work for the KGB" said the strange woman before leaving the stage still shouting her warnings. Very bizzare.
The very second the performances finished on Eurovision we raced off to a friend's birthday party. During the party I kept being updated by messages to my mobile phone from 3 different friends on how the voting for Eurovision was going. Not that I am fanatical about Eurovision you understand.
In the middle of the following week I had a difficult decision. HRH Prince Charles was on a private visit to Romania - he owns a house and land in Transylvania which he visits about once a year. But the Embassy gets involved in all the arrangements, even though it is essentially a private visit. Prince Charles landed in Bucharest at 16.20, by 17.00 he was meeting the President of Romania at Cotroceni Palace, by 17.50 he was meeting the Prime Minister at Victoria Palace and then at 18.30 he was at the Ambassador's residence for tea with some guests. At 19.20 he flew by helicopter to Transylvania. And that was it. Apart from returning by helicopter to Bucharest and transferring straight to his British Airways flight 2 days later, that was our involvement. But it took a team of about 12 people weeks and weeks of planning, meetings, inspections, trial runs etc etc to prepare for this. I was involved in that and so the Ambassador promised that all those involved would have a chance to meet Prince Charles at the short garden party at the Residence. Unfortunately it coincided with the biggest celebrity party of the year in Romania, the annual VIVA! Party (organised by Tiberiu of course).
Well the choice was not very difficult really.....I went to the VIVA! Party.......but of course I told everyone that I had had to stand up Prince Charles to attend this! Well it's not often you can say that! Anyway, because Tibi was so busy with the party I arrived with a friend of ours, Marius Nedelcu, who was in a boy band called Akcent but is now following a solo career. Arriving with him in his sports car and walking down the red carpet with all the photographers shouting (things like "Get out the way old man let us see Marius") was better than shaking the hand of the man who has waited the longest in history to inherit the throne and ended up marrying a horse.
Well that's enough from me. Apart from to say that after 10 days of the temperature in Bucharest being above 28c they are forecasting 35c (94F) for the next couple of days. More about the weather in the next episode including the biggest storm Bucharest has seen for many years, a trip to Sibiu to visit some lovely people who insisted on force feeding me every minute of the day and the big event of the year for the Embassy - the Queen's Birthday Party.
All the best
Take care.
Andrew
Where else could I live except in a country that is fanatical about Eurovision? Romania just loves it. In the UK the semi finals are shown on BBC3. Here they are on their main national station TVR1 live both evenings. They way they choose their entry song takes up a month of Saturday evenings. This country is serious about Eurovision.
And at the same time they are incredibly naive about it. They were astounded when I predicted, correctly of course, that Romania would give the Republic of Moldova 12 points and Moldova would give Romania 12 points. At the Eurovision party I went to in a friends house there was wailing, sack cloth and ashes, tears and curses being called down on countries that failed to give Romania any points. That meant a lot of countries are now cursed. In fact most of them! The Romanians were convinced that they stood a good chance of winning. Unfortuantely the only allies they had in their view were the inhabitants of the local deaf, blind and dumb institute. After a long evening they were disgusted that the great musical nation of Romania was 19th. And they would have been a lot lower if Moldova had not voted.
That evening was a hectic one. Earlier we went to the Athenaeum (a truely spectacular orante and beautiful concert hall) for a concert entitled Spring Flavours by the George Eminescu orchestra. This lovely two hour concert of various well known pieces was due to start at 6.30pm. Finishing at 8.30 was perfect to get to the start of Eurovision party at 9.00. However this is Romania. So the audience were allowed into the hall at 6.25pm, an indication that promptness and good timekeeping is not a Romanian virtue. And so we waited in our seats. Beautiful concert hall......really nice......oh look there's someone we know.......have a chat with them.....sit down again......mmm, lovely concert hall......oh there's so and so.....have a chat with them.....sit down once more.......concert hall is still very pretty.......WHEN WILL IT START??????? 50 minutes later was the answer! Being British, this sort of slap dash, whenever approach drives me up the wall.
In the end the concert finished at 9.40pm. So we had to do a Michael Schumacher across the city to arrive just in time for the start of Eurovision. But just before that, at the end of the concert there was the inevitable encore. The conductor came out to lead one more piece when one of the ladies in the orchestra walked to the front of the stage. She started speaking and we thought she was either introducing the last musical piece or paying tribute to the conductor. She said:
"I want to warn you all. This is a very dangerous time for Romania. We are all going to die. Everybody in Romania will die...."
The conductor just stood there smiling. But the first violinist interrupted her:
"We have heard this before from you" she said
"And you work for the KGB" said the strange woman before leaving the stage still shouting her warnings. Very bizzare.
The very second the performances finished on Eurovision we raced off to a friend's birthday party. During the party I kept being updated by messages to my mobile phone from 3 different friends on how the voting for Eurovision was going. Not that I am fanatical about Eurovision you understand.
In the middle of the following week I had a difficult decision. HRH Prince Charles was on a private visit to Romania - he owns a house and land in Transylvania which he visits about once a year. But the Embassy gets involved in all the arrangements, even though it is essentially a private visit. Prince Charles landed in Bucharest at 16.20, by 17.00 he was meeting the President of Romania at Cotroceni Palace, by 17.50 he was meeting the Prime Minister at Victoria Palace and then at 18.30 he was at the Ambassador's residence for tea with some guests. At 19.20 he flew by helicopter to Transylvania. And that was it. Apart from returning by helicopter to Bucharest and transferring straight to his British Airways flight 2 days later, that was our involvement. But it took a team of about 12 people weeks and weeks of planning, meetings, inspections, trial runs etc etc to prepare for this. I was involved in that and so the Ambassador promised that all those involved would have a chance to meet Prince Charles at the short garden party at the Residence. Unfortunately it coincided with the biggest celebrity party of the year in Romania, the annual VIVA! Party (organised by Tiberiu of course).
Well the choice was not very difficult really.....I went to the VIVA! Party.......but of course I told everyone that I had had to stand up Prince Charles to attend this! Well it's not often you can say that! Anyway, because Tibi was so busy with the party I arrived with a friend of ours, Marius Nedelcu, who was in a boy band called Akcent but is now following a solo career. Arriving with him in his sports car and walking down the red carpet with all the photographers shouting (things like "Get out the way old man let us see Marius") was better than shaking the hand of the man who has waited the longest in history to inherit the throne and ended up marrying a horse.
Well that's enough from me. Apart from to say that after 10 days of the temperature in Bucharest being above 28c they are forecasting 35c (94F) for the next couple of days. More about the weather in the next episode including the biggest storm Bucharest has seen for many years, a trip to Sibiu to visit some lovely people who insisted on force feeding me every minute of the day and the big event of the year for the Embassy - the Queen's Birthday Party.
All the best
Take care.
Andrew
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