hey all - a quick one I guess - or who knows?

Met up with my uncle Val, who is in town for a few days because he is attending a memorial on Saturday for a university professor of his. Tomorrow we are planning to go to Ploiesti (I think I may have mentioned that already once), where he and my mother grew up. It's a city about an hour outside of Bucharest.

I was rather pleased with myself earlier, because I was finally able to make my laptop work again. So hopefully things like posting blogs and pictures will become something I can do with a little more ease.

Interesting things that have happened recently?

Yesterday, I went with Marica to the northern part of Bucharest, near Parcul Herestrau (the big park in Bucharest) and the Arcul de Triumf, (a triumphal arch modeled after Paris' Arc de Triomphe to visit with my grandfather's cousin, Suzanna.


Marica and I stayed there for over two hours at Suzanna's chatting about all sorts of things - including the current state of Romanian film and culture in general and how those currently involved view the art and literature of before (particularly anything created during the communist period), as well as family-related updates and stories.


Suzanna and I in front of her house.

After the meeting, Marica and I walked around a bit through the park and through the neighborhood. At one point she realized we were very near the house where she had spent several early years of her childhood with my great grandmother, my grandfather, and several other family members. So we walked to the street corner where the house used to be and she described to me what it used to look like - where the entrances were and the garden - and how at one point the house had really rested on the outskirts of the city and you could see the cornfields beyond it. There are, of course, no more cornfields - or any fields for that matter.

In the evening, I went to the theater again, this time with my father's friend Liliana and her mother, who at one point had been an acting professor of Marica's. We saw a pieace by Dan Puric in an old old theater on Strada Lipscani called "Made in Romania". It was a combination dance and theatrical piece.

Lipscani is the old center of Bucharest and at one one Str. Lipscani was the main commercial road.

However, I will get into the details of the piece and about Str. Lipscani (because I want post a little description about it and have one or two pictures) another time. Val and I need to catch our train. :)