Hello Everyone:
Joyfully, I have rented, scoured, and fortified (with pots, pans, IKEA miscellany, and one plant) a well-lit apartment on little Piatza Lahovari, just off very grand Piatza Romana (where Romulus and Remus are suckled by an emaciated she-wolf cast in bronze). If you point your finger right into the heart of the labyrinthine map of Bucharest, that’s where we live.
We have three “bedrooms”, two of which have windowed-in balconies from which I spend too much time sipping coffee and watching the action on the street below (mainly just pedestrians trying to negotiate traffic and icy sidewalks), a large kitchen, and a sitting room complete with nearly comfortable wicker furniture and a television that plays CNN. Lahovari square is home to one excellent restaurant with a wood-burning pizza oven (yes, I admit that I walk by now and then to press my face up against the plate glass just to admire their massive oven), one 19th century mini-palace with an impossibly elegant wine garden out back, and a series of little shops, including a garish red and white SEX SHOP. In fact, to find our apartment, I tell people to “come to Lahovari square and follow the arrow to the entrance to SEX SHOP….then buzz apartment 50.” We’re hard to miss.
Within easy striking distance (i.e. five minutes by foot) is the disheveled building where I teach (for an hour and a half twice a week) and where Sophia will board her mini-bus with all the other uniformed kindergarteners to depart for school each morning. In addition to doing “ballet” for gym class, her kindergarten offers the choice of three extra language classes: Turkish, Arabic, and Romanian. I think she’s going to have a blast.
Heading in the opposite direction is the Amzei market, with both indoor and outdoor vendors selling a wide variety of vegetables and fruits, not to mention a thousand unidentifiable pickled products, many of which look very delicious.
In short, the circumference of my daily rounds is limited to a space about the size of our block in Meadville, which is that way it happens in big cities. Beyond that, of course, there’s a zillion museums, concert halls, and old neighborhoods to explore in every direcftion. I’ll attend a concert of Schubert leider next week for eight dollars, for instance, and I’m going to hear an Israeli poet read her poems in Romanian tomorrow night. Tomorrow I volunteered to serve as the "voice" of the National Museum of Art; they are recording an English language head-set tour, and I'll be reading the six hours of text that tourists will listen to as they gaze upon the art. I’m even playing soccer inside a weird dome lined with Astroturf.
Needless to say, none of it seems quite complete without Kerry, Sophia and Alexander here. It has taken me the better part of three weeks to find us housing and to work out the kinks of daily existence, however, so they’ll be arriving just in time to participate in the fascinations of Bucharest without having to endure the frustrations and bewilderment that even the veteran inhabitants seem to find annoying.
My classes begin this week. Evidently the students follow two educational philosophies: rampant plagiarism and virtual non-attendance. I’m hoping to terrify them away from the former and cure them of the latter with my irresistible Yankee charms.
Once the rest of the Bacchae arrive, we'll update the blog with more details about our new existence here. We'll take accurate dictations from Sophia and Alexander, too, so they can report their impressions in their own words.
Love, from the Sex Shop,
Christopher
Joyfully, I have rented, scoured, and fortified (with pots, pans, IKEA miscellany, and one plant) a well-lit apartment on little Piatza Lahovari, just off very grand Piatza Romana (where Romulus and Remus are suckled by an emaciated she-wolf cast in bronze). If you point your finger right into the heart of the labyrinthine map of Bucharest, that’s where we live.
We have three “bedrooms”, two of which have windowed-in balconies from which I spend too much time sipping coffee and watching the action on the street below (mainly just pedestrians trying to negotiate traffic and icy sidewalks), a large kitchen, and a sitting room complete with nearly comfortable wicker furniture and a television that plays CNN. Lahovari square is home to one excellent restaurant with a wood-burning pizza oven (yes, I admit that I walk by now and then to press my face up against the plate glass just to admire their massive oven), one 19th century mini-palace with an impossibly elegant wine garden out back, and a series of little shops, including a garish red and white SEX SHOP. In fact, to find our apartment, I tell people to “come to Lahovari square and follow the arrow to the entrance to SEX SHOP….then buzz apartment 50.” We’re hard to miss.
Within easy striking distance (i.e. five minutes by foot) is the disheveled building where I teach (for an hour and a half twice a week) and where Sophia will board her mini-bus with all the other uniformed kindergarteners to depart for school each morning. In addition to doing “ballet” for gym class, her kindergarten offers the choice of three extra language classes: Turkish, Arabic, and Romanian. I think she’s going to have a blast.
Heading in the opposite direction is the Amzei market, with both indoor and outdoor vendors selling a wide variety of vegetables and fruits, not to mention a thousand unidentifiable pickled products, many of which look very delicious.
In short, the circumference of my daily rounds is limited to a space about the size of our block in Meadville, which is that way it happens in big cities. Beyond that, of course, there’s a zillion museums, concert halls, and old neighborhoods to explore in every direcftion. I’ll attend a concert of Schubert leider next week for eight dollars, for instance, and I’m going to hear an Israeli poet read her poems in Romanian tomorrow night. Tomorrow I volunteered to serve as the "voice" of the National Museum of Art; they are recording an English language head-set tour, and I'll be reading the six hours of text that tourists will listen to as they gaze upon the art. I’m even playing soccer inside a weird dome lined with Astroturf.
Needless to say, none of it seems quite complete without Kerry, Sophia and Alexander here. It has taken me the better part of three weeks to find us housing and to work out the kinks of daily existence, however, so they’ll be arriving just in time to participate in the fascinations of Bucharest without having to endure the frustrations and bewilderment that even the veteran inhabitants seem to find annoying.
My classes begin this week. Evidently the students follow two educational philosophies: rampant plagiarism and virtual non-attendance. I’m hoping to terrify them away from the former and cure them of the latter with my irresistible Yankee charms.
Once the rest of the Bacchae arrive, we'll update the blog with more details about our new existence here. We'll take accurate dictations from Sophia and Alexander, too, so they can report their impressions in their own words.
Love, from the Sex Shop,
Christopher
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