Romania Travelogue

The Translvania Artfest was a strange thing. They call it a residency, though more residencies are devoted to working, and this one only had a few days free to work (writing and painting, mostly, and one installation artists who works with fabrics, so can sew).

There were several days of activies, like seeing Bram (Dracula's castle), and then a weekend folk arts fesitval that this residency is designed to coincide with. It seems like it owuld be all kind of medieval costumes and stuff, but there are much more goth-angst teens. More people selling nick-knacks than crafts.

There were supposed to be 12 artists in attendance, but 5 couldn't come at the last minute. So, there were 5 of us (all
women), two from England, one from Singapore, but who is living in Swizterland for 6 months right now, and a French woman who is living in Amsterdam, and me. The other two are men from Romania, one who is the organizer. Everyone is incredibly friendly.

The idea, I think, is to mostly be inspired, and to discuss, and make friends, and then have our work be inspired. In the 6 weeks following, the organizers ask everyone to send work to them to put on the website.

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I didn't really make any strong connections during the residency, and then i was by myself in a foreign land after being around new people. I was little sad/homesick/lonely my last couple days in Romania, but it was laso really refreshing to be totally on my own schedule after a week of trying to live on a group schedule. I was never really sure what was going on.

Yesteday I was in a little "town" on the black sea called Efordie Nord, but it was awful - just crowds, and sprawl, and cheap souveniers. Now I'm in a bigger city, but older and much better. Constanta. Ovid lived here, and died in a nearby former village, now named Ovidius. I'm glad I came. It is not black, though, but maybe kind of dark.

Bucharest did not seem like the "Paris of the East," but probably would have a hundred years ago. Thhre was so much amazing opulance from that time period in Bucharest and here in Constanta, but it was all stunted by communism and the scars remain.

The food in Romania was not so good, and if there is good food here, I certainly can't find it! Of course I don't know where to look, and don't speak the language, so that makes it hard. Except the cheese. They had good cheese in Transylvania. But in the city I can't find the good stuff.

I keep thinking about those kinds of disapointments... For example, everywhere I went there was terrible music (all western pop artists), and the food was not good at all and kind of the same everywhere, and there was always loud noises, either construction or bad music blasting, or both. I try to correlate it to someone who just wanders into SD, or even who has a SD guidebook. Where would they end up? The gaslamp downtown, or PB, or OB. What would they find? All the terrible places, like Typhoon Saloon, or Hooters. What are the chances of someone happening upon my favorite places, like Jyoti Bihanga, or Cafe 976, or Beauty Bar, or even Whole Foods? Not very good chances.