the waning days . . .

---

The last days were a wind-down, a return to Bucuresti in anticipation of my flight back home. I can't say I'm really homesick, but I have nothing to occupy myself here. I quickly dropped my stuff off at the Funky Chicken and went off to amuse myself. I made some calls and Vali, who is a fellow Yahoo Grouper, answered and he proposed a trip to Restaurantul La Cocosatu for their famous mici. I must admit, I'm becoming accustomed to them, though I still prefer sarmale and

I missed calling another friend and I guess she'll be crazy mad at me. I didn't get much sleep and woke early to meet a crazy online friend of mine. The next day I went to an International Festival in C Park. I was quite let down at the entertainment offered and amused myself with the booths, which wee very numerous and varied, offering foods, traditional clothing and handicrafts of all sorts. After shooting videos of many of the booths I wandered off. Later in the day M called me and said she and some friends were returning to the festival and invited me to return with them. Valuing friendship far more than the prospect of a boring event I agreed. We met and saw some of the booths I missed and then she suggested we head towards the stage. I reluctantly informed her that I was not very impressed with what I had seen earlier and she looked at me like I was nuts. She pointed in a new direction, towards some music. Sensing another lip-sync session I reluctantly followed her and saw the most amazing dance troupe one could imagine. I stood open-mouthed as 50 or so musicians, singers and dancers acted-out a multi-part folk tale of some sort. This was followed by other less multi-layered, but no less enjoyable, performances. I reluctantly left to follow my friends to another show that was being featured that night as part of the Film Music Festival. Featured here were jazz/pop performances by many of Romania's better known singers. It was very pleasant to hear music without the influence of that bane of Romanian music, manele.

Following the show we went for beer and pizza and spent what I thought was a pleasant time together. Much of the conversation was in Romanian, but since 5 of the 6 of us were Romanian, it made sense. I only periodically nudged a bit of English out of them. Some of the talk was about those who want to emigrate from Romania, but not to America. I readily agreed that America was not everyone's cup of tea. We then went in search of night life and after being turned away from the first choice (due to my short pants) we spent the next hour vainly searching for a club that met our taste.

---