nomadic?

Bucharest?

A few days before leaving, someone at the hostel introduced themselves as: Vlad.

Is this a short for Vladimir? I asked with an innocent tone, to hopefully deflect any possible other interpertations. LOL was it wrong. Sure, they got the innocent question idea – however it turned out a bit of a harsh issue. An issue that, for Vlad, was the very question of Romanian uniqueness and interval from slavic languages, people and cultures.

Vald was keen to underline that regardless of whether his name was shortened from Vladimir – it has become it's own name, and Romanian as such.

This comes as part of other snippets and conversations I've had – when people seemed to have a bit of a slight against slavic connections in general and russians in particular. These are relatively young people who did not endure the so called communist period.

When I was in Cyprus, people talked about russian digital companies taking over – and people i happened to chat with, didn't feel entirely relaxed about that. More over, some expressed regret these aren't british companies – since in their eyes, being beholden to the brits is much preferable than to russians. Why do russians, seemingly, have such a negative rep?

Going back to Romania, where the term for Yes is Da – and everybody knows it is taken from russian – yet to hear someone saying Romanian should get into a more Latin kind of Yes, Si?

Another curious thing re Bucharest is the prevalence of MegaImage supermarkets. Some places have them every few meters. Seriously. Just across the road from one another. One is the express version, the other full blown store. Then, walk a few tens meters, maybe 100 at the most – and another MegaImage.

Seems that other supermarkets have a similar logo – does it make that logo-image, Mega?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_Lion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxi_(Serbian_supermarket)

or just a manifestation of the parent company's meganess?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhaize_Group#/media/File:Delhaize_Group_logo.svg

Sofia initial notes?

Links collection from attempting to check places to bounce from in Sofia:

General:

http://flipfloppeople.com/Is-Sofia-a-safe-city--45

https://explorista.net/digital-nomad-guide-sofia/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2016/04/14/is-sofia-bulgaria-the-real-digital-capital-of-the-new-markets/#3bad53777bbf

Art/culture linked:

https://credobonum.bg/en from their site: Credo Bonum Foundation & Gallery hosts international initiatives. We are open to joint projects with partners and followers who will help us achieve our goal.

http://nationalgallery.bg/ – national art museum, or socialist art?

https://initlab.org/ – a hackerspace. Seems they do some music/sound stuff.

http://www.fondazionefotografia.org – a photography place.

There's a place called Anima Art gallery on the google map.https://goo.gl/maps/K6XntjvdUvGhv19A6 The link is to some Japanese site: http://anima-artgallery.com/ Curious??

Pentimento art gallery – no data but an image..?

Something that looks like graffiti and is called “Profesor Fimitrov”

http://www.culturelab-bg.com/ateliers-bg_id_15 – a culture, lab?

http://www.sofiahistorymuseum.bg/en/ – a sofia history museum

A few links to do with Bulgarian lingo basics.

https://www.101languages.net/bulgarian/basics.html

https://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/bulgarian.php

Note to self: Make, err, notes from these language sheets .. (I tend to pick up a few words to begin with.)

A bit about Romanian lingo?

https://www.101languages.net/romanian/basics.html

Notes from Bucharest?

An architectural salad?

It depends, roughly, which sector one is at. eg, into modernist come brutalist buildings – Sector 6. Into Bauhaus based architecture? Sector 4. Into more post-modern looking buildings, perhaps check Sector 1 or 2? In all these cases though, bare in mind the distance from town centre. It seems like the more near the Old city one gets, architecture salad – as in mixed styles – becomes less rare.

Here's a 4 flavoured one. Taken from the cafe i happen to be typing in.

(Other such salads, be it of other flavours, seem to be everywhere.)

Notes from Bucharest?

A few years back, the regime here decided to legalise bribe taking – so long as the bribe is under a certain amount.

The idea was that without such a law – prisons will run out of places to house people being sent in. The idea of such bribe legalisation inspired some big demonstrations against the law.

Not sure why, however people's honesty – as far as i have encountered – has been pretty cool. eg, there wasn't a feeling at any time that as a tourist type – i am being given a special price or some such. However, just my feeling – might have been had unnoticed, hey? ;)

Notes from Bucharest?

Patisseries. A fair few patisseries, i noticed in town, attract homeless/beggars. They sit/stand outside, in proximity to buyers. I am impressed by the tolerance they receive from people – since some seem to ask for things a bit a aggressively.

Notes from Bucharest?

Looking for some local food? Mamaliga? Seemed a bit hard to get people agreeing Where there's a really good one. My suspicion, based on shared reactions which mentioned their own – or family's – mamaliga, that indeed, people might tend to rather their own?

Notes from Bucharest?

Bucharest has a little Eiffel looking tower. References to places other than Bucharest itself, seem to be around – together with arch of triumph. (Contrast with the london arch of triumph – aka marble arch. ie, imagines itself re-inventing truimph arches.)

Yet, self references are abound, specially talking with people and checking art opportunities – tend to look inwards. (said as a matter of fact rather than judgemental tone.)

Notes from Bucharest?

Public ways surfaces – eg pavements and roads? The unique feature roads and pavements seem to share here are aesthetics of emerging uneveness, movements and holes. Specially as a skateboarder, its a helpful idea to notice surfaces you move over – or better – about to move over. In Bucharest, public surfaces have moving bits – specially when these are made from relatively small slabs. randomly appearing holes. While holes tend to be random, here they Feel random in the sense that a surface might Seem smooth and in a rather healthy shape – yet contain holes. (Usually, when there are holes in surfaces, the state of general disrepair around could give an indication. Not so in Bucharest. It's a different kind of attention that's being required to moving over surfaces. The randomness is in the type of surfaces holes might be – Any kind.) Also, there are intended holes, mainly on roads. They seem to be for placing poles, (flag poles?) – not sure. Uneven surfaces that are hard to detect – even in day light. Since there are surfaces which were mended with various shades of dark to light grey, when these become wavey – its sometimes hard to see it coming.

Makes rather curious walking experiences after/during rain.. ;)