*** Saturday, 01 Mar 2002 ***
The first of March and the first day that I regard as Spring. I have been waiting for this for a long time. CNN said it would be 46 F today and when I went out just before Noon, it seemed that it might get that high but reality failed prediction.

I had a lunch of chicken in a creamy white wine sauce at the Amsterdam but it had more mushrooms than chicken and the French fries were slightly under cooked. I will try the hamburger before I write the Amsterdam off.

Went to the Cafeneaua Actorilor and had an Efes while I did some people watching. It's a university crowd, young, people with violins, classmates. The principle activity is conversation.

There is a satisfaction in being in the midst of a friendly crowd even when you don't know a single person. The energy in the room is almost palpable.

On my way home a guy walked up from behind me and said something that I couldn't understand except for the word "hotel". I said that I didn't speak Romanian and he asked me where I was from. I said America and he shook my hand. He continued to dog my steps and I slowed down to allow him to get ahead of me but he turned back repeatedly to look at me. At that I headed the long way around to my apartment. I don't know that the guy had a scam, or if he did, what scam it was, but I have become really bored and put out with these people and find this harassment offensive. I felt like clocking the guy in the face but I am not a violent person so evasion was my choice.

*** Sunday, 02 Mar 2003 ***
I was up early but the weather was a disappointment. It was colder than the day before and the sun was late in burning through the morning mist. Not what I wanted.

A path in the Botanical Garden

I took the 336 bus to Gradina Botanica at Cucuceni. I knew it would be to early to see anything green but I wanted the "before" experience so I could compare it with the real Spring that will happen in a month or so.

The Garden is quite beautiful even though it is in the shadow of the cooling tower and smoke stacks of a big electrical generation plant. It is (or will be) a green get-away from urban noise.

Unfortunately, it comes with that uniquely Bucharestian problem of feral dogs. I was harassed twice by packs of dogs that deemed me as invading their territory although I had paid my 10,000 lei (25 cents) admission fee and I doubt that they did.

Most of the time these packs are interested in defending their territory rather than feasting on your flesh, so the barking, snarling and aggressive forward movements are principally display. Still, you have to pay attention and "fix them in the eye with a masterful gaze". For me this includes advancing toward dogs that advance toward me. So far -- so far -- they immediately retreat and I know that I can get out of the situation without being bitten.

The problem comes if you get surrounded by aggressive dogs. That way those that are behind you will advance while those in your front retreat. It's not a pleasant situation and requires a lot of attention and perhaps swinging a backpack at the dogs as you progress toward some exit. (You did plan some sort of exit, didn't you?) The packs I encountered were small, consisting of four and two dogs respectively so the situation was always under control. Not very pleasant, but under control.

There is a hot house in the Botanical Garden for tropical plants and it's heat was especially nice. In one room the Citrus nobilis Mondorin (a Mediterranean plant) had small white fragrant blossoms that had a wonderful mildly-sweet fragrance, somewhat like honeysuckle but stronger. It made the air sweet with scent. In the same room there were the pink-purple flowers of the Rhododendron indicum Concinum (an East Asian plant) that provided a very colorful touch. (I would provide pictures but although I had paid a 50,000 lei camera fee on entrance, there was a 100,000 fee (for amateurs, professionals paid 1,000,000 lei) for the hot house.) I contented myself with looking.

I went to the Cafeneaua Actorilor to do some people watching. Its visual theme is burlap and rope. Appropriate, I thought, for a college bar.

*** Monday, 03 Mar 2003 ***
Allen Stansbury asked me what a bottle of Grand Marnier cost and I said about $21. He said he would take that and especially as it had cost only $17 when he and Nora had gone to Bulgaria for the purpose of leaving the country so she could return and get an automatic visa extensions. I was delighted to get an extension of my supply (the bottle I had picked up at Budapest airport was not yet empty).

Marius messaged me during the day that we could go to the Metro tonight (he is a member) and I could look for Sambuca and Grand Marnier. I met him at the University Metrou stop and we took trains to the end of the line at Industriilor. As we passed through the Armata Popuruliu (the People's Army) station, he leaned over to me and said, "They have to name it that way because in reality the Romanian people have nothing."

We exited the station and walked through a back alley with little or no lighting and he told me about how dangerous it was even though we were between a high school and its playing fields. I thought about being scared but realized that if Marius thought he would even get a spot on his scarf, we would not be going this way.

We arrived without incident (but with some mud) at the Metro with its gargantuan parking lot and I found it to be one of those monster warehouse stores stacked from floor to high ceiling with everything from refrigerators to office supplies to cheese but no Romanian pastrami except something labeled as turkey pastrami which was lumpy in a very unappetizing way. But no Sambuca or Grand Marnier. On the way out, Marius told me that you had to spend at least 100,000 lei just for being there so I picked up a three-pack of orange juice and squeezed out at 102,000 lei.

I had tickets for the bus so we took it back to the Paci Metrou stop. I asked Marius what the fine was if you were caught without a punched ticket and he told me that it was 250,000 lei and it became 400,000 if you didn't pay it within 48 hours. I said that I had seen ticket checkers only once and he said that they were around. As we got off the bus, Marius pointed out two undistinguished men who were getting on the rear entrance. "They are ticket checkers," he said.

I left Marius on the train at Unirii and connected to the line that ran north to University by walking through the corridor connecting them. On the way a young guy seemed to cut me off unnecessarily and presented his fat ass to me in doing so. I held back and as we went down the stairs to the platform, I thought he was looking at me out of the corner of his eye. He turned to the right and I to the left and as I glanced back he came over to me and started a breathless tale of how he was in school and 17 but working, because his parents lived 20 km from Bucharest and so he had a room with a woman who wasn't very nice to him, and how he was worried that he might forget his English and how he was talking to me because we had met before on the same platform a few weeks ago [I doubt I could forget such an encounter but I don't remember it] and how his brother wouldn't help him with his English and how he worked in construction and was so tired he had no time for studying, and how . . . but fortunately my train pulled into the stations and I said "That's my train" and he said that he knew and walked over to his platform. The rest of my trip home was uneventful.