*** Sunday, 01 June 2003 ***
For a pedestrian, the sidewalks of Mother Theresa Street used to be a concatenation of detours as you weaved around cars obstructing the sidewalk. After only three and a half years of administration the UN figured out that this was a bad idea and banned parking on the sidewalks. Now the street even looks good.

The Germia pool was filled with water but was not open. I wish I could have spent the day there, relaxing and getting cool.

The statue of Skenderberg now stands on Mother Theresa Street just below the towering BanKos building who vaults I had opened several years ago.

Near BanKos and the Government Building there is now a statue of Skenderberg who was taken by the Turks at age seven and raised as a Turk for over twenty years. He came back to Albania and renounced his Turkish training and lead a revolt against the Ottomans. He won the early battles but doubtlessly the Turks eventually won and killed most of the men and raped most of the women.

The Kukri Bar has now expanded outward with many fewer outside seats but more comfortable inside seats. More year round and I guess more profitable.

America's status in Kosovo is shown by the fact that Smile's neighbor asked him to have me wave at the neighbor. I did and I could tell it was appreciated.

Smile and I said goodbye at the airport where I caught the 2 PM flight to Vienna and checked into the airport fleabag hotel. I took the suburban rail to Wein Mitte and the U4 subway to Karl's Platz and walked around for a while. Then I returned to the un-air-conditioned, no shampoo, no soap room at the fleabag.

*** Monday, 02 June 2003 ***
Up at 7 AM and walked over to the terminal at 8 AM and waited 2 hours for an uneventful flight to Bucharest. Not all Tarom flights are uneventful: Paul told me how an engine on his flight to Iasi caught fire and the plane turned around for an emergency landing at Otopeni. No one died or was injured but an eventful flight.

I was picked up on time and was at the office at 1:30. I stowed my luggage at the office and went to the Uptown for decent food. I saw Denis and he asked if we could get together tonight. I suggested 6:30 and he agreed.

The cheeseburger at the Uptown is the best I know in Bucharest - once you tell them to omit tomatoes, onions, lettuce, mayo, pickle, and the other dreck they put on it.

Denis asked me to meet him tonight and I suggested 6:30. As it turned out I had to participate in a conference call and 6 that lasted until 6:30 and I didn't get to our corner until 30 minutes late. No Denis. I realized we had no backup plan on how to connect.

*** Friday, 06 June 2003 ***
Trip to Braila and the County Economic Directors meeting. Later Mircea took us to an outdoor cafe beside the Danube and we had some beer to which he treated Valentin of Policy and me.

*** Saturday, 07 June 2002 ***
One of our translators told me that it is an old Romanian proverb that "an unknown thief is a good trader".

Yesterday I bought a shirt from the Braiconf store on the pedestrian way in Braila. Staff told me that the factory that made them was one of the economic success stories. I liked the shirt I bought and it fit well so this morning I went back and bought four more.

We arranged to take an early car back to Bucharest and arrived around 4:30 PM.

*** Sunday, 08 June 2003 ***
Sunday I took a walk in Herastrau Park and had a lunch of mitite there and then took the train back to University and had a beer at my favorite bar "The Actor's Cafe". It was about 3 PM and there weren't many people there when a young guy walk up to me and sat down at my table. He leaned toward me and said confidentially that two days ago he had seen me and wanted to talk to me.

Fili, for eventually he told me that was his name, Florin legally but he had always been called Fili, spoke very good English and had a very "up" style. He was fun to be with so I practiced my Romanian with him. He was a good teacher, tall and big-boned and he even plays the recorder decently.

We practiced for hours over beer. I would say things in English and he would walk me through the Romanian and then I would say something similar in Romanian and we would practice that. It was useful training because he kept it to basic things with an uncomplicated grammar so I was able to use my paltry stack of verbs, nouns and adjectives/adverbs to construct whole sentences that sometimes went on to short paragraphs. And I even understood what I was saying.

He smoked his last cigarette and said to me that he was quitting smoking right then and there. I wondered about why he made such a production of it.

Eventually Fili said he was hungry. I pointed out that Actorilor was also a restaurant and called for a menu. He ordered and had a good meal -- and the prices are right at Actorilor: about 150K lei for his chicken, salad and french fries.

The Romanian lessons continued. We did this for at least three hours and the beer foam was rising over my eyes. I realized that I needed to go home so I told him that I would be at Actorilor tomorrow night at 7 PM and he said he would be there. And so we parted.