Amsterdam to Bucharest

Hello fellow adventurers. It's Wednesday morning and I'm about to traipse out into big bad Bucharest for a day of wonder. I got here yesterday afternoon after spending two days readjusting sleep patterns and getting my land legs. It had been twenty years since I'd last wandered Amsterdam, and it's funny how my perspective has changed. This time around, I spent about an hour walking through the main tourist center with its hash bars and tired, overly made-up prostitutes (why they don't wear different themed costumes is a mystery, it's like somebody told them that men dig women who look like they're made of plastic) and dopey tourists and prowling junkies, and it was like listening to some Journey or Eagles album that you liked as a teenager and haven't heard in twenty years and suddenly you wonder what the hell you were thinking all those years ago. And so Monday I rented a yellow, upright bicycle and pedaled along canals out where the tourists don't roam, past leaning narrow houses and coffee shops and out to park lands and rose gardens and ponds and dogs and families and lovers and it's like I could breathe again, big chest fulls of air, and the wind tore water from my eyes and I ate vegetarian lasagna in an Italian joint and a big calico cat came in off the street and crawled up into my lap and nuzzled against my nascent beard and then later I saw the movie Elegy and though it was sort of New Yorker arty it rubbed very close to the bone; Penelope Cruz gets better and better and it was perhaps some of the most focused acting from Denis Hopper ever.

Flying into Bucharest from Munich, I noticed how the neat orderly landscape had slowly become a little more sloppy and unplanned, a bit like flying over parts of Texas or New Mexico. Weeds peeked out from the worn and weathered runway, and two retired jets, their nose cones amputated, sat idle in the tall grass. It's gray here, and chilly, a prelude of what's to come. But at the airport, one of my long-time fantasies was nearly fulfilled: two men waited with a sign that read "Fulbright," and they greeted me warmly and one of them, the driver, insisted on carrying my bags. Someday, my name on a sign; but this is perfect for now. Mihai Moroiu, the Fulbright rep here, sat beside me in the backseat of the dusty compact and as we inched along through five o' clock traffic he pointed out sights and filled me in on Romanian history and his erudite enthusiasm was contagious so that by the time we turned off the highway onto a tree lined boulevard dotted with foreign embassies, I was wide awake and knew I'd made the right decision in coming here. The Casa Victor Hotel is off on a little side street. My room is spacious, with wooden floors and a large bathtub. There's a large armoire that I've unloaded my suitcase into (the duffel bag, stuffed with winter clothes, squats ready at the foot of the bed), two bedside lights warmed the chill off the room last night, and the low bed, embarrassed by its lumps and springs, creaked apologies every time I moved during the night. The free breakfast was European delicious: great coffee, bread, cheese, salami. I will continue to skip the evil hard-boiled egg portion.

Before I left Tampa, Michelle Young put me in contact with a Romanian actress and teacher whom she met at Larry Silverberg's summer intensive at Eckerd College. Mihaela Sirbu teaches at the National University of Theatre and Arts here in Bucharest and evidently stays very busy. She picked me up in her blue Volvo in front of the hotel last night after a rehearsal, and drove me around town a bit before we returned to this fancy-schmancy neighborhood and we dined at a quiet and smoky place around the corner. Yep, folks in Romania still smoke in restaurants. And so much for trying to be a vegetarian. I ate delicious salmon and we talked acting and music and movies. She's invited me to watch a rehearsal today, a Viewpoints-based performance she'd directing that goes up Thursday night. It's across town, and so I'll crash-course the city metro, and then I meet Petru Margineanu, a film composer and friend of Rozalinda Borcila from USF, for a late lunch.

Thursday, tomorrow, the eight Fulbrighters walk from Hotel Casa Victor to the American embassy for an all day orientation and welcoming dinner. Friday, we're led around the city, Saturday is an off day, and then Sunday I take the three hour train ride to Craiova! I'm able to receive Skype calls (free international telephone via your computer go to www.skype.com) here, but it'll be trickier in Craiova because I will not have internet access at my apartment there, only in my office. Hope you're all doing great. More anon. Kerry