Roads of Romania / Prin Romania

Posting pictures

2008-02-05T10:16:00.000-08:00

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I've decided that I'm going to start posting pictures on my blog such that when I don't write anything because I don't have the time I'll still post something. Pictures, I have thousands of those cause I really like to take pictures. I'm merely an amateur, not an expert in photography but I like to take pictures of the places I visit. Sometimes I am one of those people that see a place through the viewfinder, but I can't help myself. Ideally I would like to capture the essence of the place, such that when someone sees them they'll say "yes, that's the soul of Paris without a doubt". But most of the time they're just nice pictures of the places I visit. I don't think I'll be able to post a picture a day but I'll try to post often enough. I have enough pictures to last me to the next millennium :)

Because Cris and I are heading to Argentina on Friday for a second trip, I'll start by posting pictures from our first trip to Argentina, which we took in February 2006. Today's pictures are from a tango show at Cafe Tortoni, a famous coffeehouse located on Avenida de Mayo in Buenos Aires. The cafe opened in 1858 and is located in a beautiful 19th century building.

Happy New Year Everyone!

2008-01-04T04:40:00.000-08:00

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It snowed yesterday in Bucharest

Travel and safety

2007-04-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

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Easter came and went, leaving me with three extra pounds. We made the family rounds as we always do when we return to Romania. We've met a few friends and I ventured downtown Bucharest a few times. Our president was suspended yesterday.

On Sunday we're leaving for Israel, visiting family for two weeks. I've been there before in October 2005 and I liked it. I found Israel as I read somewhere, a "small country with big sites". I feel that's the best way to describe it. I grew up under a communist regime so I'm not a religious person. I guess I can call myself a nonpracticing Christian. I only go to church once a year, on Easter night. I don't read the Bible. But even someone like me feels something when stepping into Nazareth, or at the Jordan River. It feels like you're breathing history, old or recent, it doesn't matter.

When I tell people in Romania that we're going to Israel, there's one question that everyone asks "Aren't you afraid?" I also remember getting the same question when I was getting my green card in 2002 (because of September 11). Aren't you afraid to go to US? "I'm already living there" was my answer, "just that I had a working visa and not a green card. Nothing will change for me." Two years ago I was contacted by a Swiss who wanted to visit Romania. He's seen the news reports and was afraid of being robbed. He was asking me if he should carry a paralyzing spray while visiting. I told him there's no need for that and after his visit he was laughing remembering his fears. Same when we traveled to Argentina, some of our friends were marveling at our courage to visit a country in South America. The media's representation of a region doesn't always tell the whole story. Most of the time our fears come from our ignorance about that particular place. And in today's world, can you be sure that you're completely safe anywhere in this world? Do you think that you're safer in your own home town? Did anyone expect the tragic events that took place at Virginia Tech just a few days ago? I have friends who interviewed for a professor position there. It sounded safe at that time. One of the victims was a Jewish professor born in Romania, who survived a labor camp in WWII and the totalitarian regime in communist Romania. We're never safe from random acts of violence and unfortunately that's a reality we have to live with.

I feel like my post doesn't have a point, like it's missing something. I guess my point will be, don't stay home just because the outside world seems less safe. Of course I don't advertise going into a war zone. I don't want to tempt fate in any way. Of course I'm a bit afraid too when I'm traveling to a place with a history of violence like Israel. But my belief is that in most places the overwhelming majority of people just get along peacefully on a daily basis and they are simply interested in living their lives, earning a living, and being normal people.

These are pictures from my previous visit to Israel:

Acre

Golan Heights

The Jordan River, the site of Jesus’ baptism (complete with gift shop)

The Sea of Galilee

Nazareth, the Grotto of the Virgin inside the Basilica of the Annunciation (this site is believed to be the place where Virgin Mary was announced by an angel that she was to become a mother)

Baha'i Gardens, Haifa

Elijah's Cave, Haifa

A Coke bottle

The Dead Sea

Us floating at the Dead Sea

On the plane

2007-04-06T11:19:00.000-07:00

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What's a girl to do when she has a new camera and she's stuck on a plane for 12 hours? For starters I took about 30 pictures of the plane's wing, followed by about 10 pictures of my seat and the book I brought on board, portraits of Cris, Amsterdam from above etc. I stopped short of photographing my shoelaces.

The wing:

The book:

Landing in Amsterdam

Schipol Airport

Final destination, Bucharest:

Water and Fire

2007-03-26T20:39:00.000-07:00

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Big Island, Hawai'i, 5th Day. This was the most eventful day of the trip and the longest day as well as we left the hotel early after breakfast and came back after midnight. Before going we checked the weather report which showed a 50% chance of rain at the Kilauea Volcano but since this was the day before last in our vacation and I wanted one more try to see the volcano we decided to take our chances and go. And it turned out better than two days before, at least in the beginning of the day. We were able to stop at many waterfalls on the way to Hilo and this time the "scattered showers" were for real. We started with the gorgeous multi-tiered Umauma falls for which we had to pay an entrance fee because the access road was part of the grounds of the World Botanical Gardens. Nothing seemed to come cheap on Big Island. After seeing the falls we took a walk through the garden and I think it was worth the money. The garden had a lot of exotic flowers and trees that I've never seen before and some that I thought I knew but turned out to look different that what I was expecting. They had some bug spray at the counter but we ignored it, something we started to regret as soon as we got deep enough within the garden to be too lazy to return just for getting sprayed. We left the gardens in some sort of dancebreak movements, and I kept on scratching until we reached our next stop: the Akaka and Kahuna Falls. It was our third attempt to see these falls, the previous times it was raining so hard that we stayed in the car and decided to return another day. To get to the falls we walked a short path through the rain forest. With so much rain, the vegetation was living life to the maximum, everything seemed so green and lush.

Afterwards Cris decided he's seen enough waterfalls for one day so we drove to the Kilauea Volcano. We passed by the visitor center and found out where we can see lava flowing. We drove the park loop, stopped and walked through a light rain to different craters, passing the time until dark. I liked the bleak, desolated landscape, the fumes rising up from the black earth, a lone rainbow shining through. About an hour before sunset we drove down towards the ocean to the end of Chain of Craters road. We parked a looong way from the end of the road, passed by numerous warning signs - "Extreme danger beyond this point" - and started walking on the lava. There were two paths marked by the rangers, one to a viewing point very close to the end of the road. It was difficult to see the lava from that point so we took the other path and continued passed the markings. At some point we found the remains of the old road, complete with a bent "No parking" sign caught in the lava field. We kept on walking until it got so dark we were afraid we'll have problems returning. We were pretty deep inside the lava field at that moment and we could see the lava shining in the night at many points ahead of us. It was a great sight and we stood and watched for some time. After that we subjected our knees to some more suffering - it's not an easy job to walk on lava - got back to the car, had dinner at the Volcano Lodge and started on the 3 hours drive back to the hotel. The people at the Volcano Lodge deserve my recognition. First they told us we have to wait half an hour to be seated but when they heard that we have a 3 hours drive ahead of us they took pity and fed us right away.

The Umauma Falls

At the World Botanical Garden

Akaka Falls Park

Kilauea Volcano

That's me in the middle of the road

A Place of Refuge

2007-03-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

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Big Island, Hawai'i 4th day. On the fourth day on Big Island Cris demanded that we keep his part of the bargain and go snorkeling. Leafing through the travel guide to find a good place to snorkel, I found that one of the best places according to the guide's authors was very close to a Hawaiian temple. This was the beach I picked, thinking that we can do both activities, see the temple and go snorkeling afterwards. This time we drove south keeping to the west side of the island, passing again by fields of lava sprinkled with white stone messages and past the airport and the resort of Kailua. As soon as we left the highway the road started to descend towards the ocean. The Hawaiian temple that I wanted to visit had the long name of Pu'uhonua o Honaunau or Place of Refuge at Honaunau. From what I've read this place was a sort of an extreme form of "get out of jail free", or rather "get out of trouble alive" meaning that if those accused of a crime could manage to get here they would get absolved. In ancient Hawaii the society was regulated by the"kapu" system of laws and according to the kapu the crime that one can be accused of and executed for could be as ridiculous as "one's shadow touching the shadow of a leader" or "walking the same path as the chief" or "men and women eating together". It was believed that the violation of these laws will bring god's anger in the form of famine, lava flows, high tide and earthquakes so the violators were hunted down and killed. Their only chance was to reach this place of refuge and once inside the priests will perform ceremonies to absolve them and they could return home. It wasn't easy to reach the place of refuge because the well defended royal grounds full of warriors were adjacent to the pu'uhonua. Today this place is a neatly organized national park and the quiet and beautiful grounds really feel like a place of refuge. There are some reconstructed Hawaiian huts, the wall that separated the place of refuge from the royal grounds and a reconstructed thatched temple that used to contain the bones of 23 chiefs. The small cove was full of green turtles basking in the sun. We walked around the place, following the lava all the way to the ocean. After the visit Cris finally got his wish, we went snorkeling at the beach just north of the place of refuge. The travel guide was right, it was a good place to snorkel with plenty of fish. On the way home we stopped by the St. Benedict's Painted Church, a small catholic church whose walls were painted in Biblical scenes in 1899 by a Father John, a catholic priest who came to Hawaii all the way from Belgium. He's done a beautiful job with the painting.

Some rain must fall

2007-03-09T18:11:00.001-08:00

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Big Island, Hawai'i, 3rd Day. All three Hawaiian islands that we visited so far have one thing in common: their west side is dry and gets lots of sun while their east side is ... my travel guide says "green" but I'll translate that for you and call it as it is: rainy. In the summer staying on the green side is not a problem but in the winter it rains a lot. Otherwise the temperatures in Hawaii are pretty much the same all year with this one exception: on the east side it rains more, especially during winter. It goes without saying that this being the beginning of March, I booked a room in a hotel on the west side of Big Island. Even though the volcano that we wanted to visit was on the east side and the fact that I understand that rain is good for the earth, I still didn't want to see lots of it on my vacation. So on the third day came the time when we drove to the wet side of the island. The weather forecast sounded resonable with a prediction of "scattered showers". The weather people in Hawai'i surely have a very developed sense of humor because what we found was this: they weren't showers because by showers I understand a fall of rain of short duration, short underlined; they were rather downpours lasting all day; also they weren't scattered, rather it was raining everywhere. Later that day we found out that the weather report is a bit of a joke around locals. Apparently they predict the same forecast every day. We drove through rain for hours and tried to get out of the car here and there, but in most places the rain was so heavy that you couldn't see anything, much less enjoy it. We went all the way to the volcano but no luck there as well. What we found was rain with a new element of surprise, fog. On the way back to the hotel we caught a gap of about 20 minutes in the downpour and we managed to get out of the car and admire two waterfalls, Pe'epe'e and Rainbow. After that the rain started again. I was happy to return to the west side.

Big Island, Hawai'i - Day 2

2007-03-07T10:31:00.000-08:00

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I had great plans for our second day on Big Island but it wasn't to be, I had to rethink everything because of the weather. I was planning on a 4 miles hike but when we approached the start of the trail it started to rain and fog was rolling in so we turned around and drove northwest. The highway climbed to 3000 feet rapidly. Where I grew up I'm used to seeing fir-trees when we get to this elevation but here it was just pastureland and even a few cacti sprinkled here and there. We passed a few little towns and stopped at Pololu Valley overlook. The view was of a small black sand beach surrounded by soaring cliffs and it was beautiful. Living in northern California spoiled me a bit, because truth is I've seen many valleys like Pololu. There's three per mile if one drives down Highway 1 from San Francisco to Monterey, granted not with volcanic sand. I liked the view but I didn't think it was so exceptional as my travel guide described it. We hiked down into the valley, a short hike on a clearly marked path. As we got closer to the beach we were surrounded by a horrible stench and soon we discovered the source: a dead cow covered with flies. How the cow got there I have no idea. If it was near the cliffs I would have asummed that it fell but it was right in the middle of the beach. The beach was very rocky, with big and small bolders and the occasional patch where the bolders were grinded into coarse black sand by the ocean. We walked around, took some pictures and started on our return. At some point Cris was telling me about an article that he read about how plants produce methane and I guess I was so taken with the subject, my mind wandering off in all directions that I mistepped and took a nasty fell. I didn't break anything but I got a big bruise which started to bleed a bit. I don't even remember when I fell last, probably more than 10 years ago. I kept looking at the bruise on the hike back, like it was something that I've never seen before. I hope I'm not turning into a hypochondriac.

Back on the highway we stopped in Kapa'au and took a picture of the statue of Kamehameha the Great, who's probably the greatest Hawaiian king, the one who conquered all the islands, excuse me, the one who "united" the islands. We left the highway to get to a heiau - a Hawaiian temple - but no luck there as well; the unpaved road was too muddy and we were afraid the car will get stuck. To use the remaining daylight we took a stroll around the fish ponds at the Mauna Lani resort. After that it was time for the second sunset of the trip.

Hawai'i -Third time but different

2007-03-01T00:05:00.000-08:00

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As many of my friends know already I'm not a beach person. I don't dread going to the beach in fact I might even enjoy it a few times a year. But I tire quickly of life at the beach and most of the time I feel I would rather go hiking in the mountains than lying flat on a piece of sand. Cris loves the beach, of course. We often trade a day at the beach for a day of hiking which is good because we end up going both places, getting a taste of both experiences.

You could say we are lucky to live in California for part of the year, because California has both beaches and mountains just hours apart. But the beaches of northern California are not swimable, not without a wet suit and a lot of courage ;) In my six years of living in San Francisco I was able to swin in the ocean only once; it happened in Santa Cruz, 2 hours south of San Francisco and my legs were paralyzed by the cold the entire time. I will probably have to pay the price for this in my old years ;) And so we managed to find a place, 5-8 hours away from San Francisco that has both mountains and beaches, a place where one can swim without freezing. First time we went to Hawai'i it was almost by accident. I would probably not have chosen Hawai'i as a destination on my own. As I said, I'm not a beach person. I didn't know much about the 50th US state and little that I knew had to do with images of perfect beaches. I had five days of vacation left out of the "generous" 15 days per year that my company was granting to its employees. The company's policy didn't allow for vacation days to be carried over to the following year. Plus I was not to leave US because I was still waiting for my working visa. Some friends were going to Kauai for a conference and this is how we ended up going to Hawaii in december of 2001. As soon as I started planing the trip I realized that Hawaii is much more than its beaches. I loved it in Kauai. Next came Maui in April 2005. This was when I discovered snorkeling and I started to like the beach a little bit more. After Maui Cris and I were talking that we probably won't return to Hawai'i. Been there, done that, there are other places in the world worth seeing. What made me rethink this decision was the fact that I wanted to see the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park on Big Island.

On Sunday morning we flew from San Francisco to Kona, Big Island. The plane landed in the middle of a lava field, a desolate landscape but like nothing I've ever seen. The Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway that we took to get to our hotel was also cut through this huge lava field produced by a eruption at the beginning of the 19th century. Across the lava field we saw "corral" grafittis, "Bradon loves Jenny" made of white stones. We arrived at the hotel at around 5 o'clock in the afternoon. There wasn't much time left until dark so we found a place on a beach terrace and sipped Mai Tais while watching the sunset. Since it's our third time in Hawaii the scenery feels familiar; but as Vincent Vega said in “Pulp Fiction: “It's the little differences", and these are what we're going to look for on this trip. More to come on Big Island.

View on landing

Sunset on the beach

Presidents' Day

2007-02-14T17:56:00.000-08:00

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It occured to me that this year we're staying home for Presidents Day, something that didn't happen in the last few years. For me a long weekend always meant an occasion to go somewhere far away, at least 200 miles distance from home. Take the last four years for example. For 2003 President's Day we went to Death Valley. We decided just a week before President's Day weekend that we'll go there and we couldn't find any accommodation in the park or outside the park for that matter. So we had to take the last room available to us on a 50 miles radius which proved to be a smoking room. I don't smoke but given my upbringing in Romania I am used to a resonable amount of smoke around me. But this room was something else. I've never been in a room that stank so bad in my life. Everything had a lingering smell of smoke, the bedpost, the bed sheets, the lamp, the bathroom, even the remote control. But I was happy to smell it when passing by the reception I counted ten people stopping to ask if there are any available rooms.

In 2004 we went to visit friends in Long Beach. They were busy preparing for a 6 months trip around the world, so we barely spent time with them. I've been to Los Angeles before but it was always to visit friends and I never had the time - until this trip - to see the touristic Los Angeles. So for Presidents Day 2004 I got to see Hollywood Boulevard and Mann's Chinese Theatre and Mulholland Drive. The thing I remember most about LA is that no matter where we went we ended up waiting in traffic on some highway. I-10, I-405, I-710, an endless asphalt jungle passing through endless suburbia.

President's Day 2005 found us in Joshua Tree National Park. It rained a lot but we kept on hiking and photographing cacti. Our car lost turbo drive and we had to come back to San Francisco driving on I-5 at 40-50 miles per hour (hint: speed limit is 70 on I-5) It took us 9 hours.

Last year President's Day caught us hiking the Perito Moreno glacier in Patagonia. The trip to Argentina was one that I'll always remember.

This year we're staying home in San Francisco.

A room with a view

2007-01-22T14:32:00.000-08:00

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We're back in California since last Tuesday. This time the trip seemed shorter than usual as I spent most of my time on the plane sleeping. We found San Francisco very sunny for this time of year. It usually rains a lot in January but it's been sunny ever since we arrived. As we entered the apartment I realized what I missed the most about it while we were gone: the view from our living room window.

We moved into our current apartment about 4 years ago. We came to see the apartment late at night, after long and tiring hours of work. We were aware of the fact that the apartment had a view but frankly it was entirely lost on us. Those were the times when the economy was in bad shape and all we heard on the radio on the way to work was how another IT company is laying off 10000 people. What we cared about was that we would be saving $400/month in rent and that the building was rent controlled. We decided to move in. When the day of moving came we entered the apartment and got struck by the view. We wondered how tired we were from overworking not to notice it the first time? It's the very first thing that catches the eye as one enters the room. And at night when the lights from downtown are on it's equally beautiful. I'm in love with this view. When I'm feeling down I look out the window on the San Francisco downtown and it never fails to cheer me up. And every time I look I find some new detail that I didn't notice before. I'll surely miss it when we'll return to Romania.

Forget Krispy Kreme

2007-01-09T05:49:00.000-08:00

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And since we're on the subject of food, look what I indulged myself with last evening. Papanasi, a traditional Romanian dessert, are fried cheese-filled pastries similar to doughnuts, served with a dollop of jam and sweetened sour cream. You can find them at many restaurants in Bucharest.

Would you like to eat something?

2007-01-02T04:31:00.000-08:00

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I came up with a new business idea, to sell t-shirts and bumper stickers with the slogan "I survived the holiday season in Romania". It was that bad, really :) I've never seen so much food in my life. Romanians like to eat a lot on holidays, especially after a month of Christmas fasting. I was talking to a guy who lived in France for the last 20 years and he was in owe: "You come here, people seem poor. You go to visit them for some casual lunch or dinner and they set up a table like they're throwing a wedding reception. I've never seen so much food, maybe except for US" he said. That's the way it is in Romania. People like to feed their guests until they're about to pop. On holidays it's worse :) Everyone cooks the traditional dishes. You get invited to ten meals in three days, and in every house you have to taste the cooking. The moment you enter the door you are asked "Would you like to eat something?" and no matter of the answer you will be served something even though you just ate two hours ago. You end up eating a lot more than you want. You have to do it, otherwise the hosts get upset. Nothing gets wasted or thrown away. And so I did eat a lot. Since I don't cook the traditional dishes while I'm in California this was my occasion to try them and I didn't refuse anything that was offered. I'll probably have to diet when I return to California.

Traditional goodies

The dish considered the most traditional is sarmale, cabbage leaves stuffed with rice, meat and herbs usually served with sour cream and with mamaliga, a cornmeal similar to polenta (many of our neighbours like Serbia or Bulgaria have sarmale too but the serving with polenta is I believe truly Romanian)

The traditional drink is tuica, a strong brandy made of plums. If it's twice distilled than we get the much stronger palinca (a term we can't use anymore since it became a Hungarian brand)

Fresh wine made by Cris' dad

Pickles

In the end some dessert, a traditional cake that people bake for Christmas or Easter called cozonac

How the EU stole Christmas :)

2006-12-20T01:44:00.000-08:00

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The Christmas decorations in downtown Bucharest come in blue, white and yellow this year. Especially blue. First time I saw them I asked - without giving it much thought - why did they use blue? Christmas is supposed to be red and green. Last year the lights were mostly white and two years ago they were also white and blue. Is the city hall fixated on white and blue? My brother told me the lights are celebrating Romania's entry into EU which will take place January 1, 2007. Duh. This year they have a reason for the blue :) Afterwards I noticed that the decorations lining Magheru Bulevard, between Universitate and Romana, the core of downtown, even display a round circle made of stars that has been the mark of the EU for so many years.

Yes, it's true. Romania will join the EU starting January 1, 2007. It's not my place to say if we're ready for this step or not. Others have done it for me and the subject has been debated in great detail. From my part I hope that joining the EU will bring more political stability for my country, the pressure to accelerate the reforms, a raise in foreign investments and hopefully some curbing of the corruption that has engulfed Romania since the fall of the communism in 1989. I realize that these are all long term goals and that we might not see any changes for many years other than an increase in the freedom to travel and maybe an easiness in doing commerce. I guess the end goal - aside from political stability which to me will be the greatest achievement - will be economic growth for Romania and with it a raise in the standard of living of the population.

This year's decoration

Last year

Two years ago

In defense of SFMOMA

2006-12-07T02:18:00.000-08:00

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Following a link from an architecture forum I found this article on Forbes about the world's ugliest buildings. The article talks about how the list was conceived and what criterion was taken into consideration when choosing "the winners", merely the price that it cost to end up with an ugly building. Still, I was surprised to see that the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art made the list. Most of the buildings on their list are indeed ugly but to my untrained eye the SFMOMA presence as a nominee is undeserved. Their argument is that "The building itself isn't necessarily ugly. But for a museum, the architecture is inappropriate; it calls too much attention to its design and takes away from the art inside. It is a classic example of a signature building, and who wants to see art in a building like that?", an argument which to me seems a bit shaky. I personally don't mind seeing art in an signature building. Plus, except for the central skylight which was used by the architect Mario Botta to give the atrium a theatrical feel you don't really feel the building while you are inside. The exhibition rooms are still rectangular spaces like in any other museum so the building doesn't take anything away from the art inside. Not to talk about the fact that this argument can be used for many other famous buildings, for example the Guggenheim museums in NY and Bilbao or the Centre George Pompidou in Paris.

Go Scarlet Knights

2006-11-10T09:46:00.000-08:00

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A few people asked me why there hasn't been any posting on my blog lately. I guess somebody was reading my ramblings after all. The answer that I prefer is that it was a busy month and I couldn't find the time to write. The other answer is that I need more self-discipline; I can be pretty lazy at times. I'll try to behave from now on :)

Now back to the title and the topic I wanted to write about. I've lived in US for 10 years but I never became interested in American sports. I've never watched a baseball game, even though I lived in New Jersey and San Francisco both places where baseball is very popular. Basketball I like and I watched for a couple of years. I started doing it when I was working in Sacramento and the Kings were the standard lunch discussion topic. The peer pressure stopped when I left that job and I stopped watching the games. Football I've watched twice, the first being the "historic" Super Bowl with the "wardrobe malfunction". We were stuck at Tahoe with a friend who wanted to watch it. The second time I watched a football game was last night when I saw the last half hour of the Louisville-Rutgers game. For those who don't know that about me I went to Rutgers and that apparently makes me a Scarlet Knight. Every time I used to wear a Rutgers t-shit to work people would ask me "Are you a Scarlet Knight?" "No, I would say, I'm European so all I know about is soccer". What I remember about the Knights was that while I was studying at Rutgers they always lost. It also used to bother me when they had a home game and the whole campus was blocked. I lived on campus and it was a pain to get home on a game day. Last week a friend asked us if we follow the Knights. We said no, why bother, they always loose. He said not this season, they're winning. Last night he called to tell us that there's a Rutgers game on ESPN. So I started watching and to my surprise I started liking it. The Knights won and apparently I was lucky enough to see another historical game. The Knights won their biggest game in history, or so the commentators said. Since I don't know anything about football I don't know what this victory means. But I'm glad that the Knights won. I liked it at Rutgers.

I took some crappy pictures of the TV to remember this historical win.

Trip to Yellowstone - Part 6 - Mammoth Hot Springs

2006-10-05T12:48:00.000-07:00

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Next on our list of things to see in Yellowstone were the Mammoth Hot Springs in the northwest of the park. This one place was a winner too and I couldn't believe it that this park keeps getting better and better. The hot springs are in fact tiers of cascading limestone terraces in beautiful colors. We left the car in a parking lot and took a walk around the boardwalk. I got really upset when halfway through the walk my camera battery went out. I had a replacement with me but it was securely stored in the car :( which at this point was pretty far away. So I had to put up with not taking pictures which was really upsetting since the springs are a real stand out in a park full of spectacular views. After we finished seeing the hot springs we started on a hike on the Beaver Ponds Trail, a 5 mile loop passing through forests and little meadows and by some ponds good for spotting moose. We didn't see any moose but the hike was nice. Back in Mammoth Village we saw a herd of elks and to make up for the terraces I took about 50 pictures of the elks. It was nearly sunset when we left Mammoth and I thought that the day had finished but I was wrong. On our way back to the town we passed by a large group of people sitting by the side of the road. We stopped and got out of the car to see what the commotion was about and we saw two little bear cubs playing under a tree. I was just thinking that the mother can't be far when I heard someone saying "My god, she's so big". But I couldn't see her. Where was she? Finally I noticed she was up in the tree under which the cubs were playing. And she was big indeed. If I ever needed proof that bears can climb trees, it's all in the past now.

San Francisco on a Sunday afternoon

2006-10-02T12:36:00.000-07:00

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We had a friend visiting from Chicago, a good friend that we meet a few times a year in the most unlikely places. We met him all over the world, in Madrid and in Venice, in Bucharest and in Germany, in Strasbourg and in Los Angeles. Currently he's a visiting professor in Chicago and came to visit us in San Francisco for the weekend. He's a fan of San Francisco and he visited us a few times before. And yesterday after having lunch at the Romanian Cultural Center in Hayward, Florin said he wants to go to Chinatown.

We started in North Beach with a cappuccino at Caffe Greco, one of the best places for coffee in the city. From there we walked to City Lights Bookstore and browsed the shelves a bit while waiting for friends from Santa Cruz to join us. City Lights is an enjoyable little bookstore, a "San Francisco literary landmark", famous for being the hangout place for the beat poets in the 50s'. From there we took Grant Avenue, the main tourist avenue through Chinatown. Grant is a mixture of cheap souvenir shops - selling everything from slippers and "Escape from Alcatraz" t-shirts to pottery and oversized sculptures of Mao - restaurants, banks, the occasional tea parlor, Chinese markets, clothes stores and any other kind of business you can think of. It's a crowded street full of color and sounds and smells, burned incense and fish odor at the same time. We entered a small bakery to buy some rice cakes and our friend started chatting up the cute girl at the counter. On the walls they had some pictures of Clinton visiting the place. "Did you kiss president Clinton when he was here?". The girl started to giggle. "No kiss. Only Monica kiss". "Who's Monica? Is she Monica?" and he pointed to a 60 year old lady also behind the counter. The girl started giggling harder and we had to drag our friend out, otherwise he would go on forever. We also stopped at a tea place and bought milk tea with tapioca, a tasty drink that is the latest rage in the Bay Area as I heard on NPR. We walked the eight blocks to the entrance and stopped for a drink at Cafe de la Presse on the corner of Grant and Bush. To our surprise the waiter started to chat with us in Romanian. He was French but he had lived in Bucharest for three years. He had an accent but in general his Romanian was outstanding, way better than my French. We had some wine and chatted about the state of the world and about our future plans and eventually we left and started to look for a place with live music. After entering a few places we ended up at Jazz at Pearl's in North Beach. I've never been there before, I remember we tried once but it was full and they turned us away. This time it wasn't crowded, after all it was Sunday evening and people had to work the next day. The Johnny Nocturne Band was playing and they sounded very good. There was a lady next to us who was cheering louder than everyone else and later we found out that she was a jazz singer too. The band invited her to play a song with them. During the break we told her we like old jazz and later she sang Honeysuckle Rose, an old song that Cris and I knew. We thought that was very nice of her. We returned home around midnight.

Trip to Yellowstone - Part 5 - Grand Teton

2006-09-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

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Next day we went to Grand Teton, a national park located south of Yellowstone. We drove for almost 100 miles. It wasn't the best day to visit Grand Teton, since it was hazy and one can barely distinguish the silhouettes of the beautiful mountains that are the attraction of the park. Probably the Teton range looked better in the early morning, but our friends got up late and with all the driving we got to the park at around 1 PM. We drove to Jenny Lake in the south of the park, took a boat to the western shore of the lake and hiked a small trail to the Hidden Falls and to a panorama point called Inspiration Point from where we could see the entire Jenny Lake at our feet. All around this area there were signs advising people that bears are in the area: do not try to feed them - who would be crazy enough to try that? - don't leave your backpack lying around etc. The hike was pretty, even though a bit crowded with people. On our way back through Yellowstone we passed a sign marking "Continental Divide" which I had no idea what it was but later found out - thanks to wikipedia - that it is "a line of elevated terrain which forms a border between two watersheds such that water falling on one side of the line eventually travels to one ocean or body of water, and water on the other side travels to another, generally on the opposite side of the continent". In this case the Continental Divide separates the watersheds of the Pacific Ocean from those of the Atlantic or Arctic Oceans.

For dinner we decided not to eat in the park like we did the previous days but go to West Yellowstone. At Alin's insistence we choose a pizza place. I'm not a big fan of pizza so I ordered macaroni and cheese, comfort food for the soul :) In the menu the m&c of Wild West Pizzeria of West Yellowstone was advertised as "world renowned". I don't know if it is really world renowned but it was very good and it reminded me of a dish that we eat in Romania. I have to say that this was the first time that I ate macaroni and cheese which must be a record of some kind since I've been living in US for 10 years and m&c is pretty popular here. They used to serve it in Intel's cafeteria from time to time but I never had the curiosity of trying it.

Trip to Yellowstone - Part 4 - Canyon Country

2006-09-25T12:35:00.000-07:00

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On our second day in the park we went to see the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. The impressive sheer drop and the canyon's yellowed walls made for amazing views. We spent the entire day circling the canyon, stopping at different points of belvedere along the north and the south rims, admiring the two waterfalls - the Lower and the Upper Fall formed by the Yellowstone River - and doing short but steep hikes along the two rims. All in all it was a lovely day.

Trip to Yellowstone - Part 3 - The Geyser Country

2006-09-23T12:18:00.000-07:00

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Our accommodation in West Yellowstone was a rental house way to big for us, but since we were paying by the person it still came cheaper than a hotel. It had four bedrooms, two on the second floor and two in the basement and a living room and a kitchen on the first floor. It came equipped with a cable TV and grill which came in handy in the evenings. The best part about the house was that is was located very close to the park's entrance so we didn't have to drive additional miles - the park is big enough as it is.

On our first day in Yellowstone we went to see the geysers and we started with the most famous one. Old Faithful is where everybody goes and we were lucky to get there 10 minutes before it was scheduled to erupt. Old Faithful erupts every 80 minutes and it's probably the most predictable geyser in the park. Based on the duration of the last eruption, rangers are able to figure out a time frame for the next eruption. There were crowds of people sitting on benches around the geyser perimeter and waiting patiently in a complete silence like some religious ceremony was about to take place and our voices would ruin the experience. It started with some steam and a little spray and then it erupted into a tall stream of water and steam. The show finished and everybody started in the direction of their car but we decided to stick around and see the rest of the geysers in the upper geyser basin.

We followed a trail to the Observation Point up a little hill where we got a good view of the entire basin. On the way to the Observation Point we passed very close by a bison - our first encounter with the creature which used to roam these lands 150 years ago before it was hunted close to extinction during the 19th and early 20th centuries. We were to see many more the following days so I guess they're no longer endangered. After Observation Point we went around the boardwalk at the upper geyser basin and looked at even more geysers while being surrounded by an all mighty rotten egg smell. Castle Geyser started erupting and it went on for half an hour. We saw Old Faithful erupting one more time, this time from a different angle and we headed for the Old Faithful Inn.

The inn is a rustic looking lodge made of logs dating from the beginning of the century. It's very impressive looking on the inside and the lobby was full of photographers trying to capture a image of the log work above us. We decided to eat dinner at their dining hall. The badge of the girl at the reservation counter read her name and underneath it "Romania" so I started to talk to her in Romanian. She's been working on a 3 months temporary contract in Yellowstone and she was very happy to meet us. I guess she didn't meet many Romanians during those 3 months. But we couldn't chat long, since there was a line behind me. Cris and Alin tried to be creative when ordering food and they ordered bison and elk but frankly my lamb was much better. From this early dinner we went to catch the sunrise at the middle geyser basin by the Grand Prismatic Spring which colors looked spectacular at dusk.

Trip to Yellowstone - Part 2

2006-09-20T14:25:00.000-07:00

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Ketchum wasn't in our initial plan, but we decided to stop there because it was highly recommended by a friend of us. It was a bit out of the way but the detour wasn't too long. As we were driving towards Ketchum we passed a small field full of American flags. A big sign by the highway read "Flag Memorial". Someone in the car remembered that the next day was September 11. The memorial looked beautiful and I'm sorry we didn't stop to take a picture. Ketchum looked a lot like Tahoe City, a town by the shores of Lake Tahoe where we go skiing every winter. It looked nice but familiar, the quintessential American mountain resort. We had lunch on an outside terrace in Ketchum and afterwards drove for 30 minutes past the town through Sawtooth National Recreational Area, an area of forested hills and mountains with beautiful skylines in every direction. Since we had planned for one more stop and had to be in West Yellowstone by 10 PM we decided to turn back and head for Craters of the Moon National Monument.

All the way through Idaho we saw signs marking "Historical Sites", in fact marking the Emigrant Trail, the road taken in the 19th century by the emigrants from Eastern US to move west towards California and Oregon. Craters of the Moon was a very pleasant surprise. It's a huge field of cold lava molded in weird shapes. It sits in the middle of nowhere which makes the landscape look even more wild and remote. I hope it stays that way. There isn't anything active at the moment and the last eruption took place around 2000 years ago but I read on a sign that geologists believe that future events can occur. A seven miles loop road allows access to a small portion of the park. We saw cinder cones, spatter cones and craters and what seemed very exciting to us caves or lava tubes which we decided to explore. We spent about 3 hours on different small trails and hiking through caves and I took tons of pictures. When sunset approached we started on our way to West Yellowstone.