Hi friends and family,

These exotic names in the title are all locations in Romania.

We have had 2 additional "taxi" drivers in Romania, both were on the very dull side, both were named Igor; you know the type. The first one we ended up with as our train pulled in very late to Brasov, and he was a buddy of the man at Information, or perhaps a local charity case acquaintance. He had a car about as big as a postage stamp, not a taxi, and managed to get us to a hotel in my tour book, which fortunately had a room. The second one took us to the wrong location out in the countryside where we were supposed to pick up our rental car. Fortunately, we didn't have our luggage with us and managed to get to our car rental by running alongside the freeway for a short block or so.

Before we left Brasov, which is a very nice old Saxon town, we walked around the city center (where we saw the priest) and took a ski lift type cable car up the hill. Stalin once had this hill denuded so that he could spell out his name in giant letters - no ego problems there - but the trees have grown back and there is a giant Brasov sign at the top of the hill now. This is what it looks like from the back.



Before walking back down to the city through the woods, we were warned that a bear cub had been spotted on the trail the day before and advised that if we should meet one or its mother, drop what we were carrying and run in the opposite direction. That would be up the hill. Thankfully we didn't run into any bears as our legs were very wobbly after just walking down the hill.

Maria Coffino, who we met shortly before we left for Romania, and who is the only person we knew of (before coming here) who is at least partly Romanian, strongly advised us to drive into the mountains surrounding Brasov. This was a lovely drive, past Vlad the Impaler's castle, aka Dracula, and then up a very unlikely looking road, incredibly rutted and pot-holed, with many of the protective side barriers missing. In fact, Don was convinced that we must be on a wrong road, that it must be someone's private road to their farm. We persisted and were very glad we did. It was getting late and we didn't have a place to stay. The pensione Maria recommended was full, booked for a wedding. We wandered up to a house with a small sign "Pensiune Mamina" (Grandmother) and struck gold.


This truly is a beautiful area; it looks like parts of Switzerland. Nick and Paula (or Mamina) couldn't have been nicer or more welcoming. They fed us copious amounts of stuffed cabbages (delicious), sausages, pickles, bread, and when we couldn't eat all Mamina had served us she moaned in distress "You no like, you no like, OOhhh, you no like my food." It took a great deal to assure her that her food was absolutely delicious, but we were very full. They also brought out the home-made wine, home-made tuinca (tastes like grappa), home-made brandies, see picture below. Nick and Mamina posing with 3 water bottles, not containing water.


More later. We've got to go, and don't know when we'll see another good email connection.


Love,

Era and Don

Oh, I knew I shouldn't have eaten those pancakes on top of the schnitzel, the goulasch and the stuffed cabbage. And why did I drink all that palincka? Burp.


(Photo credit: Ms. Deborah O)

Love,

Era

p.s. Can you read the letters on the umbrellas? They say "Kronstadt" (the German word for Brasov) " Probably the Best City in the World." Don looked at that and commented, there seems to be some room for doubt in their mind.

Good-bye, Budapest.

Went to one of the owner's favorite cafes for breakfast: 2 cappucini and 2 very tasty cheese croissants. Total bill: less than $5.



We got into a cab and were whisked to the Ferigheny Airport. Luckily, no traffic. The traffic can be brutal in Budapest. Waited on the runway for an hour, for no discernible reason. Malev Air, Hungarian National Airlines, who are actually highly rated.

Landed in Bucharest's Otopeni Airport. My plan was to take the train directly to Brasov and not go into Bucharest, which I've heard has not much to recommend it and is snarled with traffic. I had been indirectly told in email by the Romanian Tourist Agency that I could do this, but when I think back on it, they never directly said I could catch a train at the airport. So they didn't actually lie when asked the direct question because, guess what? There is no train that comes even close to Otopeni Airport. So we had to take a cab into the boiling cauldron of Bucharest traffic. The driver seemed to have about 6 girlfriends, Don was convinced, because he was on his cell phone constantly while making death defying driving maneuvers which I would never, ever consider doing outside of a nightmare. Fortunately, he didn't get us into any accidents; especially fortunate as his seat belts weren't working.

Got to the train station with not much time to spare. We purchased 2nd class tickets as Frommer's said that they saw no difference between 1st and 2nd class on Romanian trains. Don't know if that's true, but we did meet the most interesting people on the train. I actually met and spoke with a young man for quite some time who told me he was Tatar and Roma (gypsy). I admit I was startled to hear that he was Tatar. I think of them as galloping across the Hungarian plains during the middle ages, living in their saddles, and maniacally attacking everyone in sight. All these fortresses we've been looking at were built to defend against these people. I figured they had all returned to Mongolia centuries ago or intermarried, leaving only a faint genetic whiff in the Eastern European makeup. This young fellow told me that no, there were actually quite a few still living near Costanta on the Black Sea coast, still keeping to their old religion (not sure what that is) and still speaking their language. He, Jonnie, was very intelligent, interesting, well-spoken, in English, no less, and worked for a nonprofit in Romania who helped the Roma people when they were discriminated against. I would guess that might be just about all the time, but I could be wrong. He said he is very busy in his work here.

In our compartment were 2 college students, also from Costanta. The young woman was absolutely gorgeous as well as sweet and the young man played basketball professionally for a Romanian team while also attending college. These two bright and attractive people laughed long and inordinately at our jokes (so not sure how bright they actually are), but fell into the pattern of making some moderately snide comments about the gypsies. I tried to tell them that in the next compartment was an intelligent, very nice man of gypsy heritage, but it just seemed to glide right past them. They couldn't hear or consider it.

I also met an old Romanian mountain man, who lived way high up in the mountains with bears, a few wolves and many foxes. We had no language in common, but a woman on the train kindly translated for us.

All this in a 3 hour train ride. I think I'm going to like Romania.



Priest, reminiscent of St. Francis, feeding pigeons in Brasov Square.

Love,

Era and Don

Dear friends and family,

For those who were not sure, that was not Don practicing for a new vocation upon a move to Venice; that last photo was produced through the amazing Photoshop skills of our friend, the mysterious Ms. Deborah O.





We agree with everyone who has been here and told us about it; Budapest is a great city. We feel that we barely had enough time to dip our big toe into it. There are fantastic buildings, beautiful bridges, great food, plentiful cafes, great museums, lots and lots to see. It reminds us of exploring Paris and London for the first time in the late 'sixties (in and just out of high school - we're not that ancient yet), before these cities were totally cleaned up and pristine, when they were still sooty and a bit crumbling, when the streets were not yet packed with tourists, and when prices were a lot less.


There was some serious money here at one time. Luxurious, highly decorated buildings in varying stages of entropy. Luxurious, completely renovated palaces side-by-side with bullet-ridden buildings.

Spent the good part of a day at the mammoth Budapest Fine Arts Museum. They have some wonderful Velasquez and many other works. There was literally almost no one there (see below).


Our apartment, which continues to be a joy and refuge to us, is in a small court with an old church and many trees, at the foot of a narrow (almost) walking street filled with great cafes. At the end of the street and a bit to the left is the also mammoth Central Market Hall, half French covered market and half Oriental bazarre. From the outside it looks very Hungarian, I guess. I do not yet have any expertise in Hungarian architecture.


Central Market Hall, Budapest. It's huge, but looks mammoth in this photo

(outside of market)

We ate at a restaurant which specializes in good Hungarian wine from its many wine-producing regions.


Era looking quite pleased that she's about to chow down on some salmon with porcini and gnocchi. Don has a duck breast in a Hollandaise sauce with a dish made of layers of pastry and vegetables. No dieting here.

Waundering the little streets, we went into an art gallery and met a very nice Finnish man (Ari) who dealt in antiques and was also showing works of prize-winning Hungarian art students. He sponsors students in the visual arts and music by providing scholarships. He is working on opening an art center with teaching facilities outside Budapest with some Finnish backers. Apparently, the Finns cannot understand Hungarian without studying it, but the grammar is similar. The next day we ran into Ari with some Finnish friends on the Liberty Bridge.


Era on Liberty Bridge

Climbed to the top of the citadel, one of the high hills on the Buda side of the Danube. According to one of my guide books, Budapest was once located on the great Hungarian plains, but after being attacked one too many times by Tartars, Turks and other invaders, the city was relocated to its present site on a high protected hill. The views at the top were stunning, but we didn't have long to enjoy them as the clouds rolled in, the heavens got active and we had a thunder and lightning storm. Just that morning, we had gone back to the apartment to get my sunglasses as the day was so bright. After huddling under the stone gate of the old citadel, we decided to brave the rain with our smallish umbrella, which Don hurriedly purchased for $5. We ended up getting hopelessly lost and almost completely drenched. We somehow managed to come down the wrong side of the hill, lose sight of the huge Danube River and wander into some residential and uninteresting business areas. By the time we got back to our apartment, Don was feeling a little chilled, so we decided to get warm and take it easy.

It's not all smooth, dry sailing on the road.

Love from

Era and Don

Dear friends and family,

We thought we were incognito, but our friend, Deborah O., unbeknownst to us, managed to get this shot of Don playing gondolier.

Love,

Era and Aldo (what the Italians call him)

Dear friends and family,

Venice is fairly unchanged in the last 10 years (we have been back at least one time since) and we don't really remember too well what it was like 30 years ago, except that it was shabbier and more smelly. The same beautiful buildings are still there in the same place, still beautiful and in a more or less frozen state of decrepitude (at least from 10 years ago), although I'm certain a lot of renovation and repair has been done over the years.


Bob Morgan, Ewa and Felicite could not have been kinder and warmer hosts. We are sorry we never were able to touch base with our friends Franco and Maria Ferrari. We heard from Susan Filter that they are going to Romania also. Maybe we'll run into them there!


Robert Morgan in his studio. (Don helped him document and color correct each of his paintings.)


On the Zattere.


Traffic jam.

We walked all over Venice; hardly ever choosing to take a vaporetto. It is such a pleasure for us to walk, especially in a city like Venice. The little streets and campiellos (small courtyards) are beginning to look familiar. I asked Bob, who has lived in Venice for probably 35 years, if he thought there were any little alleys or campiellos which he hadn't been through in Venice, and he said yes, although not many.


Era and Bob crossing by traghetto, with a somewhat reluctant gondolier.

We went to the Fortuny Museum today, our first visit there. The Fortuny dresses and fabrics were gorgeous. Also, they had an exhibition of samurai armor, always fascinating. I was interested to see them; curious to see the presentation. They had an impressive and very large collection of stunning armor on display. The colors melded beautifully with the Fortuny dresses, capes and hangings. A similar aesthetic. Bob told us that the Fortuny Museum used to be an art school, and that he had met Susan Filter there - long ago.

Our meals with the Morgans have been lovely mostly vegetarian and light suppers; a very nice counterpoint to our mostly heavy Italian pasta and sometimes meat lunches. Our last meal with them was quite amazing and elaborate: a roast guinea hen with a delicious, mouth-watering aroma and flavor, some beautiful organic cabbage, which Ewa had cooked with lots of fresh dill and lemon, baby potatoes, a salad, some of our Imagery wine which he had lugged from California.

We ate early as Don and I had to catch an overnight train to Budapest. I had read on TripAdvisor all sorts of people saying that whatever you do, don't take the overnight train from Venice to Budapest. When Don heard this, he immediately wanted to take it. Bob and others have been teasing us about thieves squirting knockout gas under the doors and through the keyholes, then rifling thru your luggage at their leisure. We also had to go to the ATM machine and gets loads of cash, as we have to pay for our Budapest apartment in cash (euros). Bob also regaled us with a story of visiting Poland and getting pickpocketed by a team of thieves on the bus. (I am typing this on the train right now, and I think Don and I will sleep on our valuables, although I'm really not that worried about it.)

Bob was so kind and insisted on accompanying us to the train station and carrying and wheeling my luggage. It involved wheeling to the vaporetto stop and then making a transfer. Don said he wanted to make sure we caught the train and didn't come back to stay with them for a still longer time.

On the train now in our little private sleeping compartment. Bob laughed when he saw our Hungarian train. He said they had forgotten to open the windows when they had to spit. Quite a contrast to the sleek Austrian train on the other side of the platform. Everything does look a little retro, but clean enough and neat. I stood as our train pulled out of Venice to salute the magical city. It's dark outside and our compartment does make a bit of a rattle. I just closed our door and the conductor admonished me to lock it. There are 2 bolt locks on the door and we are using them both.


No air conditioning or heat; thus the extra scarf as covering.

More later.

We did survive the journey to Budapest with life, limbs and worldly possessions more or less intact, although we were woken by uniformed guards numerous times in the middle of the night. The first was border control as we passed into Slovenia around 3 in the morning; then Croatia about 20 minutes later; then leaving Croatia about an hour and a half later; then Hungary about 10 minutes after that; and shortly following, another Hungarian official inquiring if we had anything to declare. No, surprisingly, we had not managed to pick up anything in Slovenia or Croatia. At each interruption Don's smile became broader and broader. He was so pleased at the absurdity of the situation. Sometimes he is really strange.


Our fabulously comfortable and luxe apartment in Budapest. Movie mavens (Era's movie group), note Leonard Cohen poster to the right.

Much love,

Era and Don

Dear friends and family,

On the road again. Our few days in New York were mostly business. We kept passing movie vans and trailers parked all over SoHo and Tribeca. Very early on our first morning we heard large noisy trucks and guys shouting down the block to each other. Got up to see movie trailers parked all up and down our narrow little street. Did manage to get a photo of not only them, but the KATE tapestry hanging in the Surrey Hotel and Norbert Prangenburg and John Yau's book, A Child's Vi(r)gil, at Betty Cuningham Gallery. Had a fabulous dinner at John Yau and Eve Aschheim's. Their very precocious daughter, Cerise, entertained us on the recorder and otherwise.



Business class from SF to NY, but Economy from NY to Munich. Poor Don could barely fit into the seat. It felt a bit like a cattle car, especially since there was someone very nearby having constant and continuous gastric problems. Not as bad as Harris Ranch, but close.

In Munich they parked us quite far from the terminal, so we had to take a bus to reach it. Then we had to clear security and customs again, even though we had just gotten off an international flight. We ran all the way across the airport, but arrived after the bus which took people out to the plane for Venice had left. It turned out everyone on our flight and a flight from DC who were traveling on to Venice also missed this plane. Maddening, since the plane was still there when we arrived, but they (Lufthansa) wouldn't send a bus for us. Next plane in 3 hours - not too bad. Mary Webster had warned us about Lufthansa, and she was right, although our stewardesses were wonderful.

We found a not very populated part of the vast and sparkling clean Munich airport, stretched out on some seats and took a nap. I guess after the volcano ash, everyone has become inured to the sight of stranded tourists sleeping where they can.

After we woke some fellow travelers, except they were in business class, gave us a food credit for 30 euros; they had received 2 of them for missing the same flight and because they were in business class and raised a stink. We had some coffee drinks, water, juice, a sandwich, and then just started buying things for people at the bar.

In Venice we are staying with Robert Morgan (the painter and sometimes photographer; Magnolia printed his photographs as etchings for the gorgeous book Watermark, published by Peter Koch), Robert's wife, Ewa, and their adorable and spunky daughter, Felicite, right off the Zattere. Managed to stay up until 10, then crashed.

This is the view of their back yard.


This is Felicite's walk to school.


Wildly coincidental, we thought (although Susan Filter had told us this previously), but Ewa works for a Polish Cultural institution, The Signum Foundation, which purchased the building we had seen with Susan and Peter Koch in San Polo, a beautiful square in Venice. The last time we were in Venice this building, the Palazzo Dona', was being offered for sale (by the Fonseca family), absolutely gorgeous. We toured the rather small (for a palazzo) home and fantasized about how we could possibly afford to buy it. We couldn't, short of having about 20 partners. It ended up being purchased by this Polish institution, and Ewa ended up working for them. To add to the crazily serendipitous nature of it, the director, Gregory Musial, knows our friend, the curator (and painter) Randy Rosenberg. They used to work together in Washington DC for the World Bank's art programs. Randy is the curator of the exhibition we are traveling to, The Missing Peace, Artists Consider the Dalai Lama, and thus we wouldn't even be making this trip if it were not for her.

I have gotten all kinds of mileage from anyone Polish by the fact that my boyfriend in high school, Peter, was the son of Czeslaw Milosz. If you don't know who Czeslaw Milosz was, you aren't Polish. He was a Nobel Prize winning poet who taught at UC Berkeley. He was also a member of The Committee of 100 for Tibet, which exists to help the Dalai Lama and the people of Tibet, and is sponsoring the exhibition we are in. Every Pole seems to revere him, or at least know of him, including Ewa, the small staff at the Polish institution and our young waiter at En in NYC. Don is probably tiring of the way I have been dropping this tidbit to every Pole we meet. It is odd that I almost never meet Polish people in California, but we have been meeting them on this trip.


Era and Don