Flâneur

Once you cross the Carpathians the landscape changes dramatically: gone are the gentle hills, bijou villages, Teutonic neatness and general postcard vistas. Instead the Wallachian Plain stretches south like a great hazy, dusty pancake all the way to the Danube. When God was making this little corner of the world he was in a rush and didn't bother with niceties such as aesthetics and wanted to get it over and done with as quick as possible. And things don't improve much when you get to Bucharest.

Most Romanians are quite disparaging about their own capital city. Even people from Bucharest find it hard to muster up many compliments for their hometown. And its hard not to see why: the historic core has been mercilessly gouged and scarred by the senseless megalomaniac whims of Ceauşescu. In the early 80s he embarked on a grandiose project to create a unified civic centre in the city, to be crowned by the unmistakable Palace of the Parliament. Unfortunately Ceauşescu's chosen site for his grand dream was already occupied by the historic city centre. But this posed no problem to the resourceful dictator who showed great resourcefulness in razing a third of it to the ground, including countless churches, monasteries, synagogues and old houses. Many of the buildings were not completed (or even started) by the time of the revolution in 89, and so the city is left with these open wounds, reminders of a painful past, that are still festering, years later.

The ludicrously opulent Palace of the Parliament is famed for being the second largest administrative building in the world, and also the heaviest one. An obscene amount of marble, gilding, silk, crystal and other luxury items were used on this, Ceauşescu's pet project. By the time of the revolution it was about 70% complete and it would have cost more to stop than to complete, and so Romania has been burdened ever since with this oversized white elephant.

Stepping To The Edge

The city of Odessa was founded by Catherine the Great to be a southern Saint Petersburg. I haven't been to the latter, but I certainly wasn't impressed with the former. My impression wasn't aided by arriving to grey skies and morning drizzle after six gorgeous days in Crimea. The grid of wide, tree-lined avenues seemed too impersonal, the grandeur too contrived. It may be the most cosmopolitan city in the country thanks to its port, but that just makes it a bland European city, lacking the wacky edginess of other, post-Communist Ukrainian cities. Instead it had the seediness that comes with being a port, namely in the proliferation of suspect "internet clubs" that aren't internet clubs at all but are just a front for gambling (apparently all casinos were closed down last year after the mafia behind the industry didn't pay a sufficiently large bribe to the government, and so they've migrated to the online world where the authorities are powerless). The only sight of note is the Potemkin Steps, made famous by this scene from Eisenstein's film Battleship Potemkin, one of the most influential in cinema history. Once again reality gives it quite a beating with an ugly port at the bottom which is home to a great carbuncle of a hotel that blots any semblance of a view. Not that Eisenstein would have minded that much since the actual event never actually occurred, and at least the purveyors of Soviet memorabilia and people offering photo opportunities with large birds of prey have a place to make a living (no kidding about the last one - I saw three separate people with birds ranging from golden eagles to snowy owls loitering around the steps hawking their pets to tourists for a photo op. Very odd indeed.).

Up close and in reality the Potemkin Steps are pretty disappointing, especially as they've built a main road right at the bottom.

Tourism The Ukrainian Way

In my last post I forgot to mention one other new thing that has come with entering Ukraine: a new alphabet. Ukrainian is written in Cyrillic like Russian, and although I can read it it's slow going for me; so I am voraciously reading every sign in an effort to improve my skills. Particularly tricky are the "false friends": letters that look the same in both Latin and Cyrillic but are pronounced differently e.g. P=R and H=N (Cyrillic first, then Latin). So for example to find an internet cafe you need to look out for a sign saying IHTEPHET.

Local fast food joint: Mister Snack.

The Problems Of Becoming Solvent

Poste restante is a great idea, and, before the advent of the internet, was the only way for people to keep in contact whilst travelling around like I am now. The basic premise is that letters or packages are sent to a post office in a given location and the post office will then keep the letter or package for a given time until the addressee comes and collects it. Courier services, such as FedEx and DHL, are also very useful in that they can deliver mail to pretty much anywhere in the world in just a couple of days. Sadly, as I found out whilst in Riga, the two systems are not mutually compatible.

A sumptuous Jugendstil door in a turn of the century house that has unfortunately been neglected.

Shiny Happy People

Travelling in the Netherlands is a dawdle: distances are small, the public transport infrastructure is extensive, and you don't even have to wait long to hitch a ride. But above all the vast majority of people speak English. This not only helps when buying bus tickets, but also allows you to have more complex discussions, about politics, religion and family life; things that make people tick.

I've always had a soft spot for the Dutch: their live-and-let-live liberalism; their openness to foreigners; their modest, hard-working Calvinism; and their appreciation of British humour. The few Dutch people I have spoken to, however, are worried that their country may be seen to be losing its tolerant ways to the wave of protectionism and xenophobia that has been sweeping through Western countries (epitomised by, but not restricted to, anti-Islamic sentiments and pronouncements) and that has found its voice here in the form of the controversial politician Geert Wilders with his loopy views on Islam and immigration. There is a growing sense of impending doom as the national elections approach that his party might become a dominant force. Sitting side by side with the stereotype of liberalism is that of being dour, serious and humourless. This stems from their Calvinist history which frowns on ostentation and demands that people be honest with each other. To outsiders who may be more used to elaborate formalities when dealing with people this may come across as rudeness, but instead it is an effort to be as clear and precise as possible and to talk openly about things which are often swept under the carpet. In fact the Dutch abhor confrontation and work through consensus whenever possible (on two separate occasions I was introduced to the idea of the polder model, something the Dutch are quite proud of, and quite rightly so in my view).

A typically stereotypical (although actually not that common) Dutch countryside scene, complete with your obligatory windmills. Kinderdijk.