A Full Weekend, Part One

B here. Yesterday and today present striking contrasts. Yesterday, we didn't get to doing too much as it rained all day. S had seen a poster advertising an Indian Handcrafts exhibition being held at Muzeul National al Satului, i.e. the National Museum of the Romanian Village. This museum was created by Romania's first great sociologist, Dmitrie Gusti, who identified huts, churches and other buildings representative of folk traditions from each of Romania's regions, and brought them to Bucharest. Most of these structures are over two hundred years old, and form an open-air museum in one corner of Herastrau Park, a beautiful sprawling park in the north of the city. The museum isn't that far from us, so we decided to walk over there and check out the exhibit. Daring cold rain and deep puddles, we walked down Soseaua Kiseleff (named after a Russian general who served as governor of the Romanian principalities for a time in the early 19th century, who actually did a lot to develop the area), past embassies, a couple grand old hotels well past their prime, Romania's own Arc de Triumph (built to honor the nation's World War I casualties and celebrate the unification of Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania), and one of the entrances to Herastrau before reaching the museum. Since it was raining, we decided to skip the open-air portion and stick to the Indian exhibit.

The exhibit was fun, but not quite what we were expecting. There were artisans there representing various traditional art forms from several regions of India: woodworking, painting, printmaking, miniature sculpting, etc. Each artisan had crafts for sale, and we ended up buying a small painting which we will hang on one of the walls of the apartment. The crowd was a little small, with some Romanians but mostly Indians. The poster S saw stated that vendors would provide food, but none was to be had, at least not for us: apparently refreshments were only available for the opening day. Before leaving we stopped in the museum's gift shop and looked around, picking up a small bit of pottery to use as a toothbrush holder (functional art!) and getting some Christmas ideas.

We then headed to La Belle Epoque, a Belgian restaurant and bar a few minutes walk from home, for a late lunch (since our stomachs were sadly not full of yummy Indian food). Aside from reaaking of smoke, it turned out to be a nice establishment: well-appointed with nice wooden tables and chairs, and the food was pretty decent (as was the Belgian ale I quaffed). I had "frigarui de vita" aka beef skewers, and S chowed down on a croque madame sans ham (or a glorified grilled cheese-with egg). Tummies full, we did some minor grocery-shopping at the non-stop, bought an onion at the produce market next door (which turned out to have the best display of fruits and vegetables we've seen so far) and headed home.

All the above seems like a lot, but actually, it didn't take up that much time. While at home, S got pretty sad--a lot of frustrations buidling up over the week, plus homesickness. I think it just really hit home that, even with our upcoming Christmas reprieve, we're here for the long haul. So we just spent a lot of time talking about it, and I think Skyping with S's parents helped too.

Speaking of Skype, I just realized it is time to call my parents, so I'll have to make this a two-parter. More to come in an hour!