Flight from Bucharest to Iasi.
Resident dog that hung out at Constantin's family's apartment complex.
Beautiful university in Iasi.
DanaKitten in front of one of a series of amazing paintings inside one of the universities in Iasi.
Pumpkin carving competition.
DanaKitten depositing pumpkin guts into bag.
Constantin and pumpkin, or vice-versa.
Entries for the pumpkin carving competition.
More pumpkin. More carving. Or carved, rather.
Bygone era industrial-style buildings and ruins abound in Iasi.
The DanaKitten and Costi.
Florin Piersic, famous Romanian actor and TV personality, introduces a revival screening of an old Romanian spaghetti western he was in called "Colierul de turcoaze."
This is outside the theater where Florin Piersic appeared to introduce his film.
A feral ("community") dog on its nest.
Local TV reporter interviews participant in a racing competition held at a mall, where the entrants were ordinary folks driving their own cars.
Burn outs.
Ibid.
Some snails hanging around one of the monuments in Iasi.
Old columns (Dana reckons from around 800 years ago) were uncovered during a city project; they are being preserved.
The Iasi Palace of Culture.
Iasi Palace of Culture.
Roma/gypsies.
Rooks on the wires.
Constantin plays with my DJ equipment.
The DanaKitten and two cool cats.
Costi, DK, the Cat With No Name, and myself
Amazing cemetery in Iasi. The flock of rooks overhead look like a Photoshop addition (perhaps the sort of thing you'd see in some DeviantArt photomanipulation). But this is an untouched photo.
Nearly every tombstone features photos of the departed, which greatly humanizes them.
A composer at the cemetery had a piece of his own music affixed to the back of his tombstone. Here, courtesy of Steve Damaske, with props to Brian C. Chamberlain, is what it sounds like: http://www.kingpigeon.com/eurotrash/Gravestone_MP3.mp3
I loved these girls. Note that the one on the right now has a mismatched head, unfortunately.
This grave was for a former airplane pilot, hence the propeller blade.
Cat costa benzina?
A massage chair at the mall in Iasi.
"Quantum of Solace" came out a week earlier in Romania than in the US, affording me a sorta sneak preview.
Here's how I got the news of Obama's victory.
Real estate is booming in Romania. There were a lot of fancy new houses being built around this lake in Iasi.
Excellent hard rock/metal bar in Iasi.
Seems most of the trams in Iasi are hand-me-downs from Germany. They still have German signage on them.
My criterion for a fun place is that there must be girls dancing on the tables. The bar counter counts as a table, too.
Another German-language artifact on the Iasi trams.
Resident feral apartment dog.
Christmas decorations began to go up.
Election campaigning. Parliamentary elections will be held at the end of November.
A birthday gathering for DanaKitten's friend Gabriella.
Elena, who runs Gabriella's apartment.
More birthday gathering.
Restaurant located in some underground tunnels in Iasi.
Botanical gardens in Iasi.
Collection of photos showing Constantin's parents' lives, 1970s and 1980s.
Mixed among the photos were these fascinating movie actor cards, which included some well-known figures.
My favorite photo, thanks to the girl with the bottle in the middle. Probably 1970s.
Hungarian hottie actress.
You were admired even in Iasi. RIP.
The Gods of Eurotrash.
Monastery; another religious community in a beautiful place out in the country.
The monastery dates back to 1669.
Fantastic Lebanese hookah bar. Nancy Ajram mp3s played continuously.
My birthday happened.
Constantin's parents.
We watched a lot of "Prison Break." The subtitles helped me to learn a few new Romanian words.
Colorful seat cushions in an Orthodox church.
More of that Lebanese bar.
Rapa Galbena
A thick fog rolled in, turning the city into an even more surreal place.
Razvan now has his own apartment.
And Razvan has a damaged car, thanks to an accident he got into right before picking me up at the Gara de Nord.
This is Razvan, Marius, another work associate--and I should have said earlier that we are now in Bucharest.
National Bank of Bucharest.
View from Razvan's family's apartment.
Razvan's dad raised a pigeon. It is, as you can see, completely tame and utterly fearless.
Razvan's dad and the pigeon.
1986 vintage red wine I drank on my birthday.
Herastrau Park, something of a tradition to visit whenever I am in Bucharest.
In the middle of this shot is a new "lifer" for my bird list, a green woodpecker.
Bucharest has "hoodies," as I like to call them: hooded crow. There is an all-black crow called the carrion crow which is common in other parts of Europe. The two are now considered separate species, but once were lumped together as forms of the same species. Usually, wherever there are hoodies there are no carrions, and vice versa.
Lotta renovation work being done in Bucharest's Historic Quarter.
