Well, Coco, Luca and myself successfully navigated Coco's homeland Romania without too many bruises or hangovers and lord knows we narrowly escaped a multitude of high speed traffic crashes...by inches. It is a place of great beauty and zany contradictions. Many things are better than ever with a standard of living that surprises. Gucci models stepping out of BMW's into dingy grey Soviet apartments while feral dogs nip at their heels. Shopping malls teeming with consumers dying to buy anything at all just so the neighbors will be certain they too are haves versus have-nots.
The repercussions of communism are many and the folks, as lovely as they are, are still gripped by demons. Everyone and their brother smokes and enjoys a shot of tzuica ( hooch) to keep the train on the tracks. Sausages are served with every meal and salads...well, maybe next year.
For every odd thing there were 15 great surprises and folks tripped over themselves to treat us like royalty, for this I will be forever grateful. Especially to my lovely wife and her family for showing me such a great time. Special thanks also to Nelutu, his wife and kids Andrei and Adelina for rocking Buzau with us (pronounced Booze-o).
In the spirit of all the fine cartoonists who feted me at the cartoonists society exhibit, I kept a sketchbook and endeavoured to draw all the people I met.
I didn't quite get there but tried hard and shall add a few more faces when I get the time.
The techniques and quality vary, but it is a good cross section of the great Romanians I met.
Noroc.
