Valcea, Romania

Cristina and I left Bucharest in order to spend some down time in Valcea, the small town Cristina grew up. It's a comfortable three hour bus ride from the capital. Highlights today included a hike up a hill overlooking the city, a visit to a motel bar that has remained unchanged since communist times (except for the telenovele playing on the nice TV sitting on the bar), a walk through Cristina's old high school, and a tremendous multi-course lunch with beer that set us back only $20.

Cristina's apartment (actually her parents' apartment, but her parents live in America now) has some very nice communist-era touches, including a shelf full of old books. Among these is a fascinating 1970s encyclopedia of home-making for the stylish Romanian woman. This book is full of photographs of trendy furniture that real Romanians during that time period could not possibly have been able to afford (Cristina suspects that the book was a translation of a Western European book, and that the photos of apartments and fashionable models are from other countries).

I also like the old radio/record player on the porch, which includes pre-settings for Belgrade, Moscow, Ljubljana, and Vilnius radio stations.

Bank of America Incompetence Continued

They sent me a new debit card to Romania, but they failed to include the last digit of the zip code. So they are sending me yet another debit card.

Because I suspected zip codes are not as important in Bucharest, which has a different address system, I asked them to not cancel the other card, but to send a back-up as well to the same (but corrected) address. But they cannot do this; policy states one must cancel one card before sending another. So, I would not be surprised if the now-canceled card arrives tomorrow in Bucharest, while I sit and wait for another 5 to 7 business days.

One would think that VISA-911, their emergency card services number, would be for exactly the sort of situation I am in. But VISA-911 has been useless. They cannot issue a debit card by Fed-Ex without authorization from Bank of America. So if you call them and ask for a card to be sent to you, they will tell you to call Bank of America and have BoA then get back in contact with them.

And today, VISA-911 denied me emergency cash. I was disqualified because I changed my address recently (due to my moving out of apartment). For security reasons, I am told, one must have been at one's current address for 90 days.

First thing I will do when I return to America: sue Bank of America.

My Review of the One Step Independence Square Hostel in Kiev, Ukraine

From Kiev, Ukraine

A fellow guest told me he was offered a 50% discount to write a positive review of the hostel. I was offered no such discount myself, so I will say what I will. The hostel was very clean, the staff was responsive, and the wi-fi was a great convenience. Some of the guests were disturbed by the proprietor's fondness for taking showers with the bathroom door open, his habit of shouting out the names of his employees ad nauseam, and his tendency to wander around the premises clad only in extremely tiny underwear, but perhaps these were simply misunderstood tokens of Ukrainian hospitality.

(In truth, I have it on good authority that this is the best hostel in Kiev, so be sure to consider it if you find yourself in that city.)

A Mother's Concern

"I just checked your photo site yesterday, am feeling a Mother's concern about so many reference to pubs, bars etc. I know the picture probably does not represent the trip but would like to see more scenery."

Updates - 30 January

From Kiev, Ukraine

Perhaps I've let my readership down at this blog. In fact, I have been hard at the writing, polishing up the Gorchitza interview and beginning a few other articles that I think will be of general interest. These will be submitted to various non-blog outlets. So that takes time away from writing for the blog. But here I am, back at last, so let's go!

As the old joke goes, on Wednesday night an American, a Frenchman, a German, and three young Ukrainian women walked into a sushi bar. We then moved on to an excellent cellar bar that the girls recommended. I discovered there is actually an excellent Ukrainian wheat beer that tastes almost exactly like America's "Blue Moon." (I know Nathan will read this with great interest.)

One of the girls is a dancer. She bragged about her strength, so I challenged her to an arm-wrestling competition. She nearly beat me. She told me she will be doing more strength-building for the next month and promises to beat me next time. I have no doubt she will.

On Thursday I boarded a train and began a 28-hour long journey from Kiev to Bucharest. A fun young couple, whose only shared language with me was a little bit of German, provided company for about half the journey. Afterward I had the compartment to myself. At night it grew too cold, but by day the temperatures rose to sweltering conditions. I found no way to control the climate in my compartment, so I was literally sweating on the way down to Bucharest.

Advice to 50 year-old men who speak no English but who nonetheless invite themselves into my compartment in order to talk to me about being an American: I am not interested. Sorry. It's not that Americans are standoffish. It's just that it's intimidating and creepy when I am traveling alone and some guy who has no language commonality with me invites himself into my space bubble like that.

I arrived in Bucharest only a few minutes late, where I was greeted by Adi, who works at my friend Razvan's IT company. Razvan was struggling back at the office with the installation of a bunch of new office furniture--desks and cabinets and the like. The place was in chaotic disarray when I arrived, and some of the cabinet doors had been installed improperly, so the company doing that received a lot of fussing as they tried to make it right. Reconnected with Marius there, who is working on building a house about thirty minutes from the office.

Razvan's apartment is extremely cozy, and it is wonderful at last to have a room of my own to disappear into. Two adorable cats add to the comfort. And of course, most of all, Razvan's and girlfriend Roxana's hospitality has been tops.

I am now preparing to meet up with Cristina, the young woman I met on the airplane two weeks ago. We have been looking forward to this ever since we parted at the Frankfurt airport.

Bank of America: Possibly the Most Incompetent Bank on the Planet

Bank of America took down my Ukrainian address information in order to send me a new debit card to replace the one Piraeus Bank in Kiev refused to return to me without all manner of ridiculous bureaucracy.

It's been one week since I spent five minutes patiently spelling all the letters out for the Ukrainian address to a Bank of America representative. And today I learned that Bank of America went ahead and sent the card to my listed home address in the United States instead.

So I'm back to square one.

Gorchitza Live Project - Crystal Hall - 22 January 2010

From Kiev, Ukraine

Sexy dancers in sci-fi clothing and a young woman braided like Yulia Tymoshenko were among the many hundreds of people crammed into an invitation-only music performance in honor of the official opening of Crystal Hall, a venue said to be Kiev's biggest nightclub.

Gorchitza kicked things off with a lively set of funky house tunes. Their singles "Time is Right," "One True Message," and the currently charting "Final Cut" went over well and saw many in the crowd singing along. But the new material from their forthcoming album was particularly tantalizing, especially a track called "Friend," which saw singer Allois depart halfway through as the tune transformed into a tough-as-nails instrumental techno workout that tore up the dancefloor. Considering Gorchitza has solid English-language lyrics married to clever musical ideas, all they need now is some international distribution and a few good gigs in other countries to find them fans outside Ukraine.

Jay Sebag, aka "The Voice of Martin Solveig" who has been lending his vocals to the popular French DJ's hit tunes for years, belted out a set of Solveig tunes. Think of it as particularly brilliant karaoke. The diminutive Mr. Sebag doesn't look like he should have a voice that big, which makes watching him strut up and down the stage working the crowd all the more wonderful.

DJ's Light and Lulik steered the ship competently throughout the night.

And I can't give a bad review to the two rapper guys and DJ from Moscow, because somebody else at the club last night did, and after the would-be critic told them that they sucked one of the rappers leaped off the stage and kicked him in the head. So I will simply note that these tough guys have a bright future ahead of them performing medleys of other artists' top 40 songs and kicking people in the head.