Madonna's Gipsies
We went to the Madonna concert in Bucharest on Wednesday evening. The show was quite spectacular, as was to be expected of her, unfortunately there were many things about the organization of the event that were off and were very detrimental to the overall quality of the concert.
But that's not what I want to talk about. The buzz of the hour is the fact that Madonna decided to stop her concert mid-way to bring to our attention the fact that "there is a lot of discrimination against rroma gipsies in eastern Europe". The statement was met by an uproar of boos and whistling from much of the 70000-strong crowd.
You can read pro and con comments on many websites across the Internet. I will give you one link to The Hollywood Gossip which provides some examples of these comments.
Now, my opinion on the matter is probably not as extreme as that of some of my fellow nationals. Yes, Madonna had no business advising us on an issue she doesn't have enough information about. Madonna's gipsies are probably not the same gipsies we know over here in Romania. On the other hand there is a gipsy problem, a problem with gipsies, a problem of gipsies, and bringing this to the attention of the public is better done by a very well known public figure.
LATER EDIT (01.09.2009): The self-proclaimed king of all gipsies has announced that he plans to send Madonna a "diploma of excellency" in thanks for her statement in support of his fellow nationals. I think this should do, no more bad things need to be said about her by anyone :)
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| Christian Nasulea - 28.08.2009 | |
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Mount Olympus - Climbing Mitikas
My story should begin with "Mitikas, the highest peak on Mount Olympus, was first conquered on August 3rd, 1913...". Hold on! 1913? What, they were busy doing something else and didn't have time before that? Read on and find out why.
After hastily securing resources for the climb locally on Saturday, 7:15am Sunday morning found me in Prionia (1100m) at the end of the road leading into the Mount Olympus national park. As I was alone I was determined to find climbing partners locally as the Mount Olympus path is reputed to be a very busy one. Its reputation came through. As soon as I started (around 7:30am) I teamed up with Ilias and Angelo, two Greek guys from Larissa planning to go much the same way as I did.
3.5 hours later we were arriving at Spilios Agapitos - Refuge A (2100m). We talked to the people who were already there, Lithuanians, Estonians, Ukranians, Israelians, New Zeelanders, many of whom had attempted the climb the day before, to get updated information on the weather and on recommended routes. Weather conditions were less than perfect, the top was shrouded by heavy fog and it had rained till 5:00am, so there was nothing to do but wait. We had lunch and we slept for about an hour in the mess hall of the refuge.
A couple of notes on what a refuge means on Mount Olympus: Refuge A was actually a fully equiped challet, with kitchen, reception desk and souvenir shop. Had we been there 24 hours earlier spending the night would have been impossible without a reservation.
At 1:30pm, better news on the weather at the top was starting to come in so, we decided to have a go at it. Our chosen route would take us to the Skala summit (2866m) and then through Kakoskala (the bad ladder) to Mitikas (2918m). Along the way to Skala Ilias started to feel increasingly tired so I left my two Greek colleagues behind in order to save my own strength. I arrived at the top of Skala just before 4:00pm and waited for Ilias and Angelo to catch up for about an hour. When they arrived at Skala Ilias did not have the physical strength needed to continue so we decided he would head back to Refuge A and Angelo and I would continue. 20 minutes later the difficulty of the terrain broke Angelo's resolve, as he remained stuck on a ledge, so he decided to head back as well. I decided I was too far gone not to finish what I started so I carried on by myself.
I swiftly crossed the Kakoskala and was at the top of Mitikas at precisely 5:30pm. It was very late so I was most likely the last person to make it to the top on Sunday. 10 hours had passed since I left Prionia, of which about 3.5 hours were breaks.
Crossing the Kakoskala gave me the opportunity to experience some of the most impressive sights I have ever seen and strong eerie feelings, created by a combination of the extreme heights and the fog surrounding everything and dancing around me. As you climb up and down the narrow path and the stair-like rocks of the Kakoskala the wall to the left opens up in several spots onto a straight 500 metre drop towards Kazania, a giant caldera said to be the home of the God Hephaistos in ancient Greek mythology. The path is marked by very dense yellow and red markings but following it is still less than obvious in a few places. It just seems to end in thin air and you only understand where you need to go if you lean out and look around the rock and into the next seemingly unsurpasable void. They didn't conquer this peak until 1913 because it was DIFFICULT!
At the top I signed the log book and took pictures for 30 minutes. I was planning to descend from the top via the alternate path named Louki but as I did not find the start of the path and it was marked as being even more difficult than Kakoskala I had to double back.
My aim was to arrive at the Giosos Apostolidis - Refuge SEO (2700m) before sunset. Knowing the route through Louki to the refuge was estimated at 3 hours, and knowing I was taking the longer way down I had to find ways to cut down on my hiking time. I found a shortcut leading from the Kakoskala onto the Zonaria path and followed the Zonaria around another huge caldera to the SEO refuge. It proved to be an excellent choice as my total travelling time from Mitikas to SEO refuge was less than 2 hours.
I enjoyed the sunset resting my feet on the porch of the SEO refuge and looking out towards the Mouson Plateau and the Christos Kakalos - Refuge C, less than 1/2km away. There were only 6 guests and 2 staff spending the night at the refuge. I had dinner, tried the local wine, followed a conversation in Greek between the rest of the guests about first aid techniques and went to bed. Best sleep I've had this year.
I woke up at 7:50am on Monday morning without the alarm. I started the day by climbing to the little stone church at Prophitis Ilias (2803m).
At 9:25am I started on the 18km path leading from Refuge SEO (2700m) to Gortsia (900m) were I was planning to be picked up. As I was crossing the Mouson plateau I ran into a large group of mountain goats, who posed for me for a few brief moments. The top of the mountain was foggy for most of the time. Without the fog I expect the sharp edge at Lemos provides some pretty extreme scenery.
Just as I was approaching the top of the Pyrgos peak (2485m) I crossed paths with the mule caravan taking supplies up to refuge C and refuge SEO. I encountered an unattended herd of sheep, dogs, birds and lizards. At 1:30pm, after only 4 hours I arrived at Gortsia where I was greeted by my very happy Mother.
We spent the rest of the day visiting Agios Dyonisios, Litochoro, Panteleimonas, Platamonas...
LATER EDIT: You can see over 80 pictures from the climb here
A few words of advice for would-be future climbers:
- Greek people don't know a lot about hiking, many don't even know you can hike up to Mitikas. If you ask for information they will try to be helpful by telling you something, anything.
- All the information you need to hike can be found on the Website of the Management Agency of Olympus National Park.
- You should have a map with you. You can buy a 1:25000 map in Litochoro for 8 EUR but the one on the National Park website is better. You can download it straight from them by clicking here.
- If your balls are really so big they don't fit in any of your pants anymore and you have to use Louki as an access route to Mitikas you should go up Louki and down Kakoskala.
- There is almost no phone signal on the entire mountain. I had maybe 30 minutes of weak phone reception on the entire trip on the Cosmote network. It was barely enough to send a few SMSes.
Should anyone actually want to hike up Mitikas after reading this you should contact me either by email or through the Contact page. I might be able to help.
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| Christian Nasulea - 20.08.2009 | |
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Drinkable Water
I remember reading reports when I was younger about organizations that were digging wells in Africa. I always imagined that those wells were necessary because people didn't have water at all or it was very hard to come by. They were emphasizing the wells as being a vital project for Africa, which considering my understanding of the issue seemed obvious: you have no water you die.
While still being far from the actual places that those reports were referring to, North Africa did a good job at teaching me that the situation is slightly more complicated. It's not that there wasn't any water at all but rather that the quality of the existing water sources left a lot to be desired. After all, had there been no water at all people in those regions of Africa would have died long before some international organization got around to getting the idea that they needed to dig wells.
A couple of days ago I trustfully drank water out of a bottle that had been tampered with. Nothing much in the way of tampering, the content had been simply replaced or mixed with tap water. The results were incredibly unpleasant. I understood that the huge problem in Africa is not the lack of water resulting in death but rather the existence of bad water sources resulting in sickness which then in turn result in drastically reduced life expectancy across the board.
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| Christian Nasulea - 25.07.2009 | |
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Un dia y media en Madrid
After a reasonably enjoyable flying experience from Bucharest Otopeni to Madrid Barajas I took the metro and checked in only to find my room to be better and closer to the attractions of the city than I could have ever hoped for.
In the 6 hours that followed, thanks to Oana, who will surely make an extraordinary tourist guide one day, I was able to see everything. It felt like everything, anyway. Madrid is only a short walk from one end of the historical center to the other. We went from Plaza d'Espana to the Temple of Debod and then onward through the city passing Plaza del Sol, Plaza Mayor, various churches and cathedrals, the Chamber of Deputies, the Casa de Americas, the National Bank of Spain and then into the Parque del Retiro.
After finishing my daytime tour and letting Oana return to her business I went back to roaming the streets of the city under the stars in order to take some long exposure photos of some of the historical buildings. It was very interesting to observe the Romanians working the streets of Madrid, doing various jobs I don't much care to go into details about as they're not really the kind to make you proud of being Romanian. I met and talked to a variety of people from all walks of life and very many, different countries. More notably Anita from Uruguay who joined me for part of my nocturnal sightseeing tour.
Day 2 saw me waking up incredibly early to take care of some overdue emails. I then visited the Prado museum with its medieval and renaissance art, the Reina Sofia with its much more modern Picasso and Dali and, just as they were preparing to close for the day, the royal palace of king Juan Carlos and its ceremonial halls. These three little things took all day. They were some of the most impressive museums I've ever seen.
Meeting up with Oana again at 8 pm I received an introduction to local food and the meaning of a Museum de Jamon (EN: "Museum of Ham" or something along those lines). I tried the local wine, I tried the sangria... and I saw that they are good.
To sum it all up Madrid was an interesting experience, one for which my 40 hours were enough. People-wise Madrid is very nice as it is very easy to interact with complete strangers anywhere. Spanish people don't speak much English but fortunately I do understand plenty of Spanish. The meaning of "internet access" leaves a bit to be desired both where I stayed and in the city's restaurants in general.
There's plenty left to see on a potential future visit. Also, setting up base in Madrid and taking tours to other cities around it (i.e. Toledo, Aranjuez) looks like a very enticing idea.
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| Christian Nasulea - 17.07.2009 | |
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The Storyteller's House (Day 1)
Day one of my 2009 GrandParent RoadTrip
began with a 300 km drive from Comarnic to Piatra Neamt. There we had
lunch at the Colibele Haiducilor restaurant (EN: “Hoods' Huts”)
and took the local “gondola” to the top of the local hill. More
notably we managed to get Grandma on the gondola as well.
Driving further up north we arrived in
the area of Targu Neamt where most of our objectives for the day were
located. First stop was the house of Romanian children's tales writer
Ion Creanga, hence the name of the post. I was very happy to finally
visit those places that contributed to creating some of the best
stories I'd read and heard as a child. I was also pleased to find
that everything was in very good condition and to meet an
enthusiastic guide who helped us with very many details concerning
the remainder of our objectives.
Based on the guide's indications we
took a slight detour to visit Cetatea Neamtului, recently restored
and full of history. This was our first unplanned bonus achievement
of the trip. It was indeed great to see one of the most important
medieval Moldavian fortresses shining in the sun reminding us of its
glory of old.
We had three monasteries in our plan,
Agapia, Varatec and Neamt. We visited all of them in close succession
and we were duely rewarded for our effort with amazing sights and
history-filled places. A short walk away from the Varatec Monastery,
in the yard of the village church, we visited the grave of Veronica
Micle (famous lover of Romanian national poet Mihai Eminescu).
Another bonus objective that we just narrowly missed was the Bogdan
Voda zoo, very close to the Neamt Monastery, which hosts some of the
remaining ancient inhabitants of these Moldavian lands, the
buffalo-like “zimbri”. It closes at 6 pm.
Nightfall caught us en route to Suceava
where we stopped to spend the night at an amazing B&B called
Brandusa. Great sleep, great food, exceptional people.
Day one totals:
1 gondola trip
1 memorial house
1 medieval fortress
3 monasteries
2 restaurants
570 km
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| Christian Nasulea - 09.07.2009 | |
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Romanian Monasteries
If you were wondering why I've disappeared off my blog over the past 10 days know that I was simply very, very busy. At a time when many people leave the office to go on holiday or wind down their activity due to the summer heat I was busy, busy, busy working to set everything in order before setting off for the yearly roadtrip with the grandparents.
This year, we're targeting the monasteries in Bucovina. We have a map, a list and 4 days to go through it all. The map is in the enclosed picture. The list includes some of those all time favourites we've all heard of in school like Agapia, Putna or Voronet. Plans C & D will take us into Maramures if we make good time in Bucovina to see more traditional Romanian architecture.
Day 4 will be reserved to pure road tripping through some of Romania's most beautiful scenery, in the mountains between Moldavia and Transylvania, from Vatra Dornei to Bicaz, through Cheile Bicazului and back down towards Miercurea Ciuc and the sources of the Mures river.
I'm looking forward to the trip and its 1400 km drive. I'll keep you posted as things move along.
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| Christian Nasulea - 08.07.2009 | |
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I Like Movies
I was watching TVR2 one of these early mornings. Yes, somebody does watch that TV channel. Yes, I am their 0.01 rating points.
Anyway, there was a very short piece on Atlas about Akira Kurosawa.
This suddenly reminded me I still owe Tarkovsky 3 hours of my time to
finish watching Solaris. Just in case I would forget again the 10
o'clock movie on PRO Cinema today was "Seven Samurais", not the
Kurosawa one but a modern copy.
Berfore this turns into another James Joyce blog post I will get to the
point, or closer to it. I am often asked why I go to the cinema so
often, while at the same time I watch very little TV.
I like good stories. Movies are just one form of manifestation of these
stories. I especially like it when stories are told well, so I favour
good movies with good stories over poor movies with equally good
stories.
To better understand I will give you a list of directors for recommended watching:
Akira Kurosawa
Andrei Tarkovsky
Ingmar Bergman
Federico Fellini
Bernardo Bertolucci
Steven Spielberg
George Lucas
Watch anything from these guys, not just the famous ones.
The enclosed picture is of Akira Kurosawa since he started all this chain of thought.
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| Christian Nasulea - 29.06.2009 | |
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A Time for Showers
My day began at 6 am with a nice refreshing shower to wash off the dirt from yesterday's biking.
We then went on to do our little biking run through the mountains where it rained and rained and rained and there was mud and mud and mud. Obviously, upon our return I took another shower to bring myself back to usable condition. So, that's two showers, or twenty showers if you want to count the many rain showers on the mountain top as well.
I was expecting the rest of the day to be fairly slow and I was very happy with my clean new self. Then, a phone call came and 7 pm saw us leaving for an early evening on-road down-hill run. Nothing complicated, they're usually no sweat and don't involve much dirt. Everything was going according to plan until my front disc-break failed in a curve on the second descent. I fell flat on the tarmac and slid over the side of the road. Now, my bike armour saved me again, but some parts just weren't covered so they got a bit cut and bruised. I also had the misfortune to encounter a little glass shard that cut through my glove. Naturally, I got a bit dirty... and bloody.
When I got back home it was time to have me patched up so the first order of business was to clean my wounds. As they were fairly many and widely distributed on my body it took another shower to fix the problem.
Now, battered, bruised, washed up and disinfected I'm preparing to go out clubbing and we all know what needs to be done after a night out.
I lost count.
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| Christian Nasulea - 27.06.2009 | |
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Mozart Rocks!
Gosh, I don't think I've given anything a bad review in centuries. My policy generally states that if something is bad it's probably not worth bothering to write about it anyway. I'm probably writing this because it wasn't all bad and perhaps some constructive feedback might help future repetitions of the event. Here goes:
Last night we went to a concert called "Mozart Rocks". The whole idea of this concert was to put together a symphonic orchestra with one or two electric guitars and prove rock music and symphony can coexist peacefully. Now, we already knew this to be true thanks to an "obscure" little band called Metallica and their equally obscure album, "S & M" (a.k.a. Symphony and Metallica).
Firstly, the concert should have actually been called "Mozart Rocks and so do many other composers". While they could have probably gotten away with passing Bach and Beethoven for Mozart, Vivaldi's Concerto No. 1 in E major, Op. 8, a.k.a. "Spring from the Four Seasons", was bound to give them away. Yes, yes, I know they needed a catchy title and "Mozart Rocks!" was that catchy title.
Next. It is my belief that putting 8 solo rock guitarists on the same stage all at once is a recipe for disaster. Call me crazy.
Symphonic concerts usually benefit from highly skilled, well trained sound engineers. Various parts of this concert benefited from an incessant buzzing, hissing or other type of lovely background noise. I can still hear the buzzing.
It is commonly believed that "guitarists are hot-headed punks who can't stick to the program if their lives depend on it". This seemed true for at least one of the guitarists. I don't know if he was sticking to the actual arrangement and the arrangement was bad or if it was a mild case of ADD that prevented him from playing WITH the orchestra but it didn't come out to good. If you were there I'm talking about the 3rd guy to come on stage, the one dressed like a waiter. I'm not going to name names.
Enough being mean.
I really enjoyed some of the bits and all hats really do come off to Cezar Popescu, Calin Grigoriu and Horea Crisovan, the latter featured in this video:
Altogether it was a commendable effort. You sort out my list of requests, especially the sound problem, and I just might be there again next year.
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| Christian Nasulea - 26.06.2009 | |
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Prototype Colour Code Conversion
Based on a question from a client I took on the simple task of creating a little application that would convert RGB colour codes to HEX and vice-versa. While the complexity or the glamour of the project weren't much it makes a very good javascript learning starting point.
You can see the end result and some explanations here:
http://www.christian.nasulea.ro/colour-converter/
Let none say I don't like to share the knowledge.
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| Christian Nasulea - 25.06.2009 | |
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