When I was out walking around Bucharest on Sunday, I passed the National Bank of Romania. And yes, I guess if any building should be decorated with golden doors, it should really be the National Bank!

The entrance to the National Bank of Romania

My last day here in Bucharest. It has been two very nice but quite intensive weeks. I think that four weeks travel for work is more than enough. Since we are involved in so many things, work-trips means full days on the assignment in the country and then trying to catch up on everything else in the evenings and the weekends. It gets especially hectic when travelling to several countries as there is normally a bit of follow-up work after a country visit, which means bringing that to the next country on top of everything else. On the other hand, it is out in the countries that we work with that things are most exciting and where it feels like the work really moves forward. So I wouldn’t want to do without this either.

My stay in Bucharest has been very nice and interesting. Fortunately, I had a bit of time to stroll around in the city a bit over the weekend. It is extremely beautiful in certain places and less so in others. Martin, the constant source of brilliant observations, described the city as a post-nuclear Paris and it is actually a quite accurate description. Due to French cultural influence in the 19:th century, there are many reminders of Paris here, including a Triumph Arch (which of course is a Roman invention, but this one is in one of the main roundabouts just like in Paris), the typical Parisian street signs, names of streets and squares, building architecture, and many other things. Many of the newly renovated cafes and bars are also inspired by the art deco period. But then you also have the remains from the communist period, with horrendous buildings that seems to be out of Orwell’s 1984. I can’t really find a better way to describe it than that it quite cool! And it is not very EU yet, so do go and visit before EU standards and the mandatory chains have taken over here too. It is already well under way!

The view from my hotel window on Calea Victoriei, on of the main streets in Bucharest

Bucharest Old Town

Cafe Les Bourgeoise in the Old Town

The Odeon Theater, which I suspect got its name from the Parisian theater

A street named after the French intellectual Edgar Quinet (who has also a boulevard and a metro stop in Paris named after him), with the traditional Parisian street sign.

I am just back from a few days with Martin in Las Vegas. My friend Patrick called me when I was there, and after talking for a few minutes, he asked hesitantly: “You’re not eloping, are you?” And no, we weren’t. We were there for a wedding though, as the sister of Martin’s childhood friend got married. It was a small but very nice wedding, with the wedding couple’s immediate family and a few friends. Or as small as it gets when the bride and the groom are Irish. Anyway, we had 3 lovely days during which we ate well and saw most of the casinos, while not gambling a single penny. (For some reason, neither of us were at all tempted and though I thought I’d spend a few coins on the machines at least, there was so much to do that I kind of forgot about it.) I had actually already been to Las Vegas, almost exactly 15 years ago, but whereas I then thought it tacky and didn’t see the charm with it at all, I found it kind of fascinating this time. First of all, the Strip is just so immensely bizarre, with copies of famous monuments from all over the world. Who comes up with the idea of making replicas of pyramids, sphinxes, Parisian buildings, and an entire block in Venice?? The crowd there also seems to be much more representative of the U.S. population than those that live and work in DC, so I spent a lot of time just people watching. I guess the audience has changed a bit too over the past years because it seemed to be mainly families with children and retirees there. Some of the shows have not really kept up with this fact, and one of our most surreal experiences were our first evening when we were in an audience full of excited children in front of a pirate ship outside the Treasure Island Hotel, and the ship fills up with 15 half naked female dancers that try to seduce a male pirate.

While in Vegas, we also managed to see the exhibition Bodies, hich has been on tour here in the U.S. for a while. It explains the functions of the body by displaying body parts from what I think was Chinese prisoners, sometimes as upstanding bodies. It was very interesting and I learned quite a bit (surprisingly enough after having watched ER for about ten seasons), but after having seen 100s of body parts from dead persons, I have to admit that I felt a bit uncomfortable and nauseous.

Paris and New York, Las Vegas

Ancient Rome and Fontana di Trevi, Las Vegas

Venice, Las Vegas

The pirate ship outside the Treasure Island Hotel (before the dancing started)

Dolphin and white baby tiger at the Mirage Zoo

I am in Bucharest now since about a week on a very interesting mission for two agricultural projects. This is the first time that I work on these projects, and so it has been quite an intensive week for me (though I am learning a lot, especially about the EU CAP). I also had a lot of work right before leaving, which is why I have not updated my blog in a while. 

But it is nice to be back in the region! When I am not working, I enjoy practicing my Romanian and eating familiar food. I have not had a chance to really walk around in Bucharest though, because I have had too much writing to do when I am not in meetings. Tomorrow, we are going to visit an institute and a few projects around Brasov up in Transylvania so I hope to take some picutures then a write a little more then.

I am running to a meeting now with some incoming team members now – I hope I will have a chance to write something soon again (and I promise to make an effort to be a little more interesting…)

For my last week of work, I stayed in Podgorica, Montenegro, where I have worked on a project that will both start preparing various ag-institutions for a potential EU-accession, and provide financial support for small-scale rural investments. The project is just about to start and I am really looking forward to the implementation of it! Much of our work this week focused on help getting everything started and to clarify together with all parties involved what would be the first steps. The Ministry of Agriculture had also arranged a session for media and stakeholders to present the project and to get feedback on the activities that are foreseen under it. For this project, Mr. M (or Martin as his real name is – it is probably time to introduce him properly) also joined the team, which I of course was really happy about! And Montenegro is really one of my favorite countries right now, so I had a very nice week even though I did not go out of Podgorica this time. Even Midsummer Eve ended up being very nice, even though I had calamari for dinner instead of salmon and herring. Again, if you have the chance, do visit Montenegro – it is really a beautiful country!

Not as light as Midsummer Eve in Sweden, but at least we had better weather!