My weekend trips

Hi everyone I am back from my whirlwind weekend trip. I went to Bran and Sinaia, with stops several other places. I had a great time and took some good pictures. The first one here is the castle at Bran. The castle controlled one of the only passes through the mountains. This made it a very important castle. Now it is world famous as Dracula's castle. It became Dracula's castle when Bram Stoker wrote the novel. The character of Dracula was based on a famous Romanian Prince Vlad Tepes. He was known as Vlad the Impaler. Who knows what an Impaler does? If you do comment on the bottom of this post. This picture was take from across a valley. As you can see the weather was less than perfect. But imagine you were an traveler, or maybe more importantly a conquerer and as you rounded the bend this is what waited for you. You might think twice about whether you wanted to try to attack this castle. The castle was give to Queen Mary, the wife of King Carol I the first King of Romania. The castle was confiscated by the communist government in the 1940's. Since the revolution many people including the heirs of Queen Mary have petitioned for return of their property. The heirs were successful this year and the castle in again owned by the Royal family.
This is a picture of Peles Castle. This castle was not built as a fortress but as the summer home of King Carol I. You can see the differences in the way the castle is built. The furniture inside is some of the original furniture that was used by the King in the early 1900's. This property was also recently returned to heirs of the royal family. They have decided to leave it as a tourist attraction but there is a smaller castle nearby that they have moved back in to, at least part-time.
This last photo is of a well at the fortress at Rasnov. This fortress is built on top of a hill and was used to protect the people who lived in the area. It was first built in 1334. The well that you see was dug by two Turkish prisoners. They were promised their freedom as soon as they finished the well. They had to dig almost 500 feet down to get water. Oh by the way maybe you can guess how many years (yes years) they had to work before the finished. Again post your comments at the end of the page or if you are a teacher looking at this you can send me an e-mail on my Livermore e-mail. I can access it from here. Talk with you all later, and I look forward to your comments.

Mark

Some follow up

Here are the plaster casts that were made from Trajan's column. Trajan, remember, is the Roman Emperor who defeated the dacians in the first century. The column was errected to commemorate the victory. It showed in the reliefs around the column the different highlights of the many battles in the war.
This is the CEC Bank building that I showed you the clock from yesterday. As you can see it is an amazing building.
And one last follow-up on the bicycle question. Here is a part of one of the roads here in Bucharest. How would you like to ride a bike on that? Kind of bumpy. Thunder and lightning here again tonight. There has not been much rain just a nice light and sound show. I tried to get a picture of the lightning last night but since lightning moves at the speed of light and my reactions are a little slower, it did not work so well. I will be going to Bran, where Dracula's castle is located on Saturday. Oh yes and one more thing. I have managed to not kick any soccer balls so far this trip. Talk later.
Mark

Wednesday's activities

This is the CEC Bank Building. I will show you a full picture of it later. I was near this today when I went to the museum. Here is the question for everyone. If it is 5 minutes after 10 am in Bucharest, Romania, what time is it in Livermore, California? I really love the intricate work that is around the clock. Just think of all the work, and how many people were required to make it.
This plaque is located out side the museum that I visited today. It says Museul National De Istorie A Romanie, or the National History Museum of Romania. Inside the museum was a replica of Trajan's Column. Trajan was the Roman Emperor who defeated the Dacians and brought the Latin language to the people of Romania. The column was designed to tell the history of Trajan's conquest. Going around the column from the bottom to the top was the story told in carvings. Again I will show these in a later post.
And last, here is one of the many churches in Bucharest. This one like many others is just jammed in between many tall buildings. When they rebuilt much of Bucharest they left many of the churches and just built around them.

Now to answer Dennis' question about whether they ride Bikes here. I have seen maybe one or two bikes in my time here. There is no where for them to be ridden safely. The roads are full of drivers who are only interested in getting where they need to go as quickly as they can and the sidewals are full of people and not well maintained. So riding a bike would be crazy. Most people get around on the bus, tram, and subway system. They have a good rapid transit system here in Bucharest. I rode on it today to get to the museum. Any other questions please feel free to ask.
Mark

Tuesday's Question

Ok everyone on top of the building is a red cube. It contains the logo of a world wide company. Can anyone guess what it is? By the way this is the view out of one of my windows. What you see is a parking structure and beyond it, where the cube is is a shopping center. The company advertised on the cube has a shop in the building.
Ok here is a different view of the same shopping center. Still see the red cube? Yes it is a little easier to identify. This picture is taken from Piata Unirii. My apartment building is behind the shopping center.

And now for some culture. See if you can identify the three instruments that are being played in this video. Again give your answers by clicking the comments box. The teacher can be the one who comments. Or you can answer to my livermore e-mail. I can access that here too.

Welcome to Summer School

Hello to all. For those of you not Summer School students, understand that I will be writing some of these blogs specifically for the students at Portola School who are lucky enough to be going to summer school. Unlike me who has to travel half way around the world to Romania and do the hard things like take pictures of beautiful buildings and walk around interesting places. So if you are wondering what the children here do when it is hot out just take a look at the picture above. This is one of the many fountains at a place called Piata Unirii (Unification Plaza). There are many beautiful fountains here. As you can see, like in Livermore, when it is hot out you can always wade in the fountains.
Ok now a question to make you think. How can you tell just by looking at the above picture that this building is a government office building. The people working this building all work for the Romanian Government. Come on take a look and figure out how you can tell that this is a government building. Here is a hint..... most people in Romania do not have air conditioning. Yes do you see that each of the windows, each of the offices has its own air conditioner. No central air since it did not exist when the building was built but now each little government worked has his or her own air conditioner. Cool huh!
And last for today. This is the Triumphal Arch located in Bucharest. It is modeled after another Triumphal Arch located somewhere else in the world. If you know where this other arch is located go to the comment section and tell me where you think it is located.The comment button is right below this post. I am writing this post at 5:00 pm here in Bucharest but it is only 7:00am there in Livermore. That is all for today. Talk to you all later. Teachers take a look at the other posts as there are some other interesting pictures for my time here.

Mr. Johnson

Some more sightseeing

Here is a view of the apartment building I am staying in. Of the three windows on the right mine is the middle one. There is also a window in the other side of the building. It is a small studio but it is big enough for me.
Here you can see the outside of the building. The entrance is just to the right of the big Contrast sign. I managed to get to the Village Museum today. They have houses from all the different regions there. These are houses that they have actually moved from these areas to the museum. I will put in some pictures in a later post. I also on Saturday evening went to the Bucharest Film Music Festival. In this video you can hear an acappella choir singing some of Handl's work. Talk with you all soon and don't forget that you can comment at the bottom of the post.

Mark

Some sightseeing

Hi everyone, as you can see I got some sightseeing done today. I also exchanged some money so that I could pay for things. The Romanians use Lei as there currency. I took the subway (they call it the Metro) to get to the places I went today. The Metro is a great system with stops all over the place and very inexpensive. I took the Metro to Revolution Plaza. This is the place in Bucharest where the 1989 revolution began that overthrew the communist regime. The leader Nicolae Ceausescu made a speech on December 21st from the balcony that you can see in the picture above. There was a problem in one of the other Romanian cities and he was telling the people of Bucharest that it was no big deal and that they (the government) would soon put it down. Boy was he surprised when the crowd started to boo him. The army was called in and several thousand people were killed. Ceausecu was executed on Christmas Day 1989.
In this photo you can see (well actually you can not see very well) engraved on the plaques around this monument are the names of the Romanians who died in the Revolution. This looks a little like the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington D.C.
This is the monument to the Revolution. The people call it the big potato. This is right in the middle of Revolution Plaza. The names of the people who died are placed around the bottom of the monument.
This last picture shows the view from one of my windows. You can see that there are many apartment buildings (they call an apartment building a Bloc) around here. Most people in Bucharest live in these type of buildings. I am staying at Strada Mamulati 2, Bloc C1, Scara (entrance) 2, on the 5th floor. Of course we would consider this to be the sixth floor but here in Romania the ground floor is called the parter and the floor above it is the first floor. So to get to my apartment you have to go what we would consider the 6th floor. Fortunately there is an elevator. I also visited the former Royal Palace which now houses an museum of European art. I saw painting by Degas, Monet (not his well known ones) some painting from an art school that was run by Rembrant. There also were several sculptures by Rodin. So that is all for now from Bucharest. Talk with you all soon and please feel free to make comments, ask questions, or just say hi.

I made it back to Romania

Well I made it back to Romania and you know the saying "the third times the charm?", well the plane ride went without a hitch. There was a call for a doctor about half way though the flight from San Francisco to Amsterdam and I thought Oh no not again. But we never heard anything else about it so I don't know what that was about. Then my bags came off the conveyor belt almost last so I was having flashbacks to the first year. So, so far so good. It was a long day, about twenty two hours from leaving home to arriving at my apartment. I think I dozed off for about 20 minutes on the flight from Amsterdam to Bucharest. I am tired. Tomorrow I need to get a phone and figure out exactly what I want to do. So talk with you all later.

Mark

A New Adventure

Well here we are almost ready to go again. This year I will be teaching at a different place. The city this year is Roman, Romania. I will be spending time at the beginning of the trip in Bucharest. I plan to go to the camera that you can find here http://www.jurnalul.ro/webcam/piata-revolutiei-77.html

at some time and be there so that the students at my school who are in summer school can see me. I will set that all up here on the blog so keep your eye out. Not just the students can see me but anyone that is interested can log on and look. I will be there for a while and I will wave so that you will know that it is me. I leave on the 17th of June so we will talk more later.

Mark