Obscure Journey

Halloween in Romania

Publié le 30 Octobre 2018 par Charly C.

Catégories : #bucharest, #adventures, #customs, #traditions

Romania doesn't traditionally celebrate Halloween. However, it so happens that thanks to the movies, series, and kids learning English in schools, this October event made it somehow in our lives as well.

Of course, over here, we only have the more commercial aspect, and so far, nobody goes Trick-or-Treating. Over the past years, I've seen young adults on the streets dressed up and with weird make-up on going to or leaving some Halloween party.

We never really cared about it - we never dressed up, never put make up on, never nothing. However, over the past few years, we always did something: going out to eat, or searching for ghosts downtown, or carving pumpkins.

I will showcase our past October 31st adventures, and hopefully will be able to explain a little as well. Not all the pictures are nice though, so be warned.

The earliest pictures I found date back to 2015. That year, around Halloween, i believe I was working the 2nd job I talked about in this post.

Halloween that year was a grim one for Bucharest and for Romania in general, as a fire devastated a nightclub and 64 people died in total. The fire happened on October 30th, and you can read more about it here.

I don't remember much else from that year that happened. It seems we went to an Irish pub on the evening of 31st, after the fire. I can't remember what we had, but the place was decorated for the occasion, and I vaguely remember it being full. We barely found a table. I think it was an OK evening out, all in all.

Sadly, for the year 2016, I have no pictures, no memories either. At the time, I was working as cashier in a supermarket. It was a tough job I had no time to go out and have fun. One of the reasons were that the job was also pretty far from home.

click on them to enlarge them

These pictures are from last year, 2017. The big pumpkin is the decoration of a restaurant downtown. I don't think it was real, but I can't be sure as i don't remember if i touched it or not.

We decided to carve pumpkins, just out of curiosity, and to do something fun. I remember we had a lot of fun while carving them. We took some pictures too, but I can't find them anywhere. I must have lost them somehow.

One of the pumpkins was already a bit "injured" but we didn't see it before bringing them home. We had to keep them in water with bleach, to try and kill the bacteria, but the black spot still managed to enlarge quite fast. I think we kept them for about a week before we had to get rid of them.

We also tried to go find ghosts downtown, but I can't remember which were those. Perhaps we went before the 31st, or I deleted the pictures. In any case, we didn't find any ghosts because Bucharest is not known for its haunted places.

This year, I decided not to celebrate Halloween. Mostly because it's a pagan celebration, and it's still this year that i decided to become closer to God. I can't have fun because it's Halloween as it would be against my beliefs.

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Cultural events in Bucharest

Publié le 15 Octobre 2018 par Charly C.

Catégories : #bucharest, #impressions, #life experience, #adventures, #people, #culture, #event

This blog entry is long overdue. At least a part of it. and at this point I'm not even sure I can still write it. but I have pictures i'd like to share ... or at least to keep safe somehow.

So far, I have attended 2 cultural events in Bucharest. Or at least tried to because the first one didn't happen anymore because there was a strike organized by the organizers themselves.

The first event - ballet at the opera

This happened in April of 2016. The weather was really nice at the time -sunny and all. I think we wanted to see Swan Lake but I can't be sure it's been too long back.

We got there, got in, and we were waiting for the show to start. Except, we were waiting, and waiting, and half an hour passed and no ballet started. I took the chance to snap some photos there, as you can see below.

In the end, the leader of the orchestra, or something, took the microphone and he announced there will be no show, that they're in a strike, and that we'll receive our money back.

It was one of the biggest failures we could experience. It surpassed the failed shopping experiences from here and from here. Though, if i compare those 2 experiences with the failed opera, they might reach the same level.

At least I got a few nice shots? And we might go again this year. We'll see.

click on each to make it bigger ;)

The second event - Korean Culture quiz

This is an event that happened in October 2017, and was related mostly to South Korean culture - history, linguistics, and other aspects.

The event happened before noon, and it had free snacks, with croissants and mini cakes. I remember this big guy there, was taking and taking more food. We couldn't really eat at that hour, but we tried to, since the food and refreshments were free, and some of the cookies looked fancy, thus expensive.

Still in the hallway, at the entrance, there was an art exposition. I forgot if they were real paintings or just prints. They were representing various landscapes from across South Korea. Most of them were breathtaking. However i forgot who their authors were - Korean artists or Romanian students who visited Korea. Next are some of the glimpses of the stuff going on before the highlight of the event.

The venue where the contest was held was pretty small, however, we had very good seats with perfect view of the stage. The contestants were sitting on the first row in front of the stage, and there were 2 stages of contest. When the first part of the quiz was done, maybe 6 out of the 8 participants went on the stage, and they kept on being eliminated until first 3 places could be named.

The public could also participate in extra pop quizzes, still related to the Korean culture, and yes, it included questions related to K-pop as well. The winners received CDs or posters with Kpop music or artists, and other goodies, but all related somehow to Korea. The couple on the stage, in the images below were the hosts, and the man in the last picture was the Ambassador of South Korea to Romania.

I wasn't lucky enough to win anything - mostly not fast enough to answer? haha But somehow, the event was pretty fun overall.

click each to make it bigger

I do remember that afterwards, both of us were pretty drained mentally. This was despite having eaten some of the goodies, having drunk and the event not lasting for all that long. But I suppose, the Romanians really are vampires, after all, huh? hehe

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