Note: these were created after a long night walking around looking for some food and the pulse.

- Imagine Urbana-Champaign (or any midwestern state school town in a remote area) with all its testosterone, squealing car tires, fast food lights, total hollowness, lack of taste etc. Take that image and inflate it to the size of a national capitol – that is Bucharest.

- Bucharest drivers usually move over the street like they intend to kill someone, with that kind of meandering velocity and precision.

- As I stood inside an all night grub stand eating cabbage dolmeh (called Sarma) and corn grits (called mamaliga) I think about the Yo MTV Raps Romania guy named "DJ Docs" (really named Andrei) who I met a few moments earlier.
To me, folk music & traditional village music is the voice of peace, strength, & the people's devinity: the natural forces. Retreat into your traditional culture Romania! This is your only chance!

- A warm summer Friday night and there is no juicy, pulpy sidewalk café-meets-cobblestone plaza center in this whole city, the nation's capitol.

- Personal reaction to the deadness here: After two years on the road I need to get me to a remote cabin and write something while my mind is still pure, that is the reason that a society should support artists in isolation, so that there can be voices from minds that are clear and pure of the prevailing group mind.

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In Bucharest I recommend staying at the following hostel instead of going to the hyped Elvis Villa:

Villa Helga Youth Hostel
Str. Salcamilor 2
Bucharest, Sector 2
Romania
Tel/Fax: 40-21-610-2214 (from abroad)
Tel/Fax: 021-610-2214 (from Romania)
email: helga@rotravel.com
website: http://www.rotravel.com/hotels/helga