The Conference starts

Thursday, September 13th

Those Irish coffees - most likely - wake us up at 3am and we stay awake, sighing and turning, thinking of problems grand and small, until at 6am we give up and get ready for the day. At 7am we are the first for breakfast and thus have first choice of some amazing croissants and coffee - we really need coffee! Funny thing about traveling to predominantly rural areas, such as perhaps Romania and Bhutan - Turkey also: there is only white flour to be found. No rough 'natural' fare here - white bread all the way.

Around 9.30 all the philosophers and their wives/husbands gather for the trip to the university, which is not far away. Originally the plan was to walk, but it becomes clear that some people cannot do this due to various reasons and taxis have to be arranged. This takes a while, but eventually we we're off and taken to a bright auditorium where the inaugural addresses are delivered followed by coffee and huge platters with featherlight pastries. Oswaldo has the rest of the morning free and we decide to visit the Museum for the Romanian Peasant housed in a grand old palace in a beautiful wooded area.

The collection has fabulous examples of Romanian folk art - the famous painted eggs, the embroidered garments - women wore long, partially embroidered shifts with intricately woven skirts, aprons and belts tied in layers on top, finishing with a delicate, alse embroidered kerchief or veil covering the head 

and we see examples of the gorgeous tapestry

not to mention wooden houses, tablaux of their living quarters, and tools. Really enjoyable. There's a moment of tension when we have to locate a taxi to take us back, but a kind soul in the museum calls for one and waits at the kerb with us until the car arrives. 

With Oswaldo back at the conference I spend the afternoon alone, walking down to the nearby river and following it observing life around me - a fisherman in the sun, for example, with his wife waiting on some steps in the shade. 

Later I veer off and criss-cross through the old quarter, passing odd tableaux like the 4 women sitting on bikes and at sewing machines, cycling and sewing along with an old LP (the moment I pass them the LP has just gotten stuck in a groove and they all lose it, giggling madly),

and the huge doll (Count Dracula?) on a old-fashioned tricycle. I do not know what any of this means and when I tell/ask locals, they think I am making this stuff up!

I find Calea Victoriei and come across a sculpture of feet on the pavement and then notice a heavily decorated bride in a photo session (you'll have to check the photographs). Further on, on a more sober note, I pass the Memorial to the Holocaust, which I know from reading about it, was particularly awful in this country.

But I have to hurry home. I must get ready for the dinner at the University Club tonight. The philosophers, all spruced up, are taken in vans to a beautiful old house, where we're wined and dined in a typical Romanian fashion - platters of cold cuts decorated with slices of red pepper, tomatoes, and cucumber, litte breaded and fried things, and heaps of cutlets (it's not always easy to be a vegetarian) - and where we spend a pleasant evening making new friends.

Here's a link to the rest of the pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/siric/sets/72157631539803285/