Bunissima

After the Fryday’s concert with the Decemberists, Saturday’s Arctic Monkeys were sadly missed because we got there later, and this one concert was actually on time. We had been busy gorging on sourdough pretzels, beer and German wursts at a different venue.The fortunate but infortunate event was a pale copy of the real Oktoberfest organized by St. Arnold’s, but at least I got the first ever stein for free… after paying some 50 $ for the ticket. I am saying this because it is not easy to get things for free. I had previously gotten a free Budweiser hat from a very good looking girl, but I am not big on red hats or bud for that matter. At least I can use the stein. I like to look at it mostly, and the colors are lovely.

I also got hooked with this incredibly handsome guy, was crazy, believe me!

But I digress. What I meantersay was that the concert season is not over, and tooo-night it is Thievery Corporation!

Yes, here they make a festival out of everything, you’d think. And yes, there really is an annual hot sauce festival. There were people selling their sauces, even though there was place for more, meaning there were not as many sellers as expected for a hot sauce festival.

People were walking around tasting sauces, buying sauce bottles and jars or the inevitable crap associated with events like this: hats, bowls, nice silk dresses, neckalces, stuff, or sitting at tables and eating mexican food, crawfish sausages, chocolate cheese cake, drinking beer, on the green grass, between the llittle shops, listening to a live zydeco band. Like good little fellow citizen.

We tasted some of the sauces. I was also kind of hungry so I kept tasting and tasting, encouraged by my companion who is an incurable hotness adept. I had to do an emergency stop after I was tricked into eating what must have been the hottest sauce I ever had in my entire life. It kept burning after a while, long after I felt like I was going to puke and my eyes were going to pop out of the eye socket. I do not remember at what point I had a brownie, but it was sure worth. Much better than hot sauce.

We still ended up with numerous bottles of hot sauce, the purpose of which eludes me, but it’s nice to have them and make colorful photos of them (also got a bowl of queso, but that one was not in the photo).

And, since I do not care for the hot sauce, I wish I had bought more brownies.

Am visat azi noapte un terrier albastru care vorbea. Eu eram nespus de fericită. Era o minune de câine, empatic, inteligent, cu spirit de lider. Cu o usoară și scurtă ezitare, reacție foarte omenească, m-a recunoscut cu bucurie după multă vreme, în același apartament în care a apărut și data trecută, tot în vis. Nu mai știu dacă atunci vorbea, poate o fi evoluat. Mi-ar plăcea sa am câinele albastru care vorbește, dar nu știu cum să îl iau cu mine. De aia sunt tare tristă.

Să bei ceai verde ieri și să ai energie și azi.

În urmă cu aproximativ trei ani, pe când locuiam la Brașov, încă mai foloseam metoda “trimisul pe autocar” a diverse obiecte, pachete, plicuri și cam tot ce era necesar. La un moment dat tatăl meu, deși nu tâmplar de meserie, a dat formă unor scânduri pentru o masă care urma să fie asamblată de viitorul proprietar. Cum avea să se dovedească mai târziu, răbdare, un ciocan, multe cuie și mult zgomot au făcut treaba. A ținut un an și ceva fară să se rupă, rezistând la greutate și zgâlțâindu-se la orice atingere. În final am dezasamblat-o și am auncat-o.

Proaspăt fabricată, masa a ajuns cumva în București, la sora mea. Pentru că ea nu avea nevoie de ea, s-a hotarât de comun acord că masa îmi va reveni, și că mi-o va trimite pe autocar. Zis și făcut. O trimite și îmi spune că șoferul vrea o sută cincizeci de mii trei sute de mii (adica 15 30 ron, dar la vremea respectivă se folosea sistemul vechi), pe care urma să i-i dau eu la destinație, pentru că ea nu îi dăduse binemeritatul bacșiș. Și că i s-a părut că șoferul era țigan. Cerea prea mult. Nu căra el masa în spate de la București, ci stătea doar stingheră in spatele autocarului.

Când a sosit Șoferul, mi-a zis ca nu poate să lase din preț, pentru că el chiar avea un bon tăiat de firmă pentru suma aia, pe care mi-l poate arăta chiar pentru a îmi dovedi, după ce îl face… Că e prin urmare imposibil să îmi dea masa fără banii ăia. Am stat, cred, mai bine de o jumate de ora încercând să-l conving că ăsta e un fel de jaf la scală mică, un fel de șantaj, si că nu poate să sechestreze un bun ce nu-i aparține. Mai ales că eu îi oferisem cincizeci de mii, o sumă foarte rezonabilă la vremea aceea. I-am zis că nu am telefon să o sun pe sora mea, ca să imi confirme suma, el insistând să o sun, și că sora mea îmi spusese doar ora la care ajunge masa, nu și suma. El nu și nu. Voia banii toți, așa cum erau pe bon. Ba putea să lase la minim o sută zece, dar nu mai puțin. Am încercat să fac apel la un sentiment uman de înțelegere acolo, de compătimire sau de milă, ceva, ba chiar am dat-o și pe partea religioasă, spre rușinea mea, pentru că… uf, nu sunt religioasă. Nu am reușit să o duc la capăt cu el. Mi-a zis să ma prezint cu toți banii a doua zi la cutare oră, că dacă nu aruncă masa pe nu știu unde, pe autostradă, doar să nu mi-o dea, așa cum mi-a spus franc.

Șoferul era țigan, într-adevăr. Lăcomia lui m-a frustrat enorm în seara aceea. L-am urât pentru că s-a comportat fără pic de bun simț, aceeași stare de spirit și valoare morală pe care țiganii o exploatează în general la ceilalți. Și pentru că am simțit că era determinat să profite pur și simplu de situație, fără alte considerente, simplu si curat, fără mustrări de conștiință. Însă nu am renunțat. Știind care era compania la care era angajat, am căutat, am sunat, am navigat pe internet, până am aflat cine era șeful, cu care am și vorbit a doua zi și i-am prezentat situația. Nu știa prea multe despre șofer așa ca mi-a zis să revin cu un telefon. În scurt timp am ajuns din nou la autogară, cu aceiași cincizeci de mii și cu mobilul în buzunar. Îmi zice Șoferul:
-Ai toți banii?
-Nu, dar cred că ar trebui să iei cei cincizeci de mii.
-De ce aș face asta?
-Pentru că, zic eu scoțând telefonul din geacă, dacă vrei, putem să vorbim cu șeful tău să vedem ce are și el de zis.
Furios, se duce la mașină și scoate un sac de rafie plin de lemnărie. Pe fața lui am văzut că de obicei nu e el cel înfrânt. Nu e niciodată prea târziu. Întinde mâna și îi dau cincizeci de mii.

Corpus Christi street

Corpus Christi port

South Padre Island beach

South Padre Island water tower

South Padre Island street to the ocean

Here it is: gay is normal.

Oh, oh! and another one (you’re gonna love this one): gay penguin adoption.

I loved it. Everybody ate crawfish, tons of it. Drinks and things, people browsing from one stage to another. I had to get initiated in the crawfish eating. It was quite messy, but once I got started, I couldn’t stop it.

Before

After

Different types of entertainment were available, but I was not in an adventurous mood. This one was quite a creative idea though:

After some crawfish, Zydeco was the way to go, with a Lousiana band that threw beads at the crowd. I had to fight for mine, since they weren’t giving me any. But at the end I shared a couple of beads with some sad looking kids that didn’t get any.

Hanging around at the festival: different types of food, African art objects, hats, church people trying to convert the pagans, music, Irish dancing, let’s not forget about the rivers of beer that helps with the moods and elevates the spirits.

Despite the many people lying on the ground, no traces of garbage could be found. I am sorry to hit the Romanians where it hurts the most, their pride, but people here do it the right way, don’t throw their trash everywhere like they own the place.

I got tricked into eating the infamous fried snickers. It wasn’t too bad… I am not sure how it was.

Towards the end, after many kilometers of beer, we were chased away by the night in the rhytms of a wonderful Irish music band (the Killdares).

A week ago I was in Sighisoara at the Blues festival. Outside the old medieval walls, just getting off the train, I have found the the city to be just like any other city with its people and their daily worries.

[In the mantime I had a peak at the old city, again, after a few years of a foemar visit here]

[the church seen from the city top]

[my favourite house from the old city of Sighisoara)]

Going up to the old citadel feels like you enter a different world because of the architecture, even if, unfortunately, can still see cars up there. Apart from the festival I had the chance to get a grasp of how food is like there. The restaurants are not very thrilling, maybe not in the winter time. The expectations were very quickly lowered summing up to the basic necessity of satisfying hunger. Being brave enough to look for food at 1 am in the morning proves to show what the hidden part of bravery is: thoughtlessness, to use an euphemism. But not because it’s your fault, people are apparently very sleepy in there and they go to bed early.

[the centuries old cemetery]

While going down on the old medieval building stairs for the concerts every night, I was lucky enough to be able to enjoy the snow falling down from the lights of the city, which made the entire experience more poetic.

[one of the sighisoara towers in the twilight]

Due to certain reasons, I missed the beggining of the concerts, in all the 3 nights of the show. Nonetheless, being there was real fun. The show was great, some bands better than others. The number of spectators was probably around 500 or even less. The public loved all the bands and singers and even if not all were perfect, it all came out great, because people were enjoying the experience. Who needs perfect when it’s fun?

The blues festival itself may be trying to raise to the level of an international renowned event, but its local color, modesty and location make it more like a niche, exclusivist event, that you discover by accident or if you have a very adventurous spirit. Locals, muzic frenzies and people directly involved in the organization of the festival are not included. The “local” color is given by the small city overall, by the way everyone was checking everyone else up to see if they knew them or just because it almost felt like the spectators, organizers and singers all together were like a small community where everyone knows everyone. I reckon that part of the checking is the human curiosity, but at some point it felt like all eyes were on you.

[the drummer is eight years old and the guitarist 10, they and their other colleague were a revelation for the crowd]

The first edition of the festival was in 2005, so it does not have a great deal of tradition, but it’s a great opportunity to be the witness of a simple and real fun event in a wonderful little medieval city.