They originated from India and came wandering into Europe about 1000 years ago where their bohemian lifestyle and dark Indian features put them right away at odds with their Europeans hosts. Instead of finding that famous European open arm hospitality they were met by persecution, forced assimilation and enslavement. Generations later and they still retain their old ways. They refuse to change into something that they are not. They are the ultimate free spirit.
That brings us to Little Rosalia Lombardo who died in 1920 at age two and perhaps the most famous of the catacomb�s residents. But her fame did not come in life like the Spanish painter Velasquez who is buried here or the American ambassador to Italy and numerous saints and high level church officials. Little Rosalia�s fame came after death as her body resisted decomposition. She is the true life sleeping beauty. Eighty years asleep and yet the sweet look of innocents still beams over her golden brown cheeks. The urge to climb the railing and nudge her awake is great. BACKROADS Magazine
Turkey, land of Byzantium, Sultans and their harems, belly dancers and whirling dervishes is how I remembered Turkey. These images pulled at me all summer long till one sunny September afternoon I filled up the tank, saddled up my bags and set out towards the borders of Asia. BACKROADS 2/2000
I first arrived in the capital in �98. I planned to spend just a couple weeks, maybe a month in the big city, but I got hooked. I got swept up in its history, its dusty streets and the deep, dark mysteries swept up around every corner. I have since spent 2 of the past 5 years here and I am still learning my way around.
........But this is what you get when you build 10,000 years of settlements one over another while dusted with such dynamic influences as the Romans, Goths, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Tartars, Turks, Communist, right up to today with its most recent influx of Chinese and Turk immigrants and US businessmen trying to buy up everything while the getting is still good.
�It�s a kind of foolish combination between Neolithic and Coca Cola, � is how Irena Nicolau of the Bucharest Peasant Museum describes it.....
Getting from point A to B in Bucharest is never a straight line. Just crossing the street can be a big enough hurdle due to the torrents of wild drivers. Numerous curbside shrines to their victims keep pedestrians on guard as well as any stop sign or traffic light. Cars at the intersection line up like at a starting gate. They go even before the light changes turning one lane into two and I swear they will run you down if you are in their way or if you are lucky just brush you back.
It is a concrete jungle. Survival of the fittest is its only rule.
I have spent 3 years in this city. Born and raised in New York, having spent much time in Rome and a couple left side of the road driving countries where just crossing the road can be really confusing - I thought I had seen it all. But in Bucharest I am still too often shocked - sometimes shaking my head in disgust or just counting my lucky stars.
As far as I am concerned there is really only one true way of getting around Bucharest - and here it comes! Breaking through all the kinetic friction rolls a lean, mean, caterpillar shaped monster . Turnings over its heavy steel wheels this 100 foot long half train - half bus contraption cuts through the traffic like the tunnel boring machines cut through mountains. They call it the Bucharest Tram.
........... tram line number 16 bumps and jerks its way through the crooked back streets of old Bucharest. Layers of soot over the building have sucked up all the surrounding color leaving behind a gray and black world. It is a nostalgic ride that conjures up images of the 1930�s depression; street venders selling fruit out of baskets, 14 year old little-men peddling flowers while cigarettes dangle from their lips, workman eat bread for their meal, raggedly clad Gypsy children playing with street dogs resemble �The Little Rascals�. The streets are in shambles. Homes are rapidly deteriorating... It is only the city birds and bats who benefit from the abundance of openings in the facades and bread ripped out of garbage by the ravaging street dogs.
ESCAPE ARTIST MAGAZINE 6/02