Stereotypes exist for a reason. As much as you have to be diligent in not automatically ascribing certain characteristics or preferences to a person based only on biographical facts about them, I find it somehow pleasing when people conform to their national archetypes (discounting of course the purely negative stereotypes). Germans, as we all know, are quite keen on rules, and partly because of this, are saddled with a hyper-bureaucratic state, which was confirmed by almost everyone I talked to. Here in Romania (and Bulgaria, though my sample size was smaller), the most overwhelmingly true cliché I’ve come across is Iron Maiden. People fucking Love Iron Maiden. Now part of this may just be the group I’ve fallen in with, and since like tastes cluster, I probably have a biased perspective…. But the big summer shows seem to confirm my suspicion that this is a place where the 80’s is alive and spinning it’s hair around on the dance floor.

Which is exactly what people do, and it’s incredibly good fun. This is Bucharest to me, an openness to fun and whatever comes along. Also shwarma and good soup and a bar made out of bike parts and a hostel with friendly cats and friendlier people and the wasteland of traffic and crumbling faded fountains and stunning old buildings disintegrating among the vines and broken windows and stone balconies and towering columns of grey and white and massive doors and beautiful curving orthodox domes and (a) nightmare malformed Siamese twin fetus(es?) with a single head and Japanese chicken bits with too much beer and the genuine hospitality of new friends and their friends and a Spongebob marathon and the gleaming silver, 1960’s star trek styled metro with no interior doors at all, snaking its way along brick tunnels clean and quiet beneath the constant high-speed race against gridlock traffic that always, always stops at crosswalks.