True Romania Tours

Hello,

Since February 2017 we launched a new website for my travel agency under the name True Romania Tours. It works much better on mobile phones and focuses more broadly on Romania and in the future even on neighboring countries.
Here is the new website http://true-romania.tours/.

Via Transylvania Tours - my project since 2010

Starting with 2010 when I returned to Romania I've setup a rural travel agency offering rural, heritage and nature tours in Transylvania and other regions of Romania. We do everything tailor-made and focus on what is truly authentic and Romanian.

So if you want to visit Romania anytime soon, please let me know.

london

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Provincial Egypt, Tunisia, turtle, rain, Arabic

In the last 3 months I traveled to non-touristic provincial Egypt for business trips. After over 2000 km on the road, 7 cities and dozens of people met, I can draw some conclusions and share some experiences.

People – I met fantastic people and I confirmed my sympathy for Egyptians. The people I met were all working for NGOs but most of them had many things happening in their lives: business, teaching, government jobs, political involvement. In Suez I met a 70+ year former member of parliament, in Tanta I met the owner of the only telescope factory in Egypt, in Arish a PhD in Bedouin society, in Bir El Abd a former camel racing and football referee – just to give some examples.

I had very interesting conversation about the projects they are working on but also about different aspects of life. I learned that Bedouins call most other people “farmers” … they have a nomad life and mainly rear goats so for them the ones settled are farmers, they stay in one place and work the land. Also, in Bedouin society a woman to get married needs to have approval from her cousins, from the “stomach”, branch and tribe she belongs to.

I also learned about a woman owning an olive tree farm. After she attended an IT training she went on the internet and learned how she can improve her farming and in one year she doubled her income from selling olive oil.

I found very kind and hospitable people and was actually overwhelmed, representing Microsoft in their community meant a lot for them and treated me as a VIP. In this sense the best thing they can offer is food, good one and in huge quantities. In Suez and Delta it seemed that mix grill was the best thing on offer. They didn’t even ask what I want, they ordered for me, 7-8 pieces of meat and some salad. Since the first time it was very heavy, the second time I asked for chicken when I heard them ordering mix grill so they brought me chicken and … mix grill! Double trouble! In Alexandria we had fish mix grill, and a lot of it, 4 different types, 2-3 pieces each. In Arish we had goat cooked Bedouin or Gulf style – they dug a hole in the ground, make fire, put a pot with rice and water, cover it and on top the goat, cover the whole thing and leave it for 1-2 hours. This way the rice boils and the meat cooks very tenderly … we had a whole goat for 10-12 people! The next day for 4 people we had a fish weighing 4 g + 1 kg shrimps, 1 kg hamsi, salads and rice!
Food is pleasure, a lot of food means a lot of pleasure, as simple as that.

By now I realized the role of the Nile for Egypt. It is by far the most populated country (80+ million) in the deserted areas of North Africa and Middle East though Algeria and Libya have bigger surfaces. The reason for this is the Nile, it gives them food and water. As long as you are close to the Nile, the scenery is green and there is a lot of agriculture; you see green fields, donkey carts, buffalos, tractors, horses and crowded places, it is surprisingly beautiful and alive. As you move away from the Nile you see desert and very little life.
Some pictures here.

Besides these visits I also went to Tunisia for a 2 days internal training and I took another 2 days to explore. The best place I saw was Sidi Bou Said, a village up on a hill with white and blue houses, very beautiful. Another amazing thing about Tunisia was the food, very delicious and with a lot of tuna, I think there is no coincidence that the country is called Tunisia, they eat a lot of tuna. The last night I spent it at the site of IPM, going back to an AIESEC conference after some time, it was great, I still knew people from AIESEC and also met alumni attending the alumni conference. The party was great also :)
Some pictures here.

In late December as I was snorkeling in the Red Sea by a reef, I saw something big moving, it was a huge 1.5m turtle, she saw me and swam away, I followed her and she stopped on a reef looking at me, I waved :) but she was still staring, after a few minutes she swam again and this time I didn’t follow her. It was so beautiful; I was extremely excited to see it! This is more or less how she looked like, I couldn’t take myself a picture of her in the water.

After 5 months here i finally got a decent rain for a few hours. Egyptians not being used to it got into a lot of troubles, traffic became a nightmare and many accidents happened. In Arish they had huge floods and a lot of damage. Is interesting how something I am very used to, here creates chaos.

Also in this 3 months I started Arabic lessons, shuya-shuaya I am learning to read and speak :)
أنا من رومانيا

Religion. Algerians. Election.

These days I am feeling great, for various reasons.

I have a plan for the next 3-4 years and that is very exciting. I think having a positive and well defined vision brings the best out of people and hopefully of me as well in the years to come. I will not share it yet here as it is still under construction, I can only tell that it is really empowering!

I had a great trip a week ago going through Sinai, one day I was on top of a 2285m peak at 0 degrees Celsius, the next I was relaxing by the beach and snorkeling for colored fish in the coral reefs. Life is so simple and beautiful! I was on Mount Sinai, a holy place for 3 religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.



This trip and a few other findings while in Egypt changed my perspective on religion; I am more at peace with it now. I even went to see a movie about Islam and then a Q&A, it was quite revealing. At one point the speaker gave the example of a person in a hotel:

Q: Why is he there?
A: Let’s say his company asked him to go on a business trip and booked him a room in that hotel. Or he is working there. Or he came there to meet someone who is staying at the hotel … or other explanations.

then

Q: Why is a person on this Planet?
A: the answer is much more complicated than the one with the hotel. Many people don’t know the answer to this question; usually each person finds its own answer. But some people don’t find answers and they are just floating through life, receiving what life offers. They guy almost said it: “for those who don’t have an answer there is God to guide them” …

I would also add “Do you know what you should and shouldn’t do in a hotel?”… “How about on this Planet?” …


Some other very interesting things happened.

One of them is the Egypt-Algeria football dispute which deteriorated the relations between the two countries. Now many Egyptians feel that Algerians have something against Egyptians so they also hold anger against Algerians … Inside Egypt this led to an interesting rise of patriotism, now many of the billboards on my way to work are with Egyptian flags and nationalistic slogans like “Proud to be Egyptian!” … For me this is a confirmation of the “common enemy” theory which says that if people have something against the same individual/group they become much more united themselves.

Another one is the presidential election in Romania. It proved to me how powerful this democratic tool really is, how much it can mobilize people and politicians. The good news for me is that this is a really good sign for Romania, that democracy is working, people express their opinions, are heard and I feel politicians start respecting people’s vote much more than until now. When you win or lose by 70,000 votes then you really come to appreciate each vote, each person, each decision you take and each thing you do, as a politician. I am very optimistic for Romania, I think we are getting better and better, we are maturing though we are still norming and storming as a nation. But we will get to the performing phase as well. I am very motivated to return to Romania after some years.

Pictures from Sinai trip you can find here.

Garbage, Al Gore and the Russians

I had an amazing last week, gifted with great and unique events! It is for sure the most interesting so far in Egypt and one of the most enriching I ever had.

To start with, going to the event “Towards a Culture of Sustainable Communities, Economies and Environment” brought me face to face with a totally alien group of people – waste pickers aka garbage collectors. More on this topic in the previous post.
Part of this event I also got to see Annie Leonard – the producer of the “Story of Stuff” video, she was a great speaker.

I also saw Al Gore talk on climate change. It was the best live speech I’ve ever seen. Amazing ice-breaking jokes, dramatic tone, change of mood, high energy …
I will remember the one with “I used to be the next president of the US”; cannot stop thinking how the US and the world would be if he actually won against George W. Bush.
He mentioned a very shocking fact: US had used in 10 years cans worth the Aluminum quantity enough to build 25 times the world’s aviation fleet.
In his opinion, Egypt’s chance to grow economically and to become green at the same time is to engage and be the main hub for the Desertec project initiated by the Germans.
He ended with “political will is a renewable resource” which is very relevant for Egypt’s reality.
The guy sitting next to me was the manager of a private equity company. Before the speech he told me that he invests in dairy and other consumer goods business. After the speech I told him “you should invest in green energy”, he answered “I will” … that sounds promising …

I ended the week in Hurghada, one the most popular tourist destinations in Egypt on the Red Sea coast. Not really my type of place but I enjoyed it anyways once I found a very good beach, swam a bit, saw some fish, had great sea food and pharaoh massage: D
I have to mention that this place is dominated by Russians, I bet there a few oligarchs around, there was a lot of writing in Russian on the streets and many waiters and staff were talking Russian. One of them told me he learned after taking a 2 months course in town and by practicing a lot with the tourists, he even changed his name, Max!

The Hurghada experience came just 24h hours after walking around in the slum so I felt like being on a different planet … after all, this is what Egypt is for me …

The poorest poor

Going to the event “Towards a Culture of Sustainable Communities, Economies and Environment” brought me face to face with a totally alien group of people – waste pickers aka garbage collectors. It was an international meeting of activists dealing with issues of waste picking, people in poverty trying to make a living from collecting and recycling/sorting garbage.

I got to learn about it as it happens in South Africa, India and Egypt. In India banning them to go with their carriages on the streets dramatically worsened their situation. By privatizing garbage collection, it became property of the company collecting it so waster pickers lost their “raw material”. In Egypt, Christians used to eat pork meat. Because they ate it, they grew pigs and to feed them they were collecting garbage and feeding them with what was edible. So this is how they became garbage collectors and then they went on separating the garbage and become part of the recycling process. So in Egypt this is a job Christians do – from 60 to 90 %% depending on the slum. In the slum I was in, about 100 000 people were doing this. Then the swine flu came and the Egyptian government decided to kill all pigs in the country thinking those pigs can play a role in the further expansion of the flu. So they did! That had a devastating effect on the people from Mokattam as their main source of income and meat was gone. That deepened the poverty of the poorest people in Cairo. Now they are left with garbage collection/recycling, trying to make a living from that. If you’ve seen an industrial park with factories next to each other, then you can imagine how this neighborhood looks like. But instead of factory buildings you find buildings filled with trash, paper, glass, plastic, cardboard, cans, PVC etc. And at the upper floors of those same buildings or just next to them people are living. I was shocked by this image of this 2-3 years old child sitting in a trash bin and eating something from his hand … A lot of child labor in this “garbage” industry, other kids like them go to school and watch TV or play computer games after school. These were helping their family earn a living. In the slum I saw 3 recycling schools, one for boys on shampoo recipients and 2 for girls, one on e-waste and one on textile and recycled paper production. The concept of the schools was “learn and earn” …

Something I will remember for a long time is the people separating broken glass with bare hands and the recycling lines for plastic, the black, the blue, the green …
Our guide thinks that 2 things played a huge role in the development of this community. First was religion and the fact that they build a complex of 7 churches in the neighborhood which are very impressive, carved in the mountain and to which even rich people come in pilgrimage. The second was technology which allowed them to become more productive so earn more.

As an individual there is something very simple I can do to help this people – separate the trash when I put it into bags. One simple rule is to put the dry with dry and wet with wet, this way it will be much easier for them to separate it. Or even better, separate plastic, paper, metal, organic …

please watch this video to get a better view of what i am talking about.

2nd impressions on Egypt

So I am back in Egypt and this time there is more to it. I had 2 offers from Microsoft, one from Egypt office and the other from the office in Dubai and I decided to go for Egypt, a decision I took on my second trip here ... finally!

Until summer 2010 I will be in Egypt working on CSR advancing and delivering public-private partnerships aka PPPs to serve the interests of Egypt, Microsoft and the other stakeholders. A very interesting assignment and will hopefully bring me closer to an area which I currently have a keen interest on, socio-economic development in the context of poorly developed or developing countries.

I will post more impressions about the job once I get into it.

Being in Egypt now is so much more different than it was 3 weeks ago due to Ramadan. In a nutshell being Muslim requires a person to do 5 things:
- recite "I testify that there is none worthy of worship except God and i Testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of God"
- pray 5 times a day
- giving based on accumulated wealth
- pilgrimage to Mecca and
- fasting during Ramadan

So now since we are in the month of Ramadan people are fasting from sunrise to sunset. Because of this daily life is totally changed. The working hours are less, many restaurants are of course closed, people are said to be better etc. Traffic is totally crazy at night especially in the few hours after iftar, the dinner to break the fast; it is hard to imagine how much traffic there is with millions of people moving at the same time from one place to another. So around 6-6.30 they have a first meal and then many stay awake until 3-4 am when they have another meal.
I went out last night with some Egyptians. We met at 2 am and went for a tea, after we looked around for a place to eat which was actually hard as there were hips of people everywhere wanting to eat. So at 3-30 we ate and at 4 we headed home and went to sleep. Today I am fasting as well being of course still full from the 3-4 am meal i had last night. That is the trick!!! :)
And a third things which really made an impression on me was people "dancing" in the mosque. After the call to prayer after iftar I saw in the huge mosque in El Hussein a bunch of some 200 men making dancing like moves and chanting, they were standing up and moving from left to right on a rithm, waving their hands and chanting ... wow!


One more thing to mention on Egypt, Friday and Saturday which is of course not my normal routine and last Sunday I was telling myself "This is Monday! This is Monday!" so I can get my act together for work.

on the 9th I am back in Romania, where i will handle documents for coming to Egypt, attend a wedding, a music festival and also meet relatives and friends.

Trip to Egypt

Last week I’ve been to Egypt for a business trip. Fortunately I stayed for the weekend as well. A fascinating country and my time there was full of new and interesting experiences. Here are a few:
- I visited the Egyptian Museum where thousdands of objects are displayed, especially from the time of the Pharaohs. I was particularly impressed by Tutankhamun’s room and horrified by how ugly the mummies are, especially the one with broken skull. In Coptic Cairo I found fascinating the existence itself of churches and synagogues
- The famous Giza pyramids are just on the outskirts of the city. They are very impressive and next to them, humans look like ants. For some reason, the Sphinx made a huge impression on me.

- In Cairo, my hotel room was at the 16th floor and in the first night at the 17th floor there was a traditional Egyptian party – that kept me awake for a while …
- Dahab on the Read Sea is one of the most peaceful and relaxing places I’ve been to. Amazing sunrise over the Saudi Mountains and the Gulf, clear and warm water, coral reefs accessible within seconds after getting in the water with amazing water life – great place for snorkeling and diving to see thousands of aquatic beautiful creatures. One of the most interesting for me was seeing Nemo and a black long fish attacking a weak octopus and then she spread the brown ink and the fish left …
- Food portions are huge and besides that on the house they can bring a lot of appetizers. Since coming back I constantly feel my stomach full though it is time to eat :) I got to eat filled pigeons, rabbit, quail, lots of fish and sea fruits; the most disgusting thing was the veal marrow soup … beee!
- Smoking shisha is a national sport and is very cheap, from 0.5 to 3-4 EUR the most expensive one. I even saw someone with a shisha in the car, on the right seat
- Many buildings are almost finalized but not totally. There is some law that if they finalize it, including exterior they need to pay taxes. Because of that many people don’t finalize them and the color of the house is that of the bricks. Altogether looks like a brown city, especially when looking at it from the plane ... but people dont pay taxes and save some pounds
- Cairo is very crowded, full of old cars which pollute a lot. Since streets weren’t conceived for so many cars they build streets on top of the streets :) ... also it is not rare that you can find camels and donkey on the streets
- Being an oil producing country (they don't export much), petrol is very cheap and so are taxis. For the high quality cab I took to airport I paid some 6-7 EUR for 20 km or so.
- Until recently there was a law saying that the landlord of a flat needs to rent the place to many generations of the successors of the rentees in case they die, recently they reduced it to one generation only. This law produced a lot of chaos since people didn’t want to rent their place anymore, rent was also fixed post first generation so one of my colleagues is paying for a flat in a very good area, 3 EUR a month …
- On the way back to Cairo the bus driver was smoking and since I was in the first row I told him I am allergic to smoke. He said “driver works, driver smokes! I arrange a place for you somewhere else!” So he went took a guy, sent him to the front seat and I took his seat … problem solved! At 3.30 am somewhere in the desert the bus stopped working; for 1.5 hours it was quiet, I could only hear cars passing by from time to time and the Qur'an playing loudly on the phone of one of the passenger. Finally another bus came and picked us up and made it to Cairo
- On the plane from Cairo to Istanbul, with Egypt Air, the flight started with a prayer in Arabic on the screen and ended with Tom & Jerry :)

Enjoy more photos on my facebook album Cairo & Dahab

Trip to Batumi, Georgia

Last week I came back from a 5 day trip to Batumi Georgia. First words coming to my mind: WOW! What a country!? What a culture and what a reality!? I am very impressed and was inspired by the place to share my impressions. At the end you also find some very useful tips in case you want to go there. Totally recommend it!

Let me start with giving some short facts about the country
- Situated in the Caucasus region of Europe, 4.4 million people, quite resource rich – not necessarily oil or gas
- Has its own language and alphabet which are world’s on its own - I am not aware of a language similar to it
- It was the second Christian country in the world after Armenia
- In The Second World War Georgia lost the biggest number of people as a country, in correlation to the number of entire country population – 800 000 people.
- It was part of the Soviet Union until 1991, after independence the economy collapsed under the impact of civil war and the loss of both preferential access to Former Soviet Union (FSU) markets and large budget transfers from Moscow. Output fell by 70 percent and exports by 90 percent, the worst decline suffered by any transition economy
- Strong reforms generated rapid growth from 2004 through mid-2008, reaching over 9% GDP growth and ranking 15th out of 181 economies rated by the Doing Business report 2009, 4 years back being ranked 112th - the only country to achieve such progress in a short term.

The place I visited, Batumi is a beautiful place, some of the best sights being:
- The Botanical garden – we were lucky to go in spring when everything was green and blossoming. It has South & North American, Australia, Mediterranean, South-East Asian sections and it was a huge relaxation to just be there and walk around it. A very beautiful place which I would visit over and over again.
- The boulevard – is the 1.5 km alley along the sea coast with palm trees, cafes , beach on one side and a park on the other side, passing by some great fountains. Sunset was breathtaking.
- Dancing fountains – as we were walking on the boulevard around 8 pm we heard classical music coming from the park. As we approached we saw it was coming from a fountain which was dancing on the music changing colors. We watched and listened for over an hour when the show finished, it passed as if it was 2 minutes. It was so intense and beautiful. The next day we learned about another one even bigger and more spectacular. And it was –this one was even projecting belly dancers on the water while playing oriental music or ballet during classical music
- In the same park there are 2 yards with birds. One with ducks, pelican, swans, pheasant, guinea fowls, quails and a few others. The other is with peacocks and pigeons. For bird lovers :)
- The local market is a place which speaks clearly about the local reality. On the local food market we discovered a lot of homemade cooked pork meat, butter, cheese, local sweets... Also, the market had domestic beef, pork, chicken, lamb meet. Its vegetables are imported from neighboring Turkey. You can find different kinds of honey for a good price (4 GEL for 0.4 l)
- The church place on the top of the hill, cannot remember its name but once you are in Batumi you will see what I am talking about. On the way up we went through the village and see how houses are organized and how life is like there. Once on the top of the hill the view is rewarding – a 360 view of the city, the Black Sea, hills, mountains and villages as far as 20-30 km. A good place to just take a deep breath, think of nothing, unplug yourself from daily life and enjoy the beauty in front of you – one of those moments when you want time to stop.
Besides these places there are quite a few we didn’t visit. For 5 days we were well entertained and felt like there is more to do.

The culture, the place, the reality – of course I will talk about the tip of the iceberg as I didn’t have time to penetrate the culture deeper
- People – amazingly warm, friendly and hospitable. True souls! It reminded me Rwandans somehow and their un-touched human goodness. Genuine characters! I wish I would interact more with them but language was a huge barrier. I could tell from the short conversations we had, their behavior and what was translated to me. There is also some sadness I could read – they weren’t smiling or laughing too much and they were wearing mainly grey or black. It is a country which had enough traumas just in the last 20 years and that I guess explains it.
- The food – loved it!! Shashlik which is fried marinated meat is delicious. Khinkali is Georgian dish also very delicious, the ones with cheese were my favorites. Also, I ate trout, my favorite fish!!! Khachapuri is another traditional food of bread and cheese, nothing complicated but some of them are very good. But the best things were the boiled and smoked fish (mackerel) and smoked cheese – they were truly delicious. The average price for a dinner in a restaurant – 10 GEL including tips without drinks.
- Development –I had the impression that Romania would have looked similar if we didn’t start re-developing our economy some 10 years ago. They started in 2004 so they are behind but the difference is much bigger than 5 years. Comparing to Turkey I can tell the difference is huge – in terms of infrastructure is easily noticeable, I didn’t see any factories and most of products in supermarkets are imported from Turkey, Ukraine mainly but also I’ve seen products from Belgium, France or olives from Italy …
- Wine – very very good especially after living in Poland and Turkey. They have hundreds of wines and they recognized as one the oldest producers of wine, they might even be the first ones to. The ones we tried and were very good: Khvanchkara, Tsinandali. Every day we bought a bottle of wine and poured it in our travelers bottle and were drinking from it the whole day, sip by sip J. You can easily find homemade wine at a fraction of the price in many stores or in the market – interesting ones to try. Prices for bottled wine vary from 5 to 20 GEL, domestic wine – 2,5 GEL for a 1l.

I feel this place has a fantastic potential for tourism first of all. It has so much to offer. I haven’t even been to Tbilisi, the mountains or the wine yards. They will need to improve infrastructure, services and their English. I will go back for sure and wonder around the country, it is a joy to be there.

Some useful things in case you are planning to go to Georgia and especially to Batumi:
- Transportation – you can get cheap flight from Pegasus, Onur Air or Sunexpress to Trabzon, from there take a bus to Hopa and then 1 or 2 dolmus to the border at Sarpi. You cross the border on foot and from the Georgian side take bus 101 to Batumi. In Batumi if you want to go to the church on the hill take marshrutka 140 or 155 and point to them that you want to go to church
- Accommodation – there are many places to stay in Batumi as it is a very popular touristic destination. We stayed at Hotel “Prestige” and we negotiated the price. If we would have told from the beginning that we will stay 5 days we would get an even bigger discount, like 30% off. This hotel is new and is very decent – would recommend it and is on the street on which bus 101 comes and goes to the border. The address is 26 May str., 62 (+995 222 7 71 19). It is 10-15 walk from the center. Average prices for hotels 40-70 GEL per night. I heard there is the option to stay with families which host tourists and is very cheap and you get to experience better the culture - next time I will try it but don’t know exactly how to look it up. I think they call them guest houses. Generally Batumi is full with hotels.
- Language – strongly preferred that you have a Russian speaker with you J
- Currency – called Lari and division called tetra. At the time I traveled 1 EUR = 2 GEL. There are exchange offices all over the city

Some useful websites
World Bank country brief
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/
photos on facebook Batumi Botanical Garden & Batumi, Georgia

riots on MY street

11.09.2001 – I was at home with my family enjoying last days of the summer vacation. We then saw on TV a news about a hijacked plane crashing in the WTC in NY. Minutes later news about another one ... from there on everybody knows what happened. I was shocked and couldn’t believe it was happening. But I felt safe in my home in a small city in Romania in our apartment.

In the years to come other events happened in London, Madrid, India, Pakistan etc. In the meanwhile I moved to Istanbul and since I moved here 2 terrorist attacks ocured, one at a mall and one at the British embassy. 23 people died and over 100 were injured. I was either out of Istanbul or the place of the attack was far from were I was so I felt safe. As if it happened somewhere thousands of kms from me ...

At the beginning of this week I was in Georgia while “police carried out more than 60 raids in İstanbul overnight against Islamist and lefitst militants suspected of planning "sensational attacks"”. 2 people died and 7 were injured in a shoot-out; a passing by teenager was one of the victims. Details

Some of the headlines in Turkey these days:
1915 events among Turks and Armenians branded by Obama as “great atrocities”, avoiding the g-word. Details
Ergenekon - an alleged clandestine, secular ultra-nationalist organization in Turkey with ties to members of the country's military and security forces which is accused of terrorism.

On top of all these May 1st came. In Turkey this a very special and delicate day as in 1977 over 30 people died, details
Since then May 1st was not an official day off in Turkey until this year when government decided to make it so. The trade unions, as usual wanted to make demonstrations so they did; it all ended up with molotov coktails being used, tear gas, water canons and stones. Details Zaman & Hurriyet.

Since I live close to Taksim where all these things happened MY street was also part of the events. Demonstrators, bricks form the pavements, men with sticks, broken windows, tear gas, water canons – I was watching all these from my terrase at the 6th floor. After a while I couldn’t stand as the pepper gas used by police was hurting my eyes and had to go inside. One of the active parties was called "Kurtulus Partisi", Kurtulus is also the name of my street which ends in Ergenekon street ...
21 police officers were injured and over 100 people were detained during May Day events in Istanbul.
Please see some of the pictures I took from MY house!!!

All these happened while we were preparing for a great Moroccan cous cous lunch on our terrase which we actually had after tear gas effect was gone :)

why worry? ...

Looking for online partners for Go game

Anyone playing this game? let me know by email if you want to play online some time dan.rosca(at)gmail.com

Brazil XP

I remember there was a time when I wanted so-so bad to go Brazil and I told it to some people also. I was thinking it was a sort of heaven where life is good, places are great, people are nice and so on ...

Not much changed since then but my eagerness to go to Brazil decreased. Still, last summer I applied for an internship in Sao Paolo on CSR. I didnt get it but I finally ended up going to Brazil for IC this year. I am very grateful to Microsoft for giving me the chance to go. I have been to tens of AIESEC conference and I cannot say this one was out of the ordinary. What was really interesting was the fact that i was an external and members were treating me so much more seriously than when I was a member myself. Today, as a follow up of IC a member wrote me an email starting with "Mr. Rosca"!!! hahahaha! The really great thing was to meet so many of the people I knew and became friends in AIESEC and beyond. That was truly special!

Of course, representing Microsoft there was special also and I in particular enjoyed talking with people about the work Microsoft is doing in CSR and the impact we are having. I find that the workshop I delivered together with other Microsoftees was one of the best I've ever seen!! No modesty here but I thought it was really good and the reactions of the participants after it were very encouraging in this sense. People came to us and said: "I want to work in this field, what can I do?"

Besides attending IC I also took some time for sightseeing and travelling. One afternoon and a morning I went to Sao Paolo but as everybody knows it is not an exciting city for sightseeing but it was nevertheless interesting to see it, I am glad I did.

And ... after a sleepless CEE party, me, Kais and Andries went to Rio de Janeiro. There Salma, Mada and Jacek were kind of waiting for us. We spent 2 great days in Rio. This city is superb! gorgeous!!! I want to go there again! Actually no! I want to be there now!!! :D

It is a city that has so much to offer: great landscape, wonderful beaches, I can imagine great people :) and so many thing to do and see. The thing that really left an impression on me was the visit to 2 favelas. We arranged with a travel agency to take us there and we had a guide with us, she was very good and passionate about the city and its social issues. Favelas are part of Rio, are the poor areas of the city, well-known for violence and criminality. We experienced none of that but hearing the stories was very impressive ... too many details to give here ... totally recommend a visit when u get to Rio!!

Since I came back I am thinking about when I will go back to Brazil: I want to make a tour, waterfalls in the south, the amazon and the tropical-forrest, the north-western coast and rio again :). that will be in some years probably cause it is costly but I am sure it will happen sooner than I expect! Being positive makes things happen faster :)

pictures on facebook from Rio de Janeiro and from IC, sao paolo and trip

Tudo bem!

what do you think of this?



you think the lady is real? well ... it isn't! that is what technology can do today! guess how movies can look like in the future ... :)
her name ... Emily

Tranquil Northern Turkey travel

I just mentioned in my previous post that I had 3 friends coming from Romania visiting and that I took a week off for vacation and we almost made a plan about it :)


well ... screw the plan!!! :)


We ended up going to Nort-Western Turkey only but that cool enough. Started in Safranbolu, a UNESCO world heritage city from there on went to Amasra just for a few hours and had dinner there. On the way to Amasra we heard about this place Cakraz which has much better beaches than Amasra and it is more quiet so we went there ... it was great!!! I loved the place!


After, for almost one full day we travelled from Cakraz to Sarikum, about 300 km but it took about 9 hours to get there. The reason ... the curbed road on the abrupt Black Sea coast, hundreds of serpentines and no tunnels or bridges. but the landscape is breathtaking and driving on the edge of the cliff is quite exciting ... finally we arrived at sunset at Sarikum, a small village. the reason to go there: Ecotopia, a camp in a natural reservation. the place is beautiful, there is this lake with many wild birds and the camp was next to the beach and the beach was beautiful and quiet except for Saturday when locals came for picnic :)


A 1 day trip was to the Erfelek waterfalls, 28 small ones on the course of a river, all within max 2 km. Beautiful and refreshing ... did some walking with bear foot in icy cold water, climbed some walls and admired the beauty of the place. on the way back from sarikum we hithhiked and went really well :) ... first hitch hiking xp in Turkey.



After more bathing in the very warm Black Sea and chilling in the camp I left back to Istanbul with a day stop in Sinop where there was a Music and Tourism Festival. That was pretty noisy and felt like Istanbul again. I arrived just in time for a live rock concert and it was interesting to see vailed women attending the show and curiously following the performance ...



Finally I left Sinop and for 3 hours before sunset I could admire the beautiful landscape in Northern Turkey again, this time in-land and the mountains where even higher, the water was missing but the landscape was as beautiful.


I feel very positively energized after this week, it was exactly what I needed. And I am glad I didnt go for all the crowded and touristical places.

Please check the photo album.


next is Brazil ... :) in 2 weeks time.

Need a break ya!

These days I was making some holidays plans and after several changes came to a conclusion!!!
I will take next week off and go first to Sinop, the most northern city in Turkey ... there is a camp there and some friends from Romania want to go for it so I am joining as well. After we will go to Capadoccia to see that weird stuff and then reach the south-western part of Turkey. We might go hiking on the mountain next to Bursa, go to Izmir, Pamukale, Bodrum and other touristic places. We will decide on the way where and when we will go, we are very cool about it :)
I drew with the pen on this map the itinerary :)

That feels good! Yeaaah! I am quite addicted to travelling but I am bit dissapointed there is no passport stamping involved this time :P ...

I went to Jordan earlier in July and was amazing and realized once again how much I like disovering new and different places! Just love it! And remember please my goal of going to 50 countries for at least a 1 week! I counted and now I am at 11 so still a long way to go! But Brazil is next!!! :D

I am going to Brazil for about a week attending IC for a few days and then taking some days off to go to Rioooo! :P that will make it 12! :D

There was a time when I was crazy about going to Brazil, now I am more cool about it but it's still like a dream coming true. I still want to live in South America for some time, a few years ... I'll see where life takes me ... I have no doubts the bag is full of surprises :)

But now a sad thing which shakes me a bit ... I was initially thinking about going to Eastern Turkey to mount Ararat for example. I anyways decided not to go but today a colleague who heard me talking about going there told me it is not a good idea at all ... with the PKK being all angry and the recent terrorist atacks happening in Istanbul ... the country is not safe in my eyes and Eastern Turkey is said to be the least safe of all regions ...
In July 23 people died in Istanbul as a result of terrorist atacks, first at the US embassy and yesterday near a shopping mall ... wow! It is something really hard to get used to and accept as part of daily life!

But I go on with my vacation plan ...

Al Gore

Diversity

For about 10 days I moved from the dorm to a flat. I like it a lot, has bosphorus view and it is moder and big. I almost lost count of the nationalities of people I shared for a longer period the same room or flat: Romanian, Greek, Serbian, Columbian, Chinese, Canadian, Ukrainian, Slovenian, Slovak, German, Tunisian, Nigerian, Hungarian and now I am living with Turkish and Argentinian. That makes me pretty international eh? and actually few things surprise me, even if it different I take it as normal.

For example: Turkish flatmate doesnt drink alcohol :) and he prays 5 times a day. The Columbian was taking shower with his underwear on. The Greek was sleeping so much :P. The Serbian was oftenly singing hip-hop songs. The Slovak was a cleaning freak, washing all the dishes. The German was ironing his shirts very often. The Nigerian was very willing to share food ;). The Tunisian was oftenly smoking shisha and smoking in the toilet. The Chinese were drinking warm/hot water instead of "normal" cold water. And so on, and so son ...

At work I interact with very diverse people from all over Middle East and Africa and again I can notice some traits. The Africans (except North Africa) are always busy. The Israelians are very demanding and they argue a lot. The Arabs are quite demanding and action oriented. The Turks ... oooh! the Turks!! no comment! :D

I am not trying to put people in boxes, I am past that phase but I am enjoying all these differences.

Now I cannot see myself living in a place where there is just one type of people, that speak only one language and do things in a similar manner. Then I would feel I am in a box. Diversity is something I embrace and am becoming dependent on it.

Generally I think people should get out of their box and be open towards others, learn to accept them, not judge them, be willing to change, think how they are perceived by others, make more compromises, be sensitive to the things which are important to others etc etc. I think globalization is something affecting everyone's life and there is no way to avoid and I don't think we should. Opposing it will not bring anything good. Of course going to extreme is not good also, adopting all American life-style is not the way forward, values, behaviors, traditions must be kept as well. It is the people who have to become more open-minded.

On Sunday I had Easter and even though I am not into religion I miss the traditions from Romania. It is already the second Easter I spend in a different way, away from home. But I went to a restaurant and ate lamb and then boiled eggs and break them hehe! Though I was not in the same place with my family and friends, we spoke, over the internent and phone :)

All these experiences havent made me less Romanian. They made me more global citizen :P and I love it! And they dont conflict :)

Check this nice picture, expressing diversity. It is toothpaste from Turkey, Ukraine and China. Cool huh?

Interesting stories

hey,



Always when moving to a new place, many things happen in the first weeks until things settle down. I got to visit a bit of the city (had trips of even 1h30' and I was still in Istanbul ;) ), went to some parties, getting more and comfortable with the job, meetings tones of people and so on.



But there are always some experience that stand out of the crowd :)



1. Hairdresser. I decided to get a haircut and went alone to the closest one to the place I live. I went in, said "Merhaba! Do you speak English?" the answer came straight away "Of course my friend!". I got on the chair and tried to explain that he should leave abt 2 cm and at the back to make it natural and I was showing him with my hand. I asked "Do you understand?", he said "Of course I understand my friend!". Next thing he does he takes the machine and starts to cut it very-very small at the back so for a few second I didn't see what he was doing. When I did it was too late, he was making me bold :P



2. Taxi. When coming around 1 a.m. from the airport I decided to take a taxi and I went to the taxi that was closest to walk to. I didn't know that I should have gone to the 1st in the qeue not to the 3rd as I did. As soon as I got in, all the taxi drivers (about 20) came to my driver and started arguing with him. I deducted that they were angry with him that he accepted me and didn't send me to the first one. As he was stubborned they started screaming, heating the car, took the keys of the car and came to me and asked me to go out of the car. I told them I wanted to go with this car and that I don't want to go to the first one. One of the drivers got really angry, that was unacceptable for him, pulled me out of the car and pushed me towards the first car ... Finally I went with the first car and I learned a lesson which is valid for every culture: "don't fight it, play by their rules and forget about what was normal for you". From now on I wil go to the first car ... :)



3. CEELDS (Central & Eastern European Leadership Development Seminar). After 5 years of attending tones of conference in all possible roles the time came to try a new role: external :P

So I was given the opportunity to attend this conference as representative of Microsoft together with Emel and deliver a workshop on "Information, Communication and Technology". We also attended the World Cafe and as you imagine there were people all the time asking about what I am doing at Microsoft, why Vista is not good, why is Microsoft doinf Community Affairs and many-many more ... It was a lot of fun, of course many of the questions I couln't answer but it felt very weird ... one of the OC members came to me wanting to ask me something and started with "Mr. Rosca ..." and I reacted spontanuously "WHAT??!?! Please call me Daniel" :)



Oh oh!



For now things are going well, I like the job, I like the city and I met interesting people :) and today I got my residence permit until Feb 2009! I am a local now!!! :D

Of course, pictures on facebook :)



Hasta la vista!