(no subject)

[ellarien]

I had a bookstore accident today. It does happen occasionally; the really surprising thing is that it doesn't happen more often, when I go into the campus bookstore nearly every weekday. Usually I just look, but today I went in hoping for Throne of Jade, didn't find it, and came out with four other books instead, three of them by authors new to me. (The other one being Jared Diamond's Collapse; I own a slightly scrambled copy of Guns, Germs and Steel back in Sheffield, but have never gotten around to reading it.)

My latest Amazon order arrived, too; maps of Romania and Beijing. The Romania looks surprisingly densely inhabited, except for the mountains; a webwork of roads and railways and little towns. (Most of what I know about Romania comes from Olivia Manning's Balkan Trilogy, which I read after it was televized in the late 1980s).

The September conference in Romania is billed as Wednesday-Saturday, but it turns out that the agenda for Saturday is a (daylight) tour of Dracula's castle. Decisions, decisions; go home on the Saturday and go to church with my mother on Sunday, which isn't something I get to do nearly as often as I'd like, or indulge in a bit of once-in-a-lifetime tourism?

Comments

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I can't believe you're even asking that question. Once in a lifetime experience trumps occasional every time, jeez.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I was boggled, too. I mean... you need to *ask*?

If you like, I'll go to Dracula's castle for you.

[ellarien]

I know, but my weighting of these particular choices is a little idiosyncratic. The more time I spend away from home, the more I treasure the time I do have there, and the whole jetting around the world thing never feels quite like the real me.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I'm in the middle of 'Collapse' at the moment. It's extemely depressing, mainly because you know that no-one is going to do anything to save us all in the nick of time... 'Germs and Guns and Steel' is a superb book, and one that has shaped my thinking very closely. It helped that I had just read 'The Natural History of Domesticated Mammals' which reinforces its arguments. Not so keen on 'The Third Chimpanzee' though....

Which part of Sheffield do you originally come from? I spent my first years (1949-1956) in the slums of Attercliffe, and the rest of my childhood and early adulthood on Greenhill/Lowedges council estate, being educated at Abbeydale Girls Grammar - as it was in those days.

[ellarien]

I lived near Banner Cross from 1964-75, and went to Holt House Infants and Carterknowle Junior. My father taught at Abbeydale Grange after the three schools were merged into one comprehensive. In 1975 we moved to Bradway, where my mother still lives; I went to the High School, and my sister, later on, to Jordanthorpe. I remember being very impressed by the wide grass verges along Greenhill Parkway, when we first moved up there; the estate is on the bus route into town, and my mother still walks over there to shop if she doesn't catch the bus to the city-centre Sainsbury's.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

My Dad (he's 85 and widowed - my Mum died about 5 years ago) still lives on the estate, though he bought his council house way back when. We were practically neighbours for a while, because I lived there until 1981. I remember Holt House infants, too, though of course I didn't go there. My brother went to the Tech next door to Jordanthorpe (can't remember what it was called) and ended up much better qualified than me - and earning a good deal more money. When I'm up there, my housemate and I often go for a drink at the Swan.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

Romania has been inhabited for an awfully long time, and quite a lot of it consists of very fertile (though deeply boring) plains, so I'm not sure why the dense habitation is surprising. Ever since the Milosevic wars in the nineties, Romanians have been very unkeen to be called Balkan.

I didn't get to Dracula's castle when I was in Romania; it's supposedly something of a tourist trap, but that's to be expected. Brasov is a pretty town, central square with church, and houses on the Germanic model that applies from Brussels to the Black Sea.

[ellarien]

I think I've had too much exposure to the wide emptiness of the American Southwest!

The meeting is in Sinaia, which is a smallish resort town between Bucharest and Brasov, where the nineteenth-century royals had a summer palace; the tourist-board descriptions make it sound rather pleasant.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

Sinaia the town felt like an off-season ski resort to me, but the two palaces Peles and Pelisor on the hill above it (an easy walk up from the station) are really something - one's High Ruritanian with thick oak panelling and secret passages, the other is light and Art Deco. If you're flying into Bucharest and taking the train, the train ride up into the mountains has some lovely views.

http://fivemack.livejournal.com/2005/07/03/ recounts my trip there last year, and makes me feel wanderlustig again ... on the other hand, making me feel wanderlustig is no great feat.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I think the choice depends on how well your mother is. If she's frail, take the opportunity to be with her. If she's hale, really, Vlad calls you.

[ellarien]

She's still under 70, and in good health, and we'll have a good bit of time together this summer, so I wouldn't feel too bad on that account, it's true.