Behind the counter in a small town

Every small town is an island. News from that big thing – the world – travel in bottles to and fro. The most adventurous members of the community defy forests and dragons, to bring some piece of finesse back with them, a souvenir, surprising their countrymen with marvellous updates about what’s going on Out There. The greatest passions form. Trends that for a town mouse – smoother and world-weary – come and go, here find fertile soil and take root. People and celebrities that are just a small dot of light in the great sky here acquire a titanic stature. Becoming notorious. You discover that everybody knows the lyrics to “Country Roads” and that they sing it tilting their heads back and closing their eyes. That Eddie Vedder is part of this community as if he was actually born here.

A small town, with all its placid calm, has big, burning passions and rivalries. You can see that Great Love you’ve only watched in movies, enacted. There’s a county Belle. You discover Rumour: these people know my name; they know what I’ve been up to last night; what medicine I’m on; where I live. You can see ancestral bad blood running in the glances of Montagues and Capulets. There are partisans.

Because they’re not just people, you see. They’re folk. Bumping into each other, for better or for worse, their whole lives. Scratching at each other’s doors in eternal loops. Staying together, even if they move to another town. (I was laughing at D, the other day, saying that he’s always with people from his village, and being cosmopolitan for him means chit-chatting with somebody from the other side of the valley.)

Indifference doesn’t exist here. Everybody is part of something, everybody matters. This depth is immeasurable, and at first a bit scary. When I was a kid, we didn’t say hi to our neighbours living on the upper floor. I was not used at seeing people enter from French windows and backyard entrances without knocking. I’m greeted on the road, expected even. I’m constantly and affectionately fed, washed, taken care of – a thing that at times surprises and upsets me, just as much as I’m vexed from rough manners and loud and high-pitched voices (speaking of which, M., the cleaning lady, comes into mind – but I think that just a post wouldn’t be enough to do her justice).

I’m an alien, I’m a legal alien.

Roadtrip 2010

I was planning a visit to at least two Scandinavian countries this year. But, as I’ve said before, in July I found out I was to pay taxes for 20.000 Euro for the rest of the year, and all the other wishes became secondary: Sven and Ole, Danish hygge, slave flash units and prime wide-angle lenses have been temporarily put on standby, and we were forced to choose the much more affordable Prague, with a visit to Budapest, where we spent a couple of weeks as 30-year-old foodies: appropriate, well-covered, with a GPS, a flight insurance, extra luggage, extra leg space, extra hotel complaints and everything else.

Here’s our (updated) 2010 Roadtrip, hope you enjoy it!

Roadtrip 2010 – Updated (w. video) from Daniela Vladimirova on Vimeo.

♥

Primary colours

In the place where I was born, we were all the same. On the pain of death.
Clothes were all in the same drab colours – if you didn’t like them you were to sew yourself new ones.
But then, the fabrics were all the same, so – you see – there was no point.

There seemed to be a dull and sleepy balance resting on all things, apparently jeopardized by just anything: a small pleasure, the spirit, a touch of primary colours. The only glare was the violent redness of flags; the blinding whiteness of snow.

Glass bottles were to be returned every week.
Newspapers were to be macerated.
Tin cans were used for planting spices and aligned on the window ledge, in the kitchen.
Jam was made in Autumn. And sauerkrauts.
And there were lots of books, because TV sucked.

All this can be refused or accepted. Taken for granted. Taken as a model. Nostalgically desired. Laughed at.
But colours are a right which should be granted to everyone.

urban decay, ancient and modern

Rome, Pietralata

Naples, Quartieri

Rome, Pigneto

Sofia, Bulgaria

Rome, Pigneto

Sofia, Bulgaria

Somewhere Budapest

Budapest, Szimpla

Walls came tumbling down

20 years have passed.

When all the greyness went away.
When we all felt so small and so full of worlds to explore.
When all primary colours, and not just red, became parts of our lives.
When everything we had disappeared in a day.
When the air was filled with expectations.
When our skies became broader.
When a second world was gone forever.

I was just a kid and yet I remember that the historical import was so clear to me.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vivaopictures/3403969552

Where the real countries are

Ever had a backache?

Idle, short, random, and fast.

Bulgaria is the land of hurry and makes me feel tense.

Upon the arrival of the plane, people spring up convulsively before the fasten seat belts sign is off. They struggle with their luggage (I get the constant impression that pieces of it will fall on other passengers or myself) and then run into the airport bus, and out of it to passport control desks, which are not open yet. Last week, a lady was so taken up with her race that she stumbled and fell on the few stairs leading to the counter. Strange she wasn’t trampled upon by a horde of similarly minded athletes.

I can remember a life spent queueing. The last 3 or 4 comrades, in a queue for reasons unknown: “what’s this queue for?” “maybe shoes” “I’ve heard it’s sugar” “Let’s hope it’s toilet paper”.

Play everything double-speed or – even better – fast forward. A life of gathering and overstocking. Of eating when you’re not hungry.  Of things done carelessly. As long as you do it in a hurry, everything will be fine.

And now, back into the city of ma lassa perde (“leave off”). Wondering how to reconcile these two mindsets and stay sane.

“International tickets counter”

Feeling, strangely enough, at home

I’m in Budapest and I feel at home. Which is really strange, given that I’ve extirpated my roots and don’t feel at home absolutely anywhere, not even in my own house. I’ve only been here once, something like 20 years ago. I remember that it was the first time I got access to MTV (I remember watching Lenny Kravitz and Sinead O’Connor and a lot of Tears for Fears, instead of Cartoon Network or something similar). I used to stay at the Bulgarian embassy and to spend almost all day watching MTV and trying to break my neck, climbing the tree just outside on the street.
So why this sudden Hungarian well-being?
Is it because of the dirt? Two fingers of dust covering everything?
Is it because of the total improvisation in doing things? (nothing is ever fixed or rebuilt, everything is just repainted or covered with something else, like three layers of tiles on flat floors)
Is it because of the cuisine? Of this strange combination of oldness and newness, of inevitable youth and decadence, of bad taste and great freedom? Of my own river flowing? This is what I’ve seen:

Mi scopro con terrore nei connotati di queste persone