I had never seen a Soviet style train before, and this was as good as any place to see how their trains worked; bathed in steam at 6 in the morning, an industrial mist that clouds everything you see in the train station. It's a bit cleaner these days, but there are still men hanging around looking for guys to try and rip off. A common tactic is for one fellow to approach you and ask to change money, and two of his friends will "arrest" him, and demand to see your passport. Don't give it to them. Walk away.





Contsanta is about 3 hours by train, and the scenery is rather boring. But those gnarled trees- somehow they're different than other gnarled trees I've seen. They're the kind of gnarled trees that hold certain meanings, certain undercurrents. To think that their farmlands have these trees laying about says a lot about the visual aspect of this country. And the fog never lifted throughout my journey to Constanta. Once again, bathed in mist and surrounded by whithered wood.

Constanta the town is smaller and more boring; the downtown has a monument or two of bland proportions, and an archaeological museum with more Roman ruins if you feel so inclined. There are also some very disappointing ruins in the central plaza of the town, and some large urns as well. All very unexciting, and if you are looking for Roman ruins I doubt you would even be in Romania anyway. But Constanta is not a boring town entirely; the shipyard held my gaze and my thoughts for longer than I could have ever imagined. Kilometres of cranes sprawl across the massive docks and hang in the haze like the gnarled trees; the black sea takes on a whole new meaning when you see a shipyard like this. It was like being confronted by fields upon fields of mechanical tarantulas. It was intimidating; it was quintessentially communist. It was fascinating.





The walk along the boardwalk was intriguing as well; a closed up casino located in an ancient building. these massive concrete caltrops which are littered along the shore to stop ships from landing in the city make the entire boardwalk feel like a 1984 style futurist playground. All so concrete, imposing, and not subtle in the least. European sculptures still litter the town like any other European city, adding another notion of sad poeticism to the aura of the place. And more attractive women.
The women in Romania, for the most part, are so very extremely attractive; but they all have that look of betrayal in their eyes. If I trust my instincts, and I do, their looks are those of women who know their visual attractiveness and use it to coerce the male species into doing things for them. It is a subtle form of magic, and another example of the dark spirituality which permeates the country. Any man who has fallen for a Romanian woman, I can agree that they are attractive; but be careful of where they lead you. This is all I can say.

constanta is a small and unassuming town, more European than Bucharest; it feels like Europe here, instead of some massive city planning experiment like Bucharest. The town is overshadowed, though, by the massive shipyard. It is like a massive black spot, which sucks all life and poetry out of the city because of its proximity. But this, in a country like Romania, is the dark poetry that seems so very common everywhere in the country.

Brasov
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