Finding out about Romania via home #1

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK in order to reduce our impact on climate change. Ever since I read Dracula I've been intrigued by what Romania might be like, so here's how I'm finding out. Words by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

Duolingo Romanian and books - starting the Romania discovery.

The thing about travel is that it takes time, costs more than the budget and stops me working. But I love to travel and I want to see the world... As regular readers of this blog will know I've found a way to see the sights without leaving home much by seeking out what's here in the UK that links to somewhere else. During 2018 I want to ramp up my travel knowledge and find out more about Romania. If that means one day I'll visit (via train) so much the better, but I doubt it will be this year that I see the painted monasteries, agrarian society in action, salt mines, Danube Delta or the famous Palace of the Parliament.

Besides finding out more is going to be easy because all I know so far is that Dracula is a fun read and Nadia Comāneci was the first gymnast to get a perfect 10 score (in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal).

New Year's resolutions are tricky because they are so tempting to break. But this year I did download Duolingo's learn Romanian and have been reasonably diligent plodding through the lessons. I've got form with Duolingo - I like the way it is quick to use, mixes listening, writing and games and has a clear structure. I've managed to get through the whole of the French Duolingo. Duolingo declared me 54% fluent in French which is a fair estimate as I do understand about half of what's said to me. As for replying, oh my...

I've always been a big admirer of anyone who can speak more than one language.Now, I know that's not hard, especially if you have a mother tongue and a different education language and you start as a child, and/or you have years to improve. But I found language at secondary school much harder. It was fun at primary school and gave me a French and Latin base. Fortunately this has turned out to be very useful when it comes to Romanian, which like French is a Romance language. For years I thought this meant it had a sort of frisky frisson (well French has a particular accent), but at last I've realised that it means it has its roots in Latin.

About a week after writing this I've now discovered from a hairdresser (Polish) that Romania has some good music festivals which are also well attended by mosquitoes and that Romanian sounds Italian. The next day I had my first conversation (I don't think we can grace it with that word conversation actually) with a Romanian Big Issue seller. All I could think of was "I am woman". She thought I was clearly mad, hoping I'd buy the mag or just move on swiftly. However I enjoyed our "chat" and it was fantastic to at last have a chance to hear - and speak - Romanian.

Besides the language learning I'm going to get cultural. On my list will be books, films and a lightbulb in my brain which will either switch on when it notices something about Romania or will oblige me to ask "have you ever been to Romania' when embroiled in a conversation I'm not really sure I want to be having and isn't about work.

Romanian books to read

• Dracula by Bram Stoker isn't really Romanian, but it does give a bit of a hint about Transylvania. Under Communism the stories of vampires disappeared. Now they are back again and it seems Romanians have conflicted feelings about Count Dracula and the rest of the world's obsession for Transyvlanian weird stuff. Searching for Dracula in Romania by Catalin Gruia looks like dealing with these issues.
• Herta Müller has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Her best known work are novels about the poor treatment of Germans in Communist Romania, eg, The Hunger Angel (2009) but I'm also thinking of reading Passport which explores Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu as does The Fox Was Ever the Hunter.   
• Judging by the internet most Romanians are poets...

Famous Romanians

• Nelly Miricioiu - opera singer (born 1952) who has starred worldwide, including Salzburg and London.
• Nadia Comāneci - gymnast
• Nicolāe Paulescu - discovered insulin
• Mihai Eminescu - 19th century national poet
• Romanian gypsies - who've suffered terrible racism especially in the 20th an 21st centuries.

Next steps - besides reading

The plan is to visit a Romanian restaurant/coffee shop - Restaurant Noroc at 147-149 Green Lanes, N13 by the North Circular open from midday to 9pm. Not sure what to expect, but I do know that Romania is the world's ninth largest producer of wine, an exciting fact for a wine lover. Expect a Romanian recipe soon.

Over to you
What do you know about Romania? Where in the UK can I learn more about this place and its history? Have you visited? Any tips?

New thinking for new year's day - Clerkenwell history

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK in order to reduce our impact on climate change. All is quiet on New Year's Day, so it was fun to go on a rebel footprint tour around Clerkenwell and see the exact spots that social justice was challenged and changed thanks to people from Italy, India, German, Soviet Union etc. Words by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

Walking a chapter in Rebel Footprints by David Rosenberg was an interesting way to spend New Year’s Day. When the big blockbuster shows are on in London covering revolutionary art and ideas there’s a tendency to focus on the Soviet Union and France. But Rebel Footprints offers a guide to “uncovering London’s radical history”. Turns out London is packed with historic incident plus the places – often coffee houses, but pubs too – where these events were planned.

As I live in Islington it’s always fun to learn more about the area (see the 260+ interviews on https://islingtonfacesblog.com ) so instead of a cobweb-blowing New Year’s Day walk along a cliff edge we picked a guided tour (reachable by local bus) of the trailblazers for democracy who lived, worked and plotted around Clerkenwell, EC1. This is a short walk – 7,000 paces for those of you living by fitbits. For me it was very familiar so a chance to look again at places and consider the power of politics. Here’s what I found most interesting:

Spa Fields (a paved green space) looks a bit sad in winter, but it was a huge area bordering Exmouth Market and ideal for rallies. It was the centrepoint for bread riots that broke out in London in 1800-01 which the authorities blamed on Newcastle-born Thomas Spence who was a shoemaker and radical teacher who wanted egalitarianism, land nationalisation and universal suffrage. His followers were known as Spenceans.

Plaque marks the UK's first black MP - who won his seat in 1982.

The Old Town Hall on Rosebery Avenue, opened in 1895, used to be where Islingtonians registered births, marriages and deaths in ink. I have two millennial daughters – one was registered with an ink pen, the other in a more high-tech environment using new technology. The Old Town Hall is now a dance studio for 16-21 year olds, Urdang Academy. Here we spotted a plaque commemorating the first black (and first Asian) MP, Dadabhai Naoroji, who was elected as a liberal MP for Finsbury Central in 1892. He won by just three votes! This is a good place to people watch: in just five minutes we jam-packed history and spotted a policeman on a skittish horse; a woman dressed as a suffragette and an ambulance responder on a bike. Often you can see queues for Urdang auditions which makes me think of the 1983 movie set in the thriving industrial steel town of Philadelphia, Flashdance – best songs What a feeling and Maniac.

Italian family and home of Joey Grimaldi, London's most famous clown

Exmouth Market was the home of Joey Grimaldi, the famous clown. He was the son of Italian immigrants and went to work as a dancer, on stage at Sadler’s Wells from just three years old.

On the site of a prison...

Mount Pleasant – now a reduced Royal Mail operation although it does have a postal museum and underground postal train to try – was the Middlesex House of Correction, also known as Coldbath Fields Prison. 

The Italian church is still busy.

Clerkenwell Road is where you can find St Peter’s Italian church, built in 1863. It still holds joint Italian and English Sunday mass and is the place to go for an Italian experience in London (especially if you go for coffee or pasta before or afterwards). Back in the mid 19^th century the church doubled as a labour exchange and the area was dubbed ‘Little Italy”. Since the 1880s there’s been an annual Italian parade around Clerkenwell – known as Our Lady of Mount Carmel. In 2018 the parade and carnival will probably be Sunday 22 July (please check date before you go!).

From this building, now the Marx Memorial Library, the first red
flag was flown during a rally

Clerkenwell Green is the hotspot for radical explorers. Here you can find the Marx Memorial Library, which is in the building where the first red flag was flown in London, hoisted at a rally in 1871 in sympathy with the Paris Communards. It used to be a radical printing workshops where Lenin worked... Here's a fascinating film about the building's history.

short MML film3 from Christopher Reeves on Vimeo.

Under the clock

The Crown Tavern, 43 Clerkenwell Green. At the table under the clock
is where Lenin drank (possibly coffee and not just beer) and planned.

Just over the road, also in Clerkenwell Green, is the pub where Lenin drank – The Crown. Head to the back room and you’ll find the conspirators clock, which is helpfully marked by a plaque.

There are plenty more radical history exploring possibilities – I’d recommend borrowing or buying the book. Do you have any guide books that get you outside and learning about other places or times that you think other readers of this blog would enjoy? If so please let me know. Thanks.

• Rebel Footprints by David Rosenberg (Pluto Press, 2015)