that was our beautiful view from the AIRBN place in BUCURESTI. we arrived on December, 27, and stayed until January, 1, 2016 and I saw so many nice things and I also saw many not so nice things. as you know me I rather focus on positive things and try to see the best in everything I do and live. hence the name of the blog. the situation in Romania is very special and difficult to judge from the outside and even after talking to local friends of Cristian I realized that this country has so much more to offer. It needs politicians who stand for their people and not for their own benefits. the country needs lots of reforms and transperancy when it comes to projects. Romania has great, smart and qualified people and is a country with precious resources, hopefully it will soon be a step closer to realize a change, I really wish for a country with less corruption and more trust.

at this very moment there are so many amazing projects happening in Bucharest. I have visited the NOD makerspace  (I will get back to this project at the end of this blogpost), met the people of Calup and visited so many nice and cosy bars and restaurants. what really surprised me was that it was still okay to smoke inside bars and restaurants. here in Basel they have changed this about 10 years ago and I got so used to it that I was somehow annoyed by the smoking inside. anyway, most of the bars and restaurants had a seperate non smoking area and soon the smoking inside will be over too.

I had an amazing time and I was surprised to see so many vegetarian dishes on the menues. the food at A1, alt shift and shift pub was super delicious. I can really recommend their salads, soups, bucket fries and arabian plates with hummus and falafel. mmmhhmmmm! another really cool thing about Romania is their fast internet connection, OMG its so fast, my photos were up so fast as they were never before!

this photo was taken inside of the ORIGO bar where we warmed up our frozen hands after walking thru the city in the snow. I looove the decoration and in fact it reminded me of the falling snow flakes and did you see the lovely heart we got in our coffees? <3

I found this lovely shop called WILD OLIVE whilst strolling thru Bucharest and I just had to enter and see what to find behind it all. there was a nice lady, who explained me the concept and philosophy behind WILD OLIVE and their products. WILD OLIVE is founded by a romanian lady who moved to Cape Town and started this organic business, where she sells candles, bath oils, perfumes and lotions made out of olives. I got a bath oil <3 thank you C! and I have already tried it twice and I love the scent and the moisturized feeling after the bath.

Bucharest is such a diverse city, it has so many beautiful old buildings with lots of craftmanship and then there are these ugly blocks that were built during communism. unfortunately I did not take a photo of these blocks, but I am sure you know what I mean. the old buildings do not get enough care and they start falling apart. there are lots of abandoned houses and lots of houses that could still be safed and prevented from being demolished and afterwards replaced by an ugly modern building.

and now I wanna get back to the NOD makerspace in Bucharest and I asked two lovely ladies the same question, they both work there and I am super happy to be able to share their opinions on such a great project.

What is the NOD makerspace and what does it bring for you and your projects?

“it is first of all a community which shares the interest in design and the process of making, whatever that may mean to each of us and in the same time we share the same working space. therefore, we have access to eachother, to what each team knows to do best, or to its specific interests, we can organize in bigger teams considering the complexity of projects that we are involved in, or benefit from a more competent advice in a certain domain. and maybe one of the important features of this place is that part of us have been friends over the years and it is not only about production, but also about trust and enjoying the proximity of the others and being a part of this groups that shares beliefs.” Brîndusa Tudor

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“The NOD makerspace is the first big scale makerspace in Romania! It is a creative hub for people who are passionate about transforming their designs into real projects. For our own company: wolfhouse prouctions. it is a space we designed. NOD is also a platform for networking with all kinds of different people from various fields in order to collaborate with cool projects.” Cristina Zlota

I am looking forward to going back to Romania. X