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the jacks of Constanța
Monday, April 2 2018
location: room 311, MS Joy, navigating up the Danube River towards Cernavodă, Romania
The cruise on the Danube was to be a bidirectional one. We'd navigated to the delta in Ukraine and then turned around and begun heading back upstream towards Budapest. After lunch today we docked in the port city of Cernavodă, where we were greeted by a motley collection of three or four dogs, some of whom came close to boarding the ship. They arranged themselves along the boarding ramp and some seemed to enjoy being pet, though one of them was nervous about being touched by strangers.
Gretchen had arranged for us to ride an excursion bus to Constanța, a beach city on the Black Sea (and also home to one of Europe's largest ports), and she promised this time to be sure to get us back to the pickup spot five minutes early. One the ride over, there was a Romanian at the front of the bus who functioned as something of a guide, and he told us about all sorts of things. Romania's only nuclear power plan is near Cernavodă, and it supplies a substantial fraction of Romania's power. As is often the case, there are quite a few big electric wind turbines nearby, perhaps as a form of greenwashing. There is a big expensive canal connecting the Danube to Constanța that was built under Nicolæ Ceauşescu's rein, and, though thousands died building it, it mostly goes unused, since it's easy enough to just navigate out the Danube and over to Constanța by sea. We also learned that the the farmland that had been collectivized under communism had been redistributed back to the original owners (or their descendants) after the fall of Ceauşescu. But, since many of those people can no longer work the land, there is now an extensive system of sharecropping in place.
I didn't want to be in some slow-walking tour group, so when our bus got to Constanța, Gretchen and I immediately left the others, going to check out an old abandoned casino rotting beautifully above the beach (it's still a job provider in that it is permanently staffed with an employee whose job it is to keep people from trying to go inside). Below the casino, Gretchen and I went down to where the Black Sea crashed into hundreds of large cast concrete objects resembling toy jacks, designed to protect the coast. The Black Sea is something of a lake because it has large amounts of freshwater flowing into it and only one narrow outflow. So I tasted it to see how salty it was. It was salty, but not like ocean water. There were a number of teenagers down there doing teenager stuff (mostly snapping selfies), and someone had dropped his or her sunglasses. Gretchen had been looking for sunglasses for days, and here were some perfectly good ones just there on the ground. Usually Gretchen is the bold one in a situation like this, but today that role fell to me. I scooped up the glasses and handed them to her. They were ugly, but they were sunglasses, and (most importantly) they hadn't cost $50. That's about the cheapest sunglasses go in Eastern Europe. In a landscape full of people with marginal finances, the one thing nobody wants to be caught dead in is a pair of cheap sunglasses; evidently this mindset is so strong that there is no market for them.
Unfortunately, we found ourselves back with the group from the bus, and the guide was in a full-on tour-giving mode. He was saying interesting things, so of course we lingered to listen, learning (for example) about the mosque, built as a gift to the Muslim minority by Romanian King Carol I. Now Gretchen wanted to climb to the top of its minaret, but that would mean getting more Romanian money (remember, we'd burned through the last of ours in Bucharest). But we could find no money changing places that were actually open. There was occasional free WiFi though, particularly on Plata Ovidiu.
We split from the others and found our way down a series of steps to the beach. We both had to piss really bad, and no provision had been made for the likes of us, so we ducked into a seasonal structure that had yet to open and made it smell that much more like a New Orleans alleyway. Thanks, Obama!
We walked out on the artificial spit designed to protect the beach. These consisted of concrete pathways along more of those massive concrete jacks, (as well as another more cubistic shape). While we were out on the seawall, we came across Boris and Carrie. Gretchen didn't much care for Boris, but he seemed to like her, and (more importantly) he had been providing intelligence about how the other Germans on the Bucharest bus had felt about our delaying the return to the MS Joy. Apparently some of them had been overheard to say "Just leave them; that's the only way they'll learn!" It's actually a valid sentiment, and I would've almost certainly thought the same thing if I'd been in their position. But Gretchen took these as fighting words and wanted to know who had said it. At that, Boris drew the line. He wouldn't say.
The artificial spit was a strange place showcasing strange aspects of Romanian culture. While we were there, a spoiled manchild with a fancy sports car drove out on the spit apparently just to take some selfies with it and his girlfriend. But who was that other girl with him? I had the same question at the end of the spit, where some young man with no sports car was in the company of two women his own age. Is Constanța a Mecca for third wheels?
We wandered back in from artificial spit to an area where a series of bars looked out onto docks for small boats. One of the first ones (Cocktail-Bar I think) we came to looked to have outside heaters, comfy couches, and adult beverages. We plunked down and had a look at the menu. It featured depictions of red wine, and we wondered if perhaps "rose" in Romanian means "red." It turns out that it does not, and the only wine they had was white and rosé. We got a bottle of the latter. Unfortunately, it was presented at room temperature and really needed to be colder than that. So we added some ice, and that really helped. The people at the restaurant were super nice and fetched us unexpected things we hadn't ordered, like a bowl of olives and some surprisingly good corn chips (the first I'd seen in all of Europe).
Unexpectedly, the Scottish couple (with the photographer woman) happened by, and joined us in our cozy little setup. Brian (the patriarch of the Scottish family) was a bit under the weather, so he ordered a therapeutic glass of whiskey. This is why I love the Scots!
On the walk back to our bus, it was revealed that Boris, the raw foods chef, had been seen in one of the towns eating a soup with an actual animal bone in it.
Back on the MS Joy, Gretchen and I returned yet again to Arthur's, the alternative restaurant at the back of the boat, where we dined with Boris and Carrie. I had the flatbread (pizza). It was oily, but pretty good. There was more talk about the Germans angered by our tardiness in Bucharest, but that topic was approaching its expiration date.
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Flooded trees along the lower Danube. Click to enlarge.
Cliffs along the lower Danube. Click to enlarge.
Rotting remains of a casino, one of serveral abandoned buildings on prime Constanța real estate.
The casino from a distance. Click to enlarge.
Gretchen amid the protective "jacks" guarding the Constanța beaches.
Me atop a prong of a jack.
The more cubist sort of jack. Click to enlarge, and note the unfinished buildings in the background.
Gretchen and me, glass of Romanian rosé in my hand.
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