Marty Called it Vampire-Ville

I had an enjoyable dinner with some of the Engineering team here. We went to the London House. This restaurant is now on my “must return” list. Sausages, Prosciutto Ham, Duck, Beef, Cheese of every variety, and wonderful dark beer (Ursus). But during this dinner we were having a very fun discussion concerning all things Romanian and the Western stereotypes of Romania. Naturally, we had to discuss Harry Potter and Dragons which they thoroughly enjoyed the prestige of their country being included in the book series, and of course we talked about Dracula. When this subject came up, they were howling with laughter both in humor and disgust. Apparently and according to these folks, Bram Stoker (actually he was Irish) had his history wrong, his geography wrong, and pretty much everything else wrong about Romania. So, the locals have complete disregard for Mr. Stoker. They continued explaining that true Romanians are completely turned off by his whole story. While they recognize the story itself is entertaining from a purely fictional storyline point of view, they grumble that he didn’t research enough history, geography, and culture to paint the story within more accurate settings of the country’s history. Further, they recognize that this one book has likely done more to paint a stereotype of Romania from which they just can’t shake free. One Engineer just shook his head and said “It’s sad what this man has done to us. Look around at our country and culture and our beautiful people and think that all the world knows about us is Dracula.” Then he laughed and said, “But at least we are famous!” I told them as I was leaving home to travel here, my brother texted me to “be safe in Vampire-ville.” And he said, “Exactly.” I next pulled out my camera and showed them this picture of a local bank that I saw the previous day and asked if it was a "money bank" or a "blood bank" and the whole table cracked up laughing.

We moved on to other discussions and really enjoyed ourselves.

As I walked back to the house where we are staying I was walking along a quiet street enjoying the cool evening summer breezes as the nightly darkness began to close in around me, I realized … he never really did answer the question.

So the mystery continues. Hmmmmm.