Unirii and Lipscani at Night

Portraits at Muzeul Ţăranului Român

Christmas at Fundeni Hospital, Bucharest

Titan and Obor in the Snow

National Day

Romania celebrates National Day or Union Day on December 1st. This national holiday commemorates the 1918 unification of the Romanian Kingdom with Transylvania, Bessarabia, Southern Dobruja, and Bukovina. A military parade organized by the Ministry of Defense began in Piata Arcului de Triumf and made its way down Soseaua Kisseleff.

Tea at Palatul Becali

Romanian politician, businessman, and owner of the Steaua football club Gigi Becali, hosted tea for the women of the International Women's Association at his palace in Bucharest...

Prayer Service for the Sick at Fundeni Hospital

This church on the grounds of Fundeni Hospital in Bucharest, is scheduled to be closed down in December, as a result of the hospital's expansion project. Every Wednesday evening, the church holds this healing prayer service for the patients and staff at the hospital. Fundeni Hospital, the main hospital in Bucharest, is the primary location for terminally ill patients in Romania.

Targul de Cafea si Ciocolata

Unirii in the Rain

Basarab

Halloween Charity Ball

Here are a few images from the 3rd Halloween Charity Ball held at the "People's Palace" in Bucharest this past Saturday evening. This was a benefit to support the work of Ovidiu Rom that helps Romanian children and families rise out of poverty. The mission of Ovidiu Rom is "to promote self-sufficiency among the poorest members of Romanian society through education, job training, community development, and public awareness."

The organization began when Peace Corps Volunteer Leslie Hawke and Maria Gheorghiu obtained a USAID grant to start a program for fifteen impoverished mothers and an education program for children who begged on the street in 2001. This took place while they were in Bacau, Romania. In 2004, they founded the Asociatia Ovidiu Rom.

Here is a link to their website that includes more of the history of the organization and information about its programs:
http://www.ovid.ro/

A Historic Moment in Bucharest

Today in Bucharest, Romanian President Traian Basescu honored three Roma-ethnic survivors of the Holocaust. 101 year-old Traian Grancea, Ion Minutescu, and Dumitru Tranca received one of Romania's highest honors, The 'Serviciul Credincios' (Faithful Service Award). This took place during a ceremony at the Cotroceni Palace, the Romanian Presidency headquarters, in Bucharest. The International Committee for the Study of the Holocaust, a panel of historians led by Nobel Prize winner and Holocaust Survivor Elie Wiesel, said that the wartime Romanian regime was responsible for the deportation of over 25,000 Roma people. More than 11,000 of them and over 300,000 Jews from Romania were killed during the Holocaust.

International Women's Association of Bucharest

This past week, I attended an International Women's Association (IWA) morning coffee at the Diplomatic Club in Bucharest. At this meeting, the other women and I were treated to a music & dance performance by the Arabesc dance company from Palatul Copiilor. Here are a few images of the dancers' preparation as well as their performance...

Construction

The construction of Bucharest is happening right outside my window...