String Lights, Street Art, and Someone Like You

Timişoara, Romania

June 9-12, 2025

Timişoara in western Romania was one of the main places I needed to go on this trip. It’s where the revolution against communism started in Romania in 1989.

Old Town, my neighborhood was perfect. Town squares. So many cafes and restaurants. Lights strung between the streets. Flowers everywhere. In pots, in window boxes, for sale in stands. People carry bouquets down the streets. I found out that flowers in your home is a thing in Romania. I love that idea. I window shopped a lot, and I found a gloriously beat-up leather tote in a neighborhood vintage shop. It came home with me, obviously. I parked myself in cafes, I drank Romanian wine (HIGHLY recommend the Romanian wine), I ate pastries and drank cappuccino and espresso.

Victory Square—this was THE prewar promenade. The pic shows only a portion of it, the part leading to the Metropolitan Cathedral. The other end has the National Opera House. Victory Square was the place to see and be seen. The buildings are gorgeous; very Art Nouveau.

One of the streets at the end of my block. Street art is everywhere here. The statues were a HUGE help keeping me oriented—turn left at the angular monster and the kid, turn right at the TV with feet. Works great! The door with the flowers around it is a chocolate shop.

This piece was one of my faves—reminded me of my friend Jolie.

Union Square. The church is St. George’s Cathedral. The square also holds a Serbian Orthodox Church, the art museum, and a kids playing.

My AirB&B building. #10. ALL the way up the stairs. 56, 57, or 58 steps up. I kept losing count.

Romanian Red Rocks

New old bag

Umbrella Street

Grocery shopping is an adventure. Recognize most things, but I didn’t risk buying the crap.

I spent a lot of time exploring the neighborhood, but I was there to learn about the beginning of the revolution. At the Revolution Memorial Museum, the guide/clerk on duty, was happy to help me do that. He asked me where I was from. When I responded, he asked, as most people do, “why do you come so far?” When he found out why (I do it to help my students and see part of the world), he insisted on giving me a guided tour of part of the museum. I was the only visitor, and we had a great conversation. The Revolution Memorial Museum is in the old communist military headquarters, and it’s a powerful place. Simple and on the small side, at least compared to National Museums at home, it is moving, painful, and hopeful all at once. The closest match to the mood there I’ve seen in the US is the National Holocaust Museum in DC.

From a museum photo essay. These kids look like my friends in college.

Secu is short for Securitate—the Secret Police.

Romanian Flag with the coat of arms cut away from the middle. A flag with a hole in it was a powerful symbol of the revolution. Today, the flag is 3 stripes without an emblem.

Outside the memorial museum

All publications while Ceauşescu was head of state had to have his picture in them. Newspapers, books, magazines. Everything.

Another piece of one of the photo essays

Post-WW2 Romanian kitchen display. Radios were important. Timişoara was able to receive Voice of America broadcasts to get outside news.

Chapel memorial to Timişoarans who died in December 1989 during the revolution. One was only 2 years old.

Entrance to the museum. Small but significant.

Museum guide Michael

I wanted to find a place called the Communist Consumer Museum I read about online. It’s a trek from Old Town; about a half hour walk near one of the universities. (One reason Timisoara is so cool-it’s a college town and there’s a lot of student influence.) This museum is located in the basement of a pub called Scart Loc Lejer, or just Scart. The name loosely translates to “The Chill Place.” I read that sometimes they do plays there, mostly political theater. I set off to find it, and I was not disappointed.

Reader, Chill is an understatement. I walked in to an empty pub. Nobody at tables. Nobody behind the bar. It was late afternoon; someone should be here, right? After a couple of minutes after I entered, a dark haired young woman came in the back door from outside. We looked at each other, and I said, “One ticket to the museum, please?” “It’s downstairs, she said, pointing. No admission. Just a donation. If you feel like it.” Then she walked back out. She wasn’t rude, she didn’t seem annoyed, exactly, just supremely unbothered.

I went down the spiral staircase—there are SO many spiral staircases here!—and the smell hit me. Not exactly unpleasant, but significant. A memory smell. The smell of your grandmother’s basement when everything needs to be aired out. The smell of a small, dark thrift shop with tiny windows that don’t open. Almost, but not quite, damp. Packed full to bursting with things that go in a house. Books, toys, kitchen stuff, overcoats, hats on hat racks, posters and prints, shopping bags full of god knows what. The craziest garage sale/estate sale goods ever. They were everywhere. It was glorious. Everything looked to be from the 1950s-1970s. Nothing was new; nothing was unused. Clearly all of this came from people’s homes.

I couldn’t stay down there for long; they don’t make Zyrtec strong enough for that. I came up, and the Moody Millennial was behind the bar, her back to me. I put 5 lei (about $1.50) in one of two plastic piggy banks at the top of the stairs. I guessed that’s where donations went. Hope so. She turned and asked me if everything was ok. I nodded. “You sell beer?” I asked. I can do moody and over it all too. “In the fridge,” she replied. I may have met my match. I grabbed a bottle of Hefe Weiss. She popped it for me and I paid. “You want a glass?” “No, thanks,” I told her. I raised my beer to her and took a long sip. “You can sit anywhere,” she said. “Outside, in here, wherever.”

Now I had to see outside. It felt almost like a challenge. Inside it was dark wood and very scruffy pub. Outside was beautifully ramshackle. Seating for about 40 at mismatched, sketchy tables and chairs. A huge vine, maybe a grape—I couldn’t identify it, grew on a pergola and covered the patio. Of course all the people were out here. Moody Millennial and her two cohorts sat on the small deck just outside the door; I went to the patio.

A guy was eating soup and scrolling his phone at one table. Another guy tried to corral his two preschoolers and make them eat while an older guy, clearly grandpa, was no help at all. Grandpa argued on his phone with someone, and kept interrupting his conversation to encourage the kids. Glasses Guy and Manbun played chess at the only other table. While I drank my beer and talked to my notebook, they finished one game and started another. Manbun won the first game; Glasses Guy was pretty stressed out. Could have been a simple game, could have been a lesson. If it was a lesson, Manbun didn’t do a lot of coaching. Just kept taking pieces. Glasses Guy’s hair stood straight up; he’d run his hands through it before almost every move.

I hope they do plays there. I hope Glasses Guy pulls it together and wins a game. I’d come to this bar all the time if I lived here.

One of the basement displays

I love this patio so much. I need an armless mannequin with a helmet on mine at home.

One of the chess games and the entrance I missed from the street. Glasses Guy is trying hard, but he’s playing white. Looks like he’s in trouble.

My last night in Timisoara, I sat in Piata Libertatii (Liberty Square) eating gelato and listening to the piano players who play there every night. The streets were lit up, I saw a few stars, I had gelato, and there was music. It was so close to perfect. That moment was the kind of thing Kevin and I always sought on trips together. We found it, often, and it was bittersweet to find it alone that night.

Bittersweet moment in Liberty Square with music, gelato, and more street art.

The next day I was waiting at the Timişoara airport for my plane to Bucharest. (I had to fly to Bucharest and then take the train from Bucharest to Brasov. That story is its own post, and it’s coming.)

I got to the airport early, too early really, but you never know. The music on the PA was instrumental background. I was vaguely aware of it the whole time I was there, but it was the same the whole time. A few minutes before boarding started, the music changed. A cover version with English lyrics of Van Morrison’s “Someone Like You” came on. I couldn’t breathe for a split second. That’s our song. Kevin had it playing under the marry me proposal video he made, and it played at our wedding. I’ve avoided it since I lost him. I didn’t collapse. I didn’t cry. I almost smiled. “I see you, Sweetie,” I said out loud. “Thanks for being here.”

Thank you as well, friends, for encouraging me put this somewhere and share it. Thanks for being here.