Bucuresti, Romania
I can never stop being amazed of people travelling. How they look out of the window. How they seem so unreachable and far away though we are skin to skin with eachother.



It's a mystery how people behave
how we long for a life as a slave
/the Cardigans

Bucuresti, Romania
We walk around this beautiful neighbourhood, try to capture the women smoking in their kitchen windows (but they see us and hurry to hide) and talk to the dogs (who really aren't very friendly in return) and walk silent side by side.

Bucuresti, Romania
"Everyone can be a king in Romania" Blondo ones told me. I belive he's right. I could start something here. A bar a hotel a loveaffair a gallery a riot adepression. Be a part of the cultural elite. Drink red wine in Lapteria.

Bucuresti, Romania
In Bucurest I see the deepest holes in the streets I've ever saw. And the girls weare the highest heels I could ever imagine...

Bucuresti, Romania
Being here is like a time-swap. Sometimes I feel like I'm in 1950, I look at the old ladies and they look back at me with the look of my grand grandparents on torn black and white photos found in the attics shoe boxes. And then I turn around and see the girls, the women, the creatures that comes directly from the science fiction movie where everyone is unbelievable perfectly beautiful, have pastel coloured clothes, and stilett heals on their magic futurist boots.

Bucuresti, Romania
The all-seing eye, the Big Brother house, the memory of past times, the monument unable to ignore - The Peoples House. I see it every day now, on my way to and from my temporary home. It gives you a mix of feelings; rage over the fact that insanity could rule unstopped to build this mad thing. Joy to see it's now being filled with democratic institutions. And then that absurd feeling, hard to explain, but I guess it could be linked to the fact that the madhouse actually was called "Peoples House"...

Bucuresti, Romania

Bucuresti, Romania
I had forgotten the feeling you get when you can't understand the language spoken. It's isolating. Try to concentrate, to laugh in the right moments, to at least get the conversation's subject. Makes me all silent.
"Monika, say something!"
Everyone looks at me and I black out, can't find a word to say.








Today I saw a policeman hug a dog.

Bucuresti, Romania
F said "when you're abroad, and you tell people you're Romanian, they just say aaaah in this negative understanding kind of way. I hate that."
Then she tells us about the exeption, the drunk Scottish ones who shouted COOOL, you are the ones who stood up against Ceaucescu!
There's so much embrasing, still to be done
time is racing
oh well, we'll catch up
some other time.
/Monica Z (cover)

Bucuresti, Romania
Some things here just seems wrong-sized. I explore the faculty-building, and find empty long corridors leading to empty big rooms. People seem so small in the huge hall.

Bucuresti, Romania
The cars the dogs the woman with a misfitting wig the alcoholic with the look on his face saying "I know the secrets of this world..." Petrocen-the-dog saluts me by Magasin pe colt. All the impressions. And the feeling of lonlieness. Makes my head cloudy.









How to escape my shape?
If I was a straight thin line
longed I for the curves?
Envied I the flesh?
/Frida Hyvonen

Arlanda, Sweden
Towards Bucuresti...

Bucuresti, Romania
Bucuresti welcomed me with a grey smile and my friend welcomed me with tuica. The city and I hurry slowly to get to know eachother again, exchange suspicious look, try to see if we've change since last time we met. I guess we have, for better or worse.

Molnbo, Sweden
Death isn't always sad.

Somewhere close to Gävle, Sweden
On old man who left his teeth at home sits in a cafeteria corner. A lady (with an ok set of teeth) sits in the other. Avoiding each others gaze. While I cross-exam my parents about relatives (unknown children, fundamental Christians, artist-souls).

Sundsvall, Sweden
The fine arts of doing nothing, is what I study. Today I take this to a new level: going to the library, to do, nothing. The facinating fact is that I still believe I'm smart and productive.

Sundsvall, Sweden
This subject of leaving/coming back is what occupies my mind these days. In only a few days, I am back in Bucharest.
I suddenly remember and long for silly little details; like the taste of the covrigi, the color of my roommate's slippers, the sounds of the metro...
You could put it in terms of lovers: I was flirting with Bucharest last year. But I'd like it to be more than just a flirt. I'm asking for a second date, and another chance.

Sundsvall, Sweden
I saw this girl yesterday. One of these creative spitits, with orange dress and a long-haried boyfriend. She was an artist, making music. Walked barefoot in the woods, plaing flute. Illegally put a sofa under a tree. Made songs by the see.
Oh, some days I just want to be like that. Forget about politics, rent and laundry. Fit in colourful dresses. Create weired stuff. But, no, not today. I dress in black and have homework to do.