Ileana Streinu

• Romania: I lived there for more than half of my life. I was born and lived in Bucharest, and traveled almost everywhere inside Romania. I have the best memories of my high-school years at Liceul Gheorghe Lazar, where I studied in a special class of Mathematics, and of my university years at Facultatea de Matematica.
  
  Every year, I'd go to the Black Sea shore, to my grandparents house in Pietrosita (north of Targoviste), or backpacking in the mountains. The mountains are especially beautiful. The mountain range of the Carpathians (Carpatzi), including Bucegi, Fagaras, Retezat, Ceahlau, Piatra Craiului, Muntii Cibinului. The painted monasteries in Moldova are a unique treasure we had - and I visited them. I have three unfulfilled dreams, which should eventually make me travel back to Romania: the Danube Delta, the highest peak in Romania (Moldoveanu - I only went up the second highest peak, Negoiu) and the Apuseni Mountains in Transylvania. To this, a friend persuaded me I should add the medieval fortified churches near Sibiu, about which I didn't even hear while I lived there!
  
  I discovered opera while in Romania, but it was so memorable that I must tell the story here. We were watching, at the Italian Cultural Center in Bucharest, Mozart's "Don Giovanni" (Losey's movie). The music was out of this world (Dona Elvira being interpreted by Kiri te Kanawa). Here comes the final scene, when Don Giovanni is about to be dragged to Hell by the dead Commander's statue. At that very moment there is an Earthquake (I think it was under 5 or so on the Richter scale, not so bad - that was in the Fall of 1986). For a moment, everybody thought that was a spectacular effect - and then we all realized that it was real and rushed outside. I feel sometimes that we escaped from Romania just like that - it was a bit unreal. We weren't dragged through all the Hell of what was to come, but we've seen quite a bit of it.
  
  
• USA: since 1989. I lived in New Jersey (5 1/2 years), Massachusetts (13 years) and California (4 months). Besides this, I traveled to Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, Utah, Washington state, Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Tennessee, Arkansas, Vermont, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Minnesota, Illinois, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, New Mexico and surely I must have forgotten something - of course, New York! But I go there frequently, so maybe I can count it as a place where I lived (in fact, my mom, her family, and one of my sons live there).
  
  The most impressive, the most uniquely American place I visited was Utah and the Death Valley near Las Vegas: the landscape there is out of this planet! And the strongest impression is what we saw as fresh immigrants, from the window of our plane, on that day in January 1989 when we left Romania, stopped in Vienna for refueling (when we looked at each other and realized that we are out of that prison), and then flew non-stop to New York.
  
  And there is so much more yet to see.
  
  Interesting, but now the most memorable American story that comes to my mind is from home, Northampton MA. A few years ago, there was a production of the opera "S" (the libretto was after John Updike's novel) composed by Smith College professor Ronald Perera. The story is this, the wife of a rich Boston physician leaves him and goes to "discover herself" in a Zen retreat in New Mexico. There is this scene, when the doctor finds that she has left: half of the stage is the doctor's office in Boston, half is the Zen retreat across the continent. The doctor sings, as he discovers that she also took half of their investments, and recites the names on the shares: "And Microsoft, and IBM, and ...". On her half of the stage, the wife and a whole group of devotees sing too ... whatever ... I do not remember what, it doesn't matter. The sounds that stay are "And Microsoft, and IBM, and ..."
  
  
• Spain: five months in 1998, and back three times since. Traveled through Castilla and Extremadura (Madrid, Toledo, Guadalupe, Yuste, Merida, Caceres, Salamanca, Segovia, Avila, Escorial, Alarcon, Santo Domingo de Sillos and through Rioja wine region), Leon (Burgos, Leon), Eastern Spain (Valencia), Catalunya (Barcelona, Tarragona, Sitges, Poblet, Ripoll, Vic, Besalu, Puigcerda, Gerona, Figuerres, Cadaquez, Tossa del Mar, Empuries), Aragon (Zaragoza), Navarra (Olite, Pamplona - happened to be there just during the San Fermin "running of the bulls" festival), Pais Basco (Vitoria, Bilbao), Cantabria (Santander, Santillana del Mar and Altamira caves, Picos de Europa (Fuente De), San Vicente della Barquera, Castros Urdiales), Asturias (Ponferrada), Galicia (Santiago de Compostela, La Coruna), Andaluzia (Cordoba, Sevilla, Italica, pueblos blancos: Arcos de la Frontera, Jimena de la Frontera, Gaucin, Ronda, Granada, Jaen, Baeza) and Mallorca (and I still have to add a few places to the list).
  
  Spain is a spectacularly beautiful and culturally rich country, where every city, every village, every castle, every church and monastery has some incredible treasure and some history to tell (and, without exageration, the best food in the world).
  
  Here's a memorable sight. We were having an early dinner (unusual for Spain, but this was a very touristy place) in front of the cathedral in Burgos. We always prefer places with a nice view, so we both had the two towers on the facade in front of our eyes. And here's what we saw. There was this big stork who just landed on one of the towers. The other tower "seat" was not taken yet. Here comes the second stork, and completely ignoring the available position, flies straight into the other bird to chase it away! There is a small fight high up at the steep peak. I do not remember who won, but I remember thinking that we humans are neither better nor worse than the "innocent" birds. Why couldn't the second stork take the available spot on the second tower? That was not prey-predator fight, those were two birds of the same species, given identical opportunities. I couldn't see any reason why the first tower was better than the second, but who am I to know the reason of the birds feud? Maybe the first tower was the presidential office, in stork's world.
  
  
• France: spent six months in 2003, and traveled there a few times before and after. Paris, Southern France (Roussillon, Pays Cathare, Bearn, Provence, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseille, Nice), Northern France - les Ardennes, Champagne, Lorraine (Nancy), Alsace, Bourgogne (my most recent Art History discovery is a German painter, Konrad Witz, who caught my eye in the Art Museum in Dijon, and then I saw a second piece in the Gemaelde Gallerie in Berlin), Savoie, Haute Savoie (St Gervais Mont Blanc); and then back to see l'Isle d'Oleron, La Rochelle, Loire Valley and many of its chateaux (Saumur, Chinon, Azay-le-Rideau, Chambord, Chenonceau), Chartres, Tours...
  
  I could fill in a whole page just with the many magnificent concerts, operas and theaters we attended in Paris, at: Opera Garnier, Opera Comique, Theatre Mogador, Theatre des Champs Elysees, St Germain d'Auxerrois, St Roch, St Germain des Pres, Musee Thermes de Cluny, Ste Chapelle, Comedie Francaise, St Eustache, St Gervais St Protais, Notre Dame, Theatre de la Huchette, etc. My discovery of French music is non-trivial: this being Berlioz 200th anniversary, there were some spectacular performances. His Benvenuto Cellini is now a favorite opera of mine. And the Poulenc, with a 150 voice chorus, that we heard in Notre Dame? Or the absolutely highest quality performances of Moliere at the Comedie Francaise? A comment: what was particularly impressive was the high percentage of young and VERY young (high-school and university age) people attending these performances!!! And of course, I can't even dream of listing all the cafes and bistros and restaurants and fantastic food, but at least, I should mention Le Procope (which proudly portrayed Ben Franklin, one of their early customers), right around the corner from where we lived. And La Truffiere, near rue Mouffetard, near Ecole Normale. And... oh, I should stop. Still, I must add that we just happened to visit or pass through most of wine country - so to us, France looks as if it is almost all vineyards: Roussillon, Bordeaux, Bourgogne, Champagne, Beaujolais, Alsace, Armagnac: anything missing?
  
  
• England: London, Salisbury, Dover, Winchester, Canterbury.
  
  
• Ireland: Dublin, Limerick, the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren.
  
  
• Italy: Roma, Firenze, Siena, Arezzo, Venezia, Pisa, the Dolomite mountains; Alghero, Capo Caccia and Castelsardo on the island of Sardegna.
  
  Everybody knows about Italy's artistic treasures, but still, nothing that I knew before ever matched the surprising discoveries on the next visit, and the next, and the next... And we saw so little - so we must go back (several times). We spent the 2000 New Year's Eve in Piazza San Marco in Venezia, and were almost crushed by the crowd, but managed to escape and see the fireworks from a little street that took us back to the Lagoon. One of my favorite memories is that of the white marble leoncini on the facade of Ca d'Oro, a jewel of a museum overlooking Canal Grande. La Fenice had burned down (I see it is reopening!), but even without it, there is no shortage of good music in Italy. Vivaldi sounded at home in his church in Venice (where he used to teach to the orphelines).
  
  
• Vatican. I visited its museums three times in my life, we walked around its walls, but I still missed an important room that was closed for renovations, so I think I must go back.
  
  
• Germany: Berlin, Darmstadt, Worms, Speyer, Lorsch, Koeln, Koblenz, Rhein Valley, Black Forrest, Tuebingen, Heidelberg, Aachen, Mainz, Bonn, Dresden, Weimar, Naumburg, Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Leipzig, Hamburg, Luebeck.
  
  The best performances of German music (of course!) we ever heard (Bach Festival in Leipzig, a Beethoven concerto at the Deutsche Opera in (former) West Berlin, and an unforgettable performance with Christoph Eschenbach at the Philarmonic in Koeln. Besides this, the absolute most spectacular middle-east museums we've ever seen, from Ishtar's Gate in Babylon to the Pergamon and the most beautiful Egyptian statuette in the world, Nefertiti, at the Egyptische Museum. And the most beautiful medieval statue (Uta) in Naumburg cathedral. And ... OK, I stop.
  
  I brought a card with me from my first visit to Berlin two years ago. In the Pergamon Museum, I purchased several reproductions of memorable pieces of art. This is a scene from the Altar frieze, the Battle of the Gods against the Giants. I had this card sitting on my fireplace mantelpiece for a long while, and I couldn't take my eyes away from it. It was the image of a very beautiful, very powerful Athena, fighting and winning against a kneed Giant. The whole battle scene is unbelievable: the women, the goddesses, were fighting side by side with the men, the gods, against their common enemy. I do not remember exactly, I should check, but I do not think there was any female figure among the Giants. But I know for sure - that's what the myth records - that the Olympians won.
  
  
• Austria: Wien, Salzburg, Innsbruck.
  
  I skied in Innsbruck (a little ambition of mine, as my ideal of perfect skiing was always associated with Austria), while Ciprian visited the museums and then took me to the best place for Apfelstrudel. We went to a very nice performance of Marriage of Figaro at the Opera in Vienna, but the most touching visit was to Mozart's house - one of the many places Mozart lived in while in Vienna. Kunsthistorisches Museum is densely packed with art treasures: almost every piece is recognizable as an "Art History" top list item. The Brueghel hall is amazing, and very hard to leave in less than three hours for 10 paintings or so. Albertina was closed when we visited Vienna, and just opened this Fall with a spectacular and widely advertised exhibition of Duerer's drawings: we debated seriously whether we should go there, not to miss the event (but there wasn't time for it).
  
  And indeed, it is very pleasant to chat with friends over a coffee or hot chocolate in a Vienese cafe, but the Wienerschnitzel is a bit too large - and there is confusion over the Apfelstrudel: do we want it with Vanillesauce or not? So we ordered two, one with and one without, and I ended up emptying Ciprian's plate (he ordered the one with the sauce).
  
  
• Belgium: Antwerp (Anvers), Brugges (Brug), Bruxelles, Ghent (Gand) (this is a jewel of a city), Liege, Dinant.
  
  Antwerp's surprise was the Plantin-Moretus museum, with old printing machines and a history to tell to the old-book lover in me. And Ghent's masterpiece, Van Eyck's Altar of the sacrificial Lamb, with the discovery that the green grass in the painting is so Flemish: you must travel in March, as we did, to discover that this is indeed the case. And the richly decorated facades of old burger's houses in Ghent. And Brugges. And Rubens' house in Antwerp. And in what looks like an industrial town, Liege, a spectacular treasure - Charles the Temerary's golden reliquary. And the mussels prepared in at least 25 ways. And ... French fries are actually Belgian, and there is a kind of beer called "Morte Subite": they have quite a dark sense of humor, I'd say.
  
  
• Netherlands: Amsterdam, Haarlem, Hague, Dordrecht, Delft, Gouda.
  
  You must take a walk on the beaches (we did), to recognize and appreciate Dutch landscape paintings. Be in Amsterdam on a cold day in January (as I was once), when the canals were frozen and a child was learning how to skate by holding onto a kitchen chair. And Delft still has some recognizable silhouettes from Vermeer's "View".
  
  
• Barbados
  
  Almost every year since 1994, I attended (and more recently, organized) a small workshop in my field, in a rustic marine science research institute on the small island of Barbados in the Carribean. So, contrary to what you'd expect, my memories of Barbados are all work-related. It's true that I like to swim, and snorkel to see the fish and sometimes the sea-turtles, and that there are cute green monkeys visiting the place, and that the weather is pleasant and a few times I even took a kayak to go to the turtle place, and once we even toured the island. But the real Barbados story is this: once, Sue Whitesides and I stayed two extra days after her workshop, to finish discussing a paper we were working on. Since the next workshop just started and we didn't want to intrude, we went to dinner (on a Saturday night) to a nice but unpretentious restaurant on the beach. It was almost 11pm, they were about to close, and we were still feverishly debating the validity of a mathematical argument. The waiter, obviously intrigued, brings in the check and asks "Are you ladies having fun?" We certainly did!
  
  
• Malta.
  
  A few years ago, we spent a torrid week in August on the island, attracted there by the reading of a book I once bought in Raven's Old Books store in Northampton, about the order of the Hospitallers, the Knights of St John or the Knights of Malta. Their Baroque cathedral, St John's in Valetta, is spectacular: I think I developed a taste for Baroque because of the visit to Malta. And so are the fortifications they built to keep the Ottomans at bay. Driven away from Rhodos by Suleyman the Magnificent in his second year of ruling, given the island by Charles the Fifth, they defeated the Turks in Suleyman's latest years and stopped their expansion in the Meditteranean. Why am I talking 16th century history here? Because one understands history by seeing those fortifications! There is also a 7000 year old neolithic site, Roman ruins, a fortified city Mdina, which makes you feel that you are in a Muslim country (they are Catholic, speaking an Arabic language written with Latin characters), Caravaggio paintings (accompanied by picaresque stories of his adventures on the island, where he ended up being put in prison), and the opportunity to just jump and swim in the Mediterannean whenever you feel like! I even remember the name of the hotel where we stayed, as nothing we've ever seen matched the view we had from our room, over the bay and the fortifications.
  
  
• Russia and Ukraine (while all was part of Soviet Union): Kiev, Moscow, StPetersburg (at that time, Leningrad).
  
  
• Hungary: Budapest
  
  I visited Budapest twice, once coming from Romania, once from the US, both times in connection with some conference and without much room for touristic activities. The first time Budapest looked like a Western European city to my eyes. I remember an exhibit of Goya's Capricios in the Art Museum and Western goods in the stores. The second time was a grey November week a few years ago, when Budapest brought back tender memories from my country of birth: lots of Trabant cars in the streets (I used to have one), delicious "palachinta" (even better then the French crepes in Paris), food that reminded me of childhood. Everybody at the conference was going to the Turkish baths, so finally, my last day there, I decided to try it - and ended up spending a couple of relaxing hours in the Gelert Baths. Wonderful! I always wondered, why on Earth were the Hungarians and Romanians (at least in my years of living in the Balkans) at each other's throats, when in fact we have so much in common? One must live in another, much more different country, to realize that! I concluded that political manipulation in the Balkans (or elsewhere) has brainwashed people so much that they don't see that. So I happily returned to my new multi-cultural home country. No political manipulation of one people against another, no ... hold on, I forgot, was there something said about the French as being nasty and anti-American and ... well, I do not remember that, because I was in France at that time, and the French looked very nice to me.
  
  I guess that's why I like to travel.
  
  
• Sweeden: Stockholm, Uppsala.
  
  
• China: Beijing, Hong Kong, Macao, Xian.
  
  Some unforgettable moments: a popular Chinese opera performance in the public park in Macao, the most touching and authentic thing we've seen. A cup of tea, served in the Chinese "tea ceremony" style at the Art Museum of the City University in Hong Kong. We bought some small tea pots at the night market in Kowloon after that, and once in a while I like to sip a tiny cup of tea, prepared with the whole ritual. A performance of Beijing opera (that was in Hong Kong), where we were given only a five line description in English of the 4-hour-long plot, and still managed to figure out large chunks of it: of course, the eternal student, preparing for, taking, failing and then passing the imperial examinations, a woman unjustly accused of murder whose cause he champions, intrigues and fine costumes. One of the highlights of my visit to the Forbidden City in Beijing was the sight of the large hall where the "finals" for the imperial examinations would take place.
  
  Ever since I learned (in my Art History class) about the Xian terracota army, I've dreamt of visiting that place in China. Eventually, I hope I will. [Update: I visited Xian in December 2005.] Or even better. I am fascinated by applications of computers to archeology. I remember that I read, years ago, about an Egyptian temple built in Akenaton's time and dismantled and "reused" for a different temple after his death. I can't locate the reference, it came from a little Art History book I read years ago in Romania, called Nefertiti, translated from French, I think, or maybe English, and written by an author whose name I do not remember. Apparently, there was an attempt to reconstruct the original temple using computer encodings of the information on the stones. I do not think they succeeded - that must have been done in the '60's or '70's, I remember an IBM being mentioned, and lots of punched cards.
  
  Last year, in Stanford, I learned of the Digital Forma Urbis Romae project. I even know people who work on it. It is of a similar nature, to solve an archeological puzzle.
  
  So here's a dream. That maybe I can work on reconstructing some broken Xian terracota warriors from a big pile of broken rubble? It is a geometry problem, after all. Quite a bit of a puzzle.
  
  
• Saudi Arabia: Jeddah City
  
  
• Mexico: Cozumel, Tijuana.
  
  We had to cancel the trip to Mexico City, for which Ciprian had prepared in detail the visit to the Museum of Arheology (and more), so we plan to go there sometimes. But even the sight of the Mayan ruins in San Gervasio in Cozumel was unforgettable: I remember a green lizzard on those grey-and-green stones, in a steamy hot afternoon, and my glimpse into what the jungle may feel like.
  
  
• Canada: Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City, Saskatoon, Fredericton (New Brunswick), Toronto, Waterloo, Vancouver, Victoria, Vancouver Island, Kingston, Calgary, Banff and Lake Louise, Windsor.
  
  
• Switzerland: Zurich, Geneve, Ascona, Rigi, Luzerne, Spitz on Thunersee (Berner Oberland), les Diablerets and St Gingolph on Lake Leman.
  
  
• Japan: Tokyo, Abashiri City (in Hokkaido), Kyoto, Nara, Hakone.
  
  On my first trip to Japan I discovered the beauty of Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, and Kabuki theater, at Kabuki-za in Tokyo. Memorable events: a visit to Jin Akiyama's Okhotsk Mathematical Wonderland (where but in Japan would one have mathematics night shows and mathematical wonderlands?), an encounter with a (mild) taifun in Tokyo, and a swim in the Olympic pool in Yoyogi Park. We spent a summer month in Kyoto in 2005, as the rainy season turned into torrid steaming-hot weather when the colorful Gion festival ended. At a rate of one temple per day, one has to work very hard to see all the wonderful, world-heritage class Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in Kyoto and nearby Nara. Ninna-ji, with its beautiful palace, and Ginzen-ji, with its imposing sunmon (gate) are among my favorite memories, but I will do injustice not to mention Kinkaku-ji (the Golden pavilion), the Rock Temple, Ginkaku-ji and the nearby charming path of the philosopher, or the amazing Fushimi-Inari with its over 4 kilometers of orange Torii gates (and the discovery that last year's mounting of Christo's Gates in Central Park in New York is obviously inspired by this bewildering shinto shrine). Spending a few hours in antique ukiyo-e dealer shops is a museum-quality experience, in the company of Hiroshige, Hokusai, Utamaru and other newly discovered woodblock print artists. On the way back, we had a short stop in Odawara for its samurai castle, and spent a day in Hakone. There, a boat trip on lake Ashi and a hike up the mountain (to the smelly sulphur vulcanic springs, the source for the onsen baths at our small hotel) brought in the quintessential view of Japan, Fuji-san.
  
  
• Korea: Seoul.
  
  December (2005) in Seoul was as cold as it would have been in Bucharest, Romania - not the most exciting time of the year for tourism (but we were there for a conference). Uniquely Korean heated floors and the traditional rice porridge really warm you up, though, and get you ready for outdoor explorations in this modern but unmistakenly Asian city. Some special memories: spices, herbs (and yes, ginseng) in large outdoor markets, a charming rice cake shop on the way to one of the former royal palaces, the very interesting, recently opened National Korean Museum, street vendors for all sorts of foods (what can be more delicious than a hot baked sweet potato when the temperature outside is -10 Celsius?), kimchi and, yes, ... bibimbap! On the flight to Seoul I picked up an interesting story from the events section of a newspaper, about a Korean production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, with Roh Myi-oh being the son of the South Korean general Roh and Ju Rya, the daughter of the North Korean general Ju.

2003 note.
One more thing. I used to be very fussy about proper spelling, and I still am. But I wrote this in a burst of inspiration one cold Winter day, dreaming of exotic travels and fine food while procrastinating digging up my car from under a foot of snow and while my brain refused to focus on a theorem I had to prove. I have classes tomorrow and I have no time to check the spelling of names I pulled hastily from my memory.

If you notice something wrong, hold on: vacation is around the corner, and this time I stay home. Travel reveries will re-emerge, and then I will put order in my collection of travel photographs, and look up words in dictionaries and travel guides, and all will look well. Come back later, if this caught your attention.

2005 note.
An old Romanian joke comes to mind, as I revisit and add to my travel notes. It dates from the times when we were stuck in a country where very few could venture outside. And now, only a few will probably remember or understand it, but I can't help adding it here, with a sort-of self-deprecating tone: "mai e state ..."