This video clearly did not take long to produce.  As my lengthy Twitter trail indicates, I was in Romania for a few days on reportage. I connected with a nice couple - Frank and Tia - through Couch Surfing and they had a large (they all are) and playful Saint Bernard. I brought her a small cowbell.

While I did not see as much of Bucharest as I had hoped - at least the tourist spots - I managed a stroll down the main drag. Combined with observations from several taxi rides, it became quite clear that much of what characterises the city - the crumbling grandiosity that exists hand-in-hand with very obvious wealth disparities - is an edifice to the failure of  Nicolae Ceauşescu's brand of ego-centred totalitarianism.

The tea rooms, on the other hand, are lovely.