TUESDAY

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- A 9 a.m. flight to Bucharest in Romania. We arrived there the day after Romania's Independence Day the day the Red Army freed them from Germany. All the big buildings had bunting and flags with big pictures of Marx, Lenin, Engles and their own presidium primarily their premier Ceaucesceau - hung on the fronts. The country from the air seemed quite deficient in cars by American standards but there were enough on the streets of Bucharest to make traffic signals necessary. We stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel and I must say I've never stayed in a better, more plush and modern hotel anywhere else in the world. One of the other girls and I walked about a mile down the main street to a park and noticed again, full shops, happy people, flower boxes all along the railing along the street, etc. The city is full of parks and flowers. Interested to note at night during our cocktail party on the top floor of the hotel that advertising in neon signs, tho much less than we are accustomed to, does still exist in Socialist states. Inquiring about this I learned that just as in a capitalist country when a factory makes something they have got to sell it to stay in business. Since the people under either system have the choice of what to spend their money on, advertising is a means of inducing them to buy shoes or electric razors or whatever it might be. Fiat is now making cars in Romania and if one wants to wait on the list for five years he can buy one. Unless, of course, he manages to win one in the ubiquitous state lotteries which are in all the Balkan countries. One can also buy his own apartment like a condominium. Once owned it can be passed on by inheritance tax free or if sold the money belongs to the seller. It is one of the few ways of building up something for ones children.

WEDNESDAY Went to the "Village Museum" which is certainly unique in the world. It was filmed on the "TODAY” show not too long ago. It consists of houses, cottages, and other types of living quarters as occupied by the peasants of the Rumanian area. They have been brought in from all over the country and set up there in a park. Very different between themselves and in all varieties of sizes, shapes, decora- tion and comfort they provide an interesting bit of social history. Along with the houses themselves are samples of the tools used by the peasantry to harvest, build, fish, smelt metal, etc. It gives one a bit of a pause to see the ingenuity with which our forebears solved their problems. We are too near to planes, trains, steam shovels, steamships, forges, etc. to know or care much about how all these and the rest of our civilization developed. That evening we flew to Sofia, Bulgaria. Our hotel was right opposite the famous Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and from my room on the 4th floor there was a perfect picture of the cathedral lit up at night. It was beautiful.