No Escape for Vlad, Part II

Vlad the Cameraman sat trapped in El Comandante. He wanted to leave, since the music he'd come to hear wasn't going to be played after all. But since, previously unknown to him, his colleages were the reason it wasn't going to be played, he couldn't very well leave without seeming very moody at the very least. So there he sat, turning the thing around in his brain, lamenting the lack of a back door or windows of any kind, while assuming some solution would present itself and that he could perhaps sneak by the table without being noticed.

Within the hour, the building contained what must have been every actor, cameraman and makeup artist in Bucharest. The place was packed with presumably famous people (or famous-people-to-be) that we didn't recognize. So I spent the evening trying to guess which were the actors and actresses based on the expressions on their faces. Seeing the episode as it played didn't help either, because actors never quite look the same in person as they do on screen, with the possible exception of Jon Pertwee (who was not, come to think of it, black-and-white).

So that was our evening. There was lots of clapping and shouting in Romanian. Everyone down below was very excited. Those of us who had come for the music huddled in bewildered angst on the upper level. (We had to huddle, as the actors managed to commandeer most of the upper-level tables.)

At one point all the lights went out.

Finally, we decided to make a break for it while they were all entranced. Pushing your way through a Romanian crowd is different than pushing your way through an American crowd. Americans, when it comes right down to it, really don't like being that close to strangers, and will go to great lengths to avoid physical contact with them. Romanians see you are in their way and keep coming. They just keep coming. Just the other day, I was in the grocery store and a little old lady ran into me with her shopping cart. Then she ran into me again, and again, as though she thought she might have been mistaken about my being there the first and second time. Granted, she wasn't looking at me when it happened, but I suspect that was a calculated move.

Crowds are just exactly the same and you wind up in all sorts of improbable positions as you exit a crowded building. Last night I had to actually bend over a table sideways to get through the crowd.

We did manage to escape with our lives, but we had to leave Vlad behind. I think he may have been enjoying himself after all.