Starting on Thursday the 18th (today), Cluj celebrates itself with a long festival weekend.  (Don’t worry, you can still go to work.  The long weekend doesn’t give you the day off, it just gives you something to do if you do happen to have some time off.)

Cluj Days program in English.

As you can see, there is everything from theatre in the park, 150 different types of chess and city tours.

Most of it is self explanatory.

Words from Florin Piersic.  Last year, he spoke a lot about Charlie Chaplin.   Much of what he says is fairly simple Romanian, I vaguely remember perhaps some MC gave him a few words of introduction in another language.

Actors are generally clear and easy to understand when they are not playing the role of someone who is difficult to understand.  And Florin Piersic is a very clear and excellent speaker. But yeah, expect it to be Romanian because not everyone here can understand English.  I do not remember any subtitles.

Noapta Fortunoasa.  I don’t remember any English subtitles, but there may have been.  What I do remember is that the Romanian was not contemporary words that everyone used, but a little old fashioned.  I think even the word for “you’re welcome” was archaic, but understandable if you have basic Romanian.

So language learners will probably struggle to understand the exact dialogue.  That said, the actors made it very visual with props and movement last time around.  (Not being familiar with the text, I can’t tell you how faithful the movements were to the dialogue).  If you have been to TIFF, you probably will recognise at least one of the actors from last year, there is that Cluj based comedian that is in almost everything.  (I am not sure who will be in the cast this year).

This year it is in concert, which means a band.  If it is sung, it might not be the same actors.

Exhibits.  Generally speaking, they have lots of nice pictures.  Sure, not much of it is in English, but at the free museum night I noticed a trend – almost nobody reads the text in museum exhibits anyway (even when it is in their native language).  You look at the nice painting or old medal, or suit of armour, think, hey cool, maybe take a photo if that is allowed to share on social media… I actually read the captions, but then I slow everyone else down.

I feel bad for the people who do all the work describing the items.  Okay, so you might stop and read something that is very interesting, like a really rare helmet that looks like nothing you have ever seen before, or snow shoes that remind you of what your grandfather wore.  Here, most phone have a translation app that can be used to pont your camera to the text and translate it on the fly.  (I used it for recipes when I first moved to Romania, unless the translation apps have gotten worse they are still an option).

Activities in the park and beyond. Okay, audio translators are not as good as text translators,

one please –

-un vă rog. (oon vuh rogue)

thank you (more formal) –

-mulțumesc (multsoomesk) mulțumim (multsoo-meme)

goodbye, see you later (formal)-

-la revedere

There, those words can be for fun if you think of rogue memes.

Now, let’s go and take some pictures and review it properly.  I am sure the Monitorul will do an excellent job, (they are great at reviewing events), but let us make our own English language version anyway.

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