Life is nothing but a perpetual interrogation mark placed above that strange and intriguing image of our very own childhood… and where does it even start to provoke our conscience? Remember that grumpy and oversized street, your everyday neighbors that couldn't restrain their cheek-pinching obsession, that old-fashioned library where you used to spend hours just looking at dozens of book covers, first playground, best pals and everything else that played a part in your life's introducing act…? Well, I do remember it all like it happened yesterday and it brings me a special brimful joy. So I can't stop myself from wondering... Bucharest is a city of taste… and a luxurious mix of its derivatives like "tasteful", "tasty" and "tasteless"; I guess you could really say it has it all, from that high-life snob and restless venture into self-promoting fame and fortune, passing by a middle-class everyday struggle in the name of hope and higher expectations, to the ones lucky enough to survive each day by all means and at all cost… this is where I grew up. I've always wanted to find a way out, to avoid taking part in all this, and to blindfold myself so that I couldn't see that everyday life gives abjection and beauty such a thin exequatur. So I did, but the final conclusion didn't bring me as much inner peace as I had expected, on the contrary… So, when given the opportunity, there I was, leaving Bucharest behind like some kid throws out an old toy, in search of a new meaning, a new definition, another point of view that could help me bring back those memories – it really wasn't all about pure travelling curiosity, it meant a lot more… from Bern to Dortmund, from Madrid to Vienna, from Cluj to Budapest, until I reached Amsterdam. At first I felt a bit surprised to find the city so warm and vivacious and I just knew that I'd found that "je-ne-sais-quoi" that I had been looking for: it gave me the childish emotion that Bucharest lacked for a long time… I am not going to tell stories of faces or places encountered in Amsterdam, because it's not something that can be done by surfing the Internet or by collecting post-cards, as I am convinced that visiting another city can give you much more than just photographic potential. What convinced me really? It's really simple actually… I found that one street, just as grumpy and oversized as my childhood one, with your everyday folk, its brainstorming, old-fashioned, intimate feel and its playful spirit. I felt amazed and happy at the same time. So, Madame Tussaud's Museum of Wax Figures was the first step I took into a singular process of introspection that made me understand that even when you think you've got it all figured out, you really don't know anything. The exposed wax figures gave me a sensation of strange familiarity with that snob and tenderly high-classed jungle I mentioned above, so quiet and yet so glamorous in their fake inertia, they just keep being the same, no matter what happens to the rest of the world. Amsterdam gave me a whole new meaning to what Bucharest could be by abstraction, to what I should aspire to in terms of hermeneutical experiences, and in what should I start "believing" from the moment I returned home. Another landmark that I have visited, not at all lacking a certain touch of bizarre and self-explanatory content, was the Museum of Torture, and the things I learned there convinced me that torture just suffered a metamorphosis with the passing of time, and pain is nothing more than a measure to our life's capricious course. I remembered the struggle that I had been witnessing ever since I began to grow up, so it felt somewhat liberating, just like watching the sun shine during a loud summer rain, understanding that there is nothing more to ask from destiny than this very moment… Amsterdam's Red Light District offered me a very "unique" image to say the least, but at the same time I was impressed with the very normality that kept "oozing" from it all. I figured it couldn't be that easy, adapting society's rules and preconceived truths about morality and ethical behavior so that you may create an international "tourist icon"; it may be construed as Machiavellic, but in this case, the end justified its means…
by Laur Bădin
