Kenyan Fauna vs. Bucharest Fauna

Our FaceBook friend, Florin Ghioca – press photographer for Can-Can, kept on eating our brains with the super photo safari he underwent in Kenya, under the auspices of National Geographic Channel, so in order to convince us he did not exaggerate anything in his hunting stories, he invited us to the opening of the exhibition born from the above mentioned experience.


So that, last Friday I got my Addicted One and set off to Hobby Cafe, somewhere on Mantuleasa str. corner with Negustori str., where the official opening of the exhibition “The Great Migrations” was to take place at 7.30-ish pm.


In the picture you can see the main entrance of the café, but we entered through the back entrance, through the terrace, in order to catch them in the act of preparing the event – considering we purposely arrived half an hour earlier.


So we achieved our first goal. The preparations were in full swing.


They were working hard at what was to be a much advertised photo exhibition in half an hour time, considering that its purpose was to collect some money for protecting The Big Cats by selling the photo works.


At the bar there was an unusual peace for a… bar. Only because...


For the waiting time to be verrrry pleasant for us, cold white wine and hot red wine was served at the back yard terrace of Hobby Café. The hot wine was straight, with no sugar and cinnamon, but nobody complained because it was complimentary.


People were turning happier every minute, this was obvious!


Each of us got a small pack of coffee beans, with the logo and contact details of Hobby Café written on it.


A typical blonde woke us up from our state of bliss with her flash while intensely taking pictures of each of us. Our little eyes went koo-koo.


Everything is ready now. Please come in.


Florin Ghioca sat perched on a barstool to look taller than usual, and Iulia (who we were supposed to know from FaceBook) was beside him dressed in a leopard-patterned dress. A bit macabre, given the purpose of the exhibition, which was protecting the cats and not their decimation in order to take their little furs to make us coats and shoes of them...


Florin spoke perched on the same seat, so we could all see him under the siege of the stage fright - as he himself admitted.


It was an interesting speech and funny just the same and did not bore anyone, apparently.








But let’s take a look at the offer of the day...


Well, when I said THE OFFER OF THE DAY I did not mean the items in Hobby Café menu only, but also the ones inside the café itself – as in, the public persons I could recognize that Friday evening after a glass of wine.


The liberal Bogdan Olteanu from the Central Bank of Romania and his lady.


A few elephants...




The blonde with the flash...




A bohemian cat… a bit too bohemian now that I learnt they are threatened by extinction...




Dan Teodorescu, the vocalist of Taxi band, Melania Medeleanu’s (ex-Realitatea TV) ex-husband and Traian Basescu’s wedding ex-godson at the same time. It seems the president did not have a very good hand in choosing prime ministers and marrying people...


The singer Alina Sorescu and her husband Alex Ciucu - the official tailor of the Royal House of Romania.




Bodo, the vocalist of Proconsul band, Traian Basescu’s ex-son-in-law – yes, he did not have a good hand in choosing his sons-in-law, too...




This whole evening reminded me of my friend Balloo from the Jungle Book… Let’s listen to him and pay high attention to the pieces of advice this great wise guy of the… healthy living style gives us: "if you act like that bee acts you're working too hard, so don't spend your time looking around for something you want that cann't be found, when you find out you can live without it and go along not thinking about it" !


"The bare necessities of life will come to you" ! :)



PS - this article is posted today because it is our FaceBook friend Florin Ghioca's birthday and this is my way of wishing him many happy returns of the day (now the train is taking him to Iasi where he will open the same exhibition described above “KENYA – The Land of Migrations” on Saturday at 6.00 pm at the UNION MUSEUM in Iasi. National Geographic magazines will be distributed and the first episode of the series “The Great Migrations” will be shown!).