THE SOCIAL EVENT OF THE YEAR There are no Royalists in the Romanian Ministries

The marriage of the century may concern us as well. The skeptics, always the same ones, ask rhetorically "what is a German doing in Moscow", take a long look and wonder why should Romanians be concerned with the union between the beautiful Kate Middleton and the young Prince William. However, a little piece of paper which includes the possible destinations for their honeymoon put us on the map.

The list of voyages that the two will make during their honeymoon include locations in Australia, Sicily, Jordan, as well as the village of Viscri, in the county of Braşov, where Prince Charles owns several estates, including a castle. The simple joining of these destinations represents a major plus for Romania"s tourism. Unfortunately, none of the domestic ministries showed even a whisper of a thrill upon hearing this news. More concerned with translating expensive and uninspired slogans and with canceling construction contracts, the underlings of Emil Boc don"t have the time or the willingness to seize a good opportunity.

We do serious stuff, we don"t care for trivialities: that seems to be the message sent by the ever-frowning people in the ministries. Why should serious officials such as ourselves care about what two newlyweds are going to do after their wedding, even though their wedding was viewed by 1 billion people and thousands of journalists reported on it? And so what if the interest in the couple will remain high in the near future and they will have most of the media tracking their every move? We, the patriotic republicans, have other matters to attend to, we have our own divorces, which even though they may be insignificant, sure make a lot of noise.

Even though the British press is announcing that the young royal couple will spend the first part of its honeymoon in an exotic location: the Lizard Island, located near the Great Corral Reef, in the waters of Australia, a visit to Transylvania by the end of the year is not out of the question. Quite the contrary.

It"s not hard to imagine the publicity for Romania if William and Kate were to sleep for a few days in the rustic ambience of Viscri. We"ll get plenty of it anyway, regardless of what we do. If we don"t do anything and we add to that our proverbial "luck" when it comes to tragicomical incidents, the ironic reports will bury us. If we succeeded in getting something right, the benefits would be huge. The opportunity to show up on the map on the back of a royal couple doesn"t come around every day. For the common Brit, as well as for any one of the planet"s citizens interested in tourism, following the footsteps of the couple of the century would be a source of personal pride to its their friends. For Romania it would a profitable business, as long as you help our beautiful environment a bit and provide tourists with good conditions for entertainment and relaxation. It is their wedding, but the chance could be ours.