02-07-09

02-07-01

Bucharest (02/02/01 – 02/04/01)

Last weekend we went to Bucharest for Kate’s birthday, which was on Friday, Feb. 2. We agreed to meet a couple other volunteers, Stacy and Sarah, in Rousse, a city on the Danube that has direct trains right into Bucharest, on Friday afternoon. We found ourselves with another travel companion, Pete, who is a friend of another volunteer, Shyre, in Rousse. He was in the country for a month and since Shyre was sick, he decided to come along with us for the weekend. He was great to have along because he kept us heading in the right direction with his guidebook. We kept asking him questions, “Is this the hotel?” “What is this place, Pete?” and so on, he kept opening his guidebook and pointing us in the right direction.

After meeting at the train station, shooing away the con-men in the train station (whom we watched with an eagle’s eye as they came close to us asking us if we needed a taxi, exchange money, etc., etc.), and getting on the train which was six hours late coming from Istanbul, we eventually pulled out of Rousse and headed across the Danube. Many of the people on the train were Romanian and Kate, Pete and myself sat in a compartment with a scruffy man who was speaking forcefully with a middle-aged woman. Of course we don’t understand a word of Romanian, but I heard “Jesus Christ”, “Bible” and he was obviously trying to convince her of something. He kept crossing himself as if he was praying and he liked to talk, talk, talk. Thank goodness for us we couldn’t understand him and he couldn’t understand us. He kept twirling a cigarette in his hand and his quieter friend just gazed out the window and sometimes grinned at something he said. Eventually the woman told him to leave her alone and he relented. We arrived at the “Gara Norde” in Bucharest around 9pm and we were earlier given tips on which taxis to take to our hotel. Luckily, there were two reputable taxis waiting for us outside of the train station. They took us for a ride to our hotel and thankfully didn’t take us for a ride with the price for the trip. It was only 25,000 Romanian Lei (about one US dollar) for the five-kilometer trip to our hotel. We held our breath as we entered the one star hotel recommended to us by PC Romania. It turned out to be more than we expected. Sure, we shared bathrooms with the other people on our floors, but it was clean, warm and the free breakfasts were delicious. The waiter who served us both mornings spoke German, English and Romanian – maybe more.

We set out on Saturday morning to a city covered in white after the first substantial snowfall in the region hit us the night before. (Now it’s almost spring like weather and the snow is all gone.) We were all amazed by the beauty of Bucharest. The architecture is massive. Huge pillars, towering arches, decorative facades – and all these buildings are built so close to one another. Some buildings just can’t be fully appreciated because you can’t see them in their entirety because of another building, sitting so closely to it. And all the buildings are in competition with each other in strength, size and masculinity (if I can call it that). Churches popped up every so often between these buildings – some look like they are over a thousand years old and just now being renovated. A Russian Orthodox Church peeked its bulbous steeples out of the mess of scaffolding that surrounded it as we walked past the University. A wooden chapel with only memories of the decorative painting that once adorned it stood quietly in a blanket of snow.

We first visited the Parliamentary Palace, begun by Ceaucescu in1984, as an attempt to tell the west that Communism was still alive and kicking in Romania. In 1989 he and his family were executed as they tried to escape the country – he wasn’t alive and kicking anymore. The building is absolutely massive and sits in an area that was built at the same time it was built. It really is impressive, but the area where all those buildings are now once held numerous historical churches and monasteries. After an earthquake, the whole area was leveled and room was made for this “neighborhood” of massive stone buildings. As we took the tour through it, it became quite obvious that one has no other reason to build a building like this one other than to tell others that you have money and power. The whole country was “volunteered” into helping build this building. Today, many Romanians are cautiously proud of the building because it was built all from Romanian materials and by Romanian hands, but it is still a reminder of their past.

After this, we headed out for lunch and some strolling. We walked down the street that Ceaucescu built for his parades and into the center where we briefly walked through a crowded shopping mall. We walked and walked; trying to find a place for lunch we could all agree on. We ended up in a truly Romanian restaurant – Pizza Hut. Hey, where else are we supposed to get real mozzarella cheese?? We got that after-lunch-tired-feeling, headed back to the hotel and regrouped. We decided to check out if there was an opera or some kind of performance that evening and we lucked out. We bought tickets for “Swan Lake.” We had front-row seats, but we were all the way over in the corner. Nevertheless, we got to see a pretty great ballet. The ballerina who danced the lead female role was magnificent. She got a standing ovation and put us all under her spell. Any other ballerina who danced with her took the back seat, as he or she became just an accessory for her dancing.

We went out that evening to a pub/restaurant that attracted a lot of ex-pats who are living in Romania. Most of them were English, and we were un-lucky enough to be sitting next to about eight Brits who were drinking enough for the whole restaurant. It was good food, nonetheless. We decided earlier in the day we were going to hit a jazz club or disco late at night, but we were all too beat to do it.

Sunday morning we were going to get a head start and see a few things before we headed back to the train station. We ended up just strolling through the center of Romania and eventually found ourselves back at the train station. On the way, we stopped at a REAL supermarket, with aisles and everything, and bought a few things. None of us have such a thing in our Bulgarian towns.

Our way back to Bulgaria didn’t take as long as it took to get to Bucharest and we met an American from the International Police who was working in Kosovo. He had some real interesting stories about his work there and got us up to date on all the goings-on in that region, which seem so far away, but it is just across the Bulgarian border. He was a very calm person who told us that he speaks only two languages – American and “Ghettoese” – the language of the ghetto. We all laughed at that and he did too. He spends one year at his assignments and then is moved on, to another country. He may be going to Russia in a few months.

It was a fantastic trip and I highly suggest Bucharest to anyone who is traveling in this region as a destination for at least one weekend.

-Josh