Romania - Other Areas (March 23-26, 2007)
Complete Set of Photos
I arrived in Bucharest around dinner time that night. This time, the first hostel I found was called "The Funky Chicken Hostel." There was no funk and no chickens, fortunately! It was weird though - I met up with some guys there who had left the same hostel I was just at in Brasov just a day or so earlier! Since it was almost dark, I just occupied myself by walking around some first. Here's the Parliament building, the second largest administration building in the world, that the dictator Ceauşescu build a while back. He had to destroy a lot of the old town to build it, so that's why Bucharest doesn't have too many historic old buildings and such.
I also found the Revolution square, where part of the revolution of 1989 took place in. Ceauşescu fled from Bucharest and was later arrested and executed in a town a little ways away. There's a bunch of government buildings around, and now there's a monument in the middle of the square for the people who where killed by the army during the protests. This was one of the only things I've "seen" that at least happened during my lifetime!
I headed back to the hostel to see if I could find anyone who wanted to hang out and ended up going (with the guys from Canada who had just come from Brasov) to a jazz club, minus the jazz! It was a bar down some narrow staircase and it was like a tunnel inside. Very cool!
There are also a ton of stray dogs here. In Germany and so on, people will walk their dogs without a leash, but are always right next to the dog. Here, they're just stray dogs. One of them barked at me a lot, but didn't bother me otherwise.
I have also learned that Romania drivers (Bucharest even more) are very temperamental. They beep the horn constantly, drive all over the place, pass at any opportunity even on curvy mountain roads, and so on. When driving around Brasov, we would actually beep the horn randomly (that means at girls on the sidewalk) just to fit in! All traffic rules also went right out the window!
The next day, I rode the metro (keeping a very close eye on my wallet!) to the Museum of the Romanian Peasant. This museum won the "Museum of the year" award or something a few years ago, so I figured I'd check it out. It was pretty cool, with traditional clothes, cabins, tools, paintings, and stuff like that. But, due to the train schedules, I left to Sighisoara after this.
On the train in Bucharest, waiting to leave the station, there were a bunch of Romania kids selling magazines. I was on the "rich people" train, so they were trying hard (The highest class of Romania train, the fastest, is on par with normal German trains and still about 1/2 as expensive). So, about three different guys asked me if I wanted to buy a magazine (no, I had a book and can't read Romanian). So I said "no, thanks, I have a book." These guys, somehow, can speak any language they need to to sell a magazine. "Oh English? I have English!" and he showed me an English Cosmopolitan! I shook my head and he goes "PorNO? You want porNO?" I shook my head and then he tried the "But I have to sell enough because the money goes to sick childs" thing. Yeah, right. Finally he went away! Then, during the train ride, there would be guys who would come by, silently open the compartment door, put some stuff down on a seat or armrest (sewing kits, little books, stuffed animals, etc.) and then shut the door and walk away. The other people in the car looked through the pile and if they wanted anything, they would pay for it when the guy came back in a few minutes to collect the remaining stuff. They sure try to sell you a lot of stuff in Romania!
After about 5 hours, I made it to Sighisoara (appx. "Siggy-Shwarah"). This town was really cool! It was the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, but also famous because there is a really well preserved medieval citadel on the hill here. My hostel was even inside the old town walls, right across the corner from Vlad's birth house, the clock tower, and the staircase to the church and graveyard! This was odd though - I was the only person at the hostel that I ever saw! I had this huge dorm room all to myself! That night, there was also a Romania vs. Netherlands soccer game on TV. Out in the courtyard, I saw two guys watching it and motioned to see if I could sit down. They let me, and we just kinda sat there. The, the older guy, who knew I was a hostel guest, said "cold... kalt?" Out of habit, after hearing German, I replied back in German. It turned out that he was a "Saxon" (German guy in Romania) who had gone to school in Germany. We ended up talking about Romanian soccer with him translating German to Romanian and back with me and the other guy! It was pretty cool, but I could barely understand the German guy (either because he was old, drunk, or had a crazy dialect, or all three!).
The next day, I wandered around Sighisoara. This was cool! There was a monument to Vlad (who's actually like a Romanian hero today), his birthplace (conveniently under renovation), a cool weapons museum, a long covered staircase, and old church, and an interesting graveyard with all the tombstones in German! There was also the old clock tower (with a neat museum and view from the top!), old alleyways, and the old town wall and watchtowers.
I bought a little oil painting from a local artist showing the town. It's a nice little picture of this town. After touring Sighisoara, I went to the train station to catch my train to Cluj-Napoca, and was surprised when the ticket lady told me it had already left! The clocks had changed forward and I had forgotten all about it! I ended up having to wait 4 hours for the next train, which was cool - I walked around some more and read my book in the nice afternoon sun!
When I finally got to Cluj-Napoca around 8 that night, I met Iustin at the train station. He was the student I would be "couch surfing" with that night. He was very nice (picked me up at the station, took me to his apartment, and then we went to the mountain to get a cool view of the town and then to a student bar downtown. We ended up getting back to his apartment around 3:30 that morning, only to discover that in order for me to get to Budapest tomorrow, I had to leave on the 5:14 AM train! So, I surfed his couch for a total of 45 minutes that night, but I ended up getting to the train in time. Maybe someday we can hang out again, because it sounded like he had lots more planned to show me!
The train ride to Budapest was uncomfortable - I did manage to sleep most of the way though. The heater in our car was broken - and by that I mean stuck on full blast the whole way! It was a relief to get out of the train in Budapest where it was much cooler! I got to Budapest around 12 noon, and my plane didn't leave until 9:30 that night, so I decided to go back to the baths. After two old guys smoked me in chess in the main heated outdoor pool, I figured it was time to go! I worked my way back to the airport and, after checking in and waiting at the gate for the plane, found another exchange student from Hungary there, who had gone home for a while to visit. Then, I finally made it back to my apartment to sleep!
Complete Set of Photos
I arrived in Bucharest around dinner time that night. This time, the first hostel I found was called "The Funky Chicken Hostel." There was no funk and no chickens, fortunately! It was weird though - I met up with some guys there who had left the same hostel I was just at in Brasov just a day or so earlier! Since it was almost dark, I just occupied myself by walking around some first. Here's the Parliament building, the second largest administration building in the world, that the dictator Ceauşescu build a while back. He had to destroy a lot of the old town to build it, so that's why Bucharest doesn't have too many historic old buildings and such.
I also found the Revolution square, where part of the revolution of 1989 took place in. Ceauşescu fled from Bucharest and was later arrested and executed in a town a little ways away. There's a bunch of government buildings around, and now there's a monument in the middle of the square for the people who where killed by the army during the protests. This was one of the only things I've "seen" that at least happened during my lifetime!I headed back to the hostel to see if I could find anyone who wanted to hang out and ended up going (with the guys from Canada who had just come from Brasov) to a jazz club, minus the jazz! It was a bar down some narrow staircase and it was like a tunnel inside. Very cool!
There are also a ton of stray dogs here. In Germany and so on, people will walk their dogs without a leash, but are always right next to the dog. Here, they're just stray dogs. One of them barked at me a lot, but didn't bother me otherwise.
I have also learned that Romania drivers (Bucharest even more) are very temperamental. They beep the horn constantly, drive all over the place, pass at any opportunity even on curvy mountain roads, and so on. When driving around Brasov, we would actually beep the horn randomly (that means at girls on the sidewalk) just to fit in! All traffic rules also went right out the window!
The next day, I rode the metro (keeping a very close eye on my wallet!) to the Museum of the Romanian Peasant. This museum won the "Museum of the year" award or something a few years ago, so I figured I'd check it out. It was pretty cool, with traditional clothes, cabins, tools, paintings, and stuff like that. But, due to the train schedules, I left to Sighisoara after this.
On the train in Bucharest, waiting to leave the station, there were a bunch of Romania kids selling magazines. I was on the "rich people" train, so they were trying hard (The highest class of Romania train, the fastest, is on par with normal German trains and still about 1/2 as expensive). So, about three different guys asked me if I wanted to buy a magazine (no, I had a book and can't read Romanian). So I said "no, thanks, I have a book." These guys, somehow, can speak any language they need to to sell a magazine. "Oh English? I have English!" and he showed me an English Cosmopolitan! I shook my head and he goes "PorNO? You want porNO?" I shook my head and then he tried the "But I have to sell enough because the money goes to sick childs" thing. Yeah, right. Finally he went away! Then, during the train ride, there would be guys who would come by, silently open the compartment door, put some stuff down on a seat or armrest (sewing kits, little books, stuffed animals, etc.) and then shut the door and walk away. The other people in the car looked through the pile and if they wanted anything, they would pay for it when the guy came back in a few minutes to collect the remaining stuff. They sure try to sell you a lot of stuff in Romania!
After about 5 hours, I made it to Sighisoara (appx. "Siggy-Shwarah"). This town was really cool! It was the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, but also famous because there is a really well preserved medieval citadel on the hill here. My hostel was even inside the old town walls, right across the corner from Vlad's birth house, the clock tower, and the staircase to the church and graveyard! This was odd though - I was the only person at the hostel that I ever saw! I had this huge dorm room all to myself! That night, there was also a Romania vs. Netherlands soccer game on TV. Out in the courtyard, I saw two guys watching it and motioned to see if I could sit down. They let me, and we just kinda sat there. The, the older guy, who knew I was a hostel guest, said "cold... kalt?" Out of habit, after hearing German, I replied back in German. It turned out that he was a "Saxon" (German guy in Romania) who had gone to school in Germany. We ended up talking about Romanian soccer with him translating German to Romanian and back with me and the other guy! It was pretty cool, but I could barely understand the German guy (either because he was old, drunk, or had a crazy dialect, or all three!).The next day, I wandered around Sighisoara. This was cool! There was a monument to Vlad (who's actually like a Romanian hero today), his birthplace (conveniently under renovation), a cool weapons museum, a long covered staircase, and old church, and an interesting graveyard with all the tombstones in German! There was also the old clock tower (with a neat museum and view from the top!), old alleyways, and the old town wall and watchtowers.
I bought a little oil painting from a local artist showing the town. It's a nice little picture of this town. After touring Sighisoara, I went to the train station to catch my train to Cluj-Napoca, and was surprised when the ticket lady told me it had already left! The clocks had changed forward and I had forgotten all about it! I ended up having to wait 4 hours for the next train, which was cool - I walked around some more and read my book in the nice afternoon sun!
When I finally got to Cluj-Napoca around 8 that night, I met Iustin at the train station. He was the student I would be "couch surfing" with that night. He was very nice (picked me up at the station, took me to his apartment, and then we went to the mountain to get a cool view of the town and then to a student bar downtown. We ended up getting back to his apartment around 3:30 that morning, only to discover that in order for me to get to Budapest tomorrow, I had to leave on the 5:14 AM train! So, I surfed his couch for a total of 45 minutes that night, but I ended up getting to the train in time. Maybe someday we can hang out again, because it sounded like he had lots more planned to show me!
The train ride to Budapest was uncomfortable - I did manage to sleep most of the way though. The heater in our car was broken - and by that I mean stuck on full blast the whole way! It was a relief to get out of the train in Budapest where it was much cooler! I got to Budapest around 12 noon, and my plane didn't leave until 9:30 that night, so I decided to go back to the baths. After two old guys smoked me in chess in the main heated outdoor pool, I figured it was time to go! I worked my way back to the airport and, after checking in and waiting at the gate for the plane, found another exchange student from Hungary there, who had gone home for a while to visit. Then, I finally made it back to my apartment to sleep!
posted by Thomas Waltz at 4:26 PM
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